Thought this was easy haha

Beginner Questions
1

ok i got only a little bit of knowledge on forex
started trading on demo account
go up to 40% profit in 2-3 days
thought it was the easiest way to make money

although it seemed easy at first
all of a sudden, consecutive lost started coming to me…
now at 40% loss, from 40% profit to 40% loss in 1 day
of couse this is all in demo account

one method that i like to think is a
gambling method - 50/50
if you order sell or buy at any given time and price
just put a stop loss at -30 pips and a limit at +30 pips
if you are positive, it would go in your favor
even if you aren’t positive, it would be 50/50 in your favor
this is like a gambling bet, dont you agree?
(it’s not really 50/50 because of spread but you get the idea)

with that, i started thinking, if trend patterns are true…then my odds wouldn’t be just 50/50, it would be in my favor…
of course this is somewhat naive thinking

one other thing i realized is
if you trade alot, you lose alot on spread
usually about 3 pips per trade (buy and sell)
if you win/lose 30 pips, the spread for it is 10%, so even if you win everytime,
10% of your profit pays the spread
10% is really high don’t you think??
if you trade even smaller…then it’s even higher
of course vice versa

so to sum it up…it’s a game that requires decent amount of work and thoughts into it to win it
and yes i was naive to think this was an easy game
and of course the brokers are winners 100% of the time, while the traders are risking …and win … of the time

2

lemme guess, you researched forex, downloaded a platform, got excited and couldnt wait to get to trading. Had some success and got over-confident. Loss a big chunk of your demo account, and now you’re like 0_o

Does that sound about right? That was me two weeks ago LOL. I think all newbs go through that. Its good to make mistakes now because you learn from them, better now then later. :slight_smile:

3

I’ve been there too.

One thing you will realize is that, yes it seems easy. However, trading a demo account and a real LIVE account are different, both from a psychological and technical standpoint (some interbank feed speeds differ when you finally transition from the demo to the live account). Once you make some pips and come on a string of wins, you will probably think you’ve got this all figured out. However, more often than not, that is not the case. I’ve had a winning streak this year but lost a good chunk of it on a loss that spiralled out of control one trading day.

From my experience, these are the things you MUST LEARN:

Proper Analysis
Self-Control
Discipline
AND FINALLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY— PROPER MONEY MANAGEMENT.

I’m slowly but surely learning every bit I can and i’m hoping it’s all coming together sooner or later. There’s always something to be learnt—and that, in and of itself, makes this market both a challenge and a wonder.

4

There are people thinking that forex can make you rich in some days, but for that you need too much luck. I know, I thought that was easy but it�s not, you need study some days before to trade, even I need a couple of months hahaha

5

Just so you and everyone else know, I started back in November w/$200 mini account… went through it in 3 trades… rather than getting upset, I got curious. Was it the market? no. Was it my broker? no. What was the “x” factor that was causing this loss? You guessed it… dumb ole me.

Yes, success is possible, but you have to do your research. Look at timeframes, look at how certain pairs move in those time frames, look at the history of a pair, or pairs you are planning on trading. See how certain types of news events effect the market. I.E. Do your homework.

And, even then, the market still has her little surprises. Being a man, I refer to the market as a woman. One day she may be in a black leather mini and 6" spike heals seemingly ready to wait on your every need and the next day be in a flannel “granny” gown and curlers with the green face paste on refusing to acknowledge anything you are hoping for. And so it is, like a woman, (no disrespect intended), a fickle and finicky creature that does what it does. Knowing that gives you some idea of what it may do next, but in times like these, if you are just guessing, you’re not going to last very long at all.

And it has been my experience that most woman, though they do enjoy a romp in the hay, are really looking for stability, in this case, stability being a return to the mean or trend which, in my opinion as it developes is “slow and steady wins the race” with patients and well timed aggression based on dependable information and knowing what to look for.

Ok, sorry if I put you to sleep, but I tend to rant, so,

Good luck and good pippin,

Chubs

6

That is a nice way to put it chubspis :slight_smile:

7

Lol, Market is a lonely woman, starving for attention. And she’ll make you pay if you don’t get to understand her. Just as real life.

