I’m going to give FX trading a shot…I understand it isn’t going to be easy and that it’s a long hard road before success but I think I’ve got the minerals !
Before I go on, there’s just one thing I need to get off my chest….and that’s the patronising muppets that feel they have to give newbies a hard time - get off your high horse for once. I understand some newbies ask for it but why BITE ! That said, the majority of individuals comments/suggestions/advice on the forum is extremely helpful and constructive and I would like to thank those people in advance.
Right, down to business…Ive been reading up/doing some home work over the last couple of months, getting a feel for things and last week I opened a demo account, which I’ve been playing around with to and that’s all good but its all a bit random, a bit hit and miss if you know what I mean…so much info swirling around in my head Im finding it difficult to formulate a plan/know what to do next…
Can anyone suggest a good basic trading plan/strategy that I can focus on for a few weeks ?
Check out the holy grails sub forum, it’s full of systems for you to try.
On the subject of newb bashing, I’m not sure where you’ve seen this happening. The two threads here where people have been joshing had thread starters that were either trying to start a joke thread, or who had done no more self research than open a babypips account and post a gimme gimme gimme question.
Finally, I pointed you at the sub forum for two reasons.
1.) I’ve only been trading live for a year so wouldn’t expect to be able to offer you a system.
2.) as is mentioned many times on this forum, everyone is different, so what works for me prob won’t work for you.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest you read the thread in this forum, The Finest in Trend Trading by Tymen1. It’s about 280 pages now, so it’s like reading a book on trading. It’s not an easy read, but if you get through it, you will learn some fantastic things. For the more advanced parts, read over and over and practice practice practice on demo. My suggestion is to just skip any parts about dealing with trolls and such and focus on the material Tymen presents. Happy Trading.
I’ve been at trading for a year, but not in the most disciplined way so I really can’t consider that a year’s work. Lately I’ve tried to take a different attitude and that helped a lot, though I’m still net down.
I think that cordite said it correct, if you come here with the attitude of “just show me how to make money now, I need to be rich in six months”, then its sort of the same deal as coming to Morgan Stanley and saying “I want a high paying job, please”. However, you will meet people who are going to say rude things to you regardless of your attitude. Just pay them no attention and get right down to business with those who are willing to help. There are good, kind people out there who are helpful.
In my experience, the best thing that helped me was just to take a wide tour of trading and technical analysis. I think that you have to develop a feel for what things are like and what can work for you potentially. In the beginning everyone says things like “keep it simple” and “its all about risk management”, but I think that only through firsthand experience you’ll get to experience why this is true. In the end you have to follow rules not just because somebody told you to, but because you know that doing otherwise is going to be counter-productive. That simply takes time.
So if there’s one thing I can advise, continue to expose yourself to different schools of thought, trust nothing until you’ve had a chance to verify it for yourself, and of course you need to give yourself time to make sure something works (or doesn’t) and develop a refined taste of what is good and what is poison.
my advice is: (don´t get me wrong) stop reading words and start to look at charts. is boring, is even more boring than reading books or threads but is the only thing that can teach you what you need.
try and failiure is the best way to learn anything. any shortcut will coast you time and maybe money.
if you want to try strategys there´re a lot in here. but is not a strategy that makes you money. is mental attitude and money/risk management. it takes time to understand this but you´ll only have any chances of sucess when you do it.
One small thing I wanted to add to my post, while I think you should give yourself license to make mistakes (and maybe even make a bunch on purpose, just so you see what not to do), do all of these things on a demo account or a nano-lot account.
I trade with real money but with very small amounts and make 1 cent a pip. My feeling is that this automatically introduces the psychological element of real money, even if its not a lot. As I do better, I will scale up my account size so this way I “average in” psychologically to the risk element instead of going from a demo $50,000 account to a live $50,000 account which so many do.
Since trading is a game of probabilities, the probability right now is that I will lose money, so I’m doing the right thing by starting super small. That is the beauty of Forex, you don’t need $10,000 like with the index futures or $25,000 like with stocks to start trading with real cash.
Try googling NickB or breakout method or forex 4 noobs. There’s alot of good content there like: ebooks, videos & so on. I’m 6 months into trading forex & so far, I’m consistently profitable including losses.
The thread on babypips titled “30 pips a day…” is another method that uses patterns & waves where “Tmoney” aka Luis (he’s profitable consistantly), actually posts his statements & that’s something even the babypips bloggers don’t do; like the cawabanga guy & so on.
