A year ago, I went on a five-day forex education here in Zagreb (Croatia). I found some ebooks after that but these books were in English, so I had a huge problem because I couldn’t completely understand the words (there are too many new terms/words). So I decided to finish BabyPips school and I will do it by the end of this month. After that, I will have some basic “english forex” knowledge. But what should I do next? I don’t really want to try thousands of FX indicators and some stupid $200 EAs. I want to understand forex!!! I want to understand forex patterns, candles, channels…
How can I do that? Is there a place (or a course/book) where I can learn to trade like a pro, where I can learn to trade like successful traders do?
hi, the babypips school is a great start. in fact it will give you an idea on how to piece together system to trade on your own. even if you don’t manage to put together your own system ya can use the free systems section to locate entry ideas and methods of trading.
also many books include systems to trade and methods on Creating and testing systems.
I recommend books by Van Tharp. Mark douglas. and Alex elder to name a few.
its important to test out your system (either backtest or Demo, Or Both) to get a feel for your system. especially to see how many losses you can expect as normal. this also gives you an idea of how much to risk per trade and still get an overall profit. remember risk management and How big your losses are compared with your winners.
I would advise to study mainly support and resistance, supply and demand, order flow, fundamentals and news if you really want to understand how the market works.
My favorite book:
TRADE YOUR WAY TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM by VAN K. THARP
Bird Watching in Lion Country – Forex Trading Explained by Dirk Du Toit
The Adam Theory of Markets - Welles Wilder
Always protect your capital. Learn to accept losses. Don’t rush into trades.
Thanks! I already heard that Van Tharp’s books are great, so I think I will read them. I also have built my own trading system/strategy but it’s not profitable. I don’t lose money, but I also don’t earn money. Should I improve my system or should I try something else?
Don’t depend only on indicators. I have tried thousands and had no luck with those. So currently I am learning Price action related strategies. There are few good Price Action threads here on babypips including this one.
I will take a look at it. I just want to say that I don’t want to rely on indicators only…I want to really understand the charts and technical analysis!
I think the babypips school is a very good start for you. This school will introduce you to the basics of forex. It worked for me some years back though. While you are using the babypips articles, you can open a demo account with any broker of your choice (preferably, an offshore broker) and practice all that you learn.
I have been trading for 3 years and I have seen any useful indicator yet, the only system that works most of the time is finding support and resistance, break outs with falling or rising trend lines and channels those are my favorites
How can I do that? Is there a place (or a course/book) where I can learn to trade like a pro, where I can learn to trade like successful traders do?
What’s my next step???
Hello everybody,
To this kind of question there is a very simple answer that I will never forget.
cca. 20 year ago…
When they asked one of the best basketball player (who was born in your country)
How do you become one of the best basketball player?
He replied: all basketball players in the NBA [B]know the same [/B]all know how to lead ball, how to play defense or attack and shoot on basket… but I always 2 sec faster.
If you want to be faster you must practice every day…
There no book or course which will to show you holy grail…only years of experience
Remember when you start to vomit on the word forex then you can expect profit and you can tell you know something little but only little about forex
Here’s my 2 cents, with regard to your question. The first things you need to understand about forex are:
Most of the time when someone starts off their information by telling you: never do; always do; only do; the best way; the worst way; the only way, after you’ve asked “How do I; what do I; when do I: you will find most of the time their information will be of less value than the information given to you is by someone who starts off their reply with “It depends on what you or your “ want to; are trying to; looking for; etc. Opinions about what you should or shouldn’t do in the forex are like rear ends (bums), everybody has one.
Trading in the forex is not a race. You need to build a strong foundation early on and keep building. So crawl first, then walk, then run and then sprint
Most successful traders will tell you that trading in the forex is about gathering of information, then going the through the information and then applying the relevant information to the current situation. The difference between pro anything and non pro anything, is that pro’s are always on the lookout for new relevant information.
Now here’s my opinion
The first thing you want to do while you are finishing baby pips school is figure out is what you want to get from trading. What are your goals with trading? For example someone who wants to earn a full time income from trading but has certain limitations such as money, time will want to accomplish different things than someone who has worked for a hedge fund and has decided to go out on their own. You want to write them down, and keep them close and refer to them every day.
