Hey Stephen,
I have done the same thing. I have read and re-read Madscalper and am trying it of a night here while reading the VSA thread. So far, I am about 40 pages in, but I think I need to read Master the Markets to get a better understanding. I don’t fully understand what I am reading there yet. I do understand the fundamental reasons behind the price changes and that was a big moment for me. Madscalper is good as you can have a look and know what may be coming up in the next 30 mins and either concentrate on it a bit more, or go back to reading the other thread or books. I am guessing that by the end of this year, I will have hopefully started on my own small live account, but want to understand everything first. I have made a few errors with Madscalper, so want to be proficient before going the next step.
Errors I have made include
Being impatient - Not following the system properly. It is not something that a good enough approach will be successful. Be happy if a day goes by and a trade didn’t happen. I had one of those last week and was proud that I didn’t trade for the sake of it ![:slight_smile: :slight_smile:](https://forums.babypips.com/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5)
Ignoring Stoploss - Got to 20 pip stop loss and didn’t want the loss so hung on to it - it’s only pretend anyway - Wrong. Got to be disciplined. When I make a trade now, I put in a 20 pip stop loss and also a 20 pip take profit, then let it run it’s course.
Multiple trades - A majority of the time, the AUD/USD follows the GBP/USD and EUR/USD. Why? The USD is common amongst all of them. Something good/bad gets reported in the US and prices move. Fair enough, you might take a good profit, but you can also get stopped out bloody quickly. Look at the US Farm Payrolls on Friday.
I also check the longer term trend to see if it gives any support.
Don’t expect a trade to break through resistance levels - it is fraught with danger (have been busted with that too). Check your 20 pips falls within that zone. If not, another opportunity will come by.
I use a strategy of 2% risk per trade, which also comes off as 2% profit ![:slight_smile: :slight_smile:](https://forums.babypips.com/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5)
Therefore, you don’t need a big amount of trades to do well. My 60% is coming towards 2/3 winners and I am happy with that, especially if there are three opportunities that present themselves. Net 2% a day goes to 10% in a week. Give that half a year compounding and you can get 10X your initial balance. That is hypothetical and remember that losses will occur. I ended up with a bit over 4% last week. Stoked even with that.
I have a spreadsheet so I can see what goes on daily which I am happy to share, but MT4 has a good report as well, if you right click down where the take trades are and click on Save as Detailed Report. Shows some pretty good stuff.
Anyway, good luck with your first week. Post here as others will be interested and might get some more people wanting to learn what is, in essence, a simple and effective system to use.
If I remember, I will try to post when I see something, but remember that I am also a novice still and quite likely may take something that isn’t there as I might have misunderstood something.
This next week is week 4 on my demo, and I might be able to get it over $15k (from $10K, although some of my errors did come off for me - beginners luck). I opened another new one last week as well, and it is closer to the mark with the 4% I stated earlier. Only one small error on that one - wrong stoploss value which went well anyway.