This is very strange, please explain

Hi everyone,

Okay, so I’ve been studying charts all day. I really, really want to make money trading forex. If you think about it, it doesn’t seem beyond reasonable to make money with it.

Unlike the lottery, where you have a 1 out of a million chance of winning, in forex, the spreads are reasonable and you have a 50/50 chance of winning without even applying technical analysis.

But something really strange is going on.

I was looking at the market tendency, if I risk 50 pips to make 100 pips, I will lose money. If I risk 100 pips to make 50 pips, I will lose money. And oh, I also changed the direction that I was trading to see too.

Now here is something else very strange. I was trying to make sure that I’m not crazy. I can set my TP to only 2 pips, 2 pips, people and have my SL to 20 pips, and guess what happens? I win only 65% of my trades and lose a lot of money. Okay, that’s find, let me set my TP for 20 pips and SL to only 2 pips, and guess what happens now? I lose 100% of my trades.

It seems like the market just can’t seem to move in my favor. It struggles just to muster out 2 pips. But it can effortless go against me.

People, this cannot be explained by statistics and I believe the evil God is out there to get me. I just wish he just leave me alone. I understand that evil is in his best interest and to keep me poor until I die, but this is getting old now. I cannot sit here and call this guy good if he does absolutely nothing good and sit in his chair all day to mess with me when I’m trying to make something out of myself.

Sorry that I had to tell it as it is.

Hi BernWillChris. Yep… your not going mad… that’s the way this manipulated market operates.

Please go back through ALL my posts and you will see that I had exactly the same problem back in Jan 2017 when I started.
Read through and you will see my frustration and the steps I took to turn my trading around…

No, I’m not a product “spuiker” or attempting to sell you a strategy…I’m one of the most cynical bast$%ds in here…

Which Broker are you with? That can make a difference…

I no longer use stops as I was getting stops hit on 86% of trades (I have a shocking imagination…sarcasm…)

Now I have a batting average in the high 80’s, and I’m not suggesting you trade without a protective stop or a hedge in place.

Please, please go back to my very first post and read back through ALL my posts over the last 3 months and you will understand what is happening and why at this point in your trading.

Setting SL’s and TP’s according to how much you are prepared to lose or how much you want to win is just not sustainable. There has to be a justification from the chart for entry at a given point at a given time and this should give you an edge compared to entering randomly without looking at price action. But the SL (and TP if you use them) should come from chart TA also: then adjust your position size to ensure only a reasonable amount of capital is at risk per trade.

Yes, you will (or very nearly) because of the spread: the price will only have to “tremble”, for you to be taken out with a 2-pip stop-loss. Every trade starts off with a small negative because of spread.

2-pip stop-losses are ridiculous. Only professional scalpers can trade that way [I]because they don’t pay spread like you do[/I].

But it’s very easily explained by understanding the mechanics of “how trading works, on a practical level”, and what “spread” is.

Sorry that I did, too. :8:

Is it really a 50/50 chance? because the spread already puts you at a disadvantage.

It’s an old thread, but still worth thining about too.

You are absolutely correct and the shorter tha timeframe you trade, the closer are TPs and SLs, the bigger that disadventage becomes in % terms.