Thinking INSIDE the box

Beginner Questions
45

Personally I believe these two quotes answer each other perfectly.

To open an account with 10k would suggest you, (not you personally jezzode) have 10k spare, available to loose, playing money. If you have 10k spare you ain’t doing too bad in life now are you? In fact if you have 10k spare, you certainly ain’t the unemployed guy using his benefit money to open your account.

But would the failure rate decrease because more people would be winning ?? No, the failure rate would decrease simply because less people would be opening an account in the first place. It would however be very interesting to see the stats of failure rates among accounts which were opened with 10k.

What if 95% of accounts opened with 10k FAILED? How funny would that be? Obviously unless you were the punter who’d just blown the 10k that is, then it wouldn’t be funny at all.

The reason why so many people F it up so horribly is because they want to BE the guy who has 10k spare, problem is, they don’t want to be that guy next year, or two years from now. No they want to be that guy TODAY.

So they open an account with $50, stick it all on SELL in the hope of quitting their job tomorrow. Trouble is it doesn’t work like that, but we only find that out with experience.

It [I]IS[/I] mental, because impatience IS a human, mental flaw. It’s the culture we live in, the culture we’re brought up in, it’s what we expect from life nowadays. We don’t want things next week, next month or next year. We EXPECT to hit a button now and our pornography of choice pops up instantly in front of us, F**k that waiting nonsense.

But ask an electrician how long it took to become an electrician. How long did it take a car mechanic to become a car mechanic? How long does it take a brain surgeon to become a brain surgeon? These people DIDN’T become skilled professionals simply because they had a bigger bank roll right from the start.

They became what they became purely and simply because they were willing to put the time and effort in to learning HOW to become those things. So what is it in new traders that makes them think they can open a trading account today, REGARDLESS of their opening balance, and become a success by tomorrow? Why do people think trading is any different from any other trade? (if you’ll excuse the pun)

46

Question I keep coming back to is this. ARE we guilty of over thinking the whole thing and if we are, what questions do we really need to ask and what after that is just decoration?

If we look at this chart:

It could be any pair, any time frame. Question is what moves the exchange rate of this pair? What moves it one way and then what makes it go back?

Are we really to believe that the big players are sitting gazing at the computer screens, fingers poised just waiting for price to get to support and resistance levels??

Is it pre-determined order levels, buy at this price, sell at that price?

Do they wait for us, the cannon fodder, to put all our trades on then just wipe us out in a revenue collecting exercise?

What firstly moves a currency pair and then what after that helps indicate how far it will move in either direction?

Does any pair respect any aspect of yesterday’s move? Last week’s move? An average range? (daily/weekly) or is that all just hocus pocus too?

Can’t help getting the feeling that the answer to the whole thing is just like that part of your face between your nose and your upper lip. It’s right in front of you all the time, you just can’t see it.

47

[/QUOTE]

But ask an electrician how long it took to become an electrician. How long did it take a car mechanic to become a car mechanic? How long does it take a brain surgeon to become a brain surgeon? These people DIDN’T become skilled professionals simply because they had a bigger bank roll right from the start.

[/QUOTE]

Bad point::: An electrician or a mechanic or a brain surgeon what ever profession you choice to educate you self into, will after education give a decent salary.

The time you need to educate you self to self to become “profitable “
In forex .
You can choice what ever profession you want and make more money…

Forex attract lot of human trash who believe they can make a living of
100 $ or 10000 $ or 30000 $ …

[B]Fact is most people who continue or are “profitable “ have forex like a hobby… they have 5-10 k account and make a couple % during a year.
Bank offer better percent then you will make in trading .
[/B]

The same time you need to become profitable in forex you would with no problem educate you self to 50 K salary work in US ,

Go to Fxcm ask how many % of Fxcm client make 40-50K a year and how many of them have done it over 5 years periode …
YOU WILL NEVER GET AN ANSWER FROM THEM NEVER:

Around 25-30 % is quarterly profitable in forex ,But you never get an answer how many traders who is profitable during 1 year or more interesting over 5 years periode …
Then you know an average account is around 4000 $ …

[B]So I guess of 100 % least 99.99 % lose money over a 5 years periode then you have maybe around 0,01 % who have a decent salary …maybe
[/B]

48

Bad point::: An electrician or a mechanic or a brain surgeon what ever profession you choice to educate you self into, will after education give a decent salary.

