Hello from the Midwest

Hello fellow forex aficionados! I am Stephen Bishop, and I’m currently residing in a peaceful farming community in the midwest U.S.A. where I trade forex full-time. My academic background is in Computer Science and Mathematics. Professionally, I started my career as a software engineer in a cubicle farm with a 4 hour round-trip commute. I hated every minute of it and became strongly compelled to find a way to work for myself.

I built several software start-ups, but each ended in dismal failure. My naiveté led me to foolishly believe that a good product would sell itself. I vastly underestimated the importance of marketing and proper business development (and the capital needed to pull it all together). Fortunately, I stumbled into the field of quantitative finance and was able to generate a living income writing trading algorithms for the stock market. From there, I naturally progressed into the realm of Forex, leaving the world of stocks behind completely.

My intention at first was to trade Forex algorithmically as well, but I discovered that I really just enjoy trading manually on the daily timeframe. My method of trading is based strongly on Ichimoku, but I also rely heavily on fractals and stochastic oscillators. Like everyone, I have winning days and losing days. I trust my strategy, and try to grow more patient and disciplined every day. I don’t assume that I’ll get rich and own yachts and a Bugatti, and I honestly don’t care. I refuse to focus on the extent of profits, only on their consistency.

I love the Forex life! It earns me enough to pay the bills and to save a little each year, and I get to spend my days at home with my wonderful wife and daughter. When I’m not staring at charts like a zombie, I enjoy playing the guitar or spending time outside with the family. I hope that I will get to know many of you here on the forum and make some new friends. Thanks for welcoming me here!

What a great story you have there, bud.

Traders like you are always welcome (and even looked up to) in our community. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be confident in your trading system enough to talk about it with other traders. Best of luck on your trading career!

Thanks, PipDiddy. Much appreciated! This site has been a premier learning resource for me as I’ve ventured into forex and I would love to contribute as much as possible to this wonderful community. I am more than happy to share my trading system and strategies with any interested parties.

Good luck in the coming week. Tuesday should be interesting for the USD.

Glad to hear that! Yep, this week should be a pretty interesting one with plenty of top-tier reports lined up, mostly for USD. Got any trades you’re planning to take?

Hello PipDiddy. My apologies for the delayed response. I hope you had a good and profitable week. I didn’t get into any positions this week until Tuesday, at which point it would have been nearly impossible to find a bad trade. The NZD/JPY was good to me (I love trading kumo breakouts). Beyond that, I’ve just been babysitting the cable and fiber shorts for weeks now.

I’m looking for breakouts next week on the EUR/NZD, GBP/CAD, and GBP/CHF. Anything interesting on your horizon?

Take care!