Success is always hard to truly quantify in this business. There’s no such thing as professional certification, and unless you want to manage other people’s money, there is no audited return you can rely on.
Some people are simply very successful self marketers. They get out there, say they’re profitable, then people want to attend their seminars and buy their systems
I’m not saying Harneker is necessarily one of them, but my general feeling is that if you’re making big bucks trading, the time and energy you spend marketing systems and seminars simply isn’t worth it from a time money equation. The only thing that would justify this is if a person made so much, they retired and now want to have more people interaction. I honestly don’t buy this “I want to help other people get rich” nonsense, I’ve heard that from virtually every single signal service seller on earth.
To be honest, if I made a killing on trading, I wouldn’t want people to know I have a seven or eight figure account, and how much I make on average. Rich people, unless they need to market themselves, shy away from publicity. Publicity attracts piranhas (in the form of lawyers, people begging for money, etc) that want to rip out a chunk of your net worth.
I have a friend who trade the similar 10pips strategy, He is very successful. From what he teaches me the system base on 1h to daily charts, He has 90% successful rate. Its amazing. He uses 35pips SL. He never trade around news or at least 2 hrs before the news.
I think it is amazing that people manage to succeed with such risk reward ratios. Frankly, the only way I see someone doing this is if they have an early exit system if things begin to tank, so that they are usually exiting before they get stopped out. Another thing - you may trade away from the news, but news may find its way to your trade anyway!
Think the other way though, what if you took trades that had only a 1:3 risk reward? You’d certainly be sitting on your hands for a good part of the day, but even if you were wrong 70% each time, and hit profit only 30% of the time, at the end of each month you’ve made money. As someone once wisely said on this forum, “Are you really that bad?”
The key to all this is psychology. The % you mention is just the figures. Every times you lose you dont think straight anymore. When you trade Demo you can do very well but its A BIGGGGGGGGGGGGG DIFFERENT BETWEEN REAL AND FAKE MONEY. I spent enough time to realize that. Also we should never trade alone.
I agree, real money on the line always changes the picture with anything you do. Personally, my impression is that most people put cash on the line way too quickly in this game, and they put cash that it hurts to lose. I started by trading on those penny accounts. Yeah, you can sweat for a whole day and earn 25 cents, but you know that’s real money versus some demo account that gives you $50,000 to play with.
My approach is to slowly increment my account, doubling the account size every successful month I have.
In analyzing this question extensively (I’m not yet a profitable trader, I’ve been spending more of my time simply educating myself), the biggest boost for me was reading about Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt. Trading is a game of statistics, nothing more. You simply need to get an edge and trade that edge. Drawdowns will come, and they will go. Imagine that Richard Dennis traded through 30-50% drawdowns. This is a guy who turned 100% annual returns on a near regular basis. He had a fairly generic system which was very robust, it wasn’t curve fitted.
My personal feeling is if you have a system that allows you to be wrong more often than not, you’ll have less pressure with each trade. If on the other hand you have a 2:1 or greater risk reward, each loss is going to hurt badly and you’re much more likely to start getting fidgety and do stupid things. Its sort of like walking on a precipice.
So it seems you like the Asian-Pacific market. I’ve noticed it starts picking up usually around 10 pm EST, then the English take it for a big ride when they open the gates.
What i didnt tell you guys is that the RR currently stands and on 1:3 and has already been as high as 1:5 during the turbulent times. Again… the book was written a few yrs ago.
The key to trading FX… Psychology!!! (No surprises there…) you either have it or you dont… I have been trading for years now and that is the one thing I have to re-train myself (as if I ever had it…lol) constantly. We must realise trading that trading is not for EVERYONE… and everyone will not make it in this business… and it isnt always due to the skill or the lack thereof… some of us just dont have the proper chemical makeup (fact).
The rest is negligible… Custom indy’s, ea’s, trading timeframe, currency, chart timeframe, news etc can be worked around with other people’s experience… No doubt there are little tricks in the forex market that once you know about them you can consistantly make those set amount of pips daily. That’s the easy part… and because it’s NOW so easy, the Psychology becomes even more challenging.
If someone’s going for a 10 pip run at a clip, that’s a mere 3 pip stop. That’s not even the commission on some pairs. Maybe if you’re trading some very quiet market, but even then you’d probably get the crap stopped out of you.
I can prove it to you by send you trade setup between 1am and 230am for 1month. The strategy gives you at least %80 wins, even during the tough moth. Note : for every 10pips + gain you will be expose to more risk if you use SL smaller than 50pips. Think about it.
Sorry I got mix up. My strategy is not 10pips. It based on 10pips strategy. My smallest time frame is 15m /1h/4h/daily/weekly. SL from 35pips/70pips depends on market condition. I never scalp. If I use 35pips then I go for 20pips +. SL=70pips (strong market). I go for at least 40+. Note : whenever I have +25. I move my SL to break even. I average 2 to max 3 trades a week. I stop using 5m long time ago. Its the most toxic chart.
Hah, isn’t that a relief! I was wondering how the heck you could take it if just one bad trade sliced up so much screen time, lol
Still, if we take it on the numbers, 35 risk to 20 reward is 1.75:1 R:R ratio. If you’re 80% right, you’re in the money. At 2% risk, its 1.14% reward. At an 80% success rate, every 10 trades you’re up 5%.
You’re still slightly up if you have 70% accuracy, but with 60% accuracy you’re at breakeven.
I guess to each their own, and if this is the method how you make your money, then you know what you’re doing. I just can’t get into the mental set of having to be right so often, because it might just work for a few months, but then when you hit one bad streak and the strategy begins to backfire, you can end up quickly giving back whatever you’ve made.
What is the best time to trade Asia? At the open its always slow as molasses, I’ve noticed things only start moving around 9-10 pm EST. The ATR is around 15 pips or so. What are your favorite times and pairs, and what do you usually shoot for profit target wise?
