Hotkey Trading Tips, Tricks and Hacks

Day trading with hotkeys is an amazing way to increase your speed advantage and to get a better handle on your execution.  I personally don't day trade without them anymore. However, hotkeys are often used the wrong way and at the wrong time of a trader’s development journey.   In this episode, I cover these topics and more on hotkeys for day trading:

1. Who should NOT be using hotkeys yet
2. Questions to ask yourself to determine if you can benefit from a faster workflow
3. Hotkeys I use for daytrading, explained one by one
4. The software and hotkey hardware I use for super quick trading
5. Step by step process on how to setup hotkeys for any trading platform

One of the most important things to know from the very beginning, is that hotkey trading WILL CHANGE YOUR TRADING, and it could be for better or worse.  It is very important you are only using them when you are ready, and when you have a solid trading plan with a definable edge.   I would strongly NOT recommend hotkeys for any traders who are dealing with:

• Traders working on their impulsive and emotional trades
• Someone who doesn’t have a trading plan yet
• Swing and longer time frame traders - don’t need the speed edge
• New traders - it’s important to do the actions and steps yourself at first
• If you aren’t profitable WITHOUT hotkeys, they won’t be the holy grail - they are just assistive technology

If you’ve decided you are ready to take this leap and setup your hotkeys, I’ve included some great questions to ask yourself to identify areas where you can implement hotkeys. Questions to Help You Uncover Trading Hotkey Opportunities

1. Do you ever find that you are missing trades because you cannot get in fast enough? If so - you need trade entry hot keys - either markets or limits
2. Is it hard for you to move your stop loss as you scramble around the price ladder or chart to find where it is and drag it up / down?  If so - stop trailing hotkeys - trail to BE is one I use.
3. Do you find it hard to move multiple contract stops to one price level, or take profits? If so - move stop and move target hotkeys are great.
4. Do you sometimes get into trades because you couldn’t cancel your order fast enough? If so - cancel limits
5. Do you ever wish you could get out of trades quicker?  If so - market exit.
6. Do you ever wish you can switch between chart drawing tools on your platform?
7. Do you find yourself doing any repetitive, time consuming tasks overall?

And as promised on the episode, here is a look at my hotkey mapping on my StreamDeck device.   Remember, this is for Sierra Charts, and your trading platform may not provide some of this functionality.  It is important to check with your platform first, and identify what can be created into a shortcut, and ultimately mapped to a hotkey. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did recording it. Happy hotkey day trading, and I’d love to hear from you - how has this process helped you make your trading more efficient?  Are you planning to use hotkeys, which ones did you decide to go with? Happy trading - and remember, manage that risk and trade like a TRADEPRO. Resources

• Purchase the 15 key Elgato Stream Deck mentioned in the podcast HERE
• Purchase the 30 key Elgato Stream Deck XL mentioned in the podcast HERE
• Checkout this gaming mouse with 20 programmable hot keys built in HERE
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