Next again while finishing school, you’ll want to find out what kind of trader you are : you need to know that because when you ask a question, most times the answer will depend on what kind of trader you are. For instance, if you have a low tolerance for risk, well then more than likely you won’t want to try a scalping or shorter term trading strategy.
You will also need to figure out what kind of time you can spend learning and trading. If you work 3 jobs, you probably wouldn’t be able to spend 10 hours at your computer learning and practising what you learned.
If you have a family or live with someone, you may want to see what they think about spending time learning and trading forex. You will want their support and it will be easier for them if they understand what you are trying to do.
You will also want to figure out how much money you can spend learning and trading forex. This may not be an immediate concern, because there is so much free information available for any and all style of traders and you will want to practice your trading and other things you’ve learned in a demo account instead of a live account
Once you have an idea of what kind of trader you probably are and what you are trying to accomplish, you should make your trading plan. Your trading plan will be made up of and based on: your trading method, based on a sound money management plan and executed with patience and discipline.
As a technical trader, I always recommend ICT videos to people, because I feel like I learned a lot about S/R, using Fibs, Correlation, Divergence, and some other things. But there is a difference between looking at the markets as he teaches versus being able to trade them. I think that it is my fault, because I have an insane schedule, that makes following the market as closely as I’d like a little hard to do.
I’d also recommend checking out Sam Seiden, who teaches supply and demand zones. There are many places on line to find helpful videos, and you should not have to pay for most of what you need. I also like Jason Stapleton’s videos regarding structure. He teaches advanced Fib concepts like the Harmonic patterns, which I would not recommend for someone starting out. Best of luck, there is plenty of information out there.
The babypips school should do the job, but you can’t learn everything in one day. As you start trading, you would learn more and your knowledge would be broader.
Hiya. Reading the posts here and a few mentioned Van Tharp. I am going to buy one of his books but has anyone signed up to the course? Is it worth the $795?
Thanks for a long answer! I have a feeling that I will become an expert in next few years, thanks to people on BabyPips. I didn’t expect this kind of answers and so much support!
I am kind of in a similar situation. Started learning forex/trading month or two ago. Problem is that information is too scattered, and there are many ways to trade. So I am too looking for a structured plan to really “understand” forex/trading, and then find a trading style that suits my schedule/personality. Do you know what sort of trading strategy suits you?
Swing trading is more suited for me. I just started a full time job couple of months ago (fresh college grad). Thankfully, I get paid more than enough to meet ends meet and even save a quite a bit (which I will use for live trading). No rush. Just want to understand and experiment for few years, before I really get serious about trading. How does your situation look like?
BTW someone mentioned a website called global-view. It has free training videos and a forum too. I am looking for ICT videos as well; if you find it please share it on here. Good luck.
You can some what avoid the scattered information and build a structured plan if first you break trading activity down into 4 broad categories: scalping, day, swing and position trading and give them a rough definition. You can search each one of these on google as well as baby pips to get more in depth definition. You can also search utube to see video’s on how the different definitions are used in trading. Just remember these are rough definitions and the categories may overlap. Remember nothing in trading is either “always or never”.
Scalping; A trading strategy that attempts to make many profits on small price changes. Several trades are usually opened and closed in minutes
Day Trading: A trading strategy attempts to make profits on trades that are opened and closed by days ends. So not so many trades as scalpers. Main thing is opened and closed by days end.
Swing trading is a longer term strategy, trades can be held over several days.
Position trading: Long term trades can be held for months.
As I said you should look up each one and see how they are applied, if you do that it will be much easier to see where you fit, as well as what available information is applicable to you and your situation. For example you mentioned swing trading. If you feel that based on your current situation, that’s where you should start once you have a basic understanding of forex trading, concentrate on information that applies to swing trading instead of for example scalping.
You can find ICT videos on utube as well as their website. Don’t buy anything until you’ve gone through all the free stuff on utube. That’s just my opinion.
I have a feeling that I will become an expert in next few years, thanks to people on BabyPips. I didn’t expect this kind of answers and so much support!