Maddie is here :)

Good morning.

A bit short on detail there. Trust me: I wasn’t asking those questions for fun. But it’s up to you of course as to just how much you’re prepared to discuss or disclose on a public forum such as this.

There are loads of reasons for asking the questions that I did and here are just some of them:

If this is just a part time endeavor: well then it presupposes that you have another main source of income and are not relying on trading to put food on the table. If it’s the latter one needs decent capital just to begin with. Expect no more than 5% to 10% per month on average in profits as a percentage of your capital. If you can live on that: great. If not: don’t try. It’s not going to happen. For sure I am going to get ripped a new one for saying this. Don’t buy into it. These forums are littered with details of spectacular gains. And they do happen. One month. Maybe the next. And then the thread goes quiet or dead. Not rocket science to figure out why. Sure: some months you will do better. Take that as being a gift and nothing more. And of course: you cannot know of the pressure that it brings to be doing this for a living until you’ve been in the situation. Nothing quite like being three months into the month, has not been a fantastic month, and your bills are coming due. Most in this situation will force trades and increase risk which will invariably result in them losing money thus increasing the pressure. And the cycle will continue to repeat itself and they will invariably end up in an even deeper and darker hole. So you need to see for yourself where and how you fit into all of this. There’s a lot more to this business than having just a trading system that’s profitable strange as that may sound. Under less than ideal conditions even a decent trading system will fail. Not because of the trading system itself but because of the trader.

Now we come to the next thing and that’s exactly how much time you have on your hands to dedicate to this business and not to mention personal circumstances and relationships. This will dictate as to what type of trading will suit. Not only will suite but what is possible,. If it’s all you’re going to be doing then you’ll be able to trade intraday. If not: then you’re going to have to settle for trading larger timeframes e.g. trades based on the daily charts. Both have their benefits and drawbacks. Where you live (in which timezone) is something to be considered particularly if you’re trading on the daily charts for the simple reason that most technical trading systems will have you base trading decisions on the closing price of an instrument for that day. So if the daily bar closes at midnight in your timezone well then be prepared for late nights Monday thru Friday. Moreover and depending on where this is all going: it’s preferable to trade intraday only when the NYSE is open. Again: timezone to be considered. As an example and in my case: the NYSE opens at 15h30 my time and closes at 22h00 my time (and then there’s an additional two hours after that before I get the next daily bar for the new trading day so that takes me to midnight every night and then some). So work it out for yourself depending on your timezone. If it’s doable: great. I guess it goes without saying of course that you should not be disturbed during these hours. It also goes without saying that this is not exactly conducive to having a family, friends, or social life during the week. For better or for worse: not something that I have to consider but your circumstances may be different. Point being: these things all need to be carefully considered and taken into account before deciding on the way and method to be used going forward.

Next exciting installment to follow shortly…

(By the way: the above being the reason why I have the time on my hands during the day to make an arse of myself on these forums!!! LOL!!!).

I am going to take a flyer here and say that probably most of the above is not anything that you or most want to hear i.e. most would rather just get down to the particulars and start trading. Believe me when I say that this business is not something to be taken lightly. Ignore what I’m saying above or don’t factor it in at your own peril. But again: all depends on the reasons for doing this in the first place.

Getting down to some particulars of course…

Choice of broker. This can make or break you as a trader. I don’t know where in the world you are and have no idea if you already have a trading account and if so with which broker. But I strongly urge you to open an account with a UK FCA registered and regulated broker or with a US broker that is regulated by the CFTC and registered with FINRA. Outside of these two scenarios: there is only one broker that I’d recommend in the EU and that is regulated by just about every regulator on the planet. But all of these brokers fall under ESMA restrictions. This means very low leverage. And this in turn means that you need decent capital to be able to trade. And if you want to make it in this business: listen to me because I know what I’m talking about. High leverage will kill you unless you are ULTRA disciplined in your trading. If that’s the case: you’re probably in the 1% here. So unless you’re real sure that you have what it takes to not breach any risk management rules that you may have in place: better to not take the chance. And even if this be the case: regulated brokers do not (are no longer allowed to) offer high leverage. So go with the flow i.e. those restrictions have been put in place for very very good reasons (contrary to popular belief around these parts).

