First and foremost, I want to thank Babypips for providing tons of educational stuff on forex and markets. I learned so much about trading thanks to you. However, it seems like I personally cannot put this valuable information to use and actually profit from it. After 2+ years of constantly trying and struggling to make at least something decent out of my trading I finally decide to quit it altogether.
The reason why I post this here is because this time I want to be assured I won’t come back. I was promising myself to quit multiple times in the past, but then everyitme I was coming up with another excuse not to give it up. I used to think that maybe to become a better trader I need a better journal/better psychology/better strategy/better timeframe/better price chart/better strategy tweek and etc. Needless to say none of these “improvements” actually improved my trading. Now it feels like nothing is left for me to improve here, since it all pointless. As much as I enjoy trading (or at least used to enjoy it), I can’t help but remind myself that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a definition of insanity. Perhaps I’m wasting my time with it. Or perhaps I just don’t have a talent for it, plain and simple. So this time there’ll be no excuses, and if I ever feel like open the price chart again, well… I’ll just reread this post.
That’s all I got to say. Hope you had a great day. Wish you big profits in the next year, Merry Christmas.
I would like to ask you what type of trading you have been trying e,g, day trading or longer term. indicators or PA, demo or live, etc.?
Whilst I respect your decision, I would say that 2+yrs is not such a long time and some traders have taken longer than that to reach breakeven and profitability.
If you are definitely out of the business then I sincerely wish you all the best with your future!
Sorry for your difficulties. I’ve had my own. Maybe you just need to learn how to trade. Check out Real Life Trading with Jerremy Newsome on Youtube. You will learn how to trade and become consistently profitable. Note to admin/moderator: I’ve looked around for rules about posting, but could not find them. If this post is out of line, please give me a link to the rules and let me off with a warning. Thanks.
Did you really join here nearly ten years ago in 2008? and posted a couple of time a few years back?
You must have quite a story to tell about your forex experiences over such a long term
I would like to encourage you to tell us more because it might help the OP and others in similar situations that are feeling despondent after a few years without consistency.
How are you doing nowadays compared with your past years of interest in forex?
I’ve been practicing both Day and Swing trading on two separate demo accounts. The idea was to create two strategies to use them interchangeably (for example when I could be in front of the monitor for extended periods of time, I’d day trade. Vica versa if I wouldn’t have much free time).
I studied and used numerous indicators in hundreds of combinations (all of your MACDs, RSIs, Ichimoku clouds etc.). But most of all I used 50 SMA in combination with Aroon on 4h chart as my swing strategy. That was a trend-catching system which used Aroon as a filter to determine whether the price started trending or not. On practice however, the winrate for nearly 50 trades was less than 40%, so I had to scrap that system as well.
Day trading wasn’t any better: from pivot points to donchian channels, and combining candlestick and chart patterns with those indicators, all to no avail. Actually, I came to a conclusion that indicators are for the most part useless since they all just display a recycled information. Each one does it in a different manner, but it’s the same recycled information. For that reason I haven’t been using them much lately.
The thing is that I can be profitable for a couple of weeks in a row, but after a certain period of time I start losing hard, no matter how long I hold on to the strategy, hoping that it’ll continue working well again. The reality is: this drawdown period never fades away, just gets worse. So I feel forced to change the strategy and start creating a new one. But the same thing keeps happening over and over again: 1-2 weeks & boom. I am not entirely blowing my accounts, but I am not growing them either. It’s a two-steps-forward-two steps-back kind of situation. Like someone just purposely flips a switch and a seemingly good and logical system fails miserably.
Thanks for the reply BJ, I certainly congratulate you on the breadth and intensity of your efforts to get “there”. And it is a terrible pity that you didn’t (or haven’t yet) found some reward for your evident persistence.
It is always difficult to diagnose where things way be going wrong but one suggestion comes to mind:
A lot of your indicator-based studies (incl 50 period MA)that you have been using tend to be cyclical in nature and work best and consistently whenever the price is moving in nice smooth, wide, repetitious cycles, or in smooth trends one way or the other. In fact, one tends to “curve-fit” these types of cyclical indicators by adjusting the parameters until it looks right and mimics recent price movements.
