What country are you trading in and who is your current broker?
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go to forexpeacearmy and check
so far blueberrymarket and any broker from australia are the safest most professional options.
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Very Interesting, following along still.
I hope you don’t mind me asking another member a question.
Can you share more about this statement?
I meant it to expand on what I had said before this, about most strategies being actually entry tactics plus some stop-loss rule.
Most new traders get hold of a single idea of what trading is and are immediately consumed by their deluded need to know more and more about whatever they have bumped into first - for example Fibonacci, pin bars, Bollinger Bands, engulfing candles, stochastics etc. They should not early on be looking at random unconnected tactics like these, nor even self-contained strategies like MA cross-overs but ought to be taking a much wider view of trading - selecting the right style will be far more use than selecting a clever tactic or even a strategy formed of a random package of clever tactics.
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Ah perfect, thanks for that explanation!
@Constadino Forexpeacearmy always promotes the brokers the give them big bucks and slash the other ones, no matter how good or bad they are. To be honest, Forexpeacearmy has no credibility for me.
Australia? somewhere close to Europe maybe? would be easy to reach the support!
I have quite a few friends in Europe that trade with pepperstone and have good things to say. The key is the broker being regulated.
In USA the best in my opinion are Oanda and now IG is avaible to USA residents. I have accounts with both and am enjoying the consistently tighter spreads offer by IG and less swings of spread that does happen with Oanda. I also had an occasion once with Oanda where they did not honor my trailing stop but after reaching out to them they admitted it was their mistake and “filled” my order at the trailing stop even though the daily candle had now closed out of profit for me. I respected that.
IG does have minimum stop sizes though so not ideal for scalping.
I will stay away from commenting for or against forexpeacearmy but making sure the broker is regulated is certainly much more important than their rating on forexpeacearmy. Do read reviews though!
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You want a simple easy to understand trading strategy with clear rules, tight money management and strong pyschology. A simple Support and Resistance strategy can be more than enough.
Pro tip: most of the banks traders I traded with used lines (support and resistance and or trend lines) as their main strategy. There were traders using indicators but they mostly developed that on their own. You can definitely use a stochastic to help manage a trade I’ll go into this more later.
I asked many traders on my journey to define their “edge.” This has to be one of my most asked questions when I was a newbie trader and met a more experienced trader. Some gave great insights about strategy and money managment but my most respected and influential mentor told me:
“You are going to expect me to say a head and shoulders pattern or a doji at support and resistance is my bread and butter set up and it always makes me profit. But I am going to be honest with you my edge is pyschology. I don’t care about my trades, I don’t care about my trade performance, I don’t care if I win or lose or about my win rate. I care about making money. As soon as my idea is invalidated I’m out of the market. If price comes back my way tomorrow, oh well. When I fire up my charts the next day, I don’t even remember that trade. I am always seeing a new chart and I get in when my strategy tells me. You can always get back in the market. You can always make back lost money as long as you still have an account.”
For those that are curious or want to say this is all fluff with no strategy I’ll share his core strategy with you. His trading strategy consisted of bounces and price flips (break outs) from support and resistance no indicator for the entry but he did use stochastics in his trade management to guide his profit taking. Will his strategy work for you? I can’t know. Is it profitable? Absolutely.
Now let’s be clear you can always make back lost money does NOT mean revenge trading. It means making the money back and more over time with valid trade setups according to your strategy.
Trading at a bank we did follow fundamentals. We did understand core drivers of price and central banks. We did pay attention to news releases and forecasts. But for the average retail trader avoiding news will be the best way in my opinion. I am hesitant to share much on fundamentals as I do not feel it is very applicable to the average retail trader. It also encourages gambling in those traders who lack a grounded state of mind.
The key difference between the successful traders I came across in institutional settings vs the average retail trader that sneaks off for an extra long bathroom break at his fulltime job the first friday of each month to place an overleveraged bet on the direction of the Euro Dollar after the nfp, is precise and measured execution.
Retail traders fire up their charts pick their favorite time frame, God only knows why they have chosen a particular time frame as their favorite… Maybe they wore the number on their high school football team so might as well trade the 5 minute chart right?
That is wildy different to what institutional traders do. We spend a lot of time in the beginning learning about particular currencies ( I did not say currency pairs. I mean just one currency and its drivers and history.) as well as what news events have the biggest impacts on each currency then we follow our trading plan. If we lose too much money there goes our job.
Rules are strict and you are going to have to set strict rules for your trading as well.
If I or any of my fellow traders pull up a chart and our entry signal isn’t there you turn the screens off and try to come to an agreement on which burger joint has the best burgers for lunch. There is no forcing trades.
That, or fill orders for corporations necessary for exchanges for overseas purchases as well as speculation, mainly losing transactions, that provide key liquidity in the currency markets or transactions based on “balancing the books” for said institution. This doesn’t apply to the average retail trader so if you don’t have anything to trade it’s best to just go grab a bite to eat or practice a hobby.
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That is completely fine with me and encouraged.
Just as with trading this topic isn’t about being right, it is about making money. I accept any ideas and any strategies if you are truly (don’t lie to yourself ) trading profitably.
Trading isn’t about right or wrong it’s about being profitable. Same here. If you have “profitable” knowledge share it and discuss it please.
I am sharing my experiences and insights I have gained and I know I am trading the right style for me and my life but it’s not the only way. Just the best way for me. 
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Following your narrative and taking some keys that I believed will be beneficial for my profitable trading voyage. Thanks for sharing your experience thus far.
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this is a therapy session not a trade discussion
been 3 weeks so far without a simple prtsc paste to see if you walk your talk
proof of results over guru blah blah
It’s funny you should say that. Dr Elder compares the process of developing the correct trading psychology with the process followed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
And like alcoholics, most failing traders are very unwilling to admit that they have a problem with their psychology.
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This has been a really useful thread for not-yet-successful traders - they guys who keep on selecting the WRONG strategies because they have incorrect beliefs about what trading is.
Actually I never post details of my P&L either, I rarely mention which trades I’m in or have recently exited. I don’t think its a qualifying factor that is necessary to back up what I’m saying. Over the years I have posted most the strategies I have been using at different times and experienced traders will be able to see in 5 minutes if these strategies are able to make money.
The traders who don’t trade in my style will not make money from these strategies. They’re good, they’re winners for me, but if you’re a day-trader, scalper, range trader or enter on reversals etc. etc. they will be meaningless or probable losers. Further detail on these strategies for those traders would be useless.
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Thanks for sharing. For the matter of fact, I have used Oanda for a while. I felt the terminal lagging a bit and support a big question. I found a new one though, its called OspreyFX. working really good for me.
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It appears you already have a strong understanding of the markets and don’t need to review this fundamental knowledge. Good on you!
This type of thinking was the break through I needed to become consistently profitable and propel me forward in my career.
I believe you are beyond the material I am sharing here though but you are most certainly welcome to hang around.
I and I’m sure other users would love to learn some things from you!
But for anyone else that is interested it looks like therapy is now in session!!
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That is great! Wish I could have been of more help but it is great to hear you found a broker that is working out better for you!!
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Hi Ele_Wood1,
How long you are trading with this broker (OspreyFX)?
You are helping great with your shares. Dont need to worry about that!
Hi BullsEyes,
I have been trading with them for 5 months now!