Its been 9 months now since I started in Forex. I thought I would give everyone an update on my status. And as you may have guessed, it is not a good one. Apparently, I’m stupid and don’t know how to trade Forex. I did 3 months of education on Baby Pips, followed by the last 6 months of failed trading and more information overload on education. I’ve spent nearly 2K on courses/programs, indicators, trading in general, and about a dozen Udemy courses.
So far, I’ve tried (in no particular order): Trade with Bruce, Trade with Rayner, Forex Signals, Learn Currency Trading, Break the Cycle FX, Pip Society, Kou Lee Fx, just to name a few. All I have ever done is lost money. The education seems so good, but I can never translate it to live trading.
Needless to say, I’m fed up with paying for courses that I cannot use to actually trade. So either there is a lot of crap out there, or I’m just stupid. I’d probably go for stupid myself, but who knows.
What I really need is a simple trading system that actually works and that I can trade. Thoughts?
Nope. You’re not stupid. Not at all. It is what it is. You are not the first. And you most certainly will not be the last to tell the same tale of woe in the FOREX game. But if you’re prepared to forget about FOREX and have some decent capital (and by decent I mean AT LEAST $20K USD and preferably DOUBLE that) then different story altogether. Equities and Commodities only. Almost purely mechanical trading. No need to try and understand fundamentals or any other stuff that most will never get their head around in a lifetime.
Nope. Youre wrong on 3 things.
1st. Youre not stupid.
2nd. The educations u mentioned, you said are good- no they are total crap.
3rd. Trading systems that work do not exist.
Your not stupid. Trading is like any other business, in order to succeed it will take years of dedication and many losses and hardships along the way.
I hope you continue to trade and I wish you the best of luck and much success
Obviously I cannot agree with you on this point. And based on our pleasant interactions thus far: I’d find it a stretch to believe that you actually believed that. There are trading systems that work with the proviso that certain other things are factored in (adequate capitalization and thus being able to manage risk being one of them and not to mention the required discipline to actually be able to follow them through day in and day out until you’re so bored you want to climb the walls type of thing).
This may be true. Unfortunate and totally unnecessary though. More like sad but true if anything.
Honestly, from everything I’ve learned so far (and I’m by no means an expert)…you need to spend a LOT more time learning, coming up with a trading plan, backtesting it THOROUGHLY, and paper trading for AT LEAST 6 months to a year before you ever go live. You need to be sure your trading plan will actually make you money over the long term before you risk a dime.
In addition, you need to make sure you can keep your emotions under control so they don’t sabotage your trading. People don’t realize the emotional impact of trading - what it can do to you when you lose money or even when you have a run of wins and you get overeager/overconfident. Psychology and getting your head right when trading is AT LEAST as important as, if not more than, knowing how to identify patterns and setups.
I strongly recommend you check out the YouTube channel Decisive Trading - he is by far the most honest, straightforward trader on YouTube. He gives fantastic advice for free. Also, check out the book “Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and the Inner Game” by J. Rande Howell - it goes in depth into why a trader can perform fantastically on paper but tank when it comes to using real money, and how to overcome that.
Hope this helps!
Very decent of you to go to the trouble of responding to the OP in such detail. But I am willing to bet that the OP has done all of that in some shape or form and by the sounds of things has paid for the privilege and has still not been able to make a go of it.
As I am sure is obvious: I now spend a lot of time here again (maybe more than is warranted). And my observation of late (the incessant regurgitation of the same old same old cliches aside) is that people make this far more complicated than it needs to be. It’s not an easy way to make money. No question about that. But it’s (does not have to be) complicated.
when i started trading i was trying to find, or invent, a trading system for exactly 2 weeks. then made a logical mind play.
the logical mindplay:
everything that is systemized can also be automated.
everything that can be automated is beeing execured/exercized by machines.
machines replace humans in simple, ever repeating tasks.
next step logic:
are /have been humans been replaced by machines in the sector of investing/speculating?- no
have there been attempts to find automated trading strategies in order to replace expensive human work force? - yes
who made the first an biggest steps in this field? people and entities with huge resources in intellectual, technical and financial capital.
if they did not succeed in replacing traders, speculators and investors, then why in the world could i succeed in this endeavor? - i cant
logic conclusion: systems that tell you what to do and produce profit without requiring you to use your brain do not exist.
you have been looking into a big number of trading systems over the course of 10 years (if i remember correctly you said you are doing this since 10 years). did you ever encounter a system which has produced positive returns for you? if you did: what did that system do to your account?
under the line, this occupation has one purpose: earn money. nothing more, nothing less.
Hello.
Not entirely sure I’m making sense of your post.
But yes: been at it more than ten years I guess i.e. since 2005 (with a break of about two or three years so that probably doesn’t count).
And yes: I have encountered a system which has produced positive returns for me. I trade it every day and have been doing so for the past five years. Given that it was part time though I simply withdrew profits as and when they were on the table and blew the money i.e. there was no goal of building up the account because a) at the time it had a lot of money in it and b) I was making money elsewhere. And the only time the said system has let me down: wasn’t any fault of the trading system but me getting too clever on a particular trade last year on Gold i.e. cannot blame the system because I was ignoring its signals. Still closed the year up in spite of a mammoth loss on that particular trade.
