most people fail in benchmarking their trading performance as they set Fixed targets …this is crazy as forex markets are not fixed …each day has different G8 momentum , directions , dynamics , Correlations and events …if its a slow day then why beat yourself up ?..try to be realistic in your analysis of performance
for example if its a tough whipping/ranging session for me (I scalp trade 2 hours a day London opening) then coming out on top and with a few pips is fine …I will make sure that when the markets run next day - I will hammer them to make up for it !
just don’t consistently lose money …that’s an obvious signal of poor performance
Consistent profits are everybody’s dream but it is unrealistic to think that anyone can extract the same profits every month from any financial trading: this is not a fixed-income venture, like working for an employer or putting money in a savings account…
Using a plan, using good money management. I was more like a gambling trader. It wasn’t’ easy controlling my greed during trading but over the years I’ve learnt a lot.
Over trading is a big problem for new traders actually they do not know how much trading they should do . They had no trading plan if they act upon a plan they should avoid trading after achieving their target. For me analysis and risk management was a bigger problem that I overcome after much practice.
You should think about your life…How much time can you dedicate to trading? If you work full-time and trade in the morning before work, or in the evening after work, you may find less opportunities to day trade or scalp…Perhaps you may want to trend-trade and open longer positions… This is just an example where you must think about the viability of a trading approach: enthusiasm carries you only so far, and after a while you will be quite tired and frustrated when you will want to trade during the day but you will be stuck at work…
Newbie traders (including me) overestimate their stamina and think they can sustain a scalping or day-trading strategy in the long-term, but when tiredeness, fatigue, mounting losses, and confusion sink in, they will soon have to reassess their approach…
It takes time to know what approach is right for you.
It is not just you who is alone bu i am also in the same league as many traders are finding it hard to have a constrain on their trading and so as a results they are not getting stable income
Since I both work [I]and [/I]trade from home I guess one of my challenges is convincing my wife that I am actually working when I am sitting in the sun on the terrace staring at my laptop and [I]occasionally [/I] even moving. This is particularly observable on days otherwise devoted to a) cleaning b) shopping c) decorating and repairs…
Thanks for the sympathy It seems women just cannot appreciate the more important things in life like us men can.
(This is deliberately provocative to see just how many women there really are out there! I am expecting at least a sound verbal thrashing from Lexy any time soon… )
Interesting Maybe we can discus it in an other Thread: How to beet the spread. or How to have a positive expectancy.
I can not tell what is my biggest issue is in trading. The last 2 weeks were positive but if the next two weeks will be also?? I don’t know and that is my problem.
It has its difficulties and its limitations, of course, but not many things give quite as much confidence as having a series of 1,000 backtested trades (even with all their difficulties and reservations) showing a net positive expectation, a decent profit factor and a maximum drawdown under 5%.
Even that doesn’t tell you that your next two weeks will definitely be profitable, of course, but it can easily tell you that (for example) “there’s a 97% chance that your next two [I]months[/I] will be profitable”. And that really does make a [I]huge[/I] confidence-level difference …
I recommend “Forex Tester 2”, if that helps. It’s a big learning-curve but very worthwhile, and not at all expensive. As they say in their advertising: one evening on a simulator produces results (almost) equal to those from six months on a demo account.
TC Holland i base my trades on the month to month bases, It’s a mine thing. In a month if you have one bad week , you can always recover on the following weeks also the markets are strong one week and weak another which gives you a chance to re adjust your trading. I believe in going with the flow of the markets and to do that one needs to always take to pulse of it.
