Insights from a 14+ year trading veteran

So how do you actually trade? Why did you go short on the usdsek position?

It’s not hard to see that price reacted to this area around may 20th. You are also looking at all time highs. It is much more probable for price to go short from this area especially in the short term. Even just looking at the price action a pullback looked imminent. I will continue to watch the price action and more likely than not I will get out of this trade with profit. :man_shrugging:

When you trade in an institutional setting you learn to take a very simple common sense approach to the markets and develop your mindset. That is what ultimately makes you profitable

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This is something I started out with then seem to have gone180 degrees away from and have only come back to it.

Great thread! Thank you for posting.

KC

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I know many of you may want to know my exact trading strategy or how to find entries and I will get into the details of strategy soon but this really is not what is most important. I must say your mentality to trading, your understanding of what it really means to deal in probabilities trumps all the fundamental analysis and techinical analysis you can do.

I have traded with profitable “naked price action” traders all the way to profitable traders who have a simple line chart and an algorithm of volume indicators, depth of market indicators, a stochastic indicator ETC, and check a currency strength meter every morning. If all those signals line up and the currency is strong/weak they enter accordingly. And of course there are profitable traders that are some crazy mix of the two.

Yet we could all go out to lunch together and agree on the pyschology and way of understanding the markets.

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I totally agree. Most “strategies” pushed to new traders are just entry tactics dressed up with some unrelated stop-loss trick. Entry pattern is not very important in making profits. Its the choice to take the position that makes money.

If people do not plan to win they will lose. And I do mean “plan to win”, not “plan how to win”.

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Yeah I can see theres a high in may but what in the price action made you go short? Or did you just go short because it made a new high or reached that area. what in the price action made it look imminent to pull back?

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I am glad we agree.

My next post will go a little bit more into the way of thinking about the markets that I was taught after I got in with the first firm.

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When you look at the way price has behaved on the USD/SEK chart do you see that a “reversal” or at least short term pullback looks to be high probability? Or does it look like to you that it is higher probability to continue up? Or do you just not see an obvious entry at all?

Your answers are important.

You wouldn’t be wrong to look to play a continuation but if you are a looking at the daily chart especially the first candle after hitting that high do you see a lot of momentum to back up a long position? Or does price look to be losing momentum?

If you don’t see any obvious trade you also wouldn’t be wrong to not get involved. We don’t catch all the moves just some. And we get stopped out plenty as well. :slight_smile:

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Please keep them coming. I have been trading for more than 10 years and just cannot crack the game!!!

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Hopefully you can take something from my experiences, friend. What “type” of a trader are you?

I am a retiree and spend most of the day in front of the computer trading. I have slowly gyrated to trading the longer time frames ie 1 hour, 4 hour, and daily - let’s see what happens

Good evening and thank you for your most enlightening posts!

You say that you are making a living off trading and that it pays the bills, and I think that would be the goal of many of us here. My question is what size of trading account is required to do that? I know there are many factors to consider, but realistically speaking, could you survive off a trading account of say $10 000?

Keep the good stuff coming!!

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Question number 2:

Scenario - Following a down trend on an daily chart with price below the 200MA and 50MA, price is near the 50MA and a neat little inside bar forms, signalling price to move down further, which subsequently happens. Price moves down considerably and away from the 50MA and starts meeting some resistance, signaling a possible pullback to the 50MA…

The rule is never to trade against the trend. In this case though the probability of a pullback is extremely high. Would you take this long trade even it only gives you a few pips?

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Looking forward to your next thread…

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Sure, that is one way to go. But day trading works pretty well too. I day trade on 15m and I am profitable. Good thing is that I don’t have any overnight risk

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Such An Enticing Experience Can’t Wait To Learn From Ur Mistakes And Success
Cheers

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As you already know that depends on how much your bills are. Trading can be a great way to grow your wealth if you enjoy doing it and are good at it. To come into this market and throw $10,000 at it which for the majority of people I have come across wanting to make a living off of say $10,000 that is often the majority of their savings. (Don’t know your situation though.) I am not in good faith able to advise them to dump that $10,000 into trading.

Now let’s get into some percentages so you can do the math. If you wanted to trade very conservatively you could easily target a 15% ROI each year. This type of return is doable and it won’t require a lot of trading or a lot of stress.

You do not need to take a conservative approach though. You could easily target a 25% ROI which is also very achievable.

if you want to trade a lot you could average even a 100% ROI but this would be very risky and most likely require scalping. It would require several hours each day of trading and most new traders are not anywhere near psychologically prepared for this type of trading let alone have strict enough rules to even make this a reality. Reality is almost all people who attempt to trade lose their money. End of story.

The average mind is not prepared for the type of environment that the market presents.

**** There is a great thread called the 10K gamble that you can check out. He provides a legitimate approach to the markets. But note in the title it says gamble. I believe he is close to 100% ROI though to be honest the amount of time it has taken for him to generate that 10K would not be enough to pay my bills in my situation. This is not a diss, just my living expenses.

But I would like to pose a question to you. Instead of asking could you survive off of a trading account of $10,000 why not ask yourself how can I prove myself consistently profitable so that I gain access to sufficient capital for my needs?

Once you can seriously demonstrate that you are a successful trader you would be surprised how much money can come your way if you shop yourself around. ( google prop or trading firms.) Even people will give you a little if you have a track record and believe me if you do well with their first deposit there will be more to come.

If you read all of my previous posts you can see I went from trading a small <$10,000 account to having an advance given to me that covered my living expenses for the year (at that time) and $400,000 to trade with.

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if you have a rule not to trade against the trend than YOU can NOT take that trade according to your trading plan.

I do not have the 50MA on my charts and I have no rule that tells me not to trade against the trend.

Would a few pips give me a better than 2:1RR? Could I take this trade and be stopped out twice but then hit my target the third time around and still have profit over those 3 trades? We can not ever be outcome dependent on one single trade.

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The test of a trader is if they are profitable. You are profitable. End of story.

No need to change your strategy! :slight_smile:

“Overnight” risk is nothing to be avoided though. It’s morning in Japan.

I also personally prefer trading for a few minutes each day and then getting the hell away from my charts and the freedom that brings to my life.

Keep winning my friend! :+1:

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The timing of me finding this thread could not be better. I don’t believe it is a simple coincidence either so I am absorbing every post and message - thank you.

I’m now in my 5th year of trading and although there is definitely a much greater and deeper understanding of the trading world, and results have improved measurably, I still have no way of fully sustaining my lifestyle by trading. My dilemma is that running another business distracts from my trading and whilst it remains my goal to be a full time trader, I have found it very tough to forego guaranteed revenue that my business brings and devote more attention to trading.

The simplicity of processes described by @thetradinggod is my mantra. However, it is still a work in progress for me but one I genuinely believe in to achieve my ultimate aim of FREEDOM. Thank you.

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