But we know that markets only move in trends and smooth rhythmic cycles for only a small percentage of time. The remainder of the time is spent in choppy consolidation periods, sleepy directionless undulations, erratic stop-starts and reversals or steep sudden price reversal in response to an unexpected event or data release content. None of these situations are good for cyclical type indicators.
From your description, it sounds like your stratagies do well during the cyclical periods, only to give it all back when they hit a period of indecisive, erratic and directionless price action with insufficient follow-through to provide a profit between signals and limits/stops? Possibly?
Just a thought…
According to me, the traders who are loser from this trading place have to move on PAAM services. It s a great source to invest money and earn something without trading manually.
hey forex is just that currency doesnt move much so you have to use leverage if you want to gain more, no wonder you give up , you will be fully hedge every time you get in there let me give you some strategy go to 1 h time frame and use 200 sma , and follow the trend and add to your position every 100 or 200 pip move depend on currency pair move and if it goes against you trade against it until you know is enough ,apply 4 to 5 time leverage max by scale in or out your positions like i said if it goes against you or if it goes following the trend any time you feel you add in one leverage try to build up your position over time rather than get in all at once , you can develop this more by knowing support and resistance levels and when you want take some profit or which pair you want to trade on
know the news and avoid it with tightening stop loss , you gain 1000 2000 pip a year this way so 4 to 5 time leverage make you near 50%
I totally agree
it took me , personally, around 3 - 3.5 years approx to reach what i would consider PROFITABLE TRADING.
i agree that 2 years was not really enough and i think he is giving up prematurely.
but hey, i didn’t want to pressure the guy , only to have him fall into another losing cycle
my feeling were… if he feels like he’s had enough , then LET HIM BE
its not for everyone and it can really give you an emotional beating .
and it sounds like this guy has had his emotional arse handed to him on a platter and finally given up
i say maybe he should call it a day
UNLESS HE STILL HAS SOME PASSION LEFT OVER
but if he doesn’t, then there is no point.
Me Personally, i would interpret this as solicitation
i mean
You’ve basically just said
then you went into , what could be easily interpreted as a sales pitch or solicitation
by saying
and then you went into a weasel disclaimer to the moderator
now with regards to this
i’m not the moderator, i’m just giving you a heads up
i’m pretty sure that putting up stuff like this is not on
however, in saying that, if you put up a link to something that is useful, its generally ok
but this is a link to a guys site who proposes to take money for forex services.
i would tread carefully if you i were you
there are different ways to post this as well, but you chose the way where you highlighted the keywords hehe
NOT EXACTLY DISCRETE… you know what i mean LOL
if the post is out of line
they’ll ban it (that’s the warning)
you keep repeating it, they kick you off the site
that’s the advice i can give you
i would suggest you read the links as a bare minimum
PAAM services success completely depend on brokers performance, so it contains huge risk and the main problem most of the broker right now are found to be scams.
Hi Bob. I also learned from babypips on d beginning. Soon I realised I need good tutor - and I was right. Invest into Lex van Dam academy or I also know few people who attended seminars of Anton Kreil. Either of them will pay off. If you are really in love with trading. Good luck!
Sorry to hear that. As i also agree somehow forex market is a highly volatile and competitive market, so it requires a good deal of understanding about forex market and understanding. But i also beileve, you can trade here smoothly as there are numerous opportunities to trade. If you don’t want to take serious risk, you can work with mini accounts, also can work as scalper. So much opportunities are here.
Harsh reality is that because FX has no central educational authority…its an extreeeeemely difficult task of creating a strategy on your own from the wide range of Mentors…strategies etc.
There is definitely a method to the “madness” of this market…from Central Banks and Economists like myself using Regression to predict , manage and invest for profit to individual Banks. Unfortunately for Retail Traders the quality of the strategies marketed are just not properly tested and developed…hence the need to experiment to fill the gap on your own - and the frustration it creates.
I had to experiment for years and finally created a Swing Strategy I like that gave slow conservative 40% annually…(just finished testing a more aggressive one).
So giving up is expected .some would say rational given the work needed. But perhaps finding a proven profitable one that fits your needs is what you could do instead of experimenting.
Several people out there willing to share …at a cost…but others won’t share. Several FX competitions with profitable traders too…also a source for you .
Yes , I admit Forex is not for everyone , but how can I realize this platform is not appropriate for me ? after having some losses can I make this decision ?