8

good traders don’t enter 50/50 trades. your research and analysis, whether it’s fundamental or technical, helps improve the odds in your favor.

your example of the 30 pip TP and SL is flawed. If there is resistance 10 pips away from your TP, your chances are certainly less than 50%, unless there is even more resistance keeping prices away from your SL.

you can be a gambler or a speculator. there is a difference between the two, and your methodology should reflect that difference.

you won’t figure this market out in a week, a month or even a year, but knowing that you will always have a lot to learn is half the battle. the other half is going out and learning/experiencing the market.

“if a man never made mistakes he’d own the world…”

9

LOL, The market is like a woman, you can have success for a whole year and a half, then one day she’ll decide you don’t appreciate her enough and she stops answering your calls and replying to your texts :frowning:

10

It is really not easy. I mean damn difficult.

Its just not enough enough if you have a good system or strategy.
We still need to know the normal stuff like support,resistance,trendline,
and daily,weekly pivot point. Not to mention candle formation.

Cant skip all those stuff. All these add up to your decision to whether to take a trade setup. For exmple, your trade setup says long. But you are hitting a
trendline with a monthly pivot. t doesnt seem nthat good to take a long trade.

My thought is if you had doubt or think too much. Skip that trade.

11

Hi

Been trading a live platform for two weeks and have been very sensible, only trading 1 lot at 10 cents a pip per trade. Over the two weeks I gradually built up my initial investment of $1000 to $1038. Not a lot I know, just a few bucks a day, but an encouraging start. I figured that if things continued in a similar vein, then I’d gradually increase the number of lots and give myself a reasonable income. Wrong!

Yesterday was a mare. I was still trying to be sensible, and still can’t figure what went wrong. I made a bad start by missing a scalp line because I’d been dragged out by my wife and didn’t even have time to place an order. When I got back, the line had been well breached, but I thought that there still might be pips in it so I made a trade. It started losing, so after dropping about 30 pips, I closed on a loser. If I’d left it, it would have turned and I’d have made a lot of pips. After that bad start I began to lose my bottle and stopped out a couple of trades early making only a few pips , which if I’d let go, would have made me a lot. Moral - never make a rushed entry, especially after a shopping trip with the wife.

By this time I was starting to get annoyed, and although my entry decisions weren’t too bad I did a bad mental sum and set a limit only a few pips over the buy price. By the time I noticed, it was too late to get back into that trade. Moral - always double check your stops and limits.

Then to finish off, I had a trade which I was watching and hadn’t set a stop loss. It quickly started to go into the red so I brought up my platform to close it but it was the demo platform! By the time I’d got the real one up I’d taken another battering. Moral - only log into one platform at a time.

Fortunately, because I’d only been trading 10 cents a pip I still finished 2 bucks above my initial investment, but I’d blown two weeks gains in a day. If I’d been using big money I’d have felt gutted. It really brought home to me how careful you have to be at this nonsense.

Actually, I’m glad it happened because it gave me a valuable lesson without causing too great a financial loss. In future, I’ve decided to do no more than two trades a day and once I’ve set my stop and limit I’m going to let the trade run to it’s outcome. Over the two weeks, I’ve lost a lot of pips by quitting a trade too early.

Most of all though, if I feel myself getting angry, I’m going to stop trading for the day. You can’t win if you try to get revenge on the market.

Cheers and good trading to all.

12

yeah, the brokers are truly the ones making all the cash in the forex market and that is whether you win or loose

13

Brokers have always made money not just in forex.
In order to make money with them, you have to check
your greed and trade with education and conservative
nature. And on top of that all, you have to have
tremendous amount of pure guts.

Most people cannot do this. Own upto to it fast
and exit forex market if this is you.

Any type of trading is not for the gutless without
any level of knowledge or cannot control their greed.

And when you find yourself trash talking a broker
rather than one’s own shortcomings, it is time to leave.

14

It becomes easier with time, just make sure you learn from your mistakes.:smiley:

15

jesimps:

Pff that’s wifes for you eh.

When you have a small startup ($1K) it’s always tough building it up. But you will manage it. Just takes patience. Expect a lot of losses. They happen.

Sometimes, no matter how sensible you are, the market will just f*ck you up.

I’m not one for small, tight stop losses. I’ve been trading for about 4 years (still learning new things everyday btw :)) but I find a 5-10% risk works best, it gives you that bit of ‘leeway’ you often need, giving chance for the market to reverse and close your trade.

On another note, the number of times I’ve hesitated, then chickened out, sat down, shat bricks and closed trades as losses, only to find if I had left them, they would have closed in the green. Meh. Annoying to say the least.