The time you need to educate you self to self to become “profitable “
In forex .
You can choice what ever profession you want and make more money…

Forex attract lot of human trash who believe they can make a living of
100 $ or 10000 $ or 30000 $ …

[B]Fact is most people who continue or are “profitable “ have forex like a hobby… they have 5-10 k account and make a couple % during a year.
Bank offer better percent then you will make in trading .
[/B]

The same time you need to become profitable in forex you would with no problem educate you self to 50 K salary work in US ,

Go to Fxcm ask how many % of Fxcm client make 40-50K a year and how many of them have done it over 5 years periode …
YOU WILL NEVER GET AN ANSWER FROM THEM NEVER:

Around 25-30 % is quarterly profitable in forex ,But you never get an answer how many traders who is profitable during 1 year or more interesting over 5 years periode …
Then you know an average account is around 4000 $ …

[B]So I guess of 100 % least 99.99 % lose money over a 5 years periode then you have maybe around 0,01 % who have a decent salary …maybe
[/B][/QUOTE]

Irrespective of whether the points you raise are correct this is just a terrible attitude. The foundation of every single great human endevour (whether flight, the moon, everest etc) was the result of someone chasing a dream knowing the chances of sucess were greatly stacked against them. I’m not saying go in unprepared, im just saying the mantra, “dont try it becuase you are likely to fail” is contrary to everything that makes life worth living.
Before the first human flight, there were numerous fatal failures. Before everest was topped for the first time

49

Apologies if this has been said already (I haven’t read every single post in this thread).

The reason it appears that 95% of people are losing is that the reported stories come in places like this, where ‘amateur’ traders find time, and inclination, to post. People like us have less capital and therefore in order to make profits which are significant to them they trade with far higher risk that should be acceptable. Higher risk will increase the likelihood of losing - and that gets written about.

Institutional traders will make very small percentages on very large capital investments. Their complex hedging strategies will mean that they won’t even trade anything as simple as a single pair. They will have multiple positions in each pair and will look to scalp small margins on volatility, price mis-matching and so on. They have low risk and make small percentages.

So 95% of people (if this is correct of course) lose with unacceptable risk on small positions.
This adds up and is matched by 5% making sensible, low risk trades on large positions.

Just a theory

50

Chart price action is paradoxical; you can enter both a buy and sell order at exactly the same price, and both can still be profitable trades, vice versa; price can move in a uppers faction and a downwards fashion at the same time, if you consider using multiple time frame.

Any person has the capability of becoming a profitable part-time / full time trader, I’m sure that every single person on this forum already knows the reason for their misfortune during and after active speculation, and what needs to be changed for a positive outcome. But if you don’t already were the problem lays, only through personal trial and error will you find out.

51

[B][I][U]Bad point::: An electrician or a mechanic or a brain surgeon what ever profession you choice to educate you self into, will after education give a decent salary.

The time you need to educate you self to self to become “profitable “
In forex .
You can choice what ever profession you want and make more money…[/U][/I][/B]

[B][I][U]Forex attract lot of human trash [/U][/I][/B]who believe they can make a living of
100 $ or 10000 $ or 30000 $ …

[B]Fact is most people who continue or are “profitable “ have forex like a hobby… they have 5-10 k account and make a couple % during a year.
Bank offer better percent then you will make in trading .
[/B]

The same time you need to become profitable in forex you would with no problem educate you self to 50 K salary work in US ,

Go to Fxcm ask how many % of Fxcm client make 40-50K a year and how many of them have done it over 5 years periode …
YOU WILL NEVER GET AN ANSWER FROM THEM NEVER:

Around 25-30 % is quarterly profitable in forex ,But you never get an answer how many traders who is profitable during 1 year or more interesting over 5 years periode …
Then you know an average account is around 4000 $ …

[B]So I guess of 100 % least 99.99 % lose money over a 5 years periode then you have maybe around 0,01 % who have a decent salary …maybe
[/B][/QUOTE]

No, let me tell you what a bad point is. Educating yourself in any other profession (3 examples I gave were electrician, car mechanic and brain surgeon) does NOT automatically give you ANY income whatsoever.

