Does anyone really make money off of the Forex?

Indeed, but quite apart from, as Tang correctly states, wasting people’s time offering considered advice that turns out to be redundant as so much time has passed, this practice also drops current threads down off the front page that might be of current interest to some. This means that these threads often disappear prematurely. So it might sound draconian, but when this is being done as often as it is recently, I can see where the pro-ban lobby are coming from…

apologies to all out there, I honestly didn’t realise it was a 5 year old post until after I’d submitted my reply.

I do got to agree with pip slayer on this. I know I was googleing some stuff and came across a thread from babypips and posted only to realize after the fact it was a old thread. But yes a old dead thread should stay that way. Then again it does help stop seeing the same threads being posted over and over again.

You didn’t cause the problem.
When you responded, it had already been returned to the front page.

You read, and replied as a responce.

Mr. Gone on the other hand, has a habit of doing this.
He’s been thread necrophiliac ever since he got here.

Well, there are always going to be some odd ones out there I suppose. Thanks for letting me know. I did feel kind if daft once I saw how old the post was.

Heheheh thread Necro??

Who said we dont learn something new everyday??

Look there a few issues here.

First of all and I do emphasize “first” is the attitude. Get this idea out of your head that you are going to become rich. You may very well be rich one day, but the idea will cause you to make bad trades. It will cause you to make bad trades that will lose that will then cause you later on to be hesitant when a good trade finally does come. If you plan to day trade then you will have to have lot’s of patience. The best thing is to just stick to the 4 hour chart and higher. That way you won’t be starring at your charts all day which will eventually drive you to (you guessed it) make bad trades.

Once you have the attitude down and this may very well come with time, you need to know proper money managament(MM). Now in my opinion, the proper attitude goes hand in hand with the attitude because if you have a bad attitude then you will always violate your mm rules. A good rule throughout the industry is 2% risk per trade. Risk is the amount you will lose if your stop loss get’s hit. If you don’t have a sl, (which everyone should but some are very against them) then the risk is defined as the amount you will lose before you close your trade.

The last and believe it or not the most important is the trading… you need to find a way of trading that suits you. It might be a system but systems tend to lose over time. If I can recommend a good approach, study fibs, support/resistance, and candle formations.

If you can get these 3 down and keep true to them for a few years, then you will be rich. Unfortunately, you will find that there are many mental pitfalls along the way and that you may never get there. As soon as I start having success I start breaking rules and I am back to where I started. Maybe not blowing and acccount but at least back to the point that i lose all of my profits. Many say though that just breaking even is the first step to making money.

The forex system makes the money , your broker and anyone selling you a system or signals. If there system / signals were any good they would, nt need the money from selling , because they would be millionares

Heyyyyyyyyyyy, Whats his email addy or does he publish his signals,please

no only your broker,ha ha

I have been making money consistently for over 5 months now!

Ofcourse brokers make money for been in the business. I mean, who else wants to run business with losing money?

who’s giving signals make money is for their service right? if that service is giving profits for their clients?

Are you watching your TV cable for free? or how about your internet service, phone free?

I mean, Forex is not easy, therefore, lots of people fail. However, if you study hard, take time to learn, you’ll make it.
Believe me or not, I have been learn FX since 2006 and not open my live account last year. That’s about close to 5 years of study, experience, and you will make it. I’m here not to argue but just bring up my thoughts.

Just my 2 cents, and happy trading.

Our experience:

  1. Opened first two accounts €10k each may 2011
  • account 1 traded down to €500 in 3 major waves. First wave was up €2,500 in two days. We were extrapolating the rate of return to a year and planning to buy Monaco. Two days later - boom! Trade went south €2,700. 1st account in negative territory. Modified strategy and slowed the rate of losses. By august, halted strategy.
  • on account 1 then started trading off fib levels on CFD for asx200. No SL but predetermined entry point for short hedging trade. Made 100% return in one month. 75% win rate. All intraday, trading off M30 and H1 with other levels as trend confirmation. Stopped trading since it took too much time but will restart this strategy in EA form later now it is proven
  • account 2 went from €10k to €10,160 (whoo-hoo!) in two months. This was long only, no leverage, equities. During this period the market was down 5-10%, so not bad. About 75% win rate again. Parked this since plan to return with leverage, EA and more time
  1. Second life: discovered FX and MT4
  • started with 8k (spent some money on ea’s, indicators. Waste of time! Should have self-built. So had €10k less our costs)
  • lost money from August to October on some dumb EAs produced by others
  • October to present: every month made money

Conclusion:

  • three months tells you nothing
  • never trust a backtest
  • it appears our new strategy works, but no one is popping champagne here until we have had a profitable year AND doubled the account in size twice
  • our prior strategies which worked on CFD and equities still intriguing and will get around to coding them later too

Watch this space. Will post further updates on the journey.

