If this doesn't work then I am giving up!

[emeraldorc]

Hi Stuart

It is doable as some have said. Women will never agree with investing of any kind beyond buying a house and a savings account. Why? These things guarantee a roof to have kids under and cash reserves to support the new life. If you want your wife to support you, you have to make it work enough for it to be tangible.

Can I ask, how much capital do you have invested? This sometimes has a lot to do with whether you can call your trading a serious enough venture more than a hobby.

If you have over 20,000 USD invested you would need to make a 200% return a year to consider this a job. At that point your wife will take notice and may even get involved, the modern woman wants to take part in your success not just be part of it.

If you a part time trader then a 30% annual return will do. Last year I made a 32% return. This year so far I am on about 8% I have more money invested so I have been seeking perfection as a result made some bad trades but also I am too risk averse and I am trading a lot more this year than last year. I use to do one trade on Monday and close at the end of the week at target or close.

My suggestion is simple, pick one currency pair and trade just it, ensures you know the personality of that pair. Trade the Daily charts. Very boring but it will limit mistakes. I have made the most mistakes trading smaller time frames makes you a more alert trader but best if you are a full time trader. The longer time frames prevent over trading most of the time this is the real capital killer. Like the other trader says you need an edge, basically an instinctual luck. This comes from consistently trading your gut feeling. I will be very honest here, my biggest winning trades come from indecision on my analysis and then I go, to he’ll with it…I’ll put 20k on this and get out if it goes south. My losses come from sound analysis. What does that tell you? Every trader crashes out if they loose that edge. We can never trade like machines…

I hope this has helped you. Good luck and I hope you stick with it…Nothing in life worth doing is easy.

[emeraldorc]

Hi stuartcosgrove

Your post resonates with me as I have been feeling the same for a while now too. I was trading stocks for a couple of years and had pretty good success (on a % basis, not so much $, as low base). But then again those were only long trades in the midst of a bull market. So I switched to FX thinking the rules were transferrable. Not the case. Anyway I have been trading FX for around 6 months, and even though I work full time I trade most days at various times, have done innumerable hours of backtesting, trying new things, learning and reading about methods, systems, muulti time frame this, crossovers, zones, confluence that etc etc etc. So I believe you and I probably feel the same right now. If I didn’t read a few motivational quotes from time to time I would have given up, but here we are!

The problem for me is that there is a million ‘experts’ out there and even resources like this babypips, which is fantastic, but what I lack is simply a sounding board or someone else to act as a mentor. I even like the idea of a co-trader to bounce ideas and specific trades off but none of my friends are even remotely interested.

I wonder if we are in a similar time zone (I am in Australia) if you would be interested in ‘joining forces’, at least we could share what has and hasn’t worked over the years and could collaborate on some trade setups in real time?

Steve

Message me. I am in London so you are some 8 hours but let me know if you want to co-trade

[mrquickbuy]

Here is stats from the last month of my live real money account. Yes this game is winnable. The problem is you are looking for a “system”. The problem is, there is no “system”. Lose the chains of thinking you need rules and systems and throw yourself all into discretionary trading. If you have been at this for three years you have to have gained enough knowledge by now to have an edge. Do this for a few months, only take three trades a week, and each trade set stop loss and take profit for both 50 pips. Don’t use rules or systems, use your gut. At worst you’ll have a random outcome, which repeated enough will land you at break even. But any bit of applied discretionary analysis will give you an edge given enough trades. Lastly, start focusing on what is making price move, don’t use price itself as the main justification for entering a trade.

By the way, buying trading software not only wastes the initial money it takes to buy it, but also the capital that will inevitably be lost using it.

Very impressive results may i ask what is your average trade size in terms of lots.

[jhehe]

Here is stats from the last month of my live real money account. Yes this game is winnable. The problem is you are looking for a “system”. The problem is, there is no “system”. Lose the chains of thinking you need rules and systems and throw yourself all into discretionary trading. If you have been at this for three years you have to have gained enough knowledge by now to have an edge. Do this for a few months, only take three trades a week, and each trade set stop loss and take profit for both 50 pips. Don’t use rules or systems, use your gut. At worst you’ll have a random outcome, which repeated enough will land you at break even. But any bit of applied discretionary analysis will give you an edge given enough trades. Lastly, start focusing on what is making price move, don’t use price itself as the main justification for entering a trade.

By the way, buying trading software not only wastes the initial money it takes to buy it, but also the capital that will inevitably be lost using it.

The dip and recovery was actually very motivating to see. I took a hard hit recently and it has been quite discouraging ever since. It’s not that hard in terms of wiping out 50% of my capital or even 20%. However, it is discouraging and hopefully I will have the mindset to recover and not lose any more.

[Nebula9]

My only suggestion for you is to try to understand the movement behind price. That will lead you to fundamental factors, correlations and market sentiment. Though these may not give you the exact signals to buy or sell these will increase your probability of your trades.

It’s a lot of work effort and dedication my friend to understand absorb all these. But if you’ve got passion for trading you’ll get through this phase.

[jotekfinance]

You still in the game?

[Fxmall]

As others have said, manual trading is the only thing you can count on…you have been at this for three years and you must have picked up some trading experience along with a session or two with babypips school. And trying to get ahead with EA is not a good idea, for one you are not really learning anything, it sucks and usually does when you least expect it.

And as for systems, well, sorry to break this to you but no one is going to hand over their system for free and no system works all the time. Just review some of the other threads, develop your own system and good luck.