@Hadden
Now… that , my friend is a very intelligent newbie question. No Kidding.
Search the results on Newbie island and see how many Newbie’s ask this question. I’d be suprised if you found 5 max. for every 1,000 newbies.
Very smart question.
ok, here’s there answer…
When we say “Trading is not for everyone” this is what it means
Firstly, a lot of people don’t like big explanations so you give them a meaningless answer to make them feel better, Like "oh well… trading is not for everyone"
as per my post to the OP
I mean to look at the other side of it, what was i supposed to say “Get off your arse and try again” ?
Now.even though this is probably the better answer… THE TRUTH in today’s world is this
Some people don’t get it
Some people Can’t handle it
Some people are just plain lazy
now if someone falls into the above categories, there’s no point beating a dead horse,
if they truly do not understand it and how to trade, IT’S A BETTER OPTION TO STOP.
if they get too stressed and can’t control their emotions IT’S BETTER TO STOP
if they are too lazy, IT’S BETTER AND EASIER TO STOP
Now. there is another kind of person.
The kind that really really really wants to learn and has a passion to succeed , because this person has a goal, BUT THIS PERSON LACKS ONE THING… KNOWLEDGE
well then, that’s rectifiable
so how to do you establish if forex is or is not for you
STEP OVER HER MY LAD AND TAKE THIS QUESTIONAIRE hehe
Question 1. Do you agree to answer honestly in this questionarie even though you might feel like an idiot to yourself if you do
if you TRULY answer No , then don’t bother with any of the other questions
if you answered YES, Proceed to question 2
Question 2. Are you able to emotionally disconnect from money completely, Meaning, While trading, are you able to forget completely what you did to earn the money and how hard it was to earn it, are you able to forget what bills you could potentially pay or not pay if you win or lose
and are you able shut off the excitement of winning or the depression of losing
THIS IS A BIGGIE
if you can answer YES - Go to Question 3.
if you TRUTHFULLY Answered NO - DO NOT TRADE, (you’ll save a lot more money not trading)
if you answered NO, Trading is not for you, that’s certain.
Question 3. Think about question 2 again and Re Answer it
if you still came up with the same answer of YES, go to question 4
if you now came up with NO, sit down think about it and start again from Question 2.
Question 4. Are you able to set a goal
if YES, then move to Question 5.
If NO, Then Trading is not for you (But, Kudos for being able to control your emotions)
Question 5. Are you able to put in place systematic processes and follow them ?
if Yes, Move to Question 6.
if No. Trading is not for you
Question 6. Are you able to monitor your systems and processes so that if they fail at certain points , you can modify them and learn from your mistakes
If NO. then trading is not for you
IF YES… THEN TRADING IS FOR YOU and the only thing that is really left is to gain knowledge
but we are just addressing IS TRADING FOR YOU
Lastly… do you have a basic understanding of Mathematics , Meaning the following
Can you Count to any number
can you Add, Subtract, Multiply and Divide
Do you understand ORDER OF OPERATIONS
Do you Understand how to calculate an AVERAGE or MEAN of a set of numbers
Do you understand what a STANDARD DEVIATION Is ?
Do you understand Proper Fractions, Decimals and Percentages and can you convert between them
if you answered NO, this stuff is pretty easy to brush up on if you simply google it, there is no shame.
if you answered yes… GREAT
so… if you can control your emotions, Set Goals, Put Procedures in place, Learn from your mistakes and have a basic understanding of Math. Trading is for you if you want to do it
and that’s how you establish that
but EMOTIONS is a big part of it
Stress. Greed, Desperation… These things will lead you to failure
however, if you are broke as hell and have a small amount of money to your name and CAN AFFORD to put aside say $1,500 as a minimum and you can forget what bills need to be paid, and if you lose you can ignore stress and merely learn from your mistakes.
YOU CAN TRADE
so like i said… NOT EVERYONE CAN DO THIS… therefore IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE
and that’s what i mean when i say it
and that’s what most people mean when they say it
but, you see how long it takes to explain it
and given that 95% of people will be greedy or give up
it’s just easier to say to them
“Oh well. if you’ve tried and you think it’s not for you… ok then… it’s not for everyone and we wish you the best”
as opposed to trying to beat a dead horse and force a person who is depressed or ready to give up to trade again and probably lose anyway
