Hi I’m new to babypips but have 3 years of full time live trading DAX index. I am consistently profitable with average 9% daily return (drawdown included) on £10,000 pot across four accounts. I scalp trade micro activity within forming trends with avg 60/40 win rate. 10/30 trades a day avg 8 pips -soft SL 4 - 6 pips. Hard sl12 piops. Profits used for holding physical share buys and SIPPS. I am getting really interested in the brilliant interface ninja trader MT4 platform with ECN broker. Hence my new interest in forex.
Easy?
Well, I spent thousands of hours studying DAX before trading following an accident which caused a brain hemorrage and then a stroke a week later. Surgeon thought playing with a laptop could help me to talk, although this took over a year and longer to walk. I didn’t use a demo but instead started the sliding scale IG account trading CFDs furiously at 0.1 contract which meant 2.5 Euros per pip on DAX. Crazy days!! The benefit to me was that I was risking small amounts of money stgrail oft away. I dont carewhat anyone says - trading a plan on demo is nothing like using money. Some ofthe newbie traders onthe site talk about investing insoftware/training packages/mentors. Well think about the first £500 live trading as an investment instead. Once youhave a halfway decent trading plan and backtested 500 times (at least) then If you can hack it at 50p/pip you’ll eventually make it at £10. Then £20… Personally I now trade between 25 - 50 Euros per pip.
I’m not going to describe the holy grail of technicals and fundamentals as I don’t actually know if it exists. It doesn’t matter anyhow. Read any good site for learning - babypips springs to mind - The markets does the same things most of the time - it goes up, it goes down, it goes sideways or some combination of these. Certain patterns repeat and can be traded along the way with “adequate probability”, if you catch my drift.
Trading with real money should affect you just as viscerally as if you’re on a battle field looking down the wrong end of an axe. This is normal. However if this continues, the fear will wring you dry and you will blow up. I’m not a psychologist andi can’t describe the effect on motivation and neurons. But I have been lucky enough to recover the use of language to describe how I got over the issue.
First, trust the numbers and trade the plan, remember the one you have tested 500 times. Second, on opening a trade, write off the SL in your mind - its already lost. Nevermind the negativity, no amount of confidence now can alter the progress of the trade, and you know what, the market doesn’t care about you anyway.
What is the message I’m trying to get across? Well,there are myriad ways to spot the right signals, but what I have found out the hard way is that you need to feel the fear, then totally neutralise it. Why should you care whether you win or lose this trade because you know the numbers will take care of themselves in the long run. And if they’re not, stop trading and find out why.
I hope some of you pile in with comments/critiques. I look forward to get acquainted with you. Don’t forget, I know nothing about forex - I,ll be looking for some advice myself before long!
Jonny