Is it better to make my own trading system or use an existing one?

Sirs, any help would be berry much appreciated! :strawberry:

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Well, in my trading, I use the most popular trading strategy called Price Action; but I have made my own version on it!

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The key to any system is you must believe in it, and will not abandon it after a few bad trades, The greatest system in the world is going to have bad months with negative results

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If you’re just starting out, it’s better to use an existing one so you get a better feel for how it works and then when you have more experience, you can either pick another one or make your own!

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The only system you need to learn is how to be on the right side before placing an order. That means assessing probabilities of choosing a winning trade. Tossing a coin gives you c.50%.

Bear in mind that it depends on a combination of what millions of human traders think is going to happen next. No amount of price action or technical analysis will ensure your trades’ outcome - because we’d all be millionaires - and it’s more important to be able to manage your emotional control successfully. If not, it’s why many traders fail to make a success out of FX trading - 85% blow their accounts.

Best of luck

price action is really good and professional activities , no doubt. but the main problem is we the traders need a very long time to be experienced about this technique.

Basically, there is no way to copy others trading system! You need to build your own trading system by your hard work! Besides, it takes such a long time to build a profitable trading system!

This seems logical but maybe you can explain how this works in practice.

Let’s suppose 1000 people open accounts with brokers this month. Surely you can’t mean that these 1000 new traders must develop 1000 new trading systems which nobody has ever thought of and nobody else uses or has ever used?

How is that going to be successful?

Yes, because everyone wants to trade the M15 TF. A system should completely ignore the psychological traits and trader character. Plus jumping into a system with advertised P/L with no knowledge of it’s inner workings is probably highly recommended too right? :man_facepalming:

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If you go on my recent thread i have a youtube video posted of me fully breaking down the inner workings the price action understanding and the psycological traits and you also can hear my voice and character. full of different tips to develop a varariation of how im trading price action

It’s best to know how you become profitable through your experience on demo for now then real.money .This we start after experimenting ,forget about rigid systems, the markets today are very different to say 3 years ago . psychology plays a big part, so how you perceive trading and losses and gains will change through the years .

This is bit of a chicken and egg situation for you. I am assuming you are a beginner and therefore do not yet have enough experience to build your own strategy but, on the other hand, it is not so easy either to select an existing strategy that is going to work for you.

Some things to consider which will affect what kind of trading strategy will suit you:

First, only start with a demo account so that you can concentrate on evaluating your trades and trading ideas without fear of losing money while experimenting. Once you start to have an overall clear idea of what kind of trading approach you like then you can go live and learn about all the emotional/psychological stuff that goes with that.

Second, you need to decide what kind of trading you want to do and what suits your circumstances. E.g. day trading or swing trading, which markets suit your time zone, how much time during the day you can dedicate to trading, how much money you can afford to risk in a trading account, do you want a mechanical-based method where you just follow the generated signals, or a discretionary approach where you personally have the final say whether to enter a trade and what size position, etc.

Third, whether you are more interested in a Price Action type approach whereby you are looking at S/R levels, candle patterns, trendlines, etc or a strategy based in mathematical indicators such as MACD, stochastics, RSI, moving averages, etc. Of course, you can mix the two and perhaps the more reliable strategies do indeed include elements from both.

Fourth, you need to plan how you are going to journalise your trades in order to be able to assess your results after a period of time (which also means only trading according to your strategy in order to be meaningful!)

In general, I am not sure how you will choose an existing method since there are so many, and obviously none of them work all the time because market movements and characteristics vary according to changing fundamentals and participant activity. Not all market particpants are just trading for profit, e.g. the entire global international commerce is based on forex levels and economic activity.

Also, in general, remember that technical analysis is only intended to highlight what the market as a whole is currently doing compared with where it has been in the past. Your own opinions on where the market should be are totally irrelevant. TA tells you what the majority of participants are doing. It can also tell you where that majority is likely to cease and/or reverse what it is doing. But it is not a time machine, it can only offer you a basis for extrapolating what might happen next and for how long and how far. That is what we trade.

Start with something simple and systematically build from that. Gradually identify what information you are missing and seek a solution for it. Evaluate the perfomance of all the items on your charts and ditch everything that isn’t actually providing any add-on benefit. This can be a long and gradual process.

Finally, remember that success as a trader is not due to which strategy you use. Your risk/money management is far more important than just deciding which direction to trade. And on top of that comes the emotions and psychology of managing trades.

If you can get all that right then you are well on your way! :smiley:

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When you are a beginner, you obviously need to use a readymade system because you lack the required knowledge and expertise to build your own system. When you have gained the knowledge and expertise, you can build a good system for yourself.

For those just starting out in the trading world, I suggest using an existing one. Later on, when you have gained more experience, you can create your own.

When you start, it won’t be possible for you to come up with your own trading system quite obviously. So, you can make use of the existing ones. As you gain experience, you will learn about your trading needs and will also be able to customise the system in accordance with your trading needs.

I agree with a lot of the responses here! :blush: And I think they’ve already shared a lot of valuable insights so maybe my experience can add to the discussion! :smiley: I initially wanted to create my own system-- I was a very ambitious beginner. :sweat_smile: I didn’t mind the hard work because I wanted something that’s mine. :sweat_smile: So I slapped so many indicators on my charts, hoping that would help me build my own trading system. But it didn’t. :confused:

I then made the choice to follow simple ones that are already available here. I’ve tried the HLHB on demo, I’ve tried the 3 Duck’s trading at one point. :open_mouth: And trying them out really helped me a lot. Not just because I was finally getting good trades, but also because I somehow got a better understanding of what I need to finally get good trades. And now, I’m using an already existing MA strategy but I tweaked some of the entry and exit signals to fit my trading style.

So, I guess, what I’m saying is, if you’re still in the early days of demo trading, it wouldn’t hurt to explore these existing ones and maybe you can find one that you can tweak according to your style and personality! :blush:

In short, it is impossible to copy other traders’ systems! You must work hard to create your own trading system. In addition, developing a successful trading strategy takes so much time!

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