Hi Colin:
You seem to have a firm grasp of the marrow of Monkey See, Monkey Do. On a daily basis signals are accumulated from free sources. Signals are compiled from other traders who post their information within this forum, BabyPips.com’s blog and from whatever free signal services willing to email out their trading advice to me.
The data derived from each source is compared with what other sources have recommended for that same trading day.
Here’s what is taken into consideration before any money is shot off into cyber space on someone else’s speculation… (Actually, I’m happy you asked about this because it forces me to review my logic and checks & balances imposed as support of my methods of madness )
-
Is the source providing the information good at what they are doing? Are they making money? Are the trades they are recommending usually successful? If not I won’t make any money on their advice. Success breeds success. If you want to be rich follow around a rich person and do whatever they did to build wealth (yes, of course, provided it was legal and so forth, blah, blah, blah…) WAIT A MINUTE! WE COULD CALL SOMETHING LIKE THAT - MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO!!
-
Is the information the source provides understandable? If I can’t figure out what they’re trying to tell me to do - what good is their info? Some people state what pair to trade and where to enter a trade if the price goes above or below a specified number. Combine that with the time you found the information (it’s usually emailed, there’s frequently a time zone different to consider and you may not always be able to check your email as frequently as you’d like) :mad:
I like it when I’m simply told what price to enter the trade at, whether I should buy or sell the pair and where I should exit the trade. I’m not a “HEAR ME ROAR” type of person, I’m a “WANNA BE RICH” type of person. Not a lot of pride woven into my method, just the bare continuously on-the-surface-fact that I want to be rich. I can look at a chart and figure out if I missed a preferred entry point. If the entry point has been missed, by factoring in the suggested exit point, I can do the math and see if the trade is still worth pursuing.
- Is the source normally in sync with what other’s are predicting? This part is neither a cut and dried nor black and white issue. I have to actually think here In a trading prediction posted shortly above where you posted your message, I placed a trade recommendation from a lady named Cindy. Cindy states right up front that if she doesn’t have something abnormally lucrative and exceedingly likely to execute-as-planned she isn’t going to bother sending anything out.
In regards to what she suggested I, admittedly, blindly followed her recommendation. She offered up GBP/USD. I hopped in, as she recommended, at about 1.9490 and totally blew a part my own hard and fast rule of never putting more than 1% of my money on any one trade. She said to go with 10% - and I did. When the market closed for the week on Friday evening I had gained close to 100 pips in my favor! Fortunately, I followed her advice to a tee. Fortunately, I made a typing error and went with 12% instead of 10%. You could consider this trade to be more like a 1200 pip increase in my favor since I normally stick with the 1% rule. Of course, that is kind of stretching logic and the truth since the pair moved about 100 pips not 1200.
The following bold text was her advice on GBP/JPY, which I also followed exactly as she recommended. I used the 4% idea too and made out extraordinarily well!
[B]Here is the new signal:
Buy GBP/JPY at current price of 233.86
Stop: Open
Target: 237.80
Margin: 4% if you are in the GBP/USD trade below. Use 8% margin if you are not in the trade
below.
Our target was hit on this signal sent about two weeks ago resulting is a
188 pip profit:
Buy: GBP/JPY at 231.94
Stop: Open
Target: 233.82
Margin: 4% if you are in the trade below. Use 8% margin if you are not in the trade
below.[/B]
I felt, having dealt with this person before that I could trust her judgement - and won. Could it have gone the other way - OH YEAH BABY! I took an educated, well thought through trade from a credible person and worked it more like a gamble and won. This was great, I’m happy about it. At the same time, even though I won and made a good sum of money, I hope I can resist weaking again and put 10% or even 4% of my trading funds on one trade. In retrospect, even though I won, I was an absolute idiot to have taken such a risk.
I also read the BabyPips.com blog (they send me email updates too) and got the idea to short EUR/CAD. I messed up and entered at 1.5140 and exited at 1.5136. I misread their recommendation and entered far too late. When I realized what I had done, the pips were in my favor by +4, I managed to exit with a few additional pips in spite of the fact I was a dummy and wasn’t paying attention as acutely as one should when trading.
Call me lucky… “HI LUCKY!!”
Do I read charts and watch the news? Yes, indeed my friend, I do. Confidentially - just between you, me and the crowd that reads these treads I do pick many of my own trades and execute them. However, I look at my recommendations as just one more free signal source and compare my trading ideas to everyone else’s for the grand conclusion of what pair to trade and how to trade it.