And it now goes without saying that we’re back to the amount of capital that you intend trading with. The reasons why the answer to this question are important should be obvious and self explanatory by now. In addition: the amount of capital will also dictate the type of trading system that suits. Some will have wider stops and therefore require more capital than a trading system that has tighter stops. And so on and so forth.

So there’s the preamble and maybe some things to consider before we jump in here with trading systems (although during the course of the day I’ll start posting details of some i.e. those that I trade and one or two that I can vouch for by others and from there you can take your pick I guess).

IML is the name of the broker or what, Maddie ? Please post some pictures about it anyway. And I do not see how it should really matters . Are you able to make some real profit or it’s all bravado and that’s it ? I think it’s totally good idea anyway;)

Sorry. Didn’t get to trading systems here today. Requires a bit of concentration (unlike just posting for the hell of it now and then during the day) and been a busy trading day. Conversely though I don’t think I’ve ever seen a quieter new thread. You all waiting in anticipation for the next exciting installment or what??? LOL!!!

Later. Tomorrow.

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5-10% a month sounds great! I am not too bothered about making money right away though if I’m honest as I have a job…I just want to learn some strategies that will work long term and build up from there. I am prepared to put the work in, just need the direction lol

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Thank You so much for sharing all this information!

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IML(imarketslive) is the name of a very expensive forex training programme that promises people to make them rich but really just gives second rate education at a bloodsucking price.

Morning.

Thanks for providing some more information. Makes it a lot easier to be able to make recommendations as to the way forward e.g. trading intraday as I do is obviously out of the question. Pity because that’s where my income is derived from and where the money is. Not the end of the world though. Plenty of other ways to trade which I shall detail shortly. Just got one or two things to get to this morning and I shall be on it.

Right. Back to the land of dreams!!!

And here’s where it all comes crashing down I’m afraid. Guessing that after this a date will also be out of the question!!! LOL!!! But here goes anyway i.e. full disclosure.

Trading retail spot FOREX is a mugs game.

I’ll let that sink in for a while shall I???

Right. Now before the arrows start flying from the peanut gallery let me state the following:

As I said: I’ve been at this since 2005 and started out trading retail spot FOREX because it was apparently the only game in town. Over a period of a few years I lost almost seven figures in USD (when all was tallied up). But the odd thing about this: on those odd occasions during that same time when I traded Equities and Commodities I actually made profits. Unfortunately those profits never even came close to the FOREX losses. And at some point I had to walk away due to a lack of capital. Now anybody that wishes to call me out on this needs to answer the following (and God knows I’ve put this question out there at least a half a dozen times but nobody has ever even tried to answer):

How is it possible that the same trader, same personality, same trading systems, same brokers, same shortcomings both as a person as well as a trader, could eek out gains trading Equities and Commodities but not on FOREX???

I know I’m not going to get an answer so here’s my answers to the question:

The FOREX market is an unregulated and fragmented market and is the most manipulated market in the industry. And here I’m not talking about scam brokers and the rest of the scam artists which the reatil spot FOREX industry seems to attract in droves. I’m talking here about the powers that be that actually move the FOREX markets like the big banks. And the only person I’ve seen that actually gets this and understands it and also agrees that there are vast differences between the FOREX market and the stock market is the guy from No Nonsense Forex (cannot believe I’m giving him a punt here but when somebody is right they’re right) (and I’ll post a link to one of his videos below).

Most if not all indicators were developed for trading Equities and Commodities. Most if not all indicators were developed DECADES before the advent of retail spot FOREX trading. Simply put: most if not all indicators have very little relevance when it comes to trading FOREX pairs.

Equities prices simply move differently. And there’s many reasons for this and which I’m really not going to go into here as it’s a veritable list. I will mention but one of the most important reasons for this though and that is the fact that prices tend to revert to the mean (and this is particularly true in the case of the S&P 500).

