Iv’e been losing at demo account, scalping for over a year. It’s frustrating and i tried a lot and doesn’t seem to be working. Idk where to set my T/P, or when to pull out etc. Market is so unpredictable. I wanna give up so often but i hang on, looking at my past trades where i did get through.
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Hi 
try trading on higher time frames like H1. Regards Greg
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Have you journaled or recorded any of your trades? If you have then after a years worth of data you should start to see some trends.
Without knowing your exact scenario I would just recommend this general advice;
- Trade higher timeframes ONLY to help control your FOMO and avoid the noise (maybe 4H and above)
- ALWAYS set a stop loss and take profit when you enter the trade
- Make your profit 1.5 -2 X greater than your potential risk per trade
- Do not risk more than 0.5% of your account on any one trade
- Record every trade you take
Just do those 5 things and you will at least have enough data to identify what is working and what is not before you blow your account.
Good luck,
Nate
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You can be good at trading if you can control your emotion. On the other hand you have to learn from all your mistakes and try not to do those mistakes again.
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Practice Practice Practice
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If you haven’t learned from someone, learn from an experience full mentor. And if you have learned, then follow Money Management. Money management is a very important issue in trading. And you will control your emotions. If your psychology is weak, you will not be able to make a profit in trading for life. And practice regular meditation. If you can trade by maintaining all these things, then you will see that your trading performance has changed.
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Go much higher on the timeframe and ignore scalping, do you really want to be checking a screen every 5 minutes for the rest of your life? Go for a more relaxed approach and focus on the long term
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You wanna give up so often?
Then take a break - best thing I EVER did.
If you are trading the lowest timeframes your just asking for trouble. You haven’t the skills yet to be driving a formula one racing car and that is like the time frame your trading.
Sloooowww doown!
Interesting that you say markets are so unpredictable - actually I couldn’t disagree more.
But I’ve been trading along time - eventually it does click. In the same way that learning to drive a car is difficult at first eventually it becomes second nature.
Don’t beat yourself up about it - recognise your in the foothills of the learning curve.
And one again, take a break - you’ll come back to it with a set of fresh eyes.
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If you want to become good at trading, you need to practice more and more. The more you practice the more your possiblity of earning money will increase3. So, learn more and use it on your trading.
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I agree. Practice makes a man perfect. Demo account is the best place where you get good at trading. Knowledge, experience and skill also good fact in here. Forex market is constantly changing. So, trader should continue learning.
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The first instructive part of demo trading. But how do you make a profit if you do demo trading without learning anything? You have to learn first, no matter which system your trade-in. There is no need to be frustrated because many people are making a profit by trading. Why can’t you? But you have to learn and work with patience and one day you will make a profit.
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You got to have a strong strategy which has been tried and tested many times over.
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Beginners need to learn in order to have a solid foundation in Forex trading. Start with the basic terms of Forex trading and move on to more difficult concepts. You should never stop learning, but it takes time to put theory into practice. Once you understand the different trading methods of the market, you will be able to choose the one that suits you best.
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If you can share your trading strategy perhaps we can help you.
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Doing the demo for just one year and getting frustrated?
Well, after more than a decade of “frustration”, I finally found “it”. 
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Yo bro, willing to share my strategy if i can get some insights
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It took me 8 yrs before I became consistently profitable
There are many stages I had to go through to get there but if there is one thing I’d say to all those struggling is NOT control your emotions, not money management and the usual hackneyed advice that really is not very specific at all.
My advice is (and this assuming the strategy works of course) to not keep changing it to something different if it loses.
Endless tweaking is what kept me away from success
Find a system and stick to it.
It’s like starting a new job, your gonna suck at it first .
But if continually execute it each day, eventually you will get good at it
Now imagine if after the first day on a new job you say, “I suck at this I’ll have to find a new job” - you ain’t ever going to succeed.
If you stick to the system you’ll start getting insights and will know what to expect. And emotional issues will subside.
Some call in the search for the Holy Grail, others. Cycle of doom, someone else here called it the shiny ball syndrome - I think this is the biggest barrier because it never gives is consistency.
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Actually, I think you’re beating yourself up too much. List the positives:
- Using a demo account - excellent way to NOT lose money.
- Recognising you need to improve managing your S/L & T/P
- Noting that scalping is not working out for you as you intended.
- Most importantly, you’re still in there, hanging on after one year - that’s more than c.80% of newbies.
Okay, so what could I suggest?
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Always treat a new day with a positive mind set. Get your mind focused. That’s critical.
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Always think in percentage terms, not dollars. Psychological benefit that will remove uncertainty, and lower emotional responses to profits and losses…
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Practical advice: Use a 1 hr time frame, with referral to the lower time frames as to whether the market is buying or selling. Gear up your trade to follow that trend.
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Initially, risk no more than 1.5% of your capital per trade, and don’t have more than two correlated pairs running consecutively.
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Download the ATR. Only use the number on the 1 hr chart e.g. 0157 to set a S/L at 1.5-2 times greater, and a T/P at 1.5 times the S/L.
This method will lower the risk of getting stopped out and improve your profits, because - if keeping the same lot size per trade - you only need a 40% win rate to break even. -
I would also experiment, by opening another demo account - I have three - and testing different strategies on each one for different pairs. A good colleague of mine is a pro-trader market wizard, and uses six different strategies on forex according to what’s happening in the market to his selected traded pairs. It’s not a one cap fits all game…
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Read the book naked trading. Super informational for TP’s, SL and candle formations.
Keep practicing and watch different youtubers and find a strategy that works for you
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If you’re committed to scalping, the best thing that I can advise you on is to firstly learn to read impulsive and corrective moves in relation to the trend, and keep at scalping and learn from successful scalpers.
There are many ways to achieve your objective, but it’ll take consistent effort. I don’t think it’s right that people tell you to change to higher TFs without knowing your personality, your objectives, your situation and your current financial capabilities. Some people are naturally fast at processing data and thrive on action - others need more time to digest information and prefer a slower pace.
I primarily trade on H1 and occasionally H4, and used to trade on D1. I found the D1 too slow and it was frustrating to wait for a week or so just to find out that your trade was a loser. The feedback loop was too slow for me to learn what worked and what didn’t.
Trust me on learning to read impulsive and corrective moves. Because of it, I have had success on the m15 too. Impulsive moves contain candles that together show bias in one direction - they typically have full bodies. Wick-wise, bullish candles either have very short wicks on either side or longer lower wicks. Vice-versa for bearish candles. Corrective moves contain a mix of bullish and bearish candles with typically small bodies and longish wicks.
Proficiency in reading impulsive and corrective moves will enable you to move beyond relying on candle and chart patterns such as pin bars and H&S. When they happen on the charts, sure, pay attention to them - but you don’t have to deliberately spend (waste) your time waiting for them to appear.
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