Hello! Im newbie so don’t bite me for asking this LOL
If only 5 percent of forex traders profit. So our chance of getting an answer(from any forums not just babypips) from real traders who profit and can Actually do what they say is less than 1 percent?
If that 5% is Fact, does it also mean that almost all people in forums are losers teaching one another? No offense just confused LOL
I’d say that’s probably close Akeame.
A class action lawsuit took place about 8 years ago against a broker who provided access to futures markets, including forex futures.
They found that 88% of their traders who used this particular brokerage lost money after 1 year of opening an account.
that leaves 12% profitable… but remember, the definition of profitable is having at least one penny more in the account than when you opened it.
Say, if one opened an account with $10,000. And at the end of the year, had $10,001. This would be part of the 12% profitable.
The lawsuit was formed on the basis that the broker had advertised in such a method that suggested clients would make money trading with them. They were a fairly large company if I recall…and survived well past the lawsuit.
The lawsuit consisted of over 1,000 former clients, and the 88% losing figure was on the basis of a court ordered audit that forced the broker to disclose the statistics of ALL of its clients…not just the ones suing.
It’s safe to say that of that 12% that make money…only half make enough to do it full time…and how many of them continue to make money, year after year? I’d guess very few. 5% might be a bit high.
My own broker representative told me of the accounts he oversees, over 90% are no longer actively trading. If they are making money…they would probably be actively trading, no?
I once was in a bit of a debate with a V.P. of a VERY well known online stock brokerage, (it’s a household name in the United States), and he concluded the argument by stating in a farily condesending tone: “I’ve never seen a single day trader who ever makes money…and i’m the guy who sees who makes what in their accounts!”
And yes…i’d say about 90% of the info out there is not very helpful.
Welcome to trading. Good luck. 
Jay
Thank you! I’ll try this for few months. Hope ill be one of those 5percent lol
In July 2009 to August 1 2009 I was able to trade 2,000 to 14,000 dollars in only one month (and have failed to do the same since… thus losing the 14k in only a couple days later down to 0), using a practice simple method to profit. (that’s approximately 10% per day profit my rough estimates) It is doable, capable, and attainable. But what people do to this day, including myself is if we the people fail to accept profit, .000001 percent if that when uncertain how the next price move will be it is our fault it happens.
As well, if you do not do your own due diligence of studying, understanding, and accepting the way the market moves, to include the spread differences and major influences of the market movements.
That is the reason why only 5% of people make money.
Few, only a far far few people ever accept making a small fraction of a day for profit to compound the end of the day margin and look to add to that compounded interest we call .0001 percent and realize that by the end of the year following the same method of margin balance, and volatility chances that you’d be making 400% times what your initial margin balance was started out as.
Hence the lack of profitable traders.
Any questions?
It does not matter if you spend 20 years studying the patterns, concepts, movements, and direction indicators.
If you fail to follow these three simple words you will never succeed:
PATIENCE-study watch
DISCIPLINE- mentally place price to hit before making any transactions for either direction
ACCEPTANCE- if it goes in your movement thoughts and you make your open transaction lock in small profit before a possible major negative mevement takes place.
Am I right that the reason the chart(technical) is working because lot of people are trading the same thing, I mean thats why its repeating what happened in the past?? Then its enough reason to say that most forex traders already know what to do technically but the bigest problem is discipline?
Makes me also think that reading 5545355 books about technicals is not what most of us(not u lol) newbs need but self control LOL
Well, I dunno.
If you ask any real experts you will hear it’s a mix between tecnicals, fundamentals, and psychology. I hear its a balance sometimes, and sometimes its just more psychological.
But I would argue it’s the psychological aspect that grants people the acceptance to produce and accept a guranteed profit than to be in profit then get liquidated out looking for more profit than what is presently there and never receive.
I.E. you see you have 5 pips guranteed profits, and you think it’s going to go up to 20 pips profit. But it’s waivering around 6-9 pips… instead of locking in a 5 pip profit, you wait until after it’s around the 8 pip profit to lock it in… But it never stayed above 8 pips and sailed south against you like 40-100 pips.
It’s psychological aspect, because you knew you were in profit, but you chose psychologically not to accept what you already have.
Hi Akeame… Actually I totally agree with waterscalming… I strongly believe that it’s all about 10% techniques and 90% psychology. If your psychology is screwed … Your trade gonna get screwed… I notice that most of us never really finish wad we started … Wad I mean is tt when we have found our so called trading set up … We seldom follow all the way because of GREED.
Just to share with u … I keep check on my discipline by constantly doing backtesting of trades even though I have gone live. I find backtesting very important and as I’m as human as everyone else , I need to check my discipline constantly. Therefore I suggest perhaps u might wanna constantly backtest your trading set up regularly. Backtesting has helped me a lot in my trading. I hope it will too for u.