In addition and especially nowadays: high leverage has never been available on Equities and Commodities. This means that a trader needed to have been (and has to be) well capitalized before even starting to trade. And most professional Equities and Commodities traders trade with little to NO leverage at all.

Now:

IF there are those that are making CONSISTENT and REAL profits from trading retail spot FOREX (and I mean over a period of YEARS i.e. not just for the last month) well then that’s great and please do chime in here and help Ms. Maddie out here. But please: not one hit wonders.

So: my advice is to stay away altogether!!! For SURE not what you wanted to hear.

But it’s not the end of the world. And here’s why:

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for you or anybody else to NOT be trading CFDs on Indexes (other than if you just don’t have the money and in which case you shouldn’t be trading anyway). One can still get a reasonable amount of leverage on CFDs. And these instruments track the price movements very accurately of the underlying Index. Same with CFDs on Futures. Same even with CFDs on single stocks.

So there’s the bombshell!!!

Now obviously the above is my OPINION but based on years and years of personal experience and knowledge gleaned. As noted: anybody with a different take on this is obviously free to chime in (but as I say: no one hit wonders please).

Let me also say this:

Whether it’s my fault or not: I can tell you right off of the bat that if you take this really seriously and get into it you will find that it is WAY easier to profit from Equities and Commodities trading. There is just so much information available to you on a per second basis that let’s you know how you should be trading e.g. in which direction. There is very little guessing involved. Alright: this type of information you have to pay for (costs me around $150 US per month). But alright: this type of information is really only applicable to intraday or day trading (which we’re having to rule out here of course).

So there you have it.

Now I will provide trading systems and links to trading systems and reading material in my next post and rate them with details. But you need to be aware that most of my trading systems are profitable when trading Equities and Commodities (or CFDs as detailed above) (and one of them has been consistent for FIVE YEARS now plus). I say most because there are one or two which APPEAR to be able to eek out a profit on retail spot FOREX (matter of fact I’m busy verifying this right now).

To continue (this is spite of my having a real odd feeling about this but let me finish what I undertook to do anyway)…

Given that you’re employed you’d not be able to trade intraday. So below I am giving details only of trading systems that require input and attention just before the close of whatever market is being traded (which in essence means that you need to be at your workstation about a half hour before the close of the current daily bar). These are all trading systems that I have traded and do still trade from time to time and can vouch for as to consistent profitability over time. I’m not going into minute detail as to how I trade them right now as I believe some input and effort now has to come from you first. By that I mean: download and read the material provided and get as familiar with the trading systems as possible. Once you’ve done that: there will for sure be questions. And in addition: there are a few minor changes to certain rules in the trading systems that I have made in order to ensure profitability and reduce the potential for losses.


Trend Balance Point System.

  • Developed by J. Welles Wilder Jnr. in 1978.
  • Should do alright on FOREX pairs but only certain pairs (even although not specifically designed for trading FOREX pairs and certainly performs well on Equities and Commodities with at least a 70% win rate).
  • Manual calculations using a spreadsheet are required (will supply the spreadsheet if necessary).
  • Trades just about every day.
  • Positions usually closed out at TP just about every day (or stopped out now and then of course).
  • Could be considered a short term trading system.
  • System is detailed in the book below in Section V page 53 of the book.

New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems - J Welles Wilder Jnr.


Memory of Price and RSI Rollercoaster

  • Developed by Kathy Lien and Boris Schlossberg.
  • Memory of Price should do fine on FOREX pairs. RSI Rollercoaster as detailed exactly not but should do fine with my adjustments thereto.
  • Very few trades.
  • Trades are long term trades.
  • Both detailed in the book below.
  • Many other trading systems detailed in the book below but none of which I can personally vouch for.
  • The entire book is worth reading though especially the introduction.

