Hmm, waiting to see the finest trading method. I am interested by that. 
In babypips, I see most of the traders concentrating on small timeframes. While forex factory most of the traders are influenced by james16 and jacko, doing higher timeframes.
There is a reason for this orange smiley [B]Tonymand[/B]!! 
You will see in the coming posts!!
Great to know you are interested.
You will find it rewarding.
It will handle any timeframe, long or short.
Nice post Tymen.
The orange smilie is kind of creepy, lol.
Good!!
It is meant to be creepy!!
Nice post tymen.
I’ve seen that pie chart and the 5% qoute over and over again.
On it’s surface, to people who don’t think deeply, it implies that only 5% succeed because trading is hard and it’s the markets fault.
I’d like to comment on what I feel is the reality of that 5% figure. It isn’t that it’s so hard only 5% can succeed.
Over my few months at babypips and using all the posts I’ve read as an average of all traders, (which is damn near the whole forum) I’d have to say it’s just that the qeneral quality and quantity of people who take up trading guarantee a high percentage will fail.
Now that might sound like I’m putting a lot of people in the forum down. And I guess I am. But, the reality of trading forex, what with micro accounts and home computer order execution, is that the entry level is EXTREMLY LOW. I’d have to say in all of my home business endeavors the things you have to learn and the money you have to put into it, to start, trading Forex is extremely easy.
The real trick is getting experience and skill. Most businesses don’t work like that. For instance I do website design on the side, as one of my home businesses. I even lived solely off of that for 3 years, when their was a time website design wasn’t so cut and paste and template orientated. To get into that I had to go through a learning curve of learning coding and design, before I actually got to the business part of doing it for money. With trading, you can jump right into the buinsess end of making money, within days of discovering the concept of trading forex. With MT4 placing orders and placing charts is rediculously easy, everything is point and click.
So, with this entrance threshold being so low it just about guarantees anyone with $25, that thinks for a second about the possibility that trading forex can make them money can jump in very easily.
What this leads too is the types of people who believe get rich quick infomercials, and people who think it’s possible to trade a $25 dollar micro account to a million inside of a month. In other words people who look at it like buying a lotto ticket, but they think it has more chance of happening.
It also leads to a good percentage of people, (and I’ll probably be thought less of for saying this), who quite simply are very, very, stupid, and have no business getting off the short bus. Going over babypips forums and other noob trading forums, it struck me that there was a good percentage of posters that asked extremely stupid questions. (sure you have to ask questions, but some are just outright moronic) Or, worse yet couldn’t even type out a coherant post. English was their first language, but they made it seem as if they had just learned it.
There, I said it, plain and simple, I believe a big percentage of people who delve into trading forex (and fail) are simply stupid and or lazy. Stupid & lazy = worse combination for any type of endeavor that takes self initiate and responsibility. They have no business trying to run a trading business. The failure was their own fault.
If that pie chart was labled correctly, it would read: 1% & 4% reasonbly intelligent and learned the skills they needed and mastered them and kept going every time they failed and examined everything they did (also great amounts of self determination & self reliance.
5% still learning, reasonably intelligent, might not quit and learn enough to go to the 4% level.
36% quitters & Gamblers & lotto ticket buyers AND people who can’t or refuse to learn things from failure and keep trying. And or, people who give up on endeavor when it gets just a little bit hard or frustrating.
54% Flat out too stupid, or just don’t have the personality traits required to run anything resembling a home business. Or, they are stupid and have poor personality traits.
I agree with just about everything you wrote. Another way of analysing the 1 and 4% would be to say that only 5% of people who enter forex have the combination of at least average intelligence along with strong enough discipline.
Good and brave post Phoenix
It certainly is. I did enormously admire your choice to use your actual portrait. I thought about it myself, but decided against it. Anonymity is pretty nice.
Waiting with great anticipation for the promised post(s). Although I suspect that it might be of a more philosophical nature than many hopeful newbies would want.
Yes I agree with this. Consider if some universities threw their law, engineering, business or medical courses open to all comers it is obvious that quality would dive and pass rates would fall. However also note Seans comments that even when people are screened and offered first class training they dont necessarily do that well and there was a failure rate in the Turtles experiment
Stupid is however too harsh. I think it fairer to say that people are naive and simply do not understand what they have to learn and who they are really up against in the professional trading sphere. They are also lazy. More than once have I seen posters asking for a mentor to turn their trading and lives around - oh, but cant afford to pay anything for that - but they will be extremely grateful!
[B]Phoenix[/B],
Superb post. Your points needed to be made, whether or not some people feel like their toes have been stepped on.
(But, “the short bus” ? — that was a bit cruel!)
[B]mh[/B],
Regarding your comments: I didn’t realize that Tymen was now using his actual portrait as an avatar — in which case,
“creepy” doesn’t begin to describe it.
As for your anonymity, you are so anonymous that I don’t even know how to type your screen name, let alone pronounce it.
[B]Tymen[/B],
I’m joking with you, brother. Looking forward to your forthcoming [I]Finest Trading Method Ever Published.[/I]
[B]tonymand[/B],
I don’t think Phoenix’ use of the word “stupid” was too harsh. “Stupid” implies the inability to learn. And that inability is on display almost daily on this forum and on every other forum — in fact, wherever newbies congregate in the forex world.
