Frustration with Forex

Beginner Questions
21

To be blunt - it should say don’t even bother.

Saying that you have maybe two hours in the morning is not going to cut it. Think about it, do you know any other industry where you can rock up in your PJs and spend maybe 90 mins turning a profit? It doesn’t work like that, lets have a reality check.

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23

Ah yes, the last video I stumbled across on your link mentions our old friend ICT - no doubt an affiliate?

I’d rather be limited to two hours per day than listen to the biggest mug in this retail industry (which he managed to prove for him self by blowing his first public account in fantastic style)

:joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

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25

The proof is in the above post, and many many other threads here, and all over the internet - you just need to look. Anyway, not going to open an old can of worms. That horse has well and truly been beaten.

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26

Forex trading is a good platform to make income quickly but on the other hand it is full of risk also.

27

Literally anyone who tells me to come visit their blog to become a better trader just ends up on my block list. I really hate individuals like this.

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28

i tell people always, everything you need to know is available free on the net, you just have to look, people that are knowledgeable are trading, not selling bullshit plans to make you rich by the end of the week. There are people out here that will genuinely help you with sound advice, but keep an open and cautious mind. i spent money on a mentor when i first started, and i might as well have lit the money on fire.

29

Read u4415701’s post up at the beginning, copy and paste it and put it on your desk

30

You see, I agree with this, well, half of it.

Yes what you need to know to get started is on the Internet, but not in an ordinary fashion that is there to help you. It’s up to you to decipher what matters and what really doesn’t.

Then you have the issue with what you should be learning, but more so how you should be using it - this at the end of the day is what matters. I can give you all the paint brushes and ink to paint a national portrait; but without being told how to do this then it’s pointless right?..

…and this is what matters, staying on the area of Art - trading is an art, it’s not a science. It’s only a science once your given an approach that works and has stood the test of time, right? But in order to make your own trading system, be it mechanical or systematically, well this is an art. To do this you have to be talented - it’s a combination of having a great set of tools and an even greater degree of past experience.

Edit: Past experience is an art, you can’t be taught is#t like a science.

For those of you who don’t understand the whole art / science

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31

we all know we have to ensure regular practice with great patience , but in practical we lost temper after passing some difficult times. its common attitude.

32

Read Evidence-based Technical Analysis by Aronson and then come back and tell us how much confidence you have in the ‘knowledge’ you gained about candlestick patterns, trendlines, S&R and indicators.

The frustration you’re feeling from wasting 2 months is nothing compared to how you’ll feel when you blow your first account. Waste two more months reading as many relevant books and forums as you can find. Learn as much as you can about gambling especially risk calculation and money management. Learn statistics and probability. Avoid what the crowd thinks is useful, with the possible exception of moving averages. Waste two years trading on a demo account or until you can double your account in 50 trades or less without breaking a sweat.

I wish I’d done it that way, but then again, the money I wasted stops me from thinking of trading as a casual hobby. It’s a deadly game for hardened veterans and newbies alike.

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33

People will advice you do this or that it is up to you how you do in market. All is based on practice and experience, do not be trapped by fake schemes that attract or say you can be rich in no time. Rather than looking for shortcuts spend your precious time to gain real skill that will remove many types of frustrations.

34

Forex Can be frustrating for new traders to learn about trading . Some feel like 1 step forward & 2 back. Take a break to clear your head if you need to. If you are determined to succeed, you generally will. Small steps over time is best.

35

@u4415701 You gave fool proof account blowing advice. I’ll explain why your list of “fluff advice” is not fluff.