High Probability Trading Setups for the Currency Market


Turtle Soup and Turtle Soup Plus One

  • Developed by Laurence A. Connors (Larry) and Linda Bradford Raschke.
  • Systems are self explanatory. I just use a different method of stop placement, risk management, and trailing stops to lock in profits.
  • Could be short or medium term trades.
  • Both detailed in the book below.
  • Many other trading systems in the book some of which have merit but these the only two that I trade on a regular basis trade setups dependent.

Street Smarts - High Probaility Short Term Trading Strategies


High Probability ETF Trading

  • Developed by Larry Connors.
  • Go through all trading systems (main one that I trade is the TPS but the others all have merit).
  • Not profitable on FOREX pairs (although some backtesting done by another member here indicates otherwise but I cannot personally vouch for this but know the member well and therefor do accept his findings).
  • Medium to long term trades.

High Probability ETF Trading


So that’s it. At any given point in time I may a position or positions open on at least one of the above trading systems. This being said and as has been noted already: my main source of income is dervied from trading intraday (pivots combined with Wilder’s Trend Balance Point System and using market internals with TradeStation).

There’s a lot more to all of this though. Position sizes need to be discussed as well as risk management etc. But I think I’ve spent enough time here on this for now and without any feedback and there’s no point in going further until a trading system has been chosen and roughly understood and then we can get down the particulars. At this point: some effort is required on the part of the trader.


It should also be noted that I have two ongoing threads here. One mainly details the trading of the TPS trading system while the other mainly details my intraday trading but some of the other stuff as well from time to time.

https://forums.babypips.com/t/wilders-trend-balance-point-system-tbps-and-pivot-points-revisited/217788/150?u=dpaterso

https://forums.babypips.com/t/tps-time-price-scale-in-revisited/215204/515?u=dpaterso

Both links to the LAST posts on the threads.

Please do feel free to spend some time browsing.

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I have set today aside to read up on all this :slight_smile:

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Hmmm, maybe not an answer in the form of an explanation as such, but maybe a suggestion why such a situation may happen…

I want to build a box and I gather the wood and nails and use my hammer to assemble it and the result is just fine! :smile:

I want to build a box and I gather the wood and screws and use my hammer to assemble it and the result is - well, a mess, to be honest! :thinking:

Methods are just the tools we use to trade. The question is are forex and commodities/indices like nails and screws such that they do not respond to the same toolset - like a hammer!

If so, then it is not that forex is impossible to profit from per se - it maybe just requires a different set of tools to work it?

Look at Dennis’ thread! It has been going using the same basic technique for, I think, close to 10 years now (on other threads/forums even before this one)? Would he still be posting on it daily if he was not profiting from it?

https://forums.babypips.com/t/trading-the-trend-with-strong-weak-analysis/77959

Admittedly, the SW method is not an actual trading system as such, it only highlights what pairs are trading best at any one time on a longer TF and which therefore offer the best probability of a positive result. It is still ultimately down to the trader’s actual personal method whether they gain or not - but clearly there is a positive expectancy from this approach, even if it is applied to forex! :slight_smile:

Personally, I had always traded mainly EU/GU for years and with no reason to have even thought of changing. It was only at the start of the Brexit process that I got bored and unsettled about how these currencies were going to perform and decide to shift to Crude Oil.

I do admit that it was a refreshing insight to see how this commodity traded with far greater “reliability” and respect of the more generally observed TA levels. But OIl has also drifted into a set of limitations for movements, but which are not relevant to the discussion here. Suffice to say, that was the point, as you know, where I switched to indices, and in particular the SP500 - and I do find that to be a great “commodity” to trade. But I still dip into currencies whenever it seems worthwhile and I have not got burned there yet - and, strangely, I am using the same set of tools for both forex and commmodities/indices.

Well that was just one answer for you,anyway! :smiley:

@Madalyn,
All I would add to Dale’s comments (apart from the above) is not to solely focus on how to identify entries. There are many, many ways of finding good entry points. But the real issue is what does the market do after you have entered. It may shoot off sharply in one direction or other, it may slowly grind its way ahead, it might range between wide or narrow levels, or it might just wiggle around going nowhere.