I would add “ignorant” to the description. “Ignorant” implies lacking knowledge. And I’m not referring to a lack of forex knowledge. I’m referring to a lack of the basic knowledge that used to be called “civics” — before our public education system was hijacked by liberals, with their politically-correct dogma.
The general population is so ignorant of simple economics, that the average person on the street cannot answer the most basic questions. Such as, What do you know about supply and demand?, What is inflation?, What is a speculator?
And yet, this same person will watch a late-night informercial for 4xEasyMoney, or some such thing, and actually believe the sales pitch: “anybody can do this”.
Here in the U.S., one of our popular radio talk-show hosts says that ignorance is the most expensive commodity we have in this country. To that, I would add that when ignorant people dabble in the forex market, it can become very expensive [I]for them[/I].
There. I’ve vented, and I feel much better.
Clint
Very insightful comments, some might be a little vain but very true indeed. It seems to be built into our society to be either dependent on somebody or something else. Its obviously ingrained into people’s mentality to find the fastest way to one’s goal. Be it losing weight through the latest fab diet or getting rich through some scam on late night Tv , the fact is that there will always be those that want what they will not work for. But those that do will need the tools by which they can achieve their goals and this forum is definitely one of those tools.
Fair enough but it actually means lacking intelligence or common sense (Oxford English Dictionary). Whilst this may be so with some I dont think the majority. Nevertheless I dont disagree with the general thrust of these posts. One only hopes that by reading on boards like this some people get the idea there is a lot more to this than they perhaps realised and in some way maybe we have saved them from themselves (oops there goes that flying pig again!)
I agree with ThePhoenix quite a bit.
Sheep get slaughtered.
I guess I’m in the category of the “Quitter”.
However there are two reasons for this:
[B]1st.[/B] I’m in college and finishing my college degree has a bigger priority right now. I simply can’t go to school and sit behind my pc at the same time.
[B]2nd.[/B] After weeks of demo trading (multiple times in the last 2 years) I realized something that has always been in the back of my mind, but just didn’t want to believe it…[B]FOREX trading is just as risky as gambling![/B]
You might make a couple dozen of pips one day only to lose them the next day.
Trading systems are an illusion. It’s nothing more then your mind desperately trying to find a pattern in the chaos.
You religiously try to stick to your system, but in the end your balance is still declining…just like gambling.
I don’t even believe anymore that there are people out there actually making consistent profits (besides banks).
Not even some of the honorable members here on this forum or the mythical 5%.
Ask live-traders to show there backlogs/trading success and not one will show it to you, which is of course because not one has had success trading the FOREX.
I’ve lost hope in FOREX trading, because I have yet to see anyone have success at it, so I’m now planning to invest in the stock market which seems like a far better place to make use of my money.
If you don’t agree with what I am saying are you then able to show me your trading success?
LOL, you spent a few weeks demo trading over two years and couldn’t create consistent success, so it must be gambling. Wow, two whole years, and your not a master millionaire trader… I guess you didn’t think it was worth while endeavor in the first place if you couldn’t put but, “many weeks over two years into it.” Sound more like you are the type of person that if something isn’t easy you give up.
You must not have looked too hard to find successful people, I’ve found a few who have shared their stories and aren’t just some scammer trying to sell you their system.
I’m consistantly profitable, not rich of course, but maybe when I get to two whole years I’ll be master of the world.
yes you must be right and I have a similar story. I spent a few weeks over the last 2 years on heart surgery. Unfortunately all my patients died and when I asked so called heart surgeons for their records they refused. Why? Well the only reason is that their patients died too. You hear a lot of people claiming to have had successful heart surgery but its all a scam. Onyer for finding out the truth and putting the rest of us right. Cant see why your bothering to attend college though because you know it all already
Stock market won’t treat you any better…finishing college is always a good idea. It will give you a feeling of accomplishment. Wish you well in your endeavors.
Dollie
Noooo! you just made me realize that I was just gambling this last trade that I took, because of a methodology I implemented foolishly thinking I could become profitable although in hindsight I should have realized it was a gamble even though I made a decent profit from It!!! whyyyyyyyyy
To [B]constantijn[/B] :
These are correct statements.
2 weeks of demo trading does not qualify you to say anything about forex.
You know absolutely nothing.
Therefore, the comments by [B]Tonymand [/B]and [B]ThePhoenix[/B] are correct.
I also agree with ThePhoenix that many people who are here to trade are basically unsuitable for the work because of the factors mentioned…ignorance, laziness, chasing riches, unwilling to learn properly etc.
2000 posts later and I have much to learn!! 
[B]I am trading myself right now, but soon I will post that incredible trading method that is so successful.[/B]
wait wait wait…
I have demo traded a lot more than 2 weeks. I said weeks because I didn’t trade for months on end. What I would do is trade for 4 weeks straight than not trade for the next 2 months and I did that a couple of times.
No, I’m not some lazy idiot trying to find the next get-rich-quick scheme nor do I quit when things get tough.
However sometimes you just have to accept when things aren’t working.
Do I think that stock trading will be easy…no! But at least I know it’s possible to make solid returns on a yearly basis, because I have seen it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely open to the idea of profitable Forex trading, but first show me it can be done and then i’ll follow.
@tymen1
Okay, I’m interested to see what you have…will be waiting to see your post