As the saying goes… You trade not to win… But more of u trade not to lose… May the pips be wit u;)
Trust me, it isn’t, if your technique/strategy/system stinks it doesn’t matter how good your psychology is, you’ll never make a profit. When you have a solid strategy the psychology bit just falls into place.
I disagree … When you’re not in control of ya mind…no amount of techniques can save u… Sorry I can’t trust u on that with all due respect .
Ha ha, but equally when you have a poor strategy no amount of good psychology will save you?
obviously u didn’t understand my statement… 10% techniques and 90% psychology… If 10% of it are made up of gd techniques, u only need a gd mindset to complete … Not once I mention bout gd or bad a technique is … It’s not always bout wad u know … But more of how u apply it:)
Ppf is right.
Very simple. No edge, no profit. You can be a psycho super hero and that won’t change the picture. Your super hero status might only give you the ability to see you should stop trading or find a strat with an edge.
Regarding percentage. After reading a library of trading books I come to the conclusion that the percentage level is right as in the header. Then if you consider some make money big and lose it later or some just make a little bit over break even I’d say the really successful traders in the top notch class are not more than 1-3%.
There is also a logical reason for this. Trading is like a poker game. The players are playing against each other. They also have to pay the house for playing. Sure, you also have hedgers. But speculation is the most money what is flowing in fx. And hedgers wouldn’t hedge in fx, if it would not give them an advantage. So, as retail home player you have then already three parties of opponents:
All of the three groups have advantages over you. The brokers can see all of your and others orders. The big money traders have more money. And the hedgers don’t play for profit but a time edge. You at home, lonely retail trader, then think you can come up and beat all of those just with a psycho book like “trading in the living room zone”? Ha ha, that’s funny, isn’t it? 
99% of the trading game is a question of skill. 0.5% is luck. And 0.5% is psycho. Sure some can argue that without a brain you couldn’t trade at all. But who would argue you couldn’t drive a car without reading sort of “driving in the zone”? Driving as trading are skills you can learn, but without a car you can’t drive and without an edge you can’t trade (profitable).
I did understand! What I’m getting at is, the better your technique, the easier it is to apply, the easier it it is psychologically.
But you do need one heck of a good strategy, I often think that this is too often overlooked, but remember don’t think a heck of a good strategy needs to be complex, it’s some of the simpler ones that come up trumps, so I guess that suggests it’s more psychology than strategy, but I think you can see what I’m getting at.
Quite, and to follow on from that and reinforce your point from earlier in the thread: once a decent strategy is in place, and the implementation is correct, it will naturally follow that the trading is profitable. Once the trading is profitable, then many of the psychological issues fall away. Even a pretty major drawdown is comparitively easy to take if there exists genuine confidence that, over the course of the trading year, the net result of the trading activity will be decent profits. I think that psychology is important, it is a major component of the skill set necessary to become a successful trader over the long term, but I certainly see where PPF is coming from, saying that strategy is the most important component. Without a decent strategy, the rest of it will achieve nothing.
But one issue here is that the very term psychology covers a lot of ground: in many cases, a decent strategy would resolve the issues that are often blamed on poor psychology.
ST
Never thought of a complexed gd strategy … I’ve always been keeping it simple…after all is said and done… Thanx for all the opinions … Its a gd discussion and I’m hoping to see more … We can only learn if we’re willing to unlearn! Cheers! Thanx everyone for ya feedbacks… Looking forward for more sharing in future! May the pips be with all of us:)
Mental strategy is such a big big part of this venture
The ability to know when to get in and out. The stamina to ride out the bad and the guts to let unrealized profits dwindle
Master your emotion then you are half way there
Ron
Master your strategy and you’re ALL the way there.
actually i agree on this. it is a 10% on method not a 0%. you can go for a decent forex course but still not make it. the part where many people go for the same course and fail, but only a handful succeeds is due to psychology. all have been taught the same method, but its up to them to control their emotions and mindset when it comes to trading.
to me a successful trader means he is able to be consistently profitable. as long as he have a decent edge, he will be consistently profitable with the right mindset. improving the edge just brings about greater success, but not success itself. 10% method would be enough for a decent edge, when compared to psychology, on why traders fail.
My psychology isn’t that great at all, but I have one heck of a strategy, and I make a profit.
well you dont need to have a great psychology, you just need the right psychology or mindset lol. 90% of why traders fail is because they dont have the right mindset. they think decent methods given by courses and books dont work and thats because they arent in the right mindset and they continue their endless pursue for that magical method. and thats why 90% fails.
but thats just my opinion, open mindedness is part of positive mindset for trading success heh.