Electrician and car mechanic, I come from a construction background, and in case you missed the whole global recession that took place recently (and continues to take place) millions of construction workers globally were thrown on to the scrap heap as global house prices crashed.

People cut back on expenditures and luxuries, cars being one of those things for many, as noted by the sh*t sales figures from just about every car manufacturer you could care to mention over the last half a dozen years.

So, no cars, then who needs a mechanic?

Brain surgeon, trains for years to become skilled at a level most of us will never attain. One slip, wrong type of injury or failure of the eyesight and kiss your career goodbye my son, not even to mention the competitiveness to get into that career in the first place.

One of the reasons trading appeals, IMHO, is that when done successfully, it’s completely recession proof. As long as you can do it, you can do it in ANY economy, trick is learning to do it.

But that’s the question I’m asking here, not whether there are large, small profits out there, nor even if there are BETTER ways of making a profit, what I’m asking is if when learning trading do we over complicate the whole process?

Is it a complicated thing to learn? I’m NOT asking about greed, impatience, trading psychology or do we all really possess the ability to F**k everything up at a moments notice, I’m simply asking is trading, or does learning trading need to be, a complicated thing or is it US who make it complicated?

52

Bad point::: An electrician or a mechanic or a brain surgeon what ever profession you choice to educate you self into, will after education give a decent salary.

The time you need to educate you self to self to become “profitable “
In forex .
You can choice what ever profession you want and make more money…

Forex attract lot of human trash who believe they can make a living of
100 $ or 10000 $ or 30000 $ …

[B]Fact is most people who continue or are “profitable “ have forex like a hobby… they have 5-10 k account and make a couple % during a year.
Bank offer better percent then you will make in trading .
[/B]

The same time you need to become profitable in forex you would with no problem educate you self to 50 K salary work in US ,

Go to Fxcm ask how many % of Fxcm client make 40-50K a year and how many of them have done it over 5 years periode …
YOU WILL NEVER GET AN ANSWER FROM THEM NEVER:

Around 25-30 % is quarterly profitable in forex ,But you never get an answer how many traders who is profitable during 1 year or more interesting over 5 years periode …
Then you know an average account is around 4000 $ …

[B]So I guess of 100 % least 99.99 % lose money over a 5 years periode then you have maybe around 0,01 % who have a decent salary …maybe
[/B][/QUOTE]

[B]Irrespective of whether the points you raise are correct this is just a terrible attitude. The foundation of every single great human endevour (whether flight, the moon, everest etc) was the result of someone chasing a dream knowing the chances of sucess were greatly stacked against them. I’m not saying go in unprepared, im just saying the mantra, “dont try it becuase you are likely to fail” is contrary to everything that makes life worth living.
Before the first human flight, there were numerous fatal failures. Before everest was topped for the first time[/B][/QUOTE]

Totally agree, it is a sh*t attitude, but again let me ask my question for what seems like the umpteenth time. I could care less about the failure rate, I have no interest in it and one persons failure would NEVER put me off trying something I wanted to try.

However, even though I started this thread with comment relating to that failure rate, I don’t really want to talk about it, discuss it or even have anything to do with it and I apologise to anyone who has read this and thought this was the subject of the thread.

The point of the thread is this…What do you REALLY need to know to trade profitably and what else after that is helpful, but not entirely necessary. What do you NEED to know?

So if you woke up one day in a boxroom, with only a computer on a desk for company and had no inclination about the workings of forex trading, what would you need to learn to trade and what would you NOT need to know.

I think I asked this question in another thread but if you could teach someone who knew nothing about trading 3 things and 3 things only, what would those 3 things be and would they be enough to have that person trade successfully?

