I started trading exactly 5 years ago, and I still haven’t found profitability. I’ve spent so much money on mentorships and similar things that I can’t think of anything else to do anymore. If there’s anyone out there who, like me, is stuck in a loop, please help. Thank you.
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Totally feel you… been there myself. Stepping back, simplifying everything, and focusing purely on risk management made the real difference for me.
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Is it possible that those UNlike you, NOT stuck in a loop, would actually be better placed to offer you help? 
I think you have a very good and helpful response just above, from @Miss.Ara .
Focusing purely on risk management makes a big difference to many people.
Some people struggling are, often subconsciously, understandably looking at the whole thing from a basic perspective of making money where a perspective of preserving capital would actually be far more appropriate and make things much better for them, in the long run.
But above all, spend no more money.
Especially not on any more “mentoring,” goods or services.
It’s a hundred times as easy for people to make money by selling stuff to struggling traders than it is by trading themselves.
That‘s why there’s a really strong, powerful presumption - one to be rebutted only very, very convincingly, if at all - that people asking struggling traders for money for goods/services are NOT actually making their income from trading at all.
And those definitely aren’t people you want to be paying. For anything. 
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Try trading/manual back testing with a 1-1 Risk to Reward. You should be at worst a 50% win rate trader. Anything above it is skill. Everyone has their own strategy… pick one or make one that fits your lifestyle.
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Totally agree with this. I’d add that self-education through trial, error, and journaling often teaches you way more than paid courses ever could.
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Someone who is stuck in a loop like you can’t help you. You need advice from someone who was previously stuck in a loop and has now gotten out of it. The only thing I can suggest is that sometimes not doing anything is the best thing you can do.
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Wow I see how frustrating this must have been for you. Honestly I guess the reason could be that you do not have a full good control over your emotions; you see trading needs a calm mind that doesnt get stressed or greedy easily; I am saying this only because 5 years of trading does give you experience and if you try to learn that I believe you did you can learn a lot of things about trading in 5 years, so I personally think the issue is not with the experience or knowledge
Hi Ahmeet,
What sort of trading strategies have you tested before? How long did you test them out for? Did you blindly follow the systems, or did you adapt them slowly to your own style?
SIA
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By now I’m sure you have Fair knowledge/experience about trading, that why I’ll say the only thing you need is to Master The Art Of Deliberate Practice, Believe me my friend Deliberate Practice is a real game changer for me because it been designed in such a way that if done correctly it would be mathematically impossible to not succeed at any given endeavor.
Check out the Deliberate Practice at BabyPips trading psychology section.
Hi Ahmeet, I totally understand how you feel as I was in the same boat 10 years or so ago,Spent lots of money on courses strategies and coaching, but to no avail I just could not become profitable. This is what I did -
I took time off of live and even demo trading (for me it was about 3 months) - absolutely no trading at all sounds crazy right but for me I was getting stuck with trying everything instead of learning what I need to do to be successful. I worked on understanding risk - notice I did not use reward after - I just focused on determining risk - actually what I called controlled risk having a measured percentage of weekly loss of my account not on each trade but the total trades for the week that means I know how much I can use to place trades - and how much I want to risk total off my account balance. if you want more information about this let me know I will gladly share.
The next thing is to understand the flow and movement of the market - depending if you trade stocks or commodities or currencies depending on which ones there are charateristics - for example Gold can and is a very macro moving asset as it is a flight to safety when things are bad globally - just look at the current situation and how gold reacted - but that being said it is now “correcting” the move - you need to learn the different macro drivers that move the market the specific fundamental data that is being watched by the central banks and what they are looking for within ther monetary policy - these things will create a bias of what it is your looking to do so you can be prepared and plan accordingly- the next thing is to understand market sentiment which is specifcally the traders that are participating within the market and that is found on the charts you need to study those charts and create a structure using levels of support and resistance that makes sense and that you can make a clear decision on your plan. The next one is you need to narrow things down to its smallest simplest form basically first principles - ie first principle of trading is Buying and selling - first principle of buying - is buy low - First principle of selling is sell high. Once you have determined a principle now you must practice this principle until it becomes second nature just like a musician a chef a machanic an athelete - and many other feilds - one step at a time small increments of learning and understanding. Use all your senses to learn and comprehend - watch something write down what you learned speak what you learned - repeat to make sure you have understood it then practice practice practice. This is a constant journey -the learning never ends the mindset you have is a constant battle within your psychological make up - I have been trading for 16 years the first 4-5 years I sucked I failed I blew up accounts but I steped back learned what I mentioned here at 18 months later I had created s framework of how I wanted to trade that made me profitable, It was always evolving I trade very differently now than I did back then but the important thing was I created a foundation for myself to build on worked on my mindset understood my psychological triggers and managed them (hard to elininate them once you are wired you need to find a way to manange them - hint rules!!)
