True that!
Surely you donât believe this 10,000 hours of work myth? Even the psychologist who did the actual research that fed into this rule said itâs nonsense.
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What is your trading strategy? Do you trade on news or technical analysis?
How are your stop losses? Do you focus on multiple pairs or just one pair?
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If youâre asking me, I take only trend-following trades on the daily charts, based purely on TA. News has no input into the strategy but I do take account of correlations to avoid either over-investing on a particular currency or taking a bullish trade on an otherwise bearish currency or vice versa. right now, I am taking all trades regardless so I have to admit to being over-exposed.
But the positions are small - my current orders have a stop-loss set at 2 x ATR20 from entry, with a position size making a risk of 2% of account capital. However, I can then usually find a closer price for the SL that cuts the average risk down to about 1%. Once the position gets into decent profit I start trailing the stop using 2 x ATR20 from the best price attained. No TP - I exit at the close of any day when the trade pulls back.
Its working pretty well. It involves minimal work to pre-set the orders, and nil work during the trade apart from trailing the stop.
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to be honest, in the past few months I didnât have a solid strategy and I was jumping from one strategy to another. but recently my strategy is based on support and resistance lines and Fibonacci Retracements and news and I am refining my strategy after every trade to maximize my profit and cut my loss and im not using indicators anymore they just confuse and every strategy that I had before that was based on indicators end up a total failure so im not using them that often anymore. and I have a fixed take profit and stop loss that has a 1.6 reward-risk ratio (50 profit and 30 loss).
I only risk 3% of my account just like it said in the school of pipsology .
and I am only trading gold right now. this strategy worked fine, for now, i think I will stay with it. I am thinking about using a trailing stop instead of take profit but I should test it on a demo account first
i have question about trailing stop. lets say gold is 1400.0 if i use a 30 pip stop and a 50 pip trailing stop if gold goes up by 50 pip my stop lost will be set on 1405.0 right ?
Donât be put off by people telling you that you canât do anything with $100 you absolutely can. If you end up with $110 after 12 months and youâve gained a 10% return that is a better return than youâd get in most places. Just focus on learning from each thing you do and think of percentages and not dollars or pips. 10% annual return is a good investment. Start again now with your $75 dollars, use the smallest lot size you can, manage your risk, have a plan and stick to it and aim to have $82 a year from now. If you can do 10% in your first year I think youâre doing very well against the market. Also bear in mind that most businesses lose money in the first few years before they become profitable, itâs not a disaster if youâre not profitable to begin with as long as youâre learning something.
Ultimately markets can only go one of two ways â up or down (if they stay the same it doesnât matter), itâs not a lottery, you donât have to pick a winning combination from millions of possible permutations. You can absolutely make money, if you think the market will go up and it goes up you will make money. Itâs not rocket science. Just manage your risk, donât blow your $75 â just think of the percentages.
Good luck!
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Your theory is sound. But itâs just theory. It takes some doing to spend hours per day in front of a screen making pennies let alone dong it for an entire year. Psychology unfortunately comes into play here. No question itâs a good way to see if youâre going to be able to be consistent. But, well, itâd take a better person than me to sit and make $10 in a year Iâll tell you. Itâd cost you more in electricity!!! LOL!!!
Personal opinion: open a demo account with the SAME amount of capital that you intend trading with. Too many people open these huge demo accounts and it teaches bad habits. Then do everything as if that were real money i.e. correct position sizing and what not. But even that would be quite an accomplishment with only a few thousand in capital.
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thanks, it was very helpful 
Iâm doing everything you said like smallest lot size and risk management and Etc. I had a few trades last few days and my balance is now 92. I had a few losses and few wins but with risk management, I end up positive I hope with more practice I can keep my profits and make more money. do you think if I do everything you said is it possible to double my balance in 3 or 4 months? because %10 a year is so little
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Maybe youâre confusing trailing stop with take profit order (TP).
When I open a long position, the stop-loss will initially be lower than the entry price. Letâs say it is 100 pips lower. But price goes up and as it does so I trail the stop-loss higher and higher, but still keeping it 100 pips below the highest price reached. As soon as the stop-loss is trailed to the entry price, this becomes a risk-free trade - now you cannot lose any of your own money from your account, even if the stop is hit. Eventually, price can get so high that the stop-loss has been trailed so that it is above the entry but still 100 pips lower than the highest price.
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That might be your problem. You havenât tried one strategy long enough to decide if its good or bad. A solid strategy is super important. I used to do the same thing as you, Iâm actually still refining my strategy but Iâm also on a demo account for the last year, but my demo account consistently profits. My strategy has changed probably 10 times. However, as soon as I start getting anxious or bored, my strategy will change and I end up making stupid trades. Patience is key.
