Hello boys and gals, I hope you’re doing well trading. I was introduced to forex 6 month ago. I had a full time studying every material I could find - Whether it was on youtube, on forums, ebooks, etc. I’ve studies Price action, Indicators, VSA, Renko charts (my last study which was really interesting), Elliott Waves, Chart Patterns, … Then started trading demo accounts and to be honest I was profitable. I had 5% profit every single week and 5% was the lowest bound. So I funded my account with 300$ and since I live in a 3rd world country and I’m a student, trust me, it’s a fortune for me! I started trading using a single strategy. I tried to keep it simple and clear: I traded whenever I found a ranging market (channels, rectangles) and I sold at the highs and bought at the lows and I had the price action and candle patterns to confirm these reversals. Couple of weeks passed, and guess what? It didn’t work! I lost a lot more than I gained. The 300$ was shrinking. Not closely as I planned. So I started to look for a new strategy. I found a guy named joseph james and noticed he had great incomes trading futures using renko charts. So I started making a strategy to trade futures using renko charts. For a simple and straightforward approach I decided to only trade crude oil and gold. Couple of weeks passed and this time I seemed to lose even more! The initial 300$ was now 200$. I was desperate and hopeless. I tried to study more. I believed my loses came from lack of knowledge. I’m still studying but nothing new seems to come up. I believe those guys posting videos to youtube showing how harmonic patterns work, or let’s say how much they can make trading a wedge breakout, they are just choosing one of their winning trades - out of so many losses they have trading same patterns - to sell their membership. I still have no idea what I am doing wrong. If you think it’s because I change my strategy too often, believe me I don’t. I changed my strategy only when I lost 100$ and again once I lost another 50$. Please give me some hope…
Do yourself a favour, and practice more before you spend a fortune 
We are playing the hardest game here, and there is a reason why banks and funds hire the brightest mindest for this task!
If you get to a point where you get long-term(!) income from forex trading, it will be one of the hardest things you ever did in your live.
As an algotrader, I cant give you any practical tips for manual trading, but you posting “I believe those guys posting videos to youtube showing how harmonic patterns work, or let’s say how much they can make trading a wedge breakout, they are just choosing one of their winning trades - out of so many losses they have trading same patterns - to sell their membership.” tells me you got the problem already
People want your best - your money - and wont reveal profitable systems. So, learn, do the research to determine which of the infors you learned is really true and usefull, and try to find your own edge.
-Darwin
Hope, shall give you hope!!! … A Snowflakes in Hell has greater chances of survival than you …
Darwinism prevails here, you do not filter out the BS from factual information and you’re out
[QUOTE=“DarwinFX;644107”]Do yourself a favour, and practice more before you spend a fortune We are playing the hardest game here, and there is a reason why banks and funds hire the brightest mindest for this task! If you get to a point where you get long-term(!) income from forex trading, it will be one of the hardest things you ever did in your live. As an algotrader, I cant give you any practical tips for manual trading, but you posting “I believe those guys posting videos to youtube showing how harmonic patterns work, or let’s say how much they can make trading a wedge breakout, they are just choosing one of their winning trades - out of so many losses they have trading same patterns - to sell their membership.” tells me you got the problem already People want your best - your money - and wont reveal profitable systems. So, learn, do the research to determine which of the infors you learned is really true and usefull, and try to find your own edge. -Darwin[/QUOTE]
DarwinFX, do you personally make money using forex?
You said you have studied everything but I don’t see you naming any important things over there…
MM, fundamentals, psychology, support and resistance, orders flow, market money flow…
Also, you lost 33.3% (out of 300) in 2 weeks and 25% (out of 200) in another 2 weeks. How many trades did you open during this 4 weeks? And how much did you risk per trade?
[QUOTE=“Trasimaco;644113”]You said you have studied everything but I don’t see you naming any important things over there… MM, fundamentals, psychology, support and resistance, orders flow, market money flow… Also, you lost 33.3% (out of 300) in 2 weeks and 25% (out of 200) in another 2 weeks. How many trades did you open during this 4 weeks? And how much did you risk per trade?[/QUOTE] Do you think order flow is crucial in trading? Cause I didn’t find any good resource to learn that . And yes I did study S/R and fundamentals. I even have a minor in economics. And for account management I didn’t exactly follow a risk management principle for my trades and definitely that’s a factor helping my losses but no matter how good my risk management is, it doesn’t explain why I didn’t have a single winning trade in the last two weeks even though I traded about 7 times. P.S. Thank you all guys for posting in the thread. It means a lot to me.
Dear man we have all been through what you are going through. Trading is more than a get rich quick adventure. Trading is something so profound that even 6 years is not enough time to have seen it from a market experience perspective. You may know all the literature and education material which it would take a long time but unless you actually have screen time and market experience enough to be able to be flexible and adapt to the ever changing market conditions you my friend like an Athlete who never plays his best at practice will not succeed in the real game. As for hope its simple don’t give up. Perseverance and “endurance produces character, and character produces hope”- Romans 5:4.
Losing streak will be there every single time. The trick is to know when to cut it and walk away.