  1. Trade with the trend. If the longer term trend on the Daily is up, then most of the down movements in lower time frames are retracements and shorter than upward legs. I say most, because there are relieve rallies that are against the general trend. You seem to use a 100 pip target. If you took a 100 pip counter trend target in an uptrend, you will take a hit when price reverses back into the direction of the trend.
  2. Watch major currency pairs. Majors have more volume and therefore less spikes based on one or two large orders. Light volume spikes can take you out fast. You should study the candle sticks again. They tell you whether there is good volume or not. Compare the candles between 4pm and 7pm EST with 8 am through 11am EST. Higer volume means lower spreads. Spread is the price you pay. Check Oanda recent price tool for the times I listed above for spreads. More volume means more moves and therefore more trading opportunities. The OP was frustrated at the nothing happening in the Asia-Pacific session, this is the reason for it. It’s simply low volume. The London - NY overlap is the most voluminous and most volatile period with the most opportunities.
  3. Keep a Journal. In a journal you track your progress, mistakes, what works for you, what doesn’t, what you need to practice, etc. You clearly don’t understand what a journal is or what it’s for because you gave advice that is literally journaling.
  4. Pay attention to news. If there are big news releases and you have open positions, they might hit their s/l even if your initial direction was right. It may turn profitable trades into losers.
  5. Use confluence indicators. I personaly don’t use indicators, but the concept is simple. Let’s take structure for example. If the daily, 4 hour, and hourly structure fall at roughly the same price, the market will most likely reverse steeply once that zone is reached. The coinciding of the structure of three different timeframes is called confluence. There is also confluence of setups or indicators. If you can spot the confluence, you have a high probability trade.
  6. Build up screen time is nothing but experience. When you learn to drive a car, you spend a considerable amount of time practicing until your test date. The practice time is your screen time. In the same vein, if you didn’t drive for two years after you obtained your drivers license, you will have lost proficiency and you’ll have to practice again before you can get back on the road.

Now as for your practice advice, I’ll start by saying it is harder to unlearn bad habits than to learn good ones so avoid learning bad ones.

  1. A demo of $1000, contract size of $100 is approximately 4 microlots Eur/Usd for example. Pip value $0.40.
  2. If you set the S/L at 50, you risk $20. With a $1,000 balance, your risk per trade is 2%. If you had a string of losses, your risk per trade would get higher and you will be accelerating your account death. You should never risk more than 1% if your account on any one trade.
  3. Your risk and reward are chosen arbitrarily. Risk and reward are chosen purposefully. For example. You’re trading the Eur/Usd on the hourly. Price is in retracement of an upside move, but there is support at a significant level. Let’s say 1.1000. You deem it likely that the market will resume the direction of the trend at that price point. You know that the hourly legs move in increments of 60 pips so you put your target at 1.1055 (minus 5 pips to have more certainty of execution) You target an S/L 5 pips below the previous low at 1.0979. You don’t enter exactly at 1.1000, but at 1.1005 to be more certain of an entry. Your risk is 26 pips (1.1005-1.0979) Your potential reward is 50 pips (1.1055-1.1005) Your reward to risk is 1.92. Now you decide if your R/R is worth it. If you don’t think it is, you let the trade slide and wait for a better opportunity. If you think it’s worth it, you put an entry order. You don’t enter and blindly put a risk and reward number. Price moves a certain amount of pips and you have to take that into consideration.
  4. After your R/R is set, you calculate your max risk for the trade 1%*$1000= $10, divide it by your pip value, (0.1 minimum for microlots) that is 10/0.1= 100 and divide it by the risk in pips. 100/26= 3.84. Round it down. Your lot size is then 3.
    The clue is to minimize your risk.
  5. Every pair has its own standard moves during different sessions. Which leads to your trading 40+ pairs not being a viable options. Every pair has it’s own quirks during each session and time frame. How will you do prudent multi timeframe analysis and yet get to trade? Besides, some pairs are too expensive for very little movements. You should maximize your profits and not weary yourself. Mental fatigue will cause you to make mistakes. This whole venture of analyzing 40+ pairs will only lead to confusion and greater risk of blowing up your acount.
  6. If you cannot produce good results with one pair, how will you make money with 40 pairs? Just stick to one, learn to apply the rules, be disciplined, increase your winners, decrease your mistakes, start trading with a small account, double it and then add another pair.

