Is there really a need for a strategy?

I am very new to forex, so there may be an angle that I do not see, so I need an advise from someone more experienced. I have made some (real) money with binary pairs, so I want to learn about forex too. For a moment I am using a training account at IQoption, so I have no access to automation, but I have read that there are automatic loss stoppers and automatic profit stoppers.

If we have a section of graphic, where some currency pair has the same value a few times a day, some midsection. Does it really matter do you buy or sell at such a position, when you know that even if you are wrong about the direction, the other direction will make a win in a few hours. In such a situation there should be auto stop on both ends, but I do not see why such options cannot make a win most of the time.

The IQ simulator has an annoying characteristic to auto close the options at -95%, so I had some 95% loses, but other than that all the options that had an inflection point less the 95% away in wrong direction turned out to be good wins. On most of them I chickened out at +50%, but it has made a profit.

I would not call this a strategy, it’s way to simple to be a strategy, and I do not know how useful would it be in a real account, but in virtual account it works just fine. Many people have written that forex is dangerous, but it seems much simpler then binary options. I get a feeling that I am missing something, am I?

Also, I need a suggestion for a broker which excepts really small entering fee (20-50usd) and has auto stoppers on both ends in it’s software.

Its possible to trade “noise”, the short-term fluctuations in price. But this is just like betting on red or black in roulette, or the toss of a coin, heads or tails. In practice there’s no way of knowing which would be hit first, the stop-loss or the profit target. So if you want to significantly grow your account, what’s the point of doing this? That’s why a strategy is needed.

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Best answer would be to open an account with oanda. No minimum play from what i remember.

And play it live.

Then you will see if your method works.

it really depends, i mean if you are a US based trader then maybe you should for forex brokers that accept US traders such as lmfx oanda, if you are not then off shore brokers would do simply choose wisely, and try school of pipsology while doing demo, its the best start anyone can do to grasp forex, i have nothing against option trading but I would say forex trading is the real deal.

Right on Tommor. This is pretty much a spot on description of scalping.

strategy is a main part of starting a logic, every logic depend on strategy.because strategy does answer the few question about the future.

I have tried your idea some time ago. What you are primarily proposing is called hedging. You place a buy and sell order on the same pair at the same time, and set your stop loss for both trade. Then when you have finally seen what direction the pair is heading, you close the losing trade and allow the other one to catch in profit. Secondarily, this can also be a scalping method because scalpers only calculate the short term trend within seconds and grab profit.

If you leave the winning trade for too long, it will probably bounce back and you could lose out on both trade in the end. You are gambling with your money in this case. But it is not a bad idea. A good trading strategy is needed since it will help you to predict and be about 80% sure of the trend before placing a trade.

Bad sad of your idea;

  1. You can only pull our a little profit within 2mins or less.
  2. The price can turn back and bite you, and you end up losing on both side of the trade.
  3. Things like requotes and platform freezing don’t happen on a demo account, so you don’t know it all yet.

You can give it a try by opening a micro account with just $5, either with Profiforex or Oanda. This should be enough to see what I mean.

You’d be right. It isn’t a strategy

See how far you get without one. If you can trade for 3 consecutive months without a losing month, and make overall profit, then you’re right and everyone else is wrong.

But try it on demo, not with money.

It won’t be easy to find better than Oanda.

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@jingoy: No, I am not US based, but nevertheless Oanda seems to be one of if not the best service on the net.

@Heir: Yes, very similar to what you have explained, but a bit more reckless. I place a buy and sell orders at some “middle” point in a fluctuating diagram, when the value of one (ex. buy) goes to profit, the other (ex. sell) goes to a bit greater loss. When the profit value gets to maximum profit and starts to go back, I close the winning (buy) order, and leave the loosing option. Then I make another sell order and wait for the graphic to move down again. If the value does not go all the way down to the presumed “middle” the loosing order lovers the loss and the last created order creates a win.

