Hi All,
I am very new to Babypips and also new to trading, having spent the last 3 months absorbing information. I am at the stage where I have a rudimentary Trading Plan, log, journal, broker and demo account.
The last real component I am really struggling with is trading strategies as the world wide web is causing me great angst in trying to formulate simple trading strategies for trending and range bound markets. On one end of the spectrum the punters are saying that everything should be mechanical or you won’t succeed and from the other perspective, discretionary traders are flouting their wares.
My goal is to trade price action / order flow at levels of technical confluence. It seems to me that this method is much more discretionary than mechanical in nature due to the lack of indicators used. Can I get some guidance on those that may have had success trading like this to reinforce my thought process or should I eventually try and head down the mechanical path? Especially any resources that may help me out?
Any and all assistance is greatly appreciated
Cheers and happy trading
Freddy
3 months is not much time. Even full time that works out to be 5 - 600 hours. Thats a good start, but you need many more hours. More hours = less doubts.
If you have any lingering wish to trade mechanically, do so for a month. I think that blindly (and dumbly) applying a set of rules will convince you that discretion is required. For me discretion started with the time of day to trade. A setup that looks great after market opening will not yield the same results several hours later.
Agreed, I certainly didn’t think at the start that 3 months down the track I would still be effectively scratching the surface. But in saying that with everything new I learn, I grow fonder of trading in general.
So just to confirm what you are saying…I should continue in a more discretionary flavour and steer away from mechanising my strategies. Sorry it was just a bit ambiguous with your name and the threads you have started.
I started off trading mechanically and jumped on every new idea and gave it a try. I always thought I was just one tweak away from finding the “secret sauce”. Meanwhile I would spend hours looking at the charts and noticed how important time of day was. But its not quite as simple as only trading from say 1 AM to 3 AM. So I abandoned mechanical systems and tried discretionary. It took me several years. Now I use software to scan charts and sometimes to manage trades, not to trade.
I hear stories of people who successfully trade mechanically, so I would never advise anyone to not attempt to find a mechanical system. But to spend as much time as I did before seeing the light is not advisable.
Thank you very much, that certainly sounds like advice I can take on board. I think I was heading down that same path, so very timely as well. Thanks again
Hello Freddy,
Well 3 months is rather a short time to learn everything. Since you will find a lot of strategies over the internet, its best to create your own strategy. I have traded price action for quite sometime and I can tell you its a good way to go, but you have to take time and learn all you need to know prior to trading.
Grix