Total Newbie Forex Trader with Long Term Plans

Community Introduce Yourself
1

I have been interested in the stock market since I was a kid. Every time I looked into it I didn’t think I had the time, money or confidence to be successful. My circumstances have changed and forex is very interesting to me. I have read several, books, internet articles, and starting taking the babypips school and classes. I have a general strategy laid out and I would appreciate any constructive criticism veteran traders can offer.

Long Term Goal: I would like to be successful enough at forex trading in five years to quit my job and trade forex full time.

Broker: I decided to open an account with Oanda. Although they are a market maker, they are stable and reliable. I may switch to an ECN when I have more money and experience.
Question: Is this the right broker?

Investment: $1,000 I can afford to lose, 50:1, and $40,000 trade size.
Trading Hours: I plan to trade from 7 AM EST to 1 PM EST Monday to friday. I will pause trading for news. I will close out all positions the same day by 1 PM EST.

Pairs: EURUSD USDCHF AUDUSD
Question: Are these good pairs to focus on?

Charting: RSI, MACD, and Tick Volume
Question: Are these good indicators to look at for forex day trading?

Chart Intervals: I use 5 second, 10 second, 2 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute and 4 hour.
Question: Am I looking at the right intervals?

Trade Strategy
Win/Loss Percentage Goal: 60/40
Spread: Oanda round trip is typically 3 pips my trading hours. It can be a little higher or lower.
Taxes: I expect to lose 25% in taxes.
Take Profit/Stop Loss - I originally tried to trade 8 pips take profit and 3 pips stop loss. All of my trades became losers, because my stop loss was to tight. I decided to move to 15 pips take profit and 10 pips stop loss.
Trades per Day - In order for a pair to move about 20 pips, I will be in a trade for an hour or two. This means I can only average about 3 trades per day.
Trailing Stops - I originally had them, but they were stopping me out early. I got rid of these and decided to watch my trades more actively.

Question: Is this a realistic trade strategy?

2

Good choice for a broker. There is nothing wrong with trading with a bucket shop as long as they are an honest regulated bucket shop. Id recommend either them or forex.com. FXCM is a bit toxic at the moment due to their poor risk management practices. The most important part is that they let you take your money out when you want.

You can expect to lose most of your 1k. Sorry but that’s just how it goes. If you’re unlucky you’ll have some beginners luck at first but it won’t last. After you feel some pain you’ll hopefully regroup and try to figure out what you did wrong. This process will repeat until you either give up or finally figure things out enough to either break even or make some profit.

Stay with the 7 major USD pairs. USDJPY, GBPUSD, EURUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, NZDUSD, AUDUSD

Indicators are a tool. They don’t work alone in trading. Save yourself some time and learn about price action. Higher highs, lower lows. Learn to draw trend lines. Learn some fundamental analysis. Fundis for direction, technicals for entry.

Probably not. Scalping is what I wanted to do when I started and I got blown out of the water big time. The big money is in the big swing.

I’m glad you’re hyped up about trading. I miss those days. Get some chart time and prepare for hell. It takes years to get a handle on this stuff.