[quote="_bob, post:8, topic:117027"]
Has price action really become a lost study? Where are all the speculators gone? Is it simply everyone has blown up their accounts and no longer trades or is Babypips full of frauds. [/quote]
Hi Bob,
Great to see this thread has been opened again. I think there are a number of very interesting and relevant points that can be looked at here.
During the entire 2 years that I have been with BP there has been an overwhelming bias amongst newbies towards practising “Price Action” and using “Naked Charts”, almost to the extent of raising PA to the status of a religion.
But after over two years one would expect to now be seeing the fruits of this labour in the form of a mass of PA experts demonstrating and sharing their experiences, knowledge and their newly-gained wisdom. But I don’t see it here. The internet is still full of PA material but I don’t even see so many Newbies coming here any more - and their questions are not much deeper than " which way should I turn the steering wheel if I want to turn right?..ok, but what if I want to go left?"
Is this because:
a) PA does not work
b) all the newbies are now somewhere else sipping their Pina Coladas on the beach of their choice?
c) PA only works on long term charts but most people try it on 1H->5m charts (where there are all the scalpers and day traders all trading every way and which way all day long).
d) PA only works when one interprets it within the overall logic and context of the market in general. (i.e. it needs a brain behind it)
Or is it something much broader in the market as a whole
Retail FX has grown on the back of the huge marketing by the brokers and “educators” and product developers all offering the lure of freedom, riches and the achievement of your own personal fantasy (usually rather patronisingly represented in the form of a smart/goodlooking girl/boy looking out of a window of their private jet as it circles overhead the city of wealth or an exotic island).
But as time as gone by, more and more of forum space is dedicated to how many retail traders lose all the money and why they lose it. We blame the brokers, of course, and devote even more forum space to damning them and seeking the perfect broker who isnt going to scam us.
We could ask ourselves what do we NOT see on forums. We do not see threads devoted to taxation issues, transferring sums internationally, diversing trading profits into other investments, how to develop an investment portfolio, where to store one’s art works etc, etc.
Nowadays, the glitter of the marketeers is countered by more and more awareness of the pitfalls and sob stories that are rife in trading. The Naked Truth is overtaking the Naked Charts as the main area of concern. Perhaps the horror stories from the Binary Options field has set this new awareness and questioning in progress and it is snowballing.
Maybe fewer people are prepared to “give it a try”, not believing any more in the odds of succeeding. Maybe FX retail trading is now just “old-fashioned” and the Newbie is interested in Cryptocurrencies, automated trading, copy trading and other newer ideas. Every product has its finite era…
The regulators are tightening the brokers freedom of movement and it would only take a serious reduction in maximum leverage availability and the small account retail FX would disappear completely. The only reason why someone tries FX with less than USD 1000 is because they believe they can turn it into a small fortune in a few years. That cannot happen without leverage (if it could actually happen at all for most people).
So the question is: Are there successful PA traders or is PA just another alternative tool, like indicators or fundamentals, that only works in proportion to the professional skill of the user?
Or is it just that the small-scale retail FX trader is a dying breed?