The point is no one knows how a new move is going to develop and because all mechanical methods are built around formulas they will obviously perform differently in different types of market price movements.

For this reason, your exit strategy is even more important than your entry criteria. And built into that exit strategy will be perhaps the most important parameters of your entire trading set up - your position sizing, risk analysis and equity management.

Trading is a probability business and it obviously has losses and gains - this is as normal a part of your business as overheads are in any other business. The issue is optimising the extent of your profits over the level of your overheads (losses). Your net profit will very strongly reflect how you manage your risk/reward analysis, your loss control and your profit-taking.

I.e. there is a total concept behind trading that is far more than just looking for good entries.

Just some thoughts from the side of the road…

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As always: lovely post.

As always: not sure we’re on the same page!!! LOL!!!

As always (and so as to ensure I don’t start a riot): everything I post, and have posted here, is based on personal experience and observation. If somebody is able to make a living trading retail spot FOREX then I couldn’t be happier for them (makes absolutely no difference to me either way to be honest) (not anymore anyway). Just not my experience is all. Let me also add here though: I’ve read far many more horror stories over the years re: retail spot FOREX trading than I have re: Equities and Commodities trading. But in fairness: that could very well be explained by the fact that I’ve gravitated toward this site for all of those years (and to a degree Forex Factory) and which is a FOREX related site.

Where I’m coming from though (as you know):

Let’s just take this thread as a fine example (and if the truth be told: I’m not spending all this time here purely for benevolent reasons) (sorry to disappoint) (and will also admit that my initial reasons for posting here were less than honorable as is probably obvious from some of the initial posts but the novelty has worn off of course). I will prove that it’s possible for somebody to make money simply by taking a technical trading system and trading it without having to spend eons trying to understand stuff that they will in all probability never grasp. And that is for sure no reflection on them. Hell: for all I know the OP is in the finance industry and has a degree in Economics. That said: after all these years I’m of the opinion that it wouldn’t make any difference anyway unless we’re talking about long term trading (in which case I’d call that “tradevesting” at best). And as far as the thread itself is concerned: call it a total summary of my other disjointed threads that nobody will read through given their length and the daily rambling (point is this could very well end up serving as a basis for commercial content at some point in the future).

But I back up my ideas with the following:

One of the main reasons for the big difference is this thing of the daily close. It’s an all important price and is monitored by all in the Equities market and bearing in mind it’s a much smaller market. I know I’ve posted about this may times over the years but for the sake of completeness and as but one example of this: Equity traders care where the Indices CLOSED on Friday. Where a FOREX pair closed on Friday is meaningless. For some reason or the other: people either forget or don’t want to admit that FOREX prices move NOT because of traders but simply because their prices are a just a function of the banks doing their business (I realize that’s a total simplification but it’s not my intention to create a post here that is ten pages long). I don’t see the banks sitting monitoring a 200-day SMA and where the price of EURUSD is in relation to the said SMA that’s for sure or where it closed on Friday or whether RSI(14) is at an extreme level. At least not when they’re executing a foreign exchange transaction. I guess what I"m saying is that with Equities: there are many things that are monitored on a daily basis and that become self fulfilling prophecies (there’s nothing magical of mystical about the indicators of figures themselves let’s face it). So if nothing else: this is but one of the reasons why indicators and the like seem to perform far more accurately and have far more relevance when it comes to Equities.

Come to think of it: there’s just so may other reasons why these markets are totally different and why they move differently that I don’t think I’m going to spend the day rehashing. If nothing else: it’s just going to confuse. And the entire point here is to provide a few proven technical trading systems (and by “proven” I don’t necessarily mean by JUST me), give them to somebody, help them understand them, guide them through every little nuance, until they’re on their own, and have done with it.

