I quit my job and skipped education to pursue Forex fulltime!:) What now?

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by mrpro

Respect for taking the plunge been thinking of doing the same but unlike you i have no previous trading experience.

I find it hard to focus with work and girlfriend around.. altho i dont wanna get rid of her they're both very time consuming.

Anyways, im in .no also, add me to msn or send me an email if you wanna bounce some ideas, strats or talk about the NOK

cyberdog@klubbabubba.net

Thank you man.

I`ll add you

Originally Posted by IDR

But are you ready to get beaten up everyday? Please remember that Columbus lived hundreds years ago. By then you could load up everything into your boat and set sail to sunset to find glory and adventure. Today...either you plan your steps or you'll end up in the nearest ICU

I`m not quite sure what you are trying to communicate here

Of course am I prepared that this will not be easy.

As for planning my steps, that was the intention of this thread, but I don`t see much help on that so far

[barrooo]

Kudos fella for doing that, although I have to admit I'm a bit bias since I did something pretty similar back in march!

I quit my job and decided to try and make a living with FX, and I'm going to give it a year and, if successful, carry on. If not I'll just have to get another job...boo!

You can expect a rollercoaster ride, particularly if you decide to build a system from scatch as I did, but I was fully prepared for this and at the moment I only trade small amounts, thus limiting risk.

My only advice would be learn as much as you can, especially from the excellent babypips school (do I get commisson for advertising!) but ultimately chart your own course and have the courage of your convictions, cause if you start listening to too many people you'll only get sidetracked

[JonnyFX]

Are you telling me that there are
traders in here that get beaten up
and lose every single day of their
lives? Uh, then why are you
trading? I think rather than coming
in here to offer dismal and pessimistic
advice; I think those people with
lousy non-optimistic attitude should
quit trading and quit offering opinions
on here to boot. If you are getting
beat up everyday and are telling people
to expect it; guess what... it's time to
get out!

[HAUGHT007]

I'm pretty new to this live trading thing myself, but... I would suggest READ AS MANY BOOKS AS POSSIBLE!! Definitely get some on:

1. Candlestick patterns and price action.
2. Psychology of trading
3. Indicators and systems

in that order. Another thing that helped me is to pick one pair and stick with it. I tried bouncing from pair to pair and it didn't seem to ever work out. Every pair is like a different personality. Especially when you compare the big movers like GBP/JPY! This happens to be my favorite and all I trade now but I used to loathe it and never look at it cause it moves differently. Try one pair trading for 6-9 months then pick up another. There are some great threads in here of systems. I'd say read as many from front to back as possible. Even if you don't agree with one system, you can usually get some very good information out of it and probably use a part of it for your own trading. Everybody trades differently. Live is SOOOO much different from demo. One thing I found really interesting was a contest that one broker had. It was who could LOSE the most money in a 3 day span starting with a $100k demo account. The rules were you could only trade 3 standard lots at a time. It's amazing how hard it was for people to LOSE money WHEN LIMITING RISK!! (keywords WHEN LIMITING RISK) Pick a few threads you like and jump in contributing everyday even if you're not sure. Ask lots of questions. Babypips has some AMAZING people here that are experienced and intelligent and will help you and tell you when you're wrong or right. GOOD LUCK!!!

[trader123]

Originally Posted by Johnny

Hey guys,

I have been playing around with stocks the last year and have learned a lot.

However, I have to admit that most of my success can be attributed to a strong bull market. In other words, I have a lot to learn

The initial plan after quitting my job was to go to school and specialize in finance, but I have now made the decision to work 100% for myself from the start and make a wholehearted attempt at making a living on Forex.

I`m finishing up a project now and when that is done, I will have all the time in the world to learn Forex.

How do I proceed?

I have bought a load of books and gone through the EXCELLENT "School of Pipsology" once already. Repeating that one for sure

I have also opened a demoaccount at Northfinance using Metatrader, even though I have traded virtually nothing yet.

Are there any resources on learning how to use Metatrader?

Should I read as much as possible before even starting to play around with my demoaccount?

I would appreciate it a lot if you guys could help me design a Forex-bootcamp!

I have been earning some decent profits on a consistent basis, maybe I can share a point or two from my experience.

I do backtesting on the currencies pairs that do not have wide spreads (currencies pair that have spreads of more than 5 pips are out for me). I do my testing based on 2 years period. Then I use those indicators that have proven to be profitable in my backtest for my own trading.

By doing that I am keeping the odds in my favour, there are no certainties, only probabilities.

To win, you need to speculate when the odds are in your favour, so succeed you need to accurately predict and play the odds. You need to know how to place your bets to maximise your profits and keep your losses small. To do this you need a disciplined trading plan.

[IDR]

Originally Posted by Johnny

I`m not quite sure what you are trying to communicate here

Of course am I prepared that this will not be easy.

Are you telling me that there are
traders in here that get beaten up
and lose every single day of their
lives? Uh, then why are you
trading? I think rather than coming
in here to offer dismal and pessimistic
advice; I think those people with
lousy non-optimistic attitude should
quit trading and quit offering opinions
on here to boot. If you are getting
beat up everyday and are telling people
to expect it; guess what... it's time to
get out!