My personal findings above aside: the said system has been independently tested by various people (and I’m talking about professionals here not some dude sitting with MT4 and trying to back test and curve fit the results). It’s robust over YEARS of testing. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know what else to say to you.
If you think I’m talking nonsense: by all means. I have an entire thread in which every single thing about it is detailed. You don’t have to take my word for it. Take the thing, implement my improvements relative to risk based position sizing and fixed (mental) hard stops, and run it on your own charts.
But I will say this: it took me many years to get to this point. And cost me more than anybody here can even imagine. But if I look at what I do now and have been doing for the past five years: it’s sinful that I wasn’t able to get it right years ago and without having to lose the farm. And that’s why I’m saying on this thread: people make this too complicated. And I CERTAINLY was one of those very same people when I started out and for many many years unfortunately.
But I need to add this too:
Your statement was a blanket statement saying that “trading systems that work do not exist”. Other than very expensive algos. and HFT: do I think it (trading) could be 100% automated??? No I don’t. I do exercise SOME judgment now and then that’s true. But certainly nothing along the lines of trying to understand nonsense that I don’t have enough years left in my life to grasp e.g. fundamentals and economics and the usual suspects. The actual mechanics of the trading system itself don’t require much thought though I can tell you that.
All of the above being said though I could very well end up with egg on my face because somebody (not me i.e. just somebody following what I do).is working on this (an EA for it) right now and testing and apparently the results are pretty good. Maybe not as spectacular as my manually trading it. But an overall profit is an overall profit. Certainly will be one up on 95% of the other stuff around here that’s for sure.
And one last thing to add (which maybe does back up your argument): algos. and HFT is not trading as we know it. It’s really nothing more than the manipulation of order pricing.
Did you get the money out that you invested in those 10 years? (Not time invested, nerves, stress etc- only the money)
Move on from the TEN years. TEN years NO. FIVE years YES. Overall over the last FIVE years I was able to withdraw profits as well as the initial amount of capital put into the account.
Let me make one thing clear here though: we’re not talking the +5 000% gains or any of this other ridiculous BS that’s punted all over these forums on an hourly basis. Sorry. Those are out of my league I’m afraid. Probably talking no more than 5% per month ON AVERAGE PER YEAR but when extrapolated out over the months of a particular year when I was indeed trading (probably about eight to ten months of any given year). And that’s why it will never be adopted by anybody here. Returns are not high enough. No get rich quick I’m afraid. Not to mention no high leverage, decent capital required, no FOREX pairs, and a fair amount of damn hard work (having to stay awake nights until the NY close which becomes a bind to be sure).
Stop spending money on training courses. They contain no secrets, you are paying only for someone else to do the job of collating freely available information and packaging it for you. Unless you’re pushed for time because you need to be either in trading or out of trading within the next 6 months, buy no more training.
Take the simplest strategy known to man and practice it with discipline and tight money management. For example long-term trend-following - in principle, identify a trend on the daily charts, enter on a pull-back, set a stop-loss using ATR, size your position to 1% of capital, trail the stop when you get into profit, get out with a gain and look for where you can re-enter if the trend resumes.
As you mention him, this is very close to Rayner Teo’s approach.
Hi tommor, could you please explain how to use ATR to define SL point??
Find someone who is making consistent profits in this business an stick with the person. It will greatly shorten your learning and give you more insight on how this market works.
Rayner explains this well enough on his Youtube channel.
In outline though Average True Range is a way to measure and express volatility. The range is the distance between the high and low of the day’s trading. ATR20 is the average of the last 20 days’ ranges: ATR14 is the usual default setting and is the average of the last 14 ranges. The idea of setting the stop using ATr is so that you don;t set it too tight, where even a below average degree of volatility could hit your stop and ruin your opportunity. You could use 1 x ATR14 or 1.5 x ATR14 or 2 x ATR20 or whatever setting you find suits your strategy, your chosen market and your risk tolerance.
As you will think differently from others, you can deny the fact that you will need to pick up a trading system to achieve your trading success. Yes, you may think of taking assistance from experts but you can’t actually think of working with any random trading method of course. You will require proper trading understanding of course and to do so you must try to complete your education at first.
The only post on this entire thread that’s of any benefit to the OP. Matter of fact i’d go so far as to say that this is the only post on this entire site that’s of benefit to those that are struggling to make some money out of trading.
Everybody just keeps regurgitating the same old sh*t. Manage risk. Money management. Don’t risk more than you are prepared to lose. Identify trends. Identify range bound markets. Identity support and resistance. Understand fundamentals. Go on courses. Buy books. It will take years. You need experience. Jeepers. If you’re going to give advice then give specifics that are helpful. This stuff isn’t helping anybody. They’ve tried it. It’s not working. And if you were in their situation what would you prefer: to stop losing money and maybe make a bit every month. Or just continue on the same path.
Much appreciated with the replies so far. I need all the help I can get.
So now I’m actually curious.
What’s your next step on this journey??? And why i.e. what are the reasons for your next step being whatever it may be???
Really just curious for the sake of interest.
Not going to berate you no matter what your answer.
Call it a fascination with the psyche of someone who has had your experiences thus far (and please believe me when I say that’s 100% of the forum members here even though some may not admit it).