But hey: it’s not my thread. As I did mention earlier: anybody feel free to chime in with their profitable retail spot FOREX trading systems (because I’m willing to bet the money in my trading account that nothing I’ve said in any of my posts above is going to convince anybody to change their chosen course if for whatever reasons they’ve decided that retail spot FOREX is the shit let’s face it). But as I’ve also noted: not pie-in-the-sky, open to interpretation, accurate in hindsight stuff and that’s only been profitable for a few days under ideal conditions. Particulars. This is what you wait for. When this happens then you do this. When something else happens then you do this. This is what your position size should be. This is where your stop is placed or your loss or profit is taken. And with live trades. I post details of what I’m doing on a daily basis (for what reason actually is now beyond me to be honest but anyway) i.e. profits, losses, psychology, methods, reasons, you name it. And I’d go so far as to say that anybody that does exactly what I do tomorrow will make some money tomorrow. And the next. And the next. And will lose sometimes too. But overall they’ll come out on top eventually. It just is what it is. And no reason and based purely on my own experience to spend years trying to understand every little nuance of this business for naught. Comes back to some previous comments on one or two other threads (albeit that they were in jest at the time): personal opinion is that the less one knows the better. If you can read English, find your way around a trading platform, perform some basic math., you’re good to go. I have a head FULL of fourteen years worth of “market data”. And I can tell you that possibly 1% of the same is relevant to me on a daily basis. The other 99% is nothing more than noise and nice to know. And it took me at least nine years to figure that out. And oddly enough: that’s exactly when things changed.

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That is the very point I was making, Dale! I agree they are different. That is why the tools designed to work on one market may well be fruitless on another. That does not mean that the other market is impossible to profit from, it just underlines the possible need for a different set of tools, that’s all. Maybe one of the biggest differences arises from the fact that a currency pair is actually two products instead of just one - and both have their own separate factors in addition to mutual factors - that is double input from a fundamental perspective!:thinking:

But let’s face it - as you agree - Newbies come to BP because they are Newbies. But the problem is that they anticipate meeting a load of serious veteran successful traders who are going to just unload on them all their secrets and methods. The reality is, though, that the vast bulk of other posters here are just more Newbies. That is why you do not get a lot of response from “professional” traders when you argue that forex is untradable and a mug’s game. They simply are not here - but that does not mean they do not exist!

I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Certainly, when I worked in the dealing room of a commercial bank, TA was very relevant and very observed by the traders/market-makers, although more towards the end of my spell there than at the start! :smiley: But that was eons ago and I can’t speak for banks nowadays!

But it is also worth remembering that currency trading in commercial banks is only a part of the whole. There are many funds (pensions, investment, etc) and, indeed corporates, that are bigger players than the commercial banks - not to forget the Central Banks, too! And I am sure they all look keenly at weekly closes if not dailies as well as a little TA.

But, back to the point, at least in recent times I think even naked charts show a distinct difference in volatility and uncertainty on currency markets than on commodities/equities:

GU:

EU:

Crude OIl WTI:

S&P500:

I know which of these I have found easier over this nearly two-year period!

Oh! Personally, I had thought we were nearly always on the same page - except that is for the claim that retail forex is universally untradable and that the Wilder’s TBPS is profitable (it maybe over a longer period, but certainly not recently during our trial periods - at least not without some tinkering of levels and discretionary tampering with the intended mechanical approach! :joy:

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Nice post. As usual.

Well we are on the same page usually. Maybe we’re coming at the same thing from two different angles in the context of this thread is a more accurate statement.

Point is: I made an initial statement to the OP (which I firmly believe in and stand by) and that was to not waste their time going to go through the school and pages and pages of articles on the subject and I undertook to give them specifics such specifics based on what I do on a daily basis to make money and pay the bills. And I accomplish that by trading a very few specific instruments and none of which are a FOREX pair. Whether I was able to make money or not trading retail spot FOREX in the past is irrelevant to me and should be just as irrelevant to the OP as well. And if somebody else is prepared to come along and put their money where their mouth is with their profitable retail spot FOREX trading system and hold the OP’s hand on a daily basis until she’s able to do it on her own well that’s fantastic. But I’m not seeing a queue here of people lining up to do that. So for better or for worse for her: at this particular point in time and unless other stuff is forthcoming then she’s not exactly spoiled for choice.

