Please Destroy My Confidence

Help me. I am way too confident.
Like many of you, I graduated from the Babypips School of Pipsology, and started demo trading. I’ve been making money AND I THINK I’M THE SHIT.

Obviously, I am missing something here. There is no way it’s this easy in real life. But what am I missing?

• I backtested a bunch of strategies I found online and found a lovely trading plan that works great on certain pairs. (I swing trade, so slippage is not so much of an issue.)
• I’m very careful with leverage. Don’t want to blow out my account.
• I journal every trade and record my psychology.

See, I’m not an idiot, I’m just genuinely confused why I’m making money so easily. Why can’t I just follow this strategy in real life and make money easily?

Can someone explain?

Congtatulations on your early success with demo trading.

And you dont need anyone to destroy your confidence. When you go live, the market will do that for you. Happens to everyone.

The important thing is to continue learning and continue trying to improve as a trader.

Best of luck and happy trading to you. I hope you continue to have success.

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No reason why you should not be seeing some success, you seem to be approaching your trading with all the right considerations.

However, you do not mention how long you have been using your method. There is a possibility that, having backtested against a number of currency pairs, then all you have done is “best-fitted” your method to identify which pairs are currently performing well. Only time will tell if your method works consistently during all market stages. For example, trending as well as consolidating, etc.

But congratulations on at least a good start! :slight_smile: you at least appear to be approaching your trading with the right degree of professionalism and it is good to question everything and keep a sense of realism about your progress.

Well done!

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Never ever underestimate or overestimate anyone including ourselves.
What you gained is with the knowledge you acquired.
Even the greatest traders loose sometime.
Breaking confidence won’t do any good instead mould it to a point that you must be ready for everything .
Good luck

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Confidence is a good thing, but you should be careful it doesn’t turn into arrogance.
True, things aren’t as easy on a live account. When real money are involved doubts and anxiety will begin to pile up.

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In my opinion, when you go from DEMO to LIVE account the most important thing is to keep thinknig and acting the same way as if the money are not real (like in the DEMO account). I am not saying that you should waste money here and there like it is nothing, but just invest a certain amount that even if you lose it, this loss will not affect your financial health in any way. Many people start to act and think differently because of the pressure of losing real money which is the biggest mistake that a beginner can make. Keep your attitude, relaxed mind, and strategy the same as it was during your DEMO account and don’t dwell on how much you might lose. The game is still the same, doesn’t matter if you use real or “fake” money so why let the pressure of losing “real” money change your thinking?

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Great point Ivan.

Easier said then done because the psycology is different when trading demo vs trading live.

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Some confidence should be with forex trader so that he will not remain confused while trading. However over confidence is dangerous. It will harm you when you will think of yourself perfect not see what in going on in market.

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In my opinion that’s not confidence, that’s arrogance. But I do agree, arrogance is detrimental to good trading and it should be avoided as much as possible.

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Fxas, you are arrogant and a bit Naive. But don’t worry, the market will erase that soon enough. Put on 1/2 yard of OPM, that will cure you of any thoughts that “its this easy”.

The Ever Observant VIPER

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Hi fxas. Congratulations on your success. As part of my continuing fx education, I wonder if you would post a link to the strategy that’s working for you? I’d like to explore that as I look at the possibility of swing trading.
Cheers. GB

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Lol! Awesome post.

Just think that 99% of all traders lose money. That goes for the greats and the smalls and the mighty.

Meredith Whitney blew up her fund.
Richard Dennis blew up his investors capital
Lehman brothers went bust taking their own drugs
Paul T Jones lost half his money before bouncing back.
Marty Schwartz lost money for 10 years before hitting a big trade.
Everest Capital went broke during the Swiss crisis.
Etc.Etc…

I lose money all the time just more consistent with making bigger trades and cashing in. All down to your pocket book in the end.

You will lose all your capital in the next year maximum. The emotions will get the better of you. If you still trading after 5 years then you are ready and you may have a chance to make cash.

Most traders quit in 6 months having spent several years on the babypips marketing engine, traders have come and gone. Some dissapeared into thin air.

I can’t imagine you will be different. Did that do it for you? :slight_smile:

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Good Post. Good replies .
Most? All? new traders possibly don’t give enough heed to the advice of experienced traders. Most traders fail, or to put it differently, many traders fail and give up, most traders loose money… well no … I’m sure there isn’t a trader around that hasn’t lost money. Making good money in the early stages feels great but is probably the most dangerous, because you will simply be setting yourself up to loose 2/3 of it many times over. It isn’t easy so if you think its easy- all it means is that you havn’t encountered the scenarios that will cause you loss yet. The point is not to knock your confidence right off your shoulders, because confidence in your strategy is great, but it would be wise to realise that the likelihood of you somehow coming up with an amazing winning strategy in such a short time is about zero. Rather - read and follow all the good advice and all the teachings of experienced traders and learn! Confidence sort of becomes irrelevant. Knowledge and Experience are far more valuable. When I climb on my bicycle and ride, I do not “feel” confident, but neither do i feel a lack of confidence, I simply get on and ride without thinking much about it, and I know i wont crash. I COULD crash but its highly unlikely as i have been cycling forever. You do things that work - you stop doing the things that don’t work. If my bicycle needs attention, I fix it. I adjust things, as you adjust your strategy. I don’t rely on THAT bicycle. If I climbed on another bicycle, nothing would change. Accept that you fall right into the statistic of every other trader that ever was. If you want to be trading in a years time, then learn the good habits. … Protect your capital. If you are unnecessarily exposed, you will loose very soon. You have, at least asked the right question up front, now learn from the answers. It is not that easy, but it is worthwhile to learn.

Variance. Until you have traded with a strategy for a long time, you have no idea how it pans out over a worthwhile time period.

It is like flipping a coin 5 times and getting 5 heads and thinking you have the magic touch for heads flipping.

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Hello dear, you are confident and making good money, this is a best thing ever could happen in life of a forex trader. And you need help for this!!! Just because you are doing all things in the right way how should be it done? I am so shocked. I think what you are missing is the spark to do forex trading. I think you are not enjoying actually. My suggestion is just take a break and do other regular things except trading. So, then you can find some space to think what you are missing.

Trade live for 5years. If you survive, good for you.
If you don’t? Are you going to give up?

Some people are just plain lucky in the sense that they are born clever, more astute in seeing the geist of how things work. Early success may be a bad thing. When your health turns bad or got emotionally disturbed, would you still be able to maintain your mental sharpness and rational temperament?

Your trading sample size are just way too small. Join a forex contest and see if you can get trader of the year? Get champ every month if you are so good. I will be around to compete with you.

Having confidence in trading is fine. Sometimes, though, it leads some people to take too much risk. If you can continue to follow a written plan, with limited risk per trade, and execute trades in such a way that you attain a good risk to reward ratio, there is a good chance that you can make money over time trading. If you start to think that you can’t lose, and you take too much risk on one trade, you will eventually lose, have lots and lots of stress, and possibly go crazy and enter the mental institution. Just kidding. :slight_smile:

I would advice you to change your broker, work closely with an experienced account manager or a trade annalist. Then in no time you can start on your own. People go into binary trading with so much confident thinking they can beat the odds, but money is going from losing on the other hand. Talk to me if you need help.

In spite of good trading knowledge that’s not possible at all to calculate the real faction of this market with certainly. so I don’t know how to come overconfident when trading. Of course we have to be confident to ensure comfortable trading life but there is a level. I agree with Mlawson its not overconfidence it’s all about arrogance attitude.

You have to be sure of your strategy.