All in all, you have your good days and your bad days. Heck, I’ve had bad weeks, but just keep your cool and you will be okay.

Best bit of advice? Read up and learn new things to do with the forex every day. When you’ve read it, re-read it and read it again. :wink:

16

to the op,

there is definitely something wrong when you go up 40 % in 3 days. If you had said that it is damn difficult I got up 3 % in 3 days and then lost 3 % on the 4th I would have looked into it being difficult-but am unable to go past the 40 % thingie currently :slight_smile:

17

the problem with being a newb is that youre stuck being a newb — fortunately its not a terminal disease and can be cured with knowledge brought on by experience.

to hasten that knowledge, many here know of the visual aids I endorse that assist you in seeing where your price is heading, which tends to eliminate problems such as “chickening out” and watching the price go back up again.

retraces are a fact of life, BUT just WHAT kind of retrace are we looking at and when ?

at specific times of the day, the prices WILL retrace and at other specific times of the day, they will REVERSE (while remaining within trend) and scare the living whatever out of you — a good trader either holds the original position, secure in the KNOWLEDGE that it will be coming back in a few hours, or dumps and goes with the NEW direction, secure in knowing it will hold for a few hours.

so while “a few hours” seems to mean a lot in forex, LEARNING when those hours occur is one of the keys to trading.

most here know the visuals i refer to, such as the LRC, support and resistance overlays, the zigzags and just a little dab of indicators to show you STRENGTH of your move.

once you put them all together, a price that moves against you is nothing more than a brief interlude in your profit increases, because if its NOT time for a reverse, then it AINT a true reverse and the broker LOVES TO SEE YOU dump your shares !

everyone looks to systems and stuff to move forward, but first you must understand what is happening before you as the charted price moves up and down in tune to your heartbeat ---- when you KNOW, fooling you becomes a near impossibility and your trades become magically successful !

its all about learning and SEEING what is happening, and that is certainly the hardest thing to picture when youre a newb, BUT its all learnable and applicable and doesnt take much more than average dumb intelligence to put together and make work.

i dont really teach “systems” as most work pretty danged well at one time or another, but i do stress SEEING what is happening.

once you can SEE, you can make sense of the mad jumble of moves the market makes, and you can profit wildly from those moves !

enjoy and trade well

mp

[B][I]Within the great hall at Elfinore stands a wondrous coffer, precisely four cubits square and securely latched against the outside world. Inside that repository, shut away from impertinent eyes, abides many an intriquing trading secret garnered from around the world and over the ages !

As a child, i used to watch from the darkness as the secrets were debated and annotated by the elders. No one there held a single thought of my presence – BUT I KNOW WHERE THEY HID THE KEY !![/I][/B]

18

I’m even newer to this than you. I only try this out 3 days ago. Well 1st thing that you need to learn in Bankroll management. I know I have no clue about this yet but I know for sure that this almost same with sport betting and poker you need to know you bankroll and never risk more than 5% of you BR in 1 bet (same at 1 trade here I assume) If you go from up 40% to down 40% is ways too much there.
So far I really like this Forex thing here looking to invest in 5K once I get use to everything and try it out.
With my 5K I’ll limit my self to not lost more than $250 per day. When I win I’ll keep trading when I lost and if it hit that $250 number I’ll be done for the day and comeback the next day.
just my 2 cent hope it’ll help.

WT.

20

ahhhh nu bee

you havent a clue as to how wrong you are !

mp

21

I dont know but one more time I just wanted to put the things in perspective here…you are a newbie, I am no know all person either, but I do know this to see that you are doing the right thing here–

  1. If you stash away your funds in a HY savings account (assume 5%) then you wold have turned that thousand into 1050 at the end of the year
  2. Had you invested in stocks (based on the historic stock yields) You will have made about 100 dollars on your 1000 in the 1st year.
    3)Now I know that you have finished 2 bucks over your Initial 1000 in 2 weeks. Get an idea??

In one year, if you continue at the same rate (which you will improve any ways) you will end up at 1054 bucks. 54 dollars working one full year-is that crazy? No! but see you leanrt a lot-you now have a strong fundamental base for trading currencies-if you had a mini you would have made $540. If you had a Standard, well you would have made a 5400 $.
Now that is not bad did I hear you say?? It is imp to not to look at the 2 bucks at end of the 2 weeks-but the factthat you still have that intial 1000 intact :)and you actually grew!!

Hope it helps!

1tex