In the best case I get about 40% from the first, 35% from the 3rd to the “middle axis” may close or may leave it to see how much does it go down and wait with the open 2nd order to if the same happens on the lower side of the “axis” and how much profit will it gain.

In a not so good case the the first makes a huge profit and the 2nd auto-closes an -95%, the 3rd does not even come into play.

In other not so good case, the first makes some profit, the second makes some loss a few percent bigger then the gain of the first, a the 3rd if exists makes also a few percent profit, so the whole balance gets to zero.

In the worst case all two or three make a -95% loss and auto-close. It happens if the amplitude of the change is greater then 190%, which in case of 1:500 multiplier (like in my demo environment) is not uncommon.

If I am not present I set the auto stops at -20% and +40%, and most of the time when I arrive back I have some overall gain. USD/JPY is the pair with which I had most success.

I have also tried it with these micro profits (scalping?), with intended gain of 5-15%, but it seems to be possible only at some points in a day, and it seem that it’s a different time of day for each pair.

@Quickly: The goal is not to be right or wrong. After I have started the thread I have seen the school of pipsology and I started to read it, I want to learn. It would be nice to be able to predict the market at some point and make a few or one order a day, take the profit and be done with it, but I have a long road until then and need to see that I can make even small gain with just a logic and unfounded presumptions.

Yes strategy is very important to do trading in disciplined manner. It is that you need to copy any strategy when you learn and do practice you can make your own way of trading plan and all it is that will benefit you according to your needs

These are actually the wrong way around, @SaleB

The goal is indeed to be right more times than you are wrong - or rather to be right more times than your risk exposure (relative to your average risk:reward over time, hence making a profit)

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but to have the thought of being able to ‘predict’ is entirely wrong. As stated in many posts here and well published books by known to be successful traders (not limited to just spot FX). This is a game of probabilities, being right over the long term, not aiming for short term prediction of market moves.

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If I may add, it might help to remove right/wrong, and winner/loser and replace them with profitable/unprofitable. Right/Wrong and Win/Lose somtimes get into peoples heads, making it more personal than just making a profit or not.

The Ever Words Have Power VIPER

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This is one of those “plans” that will work great right up until it doesn’t. Then it will cost you your entire account when the market jumps 100 pips in the wrong direction all in one hop.

Build a trading strategy that allows you to find trades with a 60% likelihood of success and at least a 2:1 Reward:Risk ratio. Then even if you’re wrong two times out of three you will STILL show a profit at the end of the month.

That’s incredibly ambitious - not sure I’ve ever seen anything that fits those requirements!

A 40% likelihood of success and a 2:1 reward to risk ratio is plenty to make a steady living.

And/or so is a 60% likelihood of success and a 1:1 reward to risk.

You just need to make more from your winners than you lose with your losers, and to have a win rate which is manageable without putting you into a panic whenever you have a losing run.

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This is what separates the winners from the losers. Every new Forex trader thinks to be successful you must win all the trades. NOPE… all Forex traders are losers. The successful ones are those the lose less. Win more and Lose Less, be a successful trader. Don’t become too ambitious

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I agree w this statement Charlie.

I think there is too much emphasis on winning%.

A 35%-40% win rate with a 2:1 or 3:1 RR, an occasional homerun and strict risk management will lead to profit long term.

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Exactly - I think people vary as to how much win rate alone bothers them.

But it’s certainly easy for beginners to become too attached to it, at the expense of the overall position.

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The short-term fluctuations in price is also called as “noise” of trade. It’s none other like betting. You don’t know the result of betting, you don’t know the stop-loss or the profit of betting. It is almost gambling. But forex is not gambling. So we the trader need to apply strategy in forex. Because we don’t wanted to invest our valuable money without knowing the profit or loss. There are different trading strategy in forex business. You can select any strategy according to your trading style.

Yes I think a strategy needed for good trading. You need not to copy any specific strategy you can develop your own according to your needs and experience. It means you should know what are you doing in trading and how do you deal with it.

A good strategy will help you to maintain a trading discipline. It is crutial if you want to be a successful trader.