How to Increase Your Win Rate

📈 Improving Your Win Rate

Improving your win rate comes through changing the way you trade — and changing the way you trade starts with understanding your mistakes.

However, it’s not that simple.

When we confront our own mistakes, an internal conflict arises — cognitive dissonance. To reduce the discomfort, the mind activates defense mechanisms. You’ve probably noticed that after realizing you did something wrong, thoughts like these pop up:

• “The circumstances were unusual.”
• “It was because of them.”
• “It’s not that important anyway.”
• “Nothing really happened.”

This is especially evident in trading:

Breaking your plan → “This situation was different.”
Breaking risk management rules → “Price was supposed to go — it just changed its mind.”
Emotional trading → “I don’t do this that often.”

Admitting a mistake means temporarily admitting that you’re not perfect. And the brain naturally tries to avoid that.

But here’s the truth: you have a choice. You either choose the pain of change or the pain of regret.

If you choose the first one, then this information is for you.

Here’s a tool that will help you identify and track your trading weaknesses.

This is a checklist to be completed before entering a trade.
It helps you act systematically and identify your weak points.



Before making any trading decision, it is critically important to verify all points defined in your trading strategy.

If you do not have a clearly structured strategy, you must create one — consistent trading without a strategy is impossible.

Below are examples of checklist items from my own strategy to clarify what this means in practice.

• Have I checked the higher timeframe?
• Have I marked all key areas of interest from the higher timeframe?
• Where is the price relative to the nearest area of interest?
• How significant is this zone in the current market environment?
• Does the mid-term order flow align with the higher timeframe context?
• Has a proper top-down analysis been conducted (from HTF to LTF)?

A strategy must be validated through backtesting, not based on feelings or intuition.


Universal Pre-Trade Questions (You Can Add These to Your Checklist)

• Where is the price relative to a key technical level?
• How does price react when approaching the level?
• How strong and well-confirmed is this level?
• Is the trade being opened during an active trading session?
(If not, the probability of being stopped out increases.)
• Is my strategy-defined setup present?


Stop-loss

Stop-Loss & Risk per Trade

• Is a stop-loss set?
• Is the risk per trade calculated?

One of the biggest mistakes traders make is hope:
“The market will turn in my favor.”

There is no hope or belief in the market — only statistics and rules that must be followed.

Recommendations:

• Risk per trade: no more than 1% of account equity
• The stop-loss must be set before entering the trade
• Especially for beginners, do not move the stop-loss during the trade, no matter how tempting it is
(Exceptions: 1) you have a proven stop-management algorithm, 2) stop adjustment during major news events)

The best place for a stop-loss is beyond the level whose break invalidates the trade idea.


Take-Profit

• Is a take-profit set?

Setting a take-profit is just as important as setting a stop-loss.
Your main enemy is greed.

Important:

• Both losses and profits must be limited

A simple rule:
The larger the move you aim to capture, the lower the probability that price will reach it

It is not recommended to move the take-profit after the trade is opened.


News

• Have I checked the news calendar?

Recommendations:

• Always verify whether important news will occur during the trade’s holding period
• Avoid opening trades if there are less than 1 hour before high-impact news, also wait 1 hour after these news. Because the market can be very volatile in the subsequent period.

If the trade is already open:
It is recommended to move the stop-loss to breakeven

Check this box if:
• The trade was opened more than 30 minutes before the news, and
• After the news release, the stop-loss was moved to breakeven


Is This a Strategy Trade or an Emotional Trade?

Before you “check the box,” answer honestly:

• Do I feel the urge to revenge trade after a loss?
• Am I able to wait patiently for a valid signal?
• Am I ready to accept a loss calmly, without panic?
• Do I have a clear action plan for unexpected scenarios?
• Did the forum, media, or other people/traders influence my decision to trade?

An important rule for maintaining a healthy mindset: trade less.
It is not recommended to take more than two trades per day.


Am I Trading a New Instrument?

• Am I familiar with this instrument?
• Do I have statistics and backtests for it?
• Do I understand its volatility, price behavior, and reaction to news?
• Have I traded it for a sufficient amount of time?
• Does this instrument fit my strategy, rather than my curiosity to “try something new”?

If the instrument is new and not well studied, entering a trade is not recommended.


This is a checklist to be completed at the end of each week.
No further explanation is needed — everything required for understanding is already outlined in the checklist.



Fill out these checklists every trading day, and at the end of each trading week review them, analyze your mistakes, and work on correcting your weaknesses — you’ll start seeing results sooner than you think



Enjoy!