A question arrives from TN reader Tony T:

“I’m getting ready to trade again tomorrow [after the long Easter weekend] and feel a bit slow and ‘out of touch’ but I’ve heard some traders say they get better after taking a break. Is it normal to notice an improvement in your trading after taking a break from it?”

Yes, you can absolutely make improvements to your trading by stepping away for a bit.

But I suppose the key to it is stepping away at the right moment. There’s no sense in downing tools when you’re on a roll and everything you touch in tuning to gold!

And I’m not being flippant in saying that.

At certain times everything will line up perfectly… your strategy is exactly in synch with whatever phase the markets are currently going through, your focus is laser sharp, your discipline in sticking to your trading plan is tight, you feel physically and mentally strong…

This is the time to take full advantage of these fortuitous circumstances and keep trading!

But there is always another side to the coin.

There are times where things just don’t seem right at all.

Here are some common situations you might find yourself battling:

1) Your normally reliable strategy hits a sticky patch due to unusual market conditions

2) You lose focus on your own trading campaign: you’ve been reading/watching/listening to other people’s analysis and opinions too much and it’s making you doubt your own trades.

3) Losing trades begin to affect you emotionally and you can’t pull the trigger on the next trade (or you begin to take random ‘revenge trades’). In other words, you’ve lost your self-discipline.

4) You feel ill

5) You feel stressed and mentally stretched by events happening in your life. When you sit down at the trading screen you feel ‘woolly headed’ and generally out-of-sorts.

THESE are times when you should definitely take a break!

The markets aren’t going anywhere. They’ll still be here for you when you are 100% fighting fit.

So never be afraid to take a couple of days away from trading. It is absolutely in your own best interest to do so.

A complete change of scene and a bit of mental relaxation might even help you see exactly what to do for big improvements to your trading campaign. You can sometimes overlook the obvious when you’re too busy banging away at the coalface.

Of course, there are also times when trading breaks are forced upon you…

Christmas… Easter… any time when you simply know most traders will be away from their screens spells low liquidity in the markets.

And your broker themselves may be physically closed on certain holidays too.

So those are the other ideal times to ‘relax the strings’ of your trading instrument.

Talking of which… it’s one of the reasons my 4D Trading program has been straining at the leash these last couple of weeks.

It didn’t make much sense to kick off the new trading group only to sit on our hands over Easter, and I knew a few of those on the invite list were away on holiday and worried about missing their place.

But now the Easter break is behind us it’s on with the show!

I have a launch date for 4DFX confirmed here behind the scenes.

I can’t reveal it just yet. But sometime in the next week or so, if you did ask to be added to the invite list, you will begin to receive your VIP ‘founder-member’ information.

So momentum builds now.

Keep an eye on your emails and if you missed the earlier calls to be added to the invite list reply to this email today (before 8pm London time) and I’ll get you added.