Hahaha 
this sounds like a full lesson described topics in diagrams.
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Grab one or two strategies that has been tested, test it by yourself if found working do it over and over again. Profitable traders focus on strategies and not profits while Non profitable do the opposite.
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This is when all reality is lost . They probably find it.more disturbing seeing the £250,000 in its physical form of cash
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Both - trailing stops all the way for me - unless I hit an 8R multiple profit in which case I exit at market - but that’s rare
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Thanks for the response! 
It often feels like people focus mainly on the direction and entry signals, but I have always felt that one’s exit strategy is far more significant in achieving/optimising profits. And that exit strategies are greatly neglected. Hence my question to you!
Just for the general record, I know you are not a short term trader and I am sure you will agree that trailing stops work far better on longer TFs and are not good on, for example, intraday trades where moves are generally shorter.
Do you trail your stops automatically at a fixed distance from current price as it makes new high/lows, or do you manually adjust your stops as the price movement evolves and progresses?
No ulterior motives here, I am just very interested to hear from you as an experienced, profitable, veteran of the markets
I am a day trader and I always use a fixed target pip value. That value is not fixed the same for all trades, though. I have a default value which is then increased/decreased according to the overall current situation (e.g with or against the underlying trend on a higher TF or whether we are in a strong trend or sideways).
I then also “home in” my target value to a perceived PA derived level.
If the logical pip value is too near relative to my stop level , and/or of little value per se then there is no trade.
I only write this because I think it is kind of useful to the topic of the thread to show that there are indeed many ways to make a living from trading and that profitability is not just a question of which strategy…
Thanks again!
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I’ve never found any value in fixed distance stops - price action also dictates where I move stops. However, I am on record for saying I use the most basic trailing stop strategy known to man ie trailing it at the low of the previous bar when long and trailing it at the high of the previous bar when short.
Such simplicity may sound too simple, but it gets me most of a given move and gets me out before a reversal is on hand (mostly).
Trading intra-day may involve a different approach - maybe using a fractal or pivot level as the stop. Much depends on the market traded.
As was observed by Jesse Livermore ’ every market has a different personality’ and the longer I trade I realize I am not suited to most markets with my approach.
That might make me a poor trader because I am not adaptable or it might make me a good trader for realizing my strengths (and weaknesses).
I challenge anyone on this forum to find a simpler strategy than the one or ones I trade.
I am not saying this to boast, merely to point out you don’t need bells and whistles to be profitable - took me an age to figure that out.
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I also think that is more or less the case - but I would add that every timeframe also has its own personality. And it is beneficial to match the TF personality with one’s own personality! 
In my opinion, it makes you a good trader. Indeed, a very good trader! I think finding the right market(s) is extremely important. I feel there is a lot of intuitional benefit from working closely and intensely with only one, or at most, a few selective markets and learning and recognising their peculiarities.
I find the benefits arise from recognising intuitively when some set-ups are “not quite right” and, more importantly, from an increased confidence from a better success rate. This reduces hesitancy in taking the trade as well as the confidence to actually remain in the trade until the defined exit is triggered!
Again, I fully agree with you. “Less is more” both in terms of chart clutter and the number of trades taken.
There is a clear tendency to try and “patch the leak” every time a trade loses by adding more “bells and whistles”. But there will always be losses and that is not the problem. If we just add more clutter to avoid them then it just makes any decision-making more fuzzy.
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John, thanks for reminding me of this stop-loss technique. I have recently resumed running London opening range break-outs on GBP/USD and this might be a valuable tactic specifically for these trades.
All the best.
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There’s a lot of things that profitable traders remember to do and execute simultaneously in order to make their trades profitable. Personally the biggest factors that brought a huge change in my game was using risk management, time management, and being patient with my trades. Risk management helped me to not lose all my profits along with more trading capital. Time management was essential to deciding when I should enter my trade, how long to stay, and when to exit. Patience, I must say, is like Tinker Bell’s Pixie dust. Patience is very important in trading forex, believe it! The patience to not mess with your trades when it is open, the patience to wait for the right time, the patience for the market conditions to change, they all make a huge difference when put together.
All the best.
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This is, in my opinion, a brilliant post! Three foundational principles that are key for any trader using a discretionary approach. But even a purely mechanical, automated system requires risk management in its input criteria.
But what every trader who is not profitable should note here is what @Commonitive does not include in this list!
He does not say that profitability depends on finding the right strategy. (Of course, without a viable strategy we are not going to get anywhere, but a strategy can be exceptionally simple and still function).
What @Commonitive is identifying here is that the skills that ultimately determine profitability are internal and lie within the traders themselves and not just in the content of the chart set-up or strategy applied to it.
Any strategy can bring to the trader their winners and their losers but what we are talking about here is consistency in making, and keeping, profits. And the answer is not some magical strategy somewhere “out there”, lying at the end of the rainbow. It is much closer to home, right there, between your own ears.