53

[B][I][U]Bad point::: An electrician or a mechanic or a brain surgeon what ever profession you choice to educate you self into, will after education give a decent salary.

The time you need to educate you self to self to become “profitable “
In forex .
You can choice what ever profession you want and make more money…[/U][/I][/B]

[B][I][U]Forex attract lot of human trash [/U][/I][/B]who believe they can make a living of
100 $ or 10000 $ or 30000 $ …

[B]Fact is most people who continue or are “profitable “ have forex like a hobby… they have 5-10 k account and make a couple % during a year.
Bank offer better percent then you will make in trading .
[/B]

The same time you need to become profitable in forex you would with no problem educate you self to 50 K salary work in US ,

Go to Fxcm ask how many % of Fxcm client make 40-50K a year and how many of them have done it over 5 years periode …
YOU WILL NEVER GET AN ANSWER FROM THEM NEVER:

Around 25-30 % is quarterly profitable in forex ,But you never get an answer how many traders who is profitable during 1 year or more interesting over 5 years periode …
Then you know an average account is around 4000 $ …

[B]So I guess of 100 % least 99.99 % lose money over a 5 years periode then you have maybe around 0,01 % who have a decent salary …maybe
[/B][/QUOTE]

No, let me tell you what a bad point is. Educating yourself in any other profession (3 examples I gave were electrician, car mechanic and brain surgeon) does NOT automatically give you ANY income whatsoever.

Electrician and car mechanic, I come from a construction background, and in case you missed the whole global recession that took place recently (and continues to take place) millions of construction workers globally were thrown on to the scrap heap as global house prices crashed.

People cut back on expenditures and luxuries, cars being one of those things for many, as noted by the sh*t sales figures from just about every car manufacturer you could care to mention over the last half a dozen years.

So, no cars, then who needs a mechanic?

Brain surgeon, trains for years to become skilled at a level most of us will never attain. One slip, wrong type of injury or failure of the eyesight and kiss your career goodbye my son, not even to mention the competitiveness to get into that career in the first place.

One of the reasons trading appeals, IMHO, is that when done successfully, it’s completely recession proof. As long as you can do it, you can do it in ANY economy, trick is learning to do it.

But that’s the question I’m asking here, not whether there are large, small profits out there, nor even if there are BETTER ways of making a profit, what I’m asking is if when learning trading do we over complicate the whole process?

Is it a complicated thing to learn? I’m NOT asking about greed, impatience, trading psychology or do we all really possess the ability to F**k everything up at a moments notice, I’m simply asking is trading, or does learning trading need to be, a complicated thing or is it US who make it complicated?[/QUOTE]

Its as complicated as you’d like it to be.

54

But then that’s not an answer, however it IS very typical of the answers you tend to find in forums like this, it implies knowledge but is at best vague, cryptic and of no real value to anyone trying to learn. It’s a little like a driving instructor telling a student they can go round a corner as fast as they want to go round a corner. But it’s only when the student does it too quickly and they crash they learn.

If that sounds a little confrontation LaoTzu I apologise, it’s not my intention to be confrontational. But I find this entire forum, with all it’s “masterminds” therein, filled with much hot air and not a lot of real content.

An experiment of sorts is required methinks…

How about this, at the start of next week’s trading I’ll post a chart once a day, twice if I can mange, of a chosen pair. we will be allowed to place one thing and one thing ONLY on that chart a watch the progress for 2 weeks.

Anyone can choose or nominate the pair and likewise anyone can choose or nominate the “1 thing”. It can be S&R lines, a moving average, pivot points, I don’t care, but 1 thing only and we watch the progress. Any additional “rules” can be decided before the opening of next week’s trading ie, always sell at resistance, always buy at support, only buy when this happens, only sell when that happens…whatever…but what do you think of the idea?

55

I’m sorry if my replies come across cryptic, but the truth is that speculation of the markets are primarily subjective; so whatever answer I give you is based on either my own trial and error, or hear say ( forums, videos, book, basically anything third-party). the problem is when you seek knowledge on a topic via third-party, Its difficult to gauge how so and so came by this knowledge and how valid it is.
But to answer your previous question in black and white, yes you are over complicating the whole matter.

oh, and the whole chart thing sounds cool.