You need to go through grade school first before you can go to high school and then set your eyes on college.

3 Likes
36

Swing trades ar trades lasting anywher from several hours to weeks. Swing trading timeframes are the hourly and up.
What you should know is when the opportunities for your Pair form given the tineframe you choose. You figure this out by going back on historical charts and write down the times entry signals where formed.
8 am central time is good. Follow the charts fron 6 am to wait for a setup. You could put alarms also for when your conditions are met.
Read the comment I made earlier about volume for the reason for your Asian session frustration.
Every market condition gets traded differently. Trend and consolidation get traded differently, but there is profit in both.
You are better off with Eur/Usd and Usd/Jpy as a US trader. Better spreads and costs.
Your frustrations seem to arise from not knowing what you’re doing. The tools and indicators serve a purpose. I’ll give you a simple example. If you take a chart and smallen the bars, you will notice that at some prices, the market reverses. If you draw a horizontal line, you’ll see it more clearly. This is structure support or resistance depending on which side it happens. I just call it structure. It happens on all time frames. Price moves from structure to structure but not in a vacuum. This is where the other tools and indicators come in to either confirm or reject the bias. If you have structure on multiple timeframes on the same pair, the reversal will likely be significant. You start on the daily, then drop to the 4 hour, then the hourly. Since you have no time for the screeb, I suggest you look at the daily and 4 hour. Back test until you see patterns. You have to backtest with the different tools and indicators until you find a combination that gives you the right signals and that you are comfortable with. Yes, backtesting and forward testing are the only way you’ll make it.

Welcome to the world if forex where only hard work and not the easy money promises will make you money!

There is another option. Go to sleep imdiately when you get home from work and get up at midnight and trade the Lonon morning session on a lower timeframe. It is a sacrifice but totally up to you.

37

Hi Shelley, thanks for your comments.

I think my post was misunderstood.

I agree with your points and I even stated that the example strategy was bad and should be tested on demo.

The point I was trying to make was that as a newbie myself, I would have never have cultivated the understanding of WHY things like paying attention to the daily timeframe, keeping a journal, paying attention to news announcements etc. are important unless I tested multiple bad strategies and indicators on a demo first and actually SAW the impact first hand on my account.

I.e. when you test bad strategies and journal them you understand why it is bad and WHY certain traders recommend certain things.

I am only speaking for myself however and I guess everyone learns in their own way.

Thanks again for sharing your wisdom though! Helps me too.

38

I’ve been stuck with the same issue with trading for years, but I finally figured it out, your frustration come from you try to be a good trader, try to master the your trading methods(trading skills), but in trading what we need to master is ourselves.
Check out this article from our wizard Dr pipslow, I think it’ll answer all your questions.

1 Like
39

@tommor I agreed with you. For over many years of trading experiences (11 years for forex), it is better to observed the long time frame (Daily, Weekly, Monthly); determine the trend in the descending order time frame mentioned. After knowing the trend, observed the various fibonacci level (NB: when convergence occurs at a particular level within these timeframe, that level will definitely hold. Keep very small position size with your take-profit (T/P). Observed major support/resistance level within these timeframe and take your trading position. PATIENCE is very important key here and it will help you to control your emotions. For newbies like you, I will suggest you try with 100$ demo-account and see if you will enjoy the outcome. Don’t ever get pressured or greedy to make quick money unless you’re professional and knows what you’re doing. "A word to the wise… "

40

"You have 1-2 hours per day.

  1. Trading timeframe day that mean 1 candle for 1 day. You can use your trade setup with it.
  2. Trading scapling or daytrade, you can use your morning session 1-2 hours to find out TF3,5 mins to action buy/sell.
    Please pick up 2-3 major currencies to good start."
41

Great post. This is why I come here. Thanks again!

42

If you have limited time for trading, than you don’t have much choice except swing trading. You won’t be able to trade on fundamentals. If sometimes you want to leave open position, then it is wise to use SL and TP. I would also recommend to you to use any of the major currencies