Trading for about 6 months is not enough experience and should not expect to earned any money at all. The first year is the learn curve. Learn anything and everything you can. Try them all out… Then you can disregard some of them until you find what you like and what works for you and what suit to your trading style. Always focus on the process not on the money, these has been said before.
In 2nd year, you should have and found a strategy that actually works for you if not, go back and learn again. Document every trades so you know which strategy works and which one it doesn’t. Money will follow if you know what you are doing. You do not need to trade every single day or even every week. Have a target in mind and you still come out profitable… It’s not easy but it can be done…
Goodluck!
Thank you for the time you put on this.
You mentioned:
“In 2nd year, you should have and found a strategy that actually works for you…”
Isn’t actually a strategy out there that works from the start if done carefully and properly?
What you are failing to understand is that trading is not a science it’s an Art. So the strategy’s are all well known to everyone just like we all know how to color in the lines and whatever but you still have to develop your own trade style because if you just do what someone else is telling you then you are not free to express yourself and in essence will be frustrated and will continue to make trader errors which equal losses.
With your mindset it seems you are against Automated Trading too
You’re welcome…
What I meant is, yes you can find some strategy that might work out there but you still need to create your own. Even if that strategy let say price action ,as an example, may work to some trader but for some reason it doesn’t work for you. Not all strategy will work for everyone. The key is finding out what type of trader you are. Do you like reading and see what’s going on around the world? Do you like trading the news/fundamental? Or are you more into technical side of trading? Or maybe there’s still a strategy that haven’t invented yet that you may discover on your own.
When you do your research and testing out different ways on how to trade, more than likely, you will find yourself more than how you trade. Pschycological part of trading will play a big role in this trading journey. I would suggest to read more about this and be prepared…
I hope it helps in some ways…
I’m not against it because I too wouldn’t mind being driven around in a Rolls-Royce but the enthusiast in me likes to do the driving. Man created the automated program anyways… So if you want something done right do it yourself.
What you’re failing to understand is that a true strategy should be objective. What a machine can do.
If you involve gut feelings in the steps there won’t be a strategy. Trading is not an art. Art is all about subjectivity. The more you dive into the feelings the better the work would be. What successful traders share about themselves which is very common is their system is mechanical. It’s an “If…Then”. It’s more science to me than art although I don’t prefer categorizing them in these fields in the first place.
What I want to ask you PipNRoll is do you really believe trading systems are not comparable?
Comparable in a sense that a system will work for everyone? Is that your question?
In my opinion, no…because if every trader uses that particular system ( whatever it is), they should be rich by now. It may work in a few traders here and there but not everyone because not everyone have the same skill set, same Pschycological mind set, same principles on how they should approach or apply that strategy on every single trade because it is always different and complex. Now for Automated EA’s I don’t know. Every system there is no guarantee of success that’s is why a lot of traders losses and quit. Only a fortunate few will succeed and become a profitable trader.
Adding the personality parameter in determining the system’s performance is a really good idea.
But regardless of that let’s say we compare a system that triggers orders based on moving averages cross and another that triggers orders based on S/R and previous structures.
Although none can perform perfectly as these two concepts are incomplete for order execution I would confidently argue the 2nd strategy will produce much much better results.
Moving Average Cross is a method used by many traders and it was used as a solid method back in 70s but for now they seem to fail a lot more that they can succeed. No need to mention their awfully destructive performance in ranging environments (which possesses over 60% of a pair’s lifetime).
So regardless of who actually trades a strategy I would argue strategies are comparable and we can find a better one. Yet it is a matter of debate!
True but you don’t rely on just one indicator or just a SR level. You have to know the market sentiment and the fundamental side of it. The question is, can you use only one of this to make a decision to take on a trade or exit out on a trade or do you look for other confluences? Some strategy is only good for “trending” market and some good for “ranging” market. There are so much going on in a single day that even if someone give you a "system " that works for him/ her, you still have your own prediction or maybe base on the past trade that you took that you might go against on that strategy that was given to you or maybe you are a trend trader or a range trader. Sometimes, you see the chart differently to me and what I think or where the price is going. We trade base on our own belief of what/where the market/price will do next or going…always follow your own instinct and your judgement… Meet your target then get out on a trade…
Oh and forgot to add…no more questions please… My brain cells are about to lose lol 
With that attitude you’ll only be working a job not a career.
This is a subjective statement.
What you’re failing to understand is that subjectivity and objectivity are not strictly related to gut feelings.
There are objective strategies that involve subjective analysis, something that a machine can’t do.
Just one example, I can have a mecanical system to trade important news but I’m the one who decide which news are important. so my strategy is partially subjective.
Discretionary strategies exists . You can trade based on fundamentals and have rules, a plan, an strategy.
In resume, to profit from trading you need an edge. You can get it by trading a mechanical system (your trading won’t be an art) or by analysing factors and variables that move the market and then drawing your own conclusions ( your trading will be an art). Trading in a discretionary way doesn’t means you haven’t got a solid strategy that prevents you from following your emotions.