Consistency and winning long run!

I really believe that consistency and long longggggggg run will prove the system is working or not. I’m totally agree with you that three months are too little time to prove the system. Good luck with that, anyway.

Happy trading,
Ken.

P.S. FX trading is a marathon, it’s not sprint!

I am new to Forex still. I have been using a demo account and even that…I have been more inclined to not place hardly any trades. Whats the point? if your not 100% confident then your setting yourself up for a fail and perhaps even putting yourself off Forex all together. I am going over and over Hector Devilles Learn Forex Live course videos. He uses all the analysis tools I like to use. I’ve placed a few trades so far and about 60% lost. You might think why so much? because its never 50/50. You must take into account SL which can get hit and increase the chance off failure. So even on a potential winners you can lose.

Even with 60% loss I still break even because of MM. so I guess for me… I have a system in the making BUT, as many other people, i’m trying to get the Edge… to take me above the break even and into profits. I think that will natually come with screen time.

MY goal is to get say 60% winners. With MM, taking this in reality up to 70-75%. On a £2000 starting account I dont see why I couldn’t make £700 + a month “in the end” This would require 4 trades per month which get 3:1 RR. thats it! but obvcourse any losing trades will set me back but anyway this is my goal. See what happens.

I am aware it may never happen. But with the effort I will succeed.

The only manual trading I’m doing last 4 weeks is over iPhone as I move all the automated stuff over to jForex/Dukascopy. Everytime I take profit or am about to the iPhone app locks up or crashes with messages to contact the firm or reinstall. I did $520 this morning and that’s only because I spent 4 minutes calling / waiting / identifying / locating the trade. The retail forex environment can be profitable but it’s a shark tank - no matter the broker!

Microlots, zero commissions, tight and fixed spreads - think about it - how do they make money?

I’m convinced institutional commissions with institutional 0 < slippage < ~2 and direct market access over a T1 or fibre line is the only way to go.

The markets are hard enough to tame without all the fun and games.

The real conundrum is this:

CAN WE ALL MAKE MONEY TRADING THE SAME STRATEGY?

Once you truly understand this question then it’s clear what kind of swimming pool we are all swimming in.

Of course there are winners but the overriding truth is there MUST BE LOSERS!

It’s that simple.

I know what you mean. Soon im going to move to the Phillippines but only if I can make Forex work. Its the whole reason im doing this. And I know the internet in the Phillippines is rubbish. cut out always. I will need to spend some proper money to set myself up a stable link there lol…

Yep, that’s the million dollar question!

So anecdotally we know that 95% of retail traders are losers. Now of those some chunk are those that quit in the first year. Say 90% of the 95% quit on the first year since most people who get into this game can’t be stupid enough to keep going. (?? :slight_smile: )

What of the remainder? Now they probably split into those that bobble along making enough or breaking even so that they keep trying. And maybe 3-4% start making good money.

So now, who are they getting it from? Surely:
Companies that are compelled to make trade payments or hedge exposures when currencies move adversely;
Banks that hedge their global fx risk (eg, if you earn 20% of shareholder returns in subsidiary A in uzbekhistan then you buy a forward against the expected earnings so that your EUR shareholder doesnt get mad - half the time you lose money on the hedge but that’s not the point for you)

Anyway, so structurally there are retail players doomed to fail and corporate players who know that half the time they will lose (but don’t care about that). Hence if you have a strategy that is unconstrained by the drivers that the ‘losers’ are constrained by, then you can wait until they are compelled to lose and hence you may gain.

Modern mystery - like the name btw - by this reckoning we can’t all trade the same strategy (the losers have their own strategies and can’t change). But also, some of us are destined to lose. All part of the learning process I guess!

Have to also ask the question. How do they come up with 95%. On what basis? Do they take every single acount that has been opened, or only ones who have traded at least once. Or for a period of time…

Things things make a big difference.

It is very very easy to creat a Forex account and put real funds into it. But think of a computer game. Think of WoW… Take a look at the amount of “sign ups” and the amount of Active players and you’ll find the majority of the data used is irrelevant. They played 1 day and didnt like it, they left…

Same with forex. The data used to get 95% has too many variables to be considered worthy.
Do 95% of people actively try to learn Forex and trade for a lenghty peroiod of time and just fail? no. Most decided it wasn’t for them after all.

[B]Just imagin how many people lose there 1st real trade. ALOT. There will be fear and they will stop right then.[/B]

They are likely classed within the 95% losers catagory.

It says it all…

Anyone who came into forex thinking there is easy money to be made and the markets will let u be a millionaire overnight will invariably end up loosing their account and all their money.

Maybe even start a thread saying that its all a scam.

Like everything else in life, there is much to learn.

But there is a method in the markets madness.

Enough said.