I typically use dynamic support / resistance lines that are different for daily and weekly charts. I also use a custom multi time frame Stochastic RSI and another oscillator similar to a MACD without the noise (Its called the Know Sure Thing). The Know Sure Thing gives me a longer trend on any timeframe while the Stochastic RSI shows me the dips and peaks in between that trend so I can find entries or exits. I rarely trade news, I like to let the market pick a direction first and then I jump in.
I usually have a standard 25 - 30 pip stop loss with no take profit. I just close my trades when I see pull back or at the end of the week if theyâve gone long enough.
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Iâve lost over 5,500 $ in binary & fx 4,000 just in OTC BINARY options. depositing on average 20 $ a week to my broker and by Monday repeatedly blow my account starting always in intervals of 20$ or 10$. The pressure is to allow forex prices to come to you. this is ok, but if you have no patience like me you will try binary and loose trying to double your account, because your waiting to long In consolidation periods hours with majors and get edgy to win trades. Iâve never had big losses in FX, commodities, stocks, crypto. my emotions led to almost 4,000 $ In liquidation because I was anxious. I am way better now and my live losses ive detailed, I intentionally document why I enter with my RULE for entry. I do deliberate back testing on DEMO even today. diversify your portfolio not just fx, but all that I mentioned. you will learn coralations with different markets, why yen and stocks are relative and get learning. hope this helps ps donât trade OTC binary until you become a vet.
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Of course you can, just takes time and practice
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Nice one Macime. Looks like youâre quite grounded. Iâm Naija tooâŚWouldnât mind gleaning some stuff from you.
I am a Nigerian. This is what I know about forex trading. To be successful, you must understand the art of speculation at its core.
3 things. Trade Quantity. Trade revenue. Trade Loss. Make your Revenue 3x The cost. Make the trade quantity 80. Every month, make sure 30% of the trade quality is Revenue. Trust me, you will make money very quickly. Remember to risk only 1 to 2% on each. Use any form of entry. It doesnât matter. What matters is to have 30% of trade quantity as Trade Revenue
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If you read again, I mentioned between 5000 to 10000 hours so i guess it answers your question. If you think that is nonsense I hope that is useful for you. On my side, anybody I ever met being successful in trading had put about this much in trading to learn their craft.
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Yeah, I read it. Even 5,000 hours is tosh.
Your biggest issue is not having a strategy you have confidence in and then his cousin: ânot having enough time to tradeâ, which fosters problem number one.
- Take one or multiple weekends when you can test out a strategy. You need to know what works for you and on which time frame. If itâs support and resistance, test out entry, exit, and risk rules on multiple time frames. At least 100 for each.
- Do not concern yourself with failure of your criteria. When the 100 are over, then you write down for each failure, why it didnât execute as you thought.
- Look for a pattern in failures because there are always some mistakes you repeat over and over again.
- Decide how to correct the mistakes; what do you have to do differently to get better results.
- Start at a different point on your chart to test your next 100 setups. Donât test a period you tested before. You will end up with optimized results for that period, which is useless.
- Keep doing this until you can consistently see good and bad setups coming. The good you take, the bad and the uncertain, you leave.
- Then demo it with a $50 demo account, until you are consistently profitable.
- Proceed trading with your live account.
Make sure that your system accounts for the market condition youâre testing/ trading. Donât trade a trend following system in a consolidating market.
I told you earlier to test on multiple time frames. Since youâre obviously not ready to trade live yet and therefore not able to earn a living out of forex, you should trade the higher time frames like the daily and 4h. Youâll make less money, but more consistently while youâre working your day job.
I do advice you not to add more money to your account. If you cannot trade with $100, you wont be able to do it with $10,000. Trade your account from small to comfortable.
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Glad you have it all figured out 
Forget doubling your money, just forget it now. 10% of $100 isnât a lot of money, youâre right, but 10% is an excellent return on an investment. People earn millions of dollars being employed professionally to manage other peopleâs money and they seldom, if ever, double anyoneâs investment so you really need to forget about doing that right now. Sure, it is possible but if youâre making it your aim to double your money in your first three months of trading youâre statistically more likely to lose it all than increase your account. Youâd better off aiming for 10% in 12 months time and saving your own money to add into your trading account after 12 months as a reward. If youâve only got a small amount of money youâll need to look after it just as well as someone with lots lots more. Youâll need good risk management just as someone would with $100k.
Focus more on what you can take out of the game in terms of your own learning and development rather than the cash you can take out. Journal everything you do and why. Write down why you are taking each trade, what could go wrong and revisit each transaction and document what went well and what didnât, what would you do next time etc.
Keep saving to contribute to your fund, aim for steady gains and exponential learning. Youâll be fine.
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