Last thing trading is a journey everyones journey is different but every one starts at the same place - how well you have success on your journey is corelated to how well you prepare and plan for the journey. And by the way having coaches or mentors to help you along the way is a smart idea because any performace based activity that requires a result the result is always better achieved with the right help ask the top athletes top Ceo’s musicians and look at the top trading prop firms - they all have access to a coach or psyclogist - it helps,it helped me - some where not good for me and I did not stay with them but I had 3 that where (not at the same time) 2 where excpetional for me because they recognised what it was I needed to push through so dont count out looking fotr a coach or mentor just take your time with it and interview them ask them questions before you hire them.
Okay a lot to take in I know but it is a Journey right!
Hope this helps and best of luck moving forward -
just dont quit !!
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at this point, my losing trades on hotforex (hfm) are not failures, i see them as a learning process, I mean you can never have it all, u might loose in 5 trades and make it up in one and have some to spare even… and its alright
Maybe it’s time to step back and question your approach. Such important elements to question yourself about are consistency and risk management.
I mean you can never see dawn if these two are still all over the place.
I got my break through when I started to risk small, focused on only one set up, trading one time frame and only one pair.
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wow I liked the idea, just to make sure, you mean that the way we are learning is not fine and it is not with the matrial, right?
Hi @ahmeet,
I’m sorry for your situation. Trading mentorship won’t be helpful unless it’s done one by one. The question is how much will it cost? 
Back with your case, every beginner has their own problem. If you need suggestion, you can describe problem you are having that lead to your so called “failure”.
The beginner failure can fall to different aspect:
- Lack understanding of how to earn a living from trading.
- Lack of understanding of our profile, such as mentality, expectation and financial power.
- Lack of knowledge on how market work.
- Lack of skill to analyze market technically and fundamentally.
- Lack of knowledge on Money management and Risk Management
- Lack of knowledge on how to develop trading plan.
- Lack of of knowledge to organize information and knowledge to be executed.
You need to fill in all of these. Most mentor in the market will cover only point 3 and 5. But to have all be covered, you need private session with a mentor (if the mentor is really good).
I’m not mentor or providing any kind of these services. But those are, what I am doing to help my trading teams. Actually there are 18 points, I only mention 7 here. When a person can eliminate these 7 aspects, she/he will be able trade profitably.
Hopefully you are really looking for an answer here. Most of my team can trade profitably in within 2-3 years. Some prodigy can show result in less than 1 year.
Warning: I’m not mentor here. Wont be selling anything. Just sharing information for the goodness sake.
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dont lose hope, its bond to happen sooner or later, no two traders are the same. but one thing for sure, as long as u dont quit you will find profits.
Does everyone who just keeps going eventually find profits, then? Not quitting guarantees success? That’s very good news!
It does make me wonder whose money is paying out everyone’s profits, though, if everyone eventually becomes profitable just by not quitting. That’s a puzzler … 
I confess I’m intrigued, Margaret.
Which words in @ahmeet 's post made you think he’s not in control of his emotions? You’re not suggesting that that would be the reason why anyone would be still failing after 5 years, as most people are evidently still failing after 5 years, and you surely wouldn’t be suggesting that most people can’t control their emotions?
So why would this probably be ahmeet’s problem? 
I hope you don’t mind my asking?! 
Hi, I dont mind logic at all, it is actually the exact opposite. And about my last comment, you probably know what “guess” means?
I absolutely do! and it is not only about trading, just look around you!
After 5 years of education, as I believe the reason can definitely NOT be knowledge, what do you think can be the problem if you are still losing after 5 years?
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clear, wasnt that ? 
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The first thing I recommend to anyone is journal.
If you are not thoroughly journaling and recording as much as you can, it will take you so much longer to work out what is going wrong.
For many people even removing a few losing trades a week is enough to make them profitable.