56

Ok then, so I’ll await the first suggestion from anyone whomsoever. First pair and “tool” suggested will be the ones I go with.

Remember any pair at all will do, but the “tool” has to be pretty basic-ish, since it’s an experiment which presupposes little or no knowledge, it would be highly unlikely a learner would start out with a butterfly pattern, or a dooflehanger wombat cross confirmed with a flying lamp-post average retracement crossover.

57

[QUOTE=“returnofthemack;603363”]a dooflehanger wombat cross confirmed with a flying lamp-post average retracement crossover.[/QUOTE]

That’s my bread and butter pattern, but specially when the bakery across the street is oversold.

On that note, EG Daily chart with stochastic 5,3 SMA,3 SMA
It’s oversold now :wink:

58

@Returnofthemack

When choosing a traditional education, you have a statistic that shows what salary you will get and work opportunities you have on the labor market.

Most people who choose self-study as a trader has no understanding of what is required and how little chance one has of success as a trader and hourly wage you are achieving in relation to the time you have to invest. If you take a look at the two discussions I have start.
So the answer to your question … !

Personally, I believe the way I refer to is the best for self-study

  • traders …

Agree or disagree …?

59

LOL, had you down more as a Fibonacci kind of guy mate.

As for the stochastic EG, I don’t know mate, it’s not a pair I normally look at and the stochastic isn’t a thing I’ve ever used. But if it throws out a flying lamp-post signal I’ll be all over it like a rash

60

[QUOTE=

Irrespective of whether the points you raise are correct this is just a terrible attitude. The foundation of every single great human endevour (whether flight, the moon, everest etc) was the result of someone chasing a dream knowing the chances of sucess were greatly stacked against them. I’m not saying go in unprepared, im just saying the mantra, “dont try it becuase you are likely to fail” is contrary to everything that makes life worth living.
Before the first human flight, there were numerous fatal failures. Before everest was topped for the first time[/QUOTE]

[B]Nowadays it’s much easier to make a trip to Mount Everest than to become a successful forex trader! [/B]

[B]Terrible attitude[/B] I would say that my few post provides much more useful information how to succeed as a trader than your inane posts
(have not read all)
[B]Forextrading is the nearest thing to Darwin’s theory in practice.[/B]

61

Eh…Yes and no…I think.

When I first started in construction, many moons ago, I had absolutely no idea what was involved, no idea about the job opportunities or even the salary to be honest. It wasn’t a job I had to go study for at a university or college. My mother just told me to find a job, any job, but to do it quickly, and I did.

But sure you’re right I think most people enter the trading arena with unrealistic expectations and way, way too little knowledge.

I just wonder sometimes if, in the search for the knowledge, we end up learning a lot of stuff that actually hinders us instead of helps.

62

[QUOTE=“returnofthemack;603461”] LOL, had you down more as a Fibonacci kind of guy mate. As for the stochastic EG, I don’t know mate, it’s not a pair I normally look at and the stochastic isn’t a thing I’ve ever used. But if it throws out a flying lamp-post signal I’ll be all over it like a rash[/QUOTE]

I’ve never once traded with stochastics, but I thought it would be interesting to see how a typical, often taught, flying lamp-post signal would hold up.

I’m way ahead of you on this theory you are exploring. A sort of “Keep it Simple Stupid” kind of thing, mixed with the “don’t believe the hype” idea. I’ve been convinced about this for a while now.

63

Actually, it’s a GREAT answer because it’s the truth.

People make this whole deal FAR more complicated than it needs to be, because they THINK it should be complicated.

There’s not as much to learn as becoming a mechanic, or brain surgeon. This takes more effort to learn control your emotions than it does to make money. The most profitable methods are simple. Like a good recipe. More often than not the less that is in a good dish, the more likely it is to taste awesome. Crab comes to mind.

64

That is… the right question.