Manage your risk, manage your timing, control your patience - that is already a very good start… 
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- Position sizing/risk management. It’s a surviving game
- Play the game when the odds are in your favor
- Don’t always hang with the popular side (dumb money has to win sometimes too. Black Jack theory)
- Protect your capital
- Understand the importance of the trading sessions and their news relevance (macro eco)
- Find a time frame that suits your style and stick with it
- Enjoy the journey
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this is true, take me for exmaple, i have more winning trades than lossses but my balace is red instead of blue.
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Sometimes I do wonder about this 95-odd% statistic. Is it evidence-based? I’ve not run a search but mostly seems to be based on two widely quoted studies, both quite old - that Taiwanese one and the other one.
The statistics the trading platform declare are higher but I wonder how they are defining traders that loose? Do they bear in mind how money times they’ve tried and if they eventually become successful?
If everyone who ever traded blew 19 £100 accounts then became millionaires on the 20th try is that still a 5% success rate overall?
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It’s interesting how they evaluate the figures , they probably be external influencs maybe the gambling commission ,after all Forex everywhere on football shirts ect
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I haven’t seen any reliable study or any explanation of what criteria is used. But it is clear from the available information that the percentage of losing traders is very high.
For example all regulated European brokers that come under ESMA need to state on their website something similar to this example:
" Risk Warning: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 76.27% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider."
Interestingly, nearly every such broker reports very similar figures in the range 70-80%
However, it should be noted that these are all regulated brokers that offer quite restrictive leverage limits, like 30% or less. Therefore we can assume that many new traders with small accounts are drawn towards offshore regulated brokers offering much higher leverage of up to 500 or 1000%
At the same time, I think it is reasonable to assume that the failure rate amongst these new/low equity accounts is even higher than with the regulated brokers. So the overall percentage across all broker categories is likely to be at least in the 80-90% range.
I have not seen anything explaining how these percentages are actually calculated or how they treat, for example, traders with multiple accounts for various purposes. Or how frequently the calculations are run. But I think the actual percentage is not so important because even at 70% it is far too high!!!
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I have truly accepted the random nature of markets - first brought to light with the book Trading in the Zone , but took me a lot longer to actually do it.
Funny, I’ve been reading “The disciplined trader” and that is something the author talks a lot in the book. We have to understand and accept that the market is always right, unpredictable and infinite of options.
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Correct - thinking in probabilities isn’t solely always finding an edge - it’s about accepting that despite the edge pretty much anything can happen.
Us humans are generally an optimistic lot, but in trading that can mean we get overconfident that our trade will win. This leaves us disappointed and sets us up for all our psychological issues.
In another favorite book of mine Long Term Secrets to Short Term profits, Larry Williams says he always goes into a trade thinking it will lose - another Jedi mind trick that I took on board (I am the most optimistic person I’ve ever met - but it used to get me killed in the markets)
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I often write that whatever instrument we trade, what we are actually trading is probability. However, what we do not always recognise is that probability is not a prediction of the future, it is just a statement of the present. I.e. what is the current pressure in price movement, up or down.
The real element that has to be linked with probability in trading is assumption. This is not just an emotional, human reaction, it is based on the powers and factors which drive price and the historical evidence of how markets function.
The main underlying “assumption” in trading is that once a move starts it will continue in that direction for a certain duration (albeit rather erratically). The second assumption is then that the duration will be sufficiently long to enable the trader to a) identify the start of the move, b) enter the move, c) identify an extreme or reversal of the move and exit with a profit.
These assumptions are based on historic analysis of price movements such as candle patterns, etc and the understanding that fundamentals affecting currencies/commodities can and do affect the actions of market participants over prolonged periods of time.
This tends to be true on all timeframes but I personally feel that intraday timeframe moves are prolonged more by self-fulfillment of technical analysis than underlying fundamentals and are therefore short-lived. When TA is so prevalent nowadays, the more common analysis techniques are simultaneously observed by a lot of traders and automated EAs/bots, who inevitably react in a similar way and in a similar time window. This is one reason why short term intraday timeframes can appear to be more random than longer term timeframes of daily and above, and are commonly referred to as “noise”.
All this noise created throughout the day on short term charts simply disappears in a single daily candle and the only remaining significant features from all the intraday movement are the high and the low of the day. A daily chart therefore, by definition, excludes and ignores all short-term activity except these two levels. Therefore the open and close of the longer term candles better reflect the activity of those participants more in tune with the core fundamental influences on price.
Therefore these longer term charts are more likely to fulfil the required assumptions listed above in order to profit from moves consistently. However, one should note that “more likely” is still not “definitely” and therefore still carries an element of probability…
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Haha! But then I would be branded as an educator and not a trader! 
I just think that we are like strangers sharing some time along the same road, all trying to make our way home, and sharing thoughts and experiences along the way…
If we can help one another along the way then that is just fine!
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