After two years of fighting this beast, I’ve come to the conclusion that if you can’t trade a bare price chart with a trading plan you can write on the back of a postage stamp, it’s probably never going to work. I must have studied almost 100 methods and indicators. I finally threw them all away in favor of bare price charts and a very simple system, and now I’m making a profit and winning about 80% of my trades. My advice is to stay in Demo until you find that combination that works for you. I started out in micro and lost about $