Like many of the others who’ve said here you just find what works for you but then again most of everyone here can’t make a living out of forex since 99.95% lose money. Who knows , maybe I’ll end up losing as well, since 6 months is not enough time to say I’ve made it.
1-Read babypips’ school section thoroughly.
2-Understand supply and demand, support and resistance, and trend lines. I do not use anything else except for the aforementioned.
3-Never risk more than 1% of your account on each trade. Maximum 3 trades at the same time. Set a trading rule of when to exit your trades, could based on candle or technical indicators. Stick the the rules!
4-Under stand risk appetite and risk aversion. Too much of it is in the market right now, ie: good US news report doesn’t mean E/U will go down, it’s actually will go up due to risk appetite. Investors put their money into higher yield currencies. On the other hand, bad US news would actually bring E/U down, along with G/J and E/J, since US dollar and Japanese yen are safe haven currencies.
5-Know which of the major three sessions you will trade in, ie: Japan, London, NY.
6-Know what kind of a trader you are, ie: scalping, day trader, 4H chart trader, long term, and so on
7-Most important of all, you must triple or quadruple your demo account (at least three times) before going live. This means once you’ve reach your goal, close that demo account and open a new one and continue the process.
Read trading in the zone about trading Psychology.
Then look at a system to Buy (it will cause negative comments but let me explain). These people have done a lot of development in these system and some are really cheap with a 60 day money back guarantee(hint) and test it.
3.Back test it properly by advancing candle by candle(otherwise you will cheat). this method means your not seeing the future like in reality.
Modify the system to suit your rules and your trading styles.
5 Forward test with a demo using EXACT money management, and trading rules.(refer back to point one). Don’t take huge trades to see how much you would make (i call this the what if method) as it will reflect back to you trade with a real account also.
Only trade one pair learn it and then when your confidence grows maove onto the next pair and so on.
Remember most systems work,they usually fail due to the person trading it. If you actually search this system I use it has the most negative reviews but in reality it works you just have to trust yourself and the system you ultimately use.
redvers
do the babypips school and then do it again, keep reading the posts within these forums, theres plenty of awesom suff flying around - check out the mad scalper posts
forex wales
Now I’m not exactly the Larry Williams of Forex trading, but there’s one thing I’ve learned for sure about trading - paying for any system is simply not worth it.
There is nothing new under the sun, all systems are merely a concatenation of various trading tactics that have existed for decades. Why you have to pay somebody else to come up with an idea when you can do it yourself, and learn more about the market by doing so, is beyond me.
If you’re simply buying into an existing system (especially automated ones), you’re doing something in my view a bit different than trading. You’re actually in the business of speculating on systems (or “investing” into them, if you want to put it that way). Its like the difference between a trader and the manager of a trading floor. One trades, the other manages traders. Two different jobs.
In my opinion, I think that all trading systems that are robust and profitable are available for free on the internet at this point in time.
My biggest problem is developing a method that doesn’t operate off of any indicators, going off of pure technical analysis of support/resistance and price patterns. I don’t want to wait for any “oscillator confirmation”. That is my personal taste of course, and one of the problems I have with the online systems is that they always have some oscillator you have to lean on. Its okay, I’m willing to be at a drawdown until I find what I can truly believe in.
I really think that it was misunderstood what I posted. If you have know idea where to start try one for 60 days get your ideas and then return it. Free trading lessons.
The big problem with a getting a system of a forum for a newbie is that instead of one system designer just posting trades and tutorials everybody else gets involved adding indicators etc and then just confuse the whole topic. If you go to forex factory there are examples of this in every post.
If you want a simple idea here is on to test. You must choose the time frames though.
Define trend on higher time frame with say 20 and 5 ema’s example would be a 60 minute chart. Short above the 20 means long and opposite for short. I would put something on it to define some time of reversal (i use Fibs).
Then on a short term chart say a 5 minute chart put a 4,9,18 ema’s on a chart. When they all cross up wait for a green candle go long and opposite for short with a red candle
I have attached a long example. You could use the lines to trail your position or set up a 2:1 trade risk take your profit and be happy.
I was not trying to tell you to buy a system but it could help define a plan as I said use it as free mentoring it can just speed up the process without getting stuck in the system design phase. Nothing is perfect.
No offense was meant we all had to start somewhere. It took me over two years to figure this game out and I still learn and still have a day job.
Yeah, whatever you can get for free in trading is great. I say save your capital for your trading account. Free books at the library and interlibrary loan, and read the good articles out there - there are tons of them on investopedia, etc. So much is up for grabs for free, before you need to lay out a single dime.
