A Practical Guide to Advanced Trading Strategies

So you’ve been trading for a while. By now you know your way around charts, have dabbled in intraday trading or swing trading, and feel ready to level up. You’re not looking for generic advice anymore; you want smarter strategies, tighter risk control, and tools that actually match your growing skill set.

This guide is for traders who are beyond the basics and ready to move with more structure. It will walk you through advanced trading strategies, risk frameworks, market psychology upgrades, and the kind of tools that support serious execution.

Which Strategy Suits Which Trader?

Multi-Leg Options Strategies

Best for: Traders who understand derivatives and want defined-risk income strategies or volatility plays

Avoid if: You don't understand option greeks and time decays

Scalping with Order Flow

Best for: Traders with real-time access, fast reflexes, and high screen time

Avoid if: You can’t monitor the market actively during the day

Algorithmic Trading

Best for: Traders who enjoy coding, backtesting, and automating logic

Avoid if: You prefer discretionary, manual trading

Quantitative Trading

Best for: Data-driven minds who want to test statistical edges over large trade samples

Avoid if: You’re looking for fast, visual setups

Event-Driven Trading

Best for: Strategists who track earnings, news, and macro themes and want volatility setups

Avoid if: You struggle to trade during fast-moving or uncertain environments

Risk Management

The more complex your strategy, the more critical your risk discipline. Here are key risk management frameworks to consider:

• Position Sizing Models: Use models like the ATR-based sizing or fixed fractional risk to determine how much to trade, not just what to trade.
• Portfolio-Level Risk Monitoring: Track exposure across positions. Are your trades all correlated? If yes, you’re not diversified; you’re overleveraged in disguise.
• Predefined Exit Rules: Every trade should have a stop-loss or exit condition: price-based, time-based, or volatility-based.
• Hedging with Options or Inverse Instruments: Advanced traders often offset risk with protective puts or long volatility plays during uncertain conditions.

Market Psychology

At the advanced level, success has less to do with being “right” and more to do with managing uncertainty consistently.

Key psychological points to note for advanced traders:

• Detach from Individual Outcomes: One trade means nothing. A strategy only proves itself over 50, 100, 500 trades.
• Avoid Emotional Averaging: Averaging down in a losing position just because you “feel” it’ll recover isn’t strategy; it’s stubbornness. A smart trader generally averages up means he will add to his positions (pyramiding) if he is in profit
• Stick to Your System, Especially After a Loss: The urge to abandon a tested strategy after one or two failures is common. Advanced traders stay with process over emotion.
• Recognise Overtrading as Self-Sabotage: Action bias can disguise itself as discipline. If there’s no edge or signal on your set up then no position is the right.

Read our detailed guide if you want a deeper dive into trading psychology?

Tools and Platforms

Your edge isn’t just in your strategy; it’s also in your setup. At the advanced level, you need tools that support faster execution, deeper analysis, and clean automation.

Here’s how to build a smart trading stack:

• For Technical Strategy Execution: Use platforms that offer advanced charting tools, multiple timeframes, and indicator layering without lag.
• For Options Analysis: Choose tools that help visualise payoff graphs, implied volatility ranges, and multi-leg strategy builders.
• For Backtesting and Strategy Refinement: Look for platforms that support custom strategy testing with historical data, adjustable timeframes, and realistic slippage settings.
• For Algo and Quant Trading: Platforms with secure APIs, scriptable environments, and sandbox testing help you deploy code-driven strategies with confidence.
• For Real-Time Data and Scalping: Tick-level data, fast DOM access, and low-latency terminals are essential for micro-move traders.

To Sum Up

Advanced trading isn’t about making wild calls or stacking fancy indicators. It’s about building systems that work consistently, rationally, and under pressure. Whether you’re refining your edge with multi-leg option strategies or automating your logic, the goal remains the same: clarity over chaos.

The tools, strategies, and mindset covered here are meant to evolve with you. Choose what aligns with your temperament and strategy, test it, and systemise it. Algorithmic trading strategies require SEBI approval for deployment in live markets.