That's because you never trade live before. By all means, trade live first. Then let us see what you will say after a string of losses. It is so easy to say I'm prepared while you still have your money in your hand. But it's gonna be different after you see your account shrinking instead of growing. One or two losses you may can handle, but what about three to four in a row?

Read again your own answer to my post. Just because I didn't pat you in the back or say any encouragement you undermine my post. There's always two sides of a coin in everything in life, including trading. You can hope for the positive side, but please take the negative side into consideration.

Did you know that for 10% loss you need about 11% gain just to breakeven? Did you know that 50% loss takes 100% gain just to breakeven? For a single loss of even just 1% of your equity, there's a higher probability that your next gain won't cover it all in a single strike. And when you're still a newborn to live trading, this is the whole ten yard that make or break you.

I have make and break and make again in forex, kiddo. So I do know what I'm talking about. And yes, all you said here and more, are exactly what I said when I first started some years ago. I'm just trying to help you not to go through what I have gone through. It is a world away btw prepared prior to and after live trade.

Originally Posted by Johnny

As for planning my steps, that was the intention of this thread, but I don`t see much help on that so far

This is exactly why I said what I've said. To each his own. You cannot expect somebody else to plan your steps. And to consider that you said you have bough a load of books and gone through "School of Pipsology," funny you still asked that from others in this forum. Don't any of your load of books talks about planning your trade? Isn't planning your trade one of the "School of Pipsology" curriculum?

And what kind of help do you ask? If you unconsciously walk right to a canyon, do you think if somebody slapped you flat on the face to stop you is not a help at all?

[JonnyFX]

Perhaps IDR means well but the ramblings
are not even remotely helpful. It is just
nonsensical anecdotal babble and nothing
more. It also tells me that IDR is clearly
an unwinning trader. Winning traders
don't babble on and on with nonsensical
anecdotal non-advice and slightly
condescending ramblings. It's one thing
to tell what you do and offer your opinion
on trading philosophy but IDR is doing nothing
but rambling on and on about some hypothetical
issue of losing and losing and losing and being
ready to lose and what will you do if you lose.
Gee, what a dismal and pessimistic babble.
Clearly, all IDR ever did was lose, not win.
I get supremely annoyed when negative
view is excused as being realistic. On the
contrary, negative view is nothing more than
your own spin to justify your lack of winning
trading experience onto others. It is a bizarre
form of loser smugness. IDR says you can hope
for the positive side but negative is the reality of
life. What a dismal view on life.

Trading is not easy; no delusion about that.
But it is no damn difficult rocket science either.
So don't bring people down with your failed
experiences. There is also something wrong
with your trading if you are experiencing
loss after losses to the tune of 3-4-5 losses
in a low. Clearly, again, stop/loss is stopping
all of your trades for losses. Only loss I
personally experience comes once per month
when I close out floating trades to reset and
start fresh for the new trading month. And
trade live first is another lousy advice. Wrong!
You trade demo, study, learn, and pretty much
get settled in to a groove first and then open
a live account. And contrary to the majority of
bad advice given out there... if you can afford it,
you go right to live with a standard 100:1 account,
not nano, not micro, not mini! Because using the
same risk, same trading strategy, same psychology;
you will have a safer margin level for the safety of
your account balance. Condescending anecdotal
advice doesn't help anyone; however harsh it may
be, the best advice are the one that actually work
and are sound real world wise. Not anecdotal
how to deal with continuing losses pessimistic
nonsense. I say expect to win, be optimistic,
and raise your expectations; not lower it and
be doom and gloom from get go that you will
fail because that apparently is the reality of life.
If this is your prevailing attitude, just put your
money is a Morningstar rated 5 star mutual fund
instead.

[mastergunner99]

Originally Posted by JonnyFX

Winning traders
don't babble on and on with nonsensical
anecdotal non-advice and slightly
condescending ramblings.

In respect to the post, this quote here is filled with ironic humor.

With that said,

Paper trade successfully for 3 months. Open up a micro account and trade live for another 3 months. If you're still consistently profitable, then up the ante.

You're setting yourself for failure by saying, "I'm all in!", when you haven't even looked at your cards.

Of course you'll deem that as negative and adverse to your goals, so I'll tell you want you want to hear.

Open up an account. Put 25k into whatever broker you're most comfortable with. Let's just say FXCM. Go there, why not. Pick any system that's based on price action on any pair you'd like. You'll do extremely well and you'll be able to feed off the profits for the rest of your life.

The End.

[IDR]

If you say so, then...good luck.

[Johnny]

Thanks guys, you`re the best

I heard of a few guys on another forum which seems to be giving some kind of mentoring.

Alexander Elder, Peter Bain and Jay Lakhani.

Anyone familiar with these guys?

It could prove valuable after I get my feet wet if they are the real deal. I have heard that there are a lot of scams out there in this industry though.