just a quick Hi from Down Under. I was introduced to Forex Trading about 4 years ago but was running a business at the time. So I had no time. I now have plenty of time to be trading around and during my job and it would be an absolute dream to trade full time one day. I was spending a lot of my time as a semi professional poker player however our government has recently banned online poker. So i need another way to make money and use my free time wisely. Being a successful poker player has enable me to understand some of the fundamentals of trading quicker. For example, trading psychology and poker psychology are very similar in the fact that you must be able to make decisions based on logic and not emotion. Similar to that, losing streaks are all part of trading and playing poker. It all comes down to mathematics and probability.
While I am introducing myself, I am also looking for a “study” partner or someone who I can share my trades with to learn off one another. I have completed 2 courses on the basics of trading with some level of strategy although am still a losing trader. One thing I have noticed is that I am constantly losing my bigger trades but am quite consistently picking off 15-20+ pip trades. Obviously something to work on. I do ask that if you are interested in a study partner, that you are trading real money accounts and speak fluent English. Please note that I have absolutely nothing against those who don’t speak it fluently, I myself have at times struggled communicating and I feel that this topic is something that can get quite confusing very quickly if there is a communication barrier.
Would also like to add that if there are any successful traders out there willing to mentor me, obviously I’d be happy to strike a conversation with you but I cant really offer anything in return.
Nice. Im in it for the long haul. Not afraid of the hard work or the study that it will take. To become a winning semi professional poker player took me 2 years of studying 5-20 hours a week outside of a job and a business. Fell free to contact anytime Bob
Hey Kruger, I actually read this thread before posting on here. I am amazed at his results and am looking forward to seeing what he posts next week. I love Vic. Closest I have been to you is Geelong. Visited Melbourne many times. How long have you been trading for?
It is great to see someone very public about how much they are making & what trades they are taking. Normally everyone is very secretive. I have been live trading off & on for @ 18 months fitting it around full time work. Am still working on my self to improve my trading consistency - stopping myself fromover trading.
Trading is a funny business-its very simple & very complicated at the same time!
Have you started live trading yet?
Actually I was very shocked to see someone who was so open about his trading. It definitely encouraged me to get in and study harder so I can get results like that. I have started live trading. I never set up a demo account. With my poker experience I know that when it comes to real money, it is a different psychological game. It didn’t worry me if I blew a few accounts as it will get me mentally prepared for the losses. As you could imagine, being a poker player takes many expensive lessons of bad mistakes to become good. I would have never learned that playing for fun.
Good to have you on board mate. I’m from Port Lincoln South Australia. Bunbury nice place, I’ve been live trading for a month and down $1150. I make lots of good decisions then 1 or 2 bad emotional decisions and bang down I go again. I was up 20% for the week and then Friday at 16.00 Sydney time the aususd took off and instead of reversing my short I kept chasing it. Called the martingdale, stupid stupid stupid. Could have made 20/200 pips… Now thats a question. Pepperstone and MT4 work on 5 decimal points so is a pip every 10 points?? I call every point a pip so for every 0.1 trade lot each point is worth approx 0.12c, or $12 on a full lot. Only been at this for 3 months, spent the first 2 months on demo and trying heaps of tech signals and watching heaps of training webinars. As I said, got a set of techs that seem to work well or I have to do now is obey then instead of my emotions. All the best Bulow, if your emotions are in check then I believe you will do well. Cheers
I am sure if we keep at it, we will get it sooner or later. I think chasing is something all face. The question is, should we pull out or stay in? I usually stay in because I have stop losses in place. However, sometimes after placing a trade I realise that I have made a mistake and analysed wrong and will take a small loss rather than letting it run and hoping. Good luck Paul and let us know how things are going.
West coast USA here. Your posting caught my eye as I believe your poker skills are transferable to the market. Logic with out emotion is right, but not without a degree of intuition based on a winning system and experience. A mind set that allows you to trade a funded account as if it were a demo is a great advantage and also attainable. Just having fun with pips and no thought of money in your brain. Refuse to think about it till you couldn’t even answer the question about what a pip is worth.
My system has an occasional loss and quite a few break evens, but I feel that losing and winning streaks are one place where you will have to diverge from poker or you will have a difficult time succeeding. I never say anyone can’t do something but pure gambling doesn’t appeal to me, personally. A great win/loss ratio and risk/ reward ratio will do wonders for your emotions and decisions.
One thing in your favor is I think your country has some really ethical brokers and that makes a big difference. I had the worlds best broker, FINFX, base in Finland but they had to drop all of their USA clients and I have not done as well since.
Thanks for the reply GeeTee and giving a little confidence that my previous skills can be transferred into trading.
Can I ask when you said “My system has an occasional loss and quite a few break evens”, does this mean more break evens than winners? Do you have a strategy to take some money while you’re ahead. You probably do, just might be reading too much into it.
Yeah we are very lucky to have great brokers and a country that is extremely strict. I had to take a questionnaire before opening a real account to show that I have basic knowledge of trading. Things like demonstrating what a pip is or difference between Buy Limit and Buy Stop.
Bulow
About two to one, meaning two break evens for every winner. Losers on the intitial risk are rare but not unheard of. My support and resistance is reliable enough so that even if the market does not follow through it gives a good bounce. I do not follow conventional wisdom that says not to try and pick tops and bottoms, in fact that is exactly what I do. Much of the time they are corrected tops and bottoms but not always.
I do not scale in or out of the market. When I win I want the whole position I risked on to be on board. If I sense I am riding a nice swing trade and have found a bottom or top why do I want to take off half my position and skew my risk reward ratio in favor of the market makers? I do not use arbitrary following stops but I always follow my position with my stop, hiding behind justifiable resistance and support and always exiting on a stop. I only trade the GBP/USD so as to give me a better feel for the one market’s character. Will your broker take Yankee customers or is that not allowed ??
, i couldn’t agree more.