As far as possibly different tools being required for the different markets. I possibly agree. But then which tools??? See what I’m getting at??? Again my angle is: well these are the tools I use and I know they don’t work on retail spot FOREX. They have not for me anyway. But I passed the point long ago where it really didn’t matter anymore what it is that I trade just as long as I’m not losing money (and more importantly is that I’m actually making money i.e. simply not losing money is of use to no bugger). So from the OP’s point of view: we’d be right back to now having to question and decipher and experiment and test as to WHICH of the said tools will work on retail spot FOREX pairs and which will not.

As for the TBPS: well let’s not fall into the trap of cherry picking BAD periods as examples or base the “as advertised” (by-the-book) system on a mere handful of trades. Put it this way and my tweaks aside: there’s been one or two over the years that have indeed gone to the effort with the daily calculations that we have and traded the system for a lot longer and I’ve had no complaints about profitability. The only reason why they gave it up as a bad job is BECAUSE of the daily slog involved. And years ago I made the same mistake i.e. traded the thing, took a few losses, and gave it a miss (and I’m probably talking only a week or two at most). And even in that short period of time: it also did get a bit much doing all of that night after night. And even now and as I’ve stated on my thread on the topic: I take strain during the week with this. So much so that it’s getting to the point where I’m spending most weekends too tired to do anything else. But knowing what I know today and based on the fact that the system is really not much more than a mechanical and structured way to trade pivots (which if you cast your mind back was my issue to begin with when starting that pivot thread): it was a big mistake on my part FOR sure. Anyway. Comes back down to this: I’m not throwing stuff out at the OP that I’m not a) doing myself and b) not making money with (and daily on average to boot).

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I already gave a link to one other well-established Forex based thread here. People sometimes have to do their own homework and find what they are looking for. But like i said BP is hardly the place to find a boatload of professionals eager to give away their methods. But there are a few willing to give help and advice along the way.

It is certainly very praiseworthy that you are willing to offer your help and experience with the textbook products but many other long term traders (including myself) work their methods on a discretionary basis therefore couldn’t offer it to others anyway even if they wished to since their entry/exit decisions contain a varying amount of personal appraisal of their tools output.

Hopefully, people will indeed benefit from your help and guidance but not in a blind fashion ignoring the need to develop and understand for themselves what this business is about - or indeed the other opportunities that exist in this rather strange microcosm of human behaviour! :laughing:

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calm down boys lol

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If I may be so bold as to ask some few things:

Are you getting anything out of all of this???

How’s it going with the reading and stuff???

Any questions, thoughts, comments at all???

i might give you an insight (one of many truths why trading forex can mathematically not be profitbale) of why it is that if you trade stocks and commodities you are much more likely to make gains than trading forex.

but i have to brake the rule number one on this forum, and my own personal rule number one:

  1. never ever be usefull to anyone/make a usefull post

here it comes:

forex is a debt market while shares is a asset market and commodities is a neutral market.
that explains it all. does it not?

no? it doesnt?
what does that mean you may ask?

ok ill give more details

here:

shares makes you own parts of a company which is producing a surplus. a win. a gain.
this manifests in dividents of anually 3,5%. (in case of US stocks)

contrary, owning a currency you own nothing but debt. legal tender. it stays on the USD "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER TO ALL DEBTS; PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"
a currency does not produce a surplus, it does not produce an average 3,5% annual divident return, and therefore produces no surplus.

no it doesnt create a surplus, it in fact costs you money.
the central banks base interest rate is the cost of the money, it is how much you must pay for the right to hold/own this money.

so owning a stock creates money while owning a currency creates debt you ask?

that is very much correct my friends.

now understand it?

no? hmm… i must go into greater details

here:

immagine you have 2 pools (which is the truth as governments, banks, institutions and central banks deal only in those two pools)
those two pools are

assets which create wealth
cash at hand which creates nothing untill its put into assets

now both pools have their reson for existance, but one pool exists only to serve the other pool.
money serves the asset. not other way around, money is the slave of the asset. money is the b1tch of the asset.

and owning money but no asset is bad. bad for you, bad for the money, bad for the country, bad for everyone.

owning asset is good for you, good for the money and good for the country.

ok now im going into too deep details, as we are entering economical sciences here. ill stop right here and go back and explain things in simple manners.

simple explantion:

put all shares together, let them be worth 1 trillion USD (an false, but easy and round number to make the calculation simple and selfexplainatory),

they pay an anual divident (in normal times without crisis) of 3,5% which equates to “created money” of 350 billion USD every year.

those 350 billions are then spread to everyone who participated in this.

now lets put al money into one basked and pretend people only own it.
1 trillion again to make it easy.
the central banks who issue that money demmand you to pay interest on it when you hold it. 2,5% a year.

so if you hold all USD 1 trilion you own the central bank 250 billion every year.

now tell me one thing, who in the right of his mind would own money for the right to give away money?
nobody.

who will own stocks that make him money? everybody

and that is your explanation of several questions asked:

  1. why is it easier to make money in stocks?
  2. why is it hard to make money in forex?

  1. stocks are a urplus market, this means they generate money, the more, the longer you hold them the more money you wil recieve.
    this means that whoever participates in this market, in a relative intelligent manner and in a relative save way, can only earn money. because the 350 billion (mentioned above in the example) will be spread among everyone who owns stocks)

this means that in stocks in normal times theres only one direction. up…
that means that you dont even ned any intelligent or innvative strategy to make money on shares. buy and hold, the easiest and dumbest strategy every existed, and works perfectly fine for a 5-10% anually gain in “trading”.

  1. forex is a debt market. everything i said about number 1 is true for 2 aswell just the complete opposite way. whoever owns cash does owe the central bank every year money.
    he does not earn. whoever owns cash only owns cash cause he doesnt know (yet) where to put it in, that is true for private people as well as governments, banks and central banks. so to make it understand simple, owning cash is not desired by anyone. so if cash is available the currency price does as logical, as soon theres opportunity avalable, the currency goes logica. this means that currencry constantly go up and down on behalf of demand of cash or assets, their direction is hard or close to impossible to predict (while the direction of shares is easy to predict, they go up). owning money is bad, as soon a currency goes up because many peers hold money, it is doomed to reverse sharply because those peers only reason to hold big amounts of cash is to put them into a asset.

very basic explanation:

assets are easy to predict, they have a reason for existance, to SERVE humans. while forex is impossible to predict, their only reason for existance is to SERVE the assets wich SERVES the people.

add to this that money is a highly manipulated thing. countries (lets say trump and xin jin pi) want their currency to be worth less so the exports of the ASSETS is more competitive on the world. so presidents, governments and central banks will talk, manipulate and drive the valuation of their currency there where they want it to be. gov and presidents want it cheap, banks want it expensive (for other reasons, no need to mention them here) so it is constant propaganda war in which YOU, as somebody who is no president and no central banker, have 0 insight.

and all you can do as a forext trader (not only retial but also professionals institutions etc) is to GUESS where it might can go, or not.

did anybody ever make money on guessing?
yes

bookmakers

but never the person who guesses.

now you may ask “do i need a master degree in economis as MrDE has it to understand this and make money in the markets?”

no you dont. you just need to be intelligent enough to listen to people who have more insight in fields where you have less insight.

and that is where 99% of people fail in. they have their eyes and ears shut and walk in the dark on a bumpy road, and they hit the ground over and over again and stil refuse to listen. and in my opinion, they deserve to hit the ground every freaking day.

not knowing is nothing that must be punnished.
not listening is beeing punnished.

thats a concept that was valid and true since your birth and when your parents started to raise you. just at some point in time, the dumb think they know it all and forget that “not listening” is being punnished. just now with 30, 40., 50 it is not your parents who punnish you, its the “more intelligent people” who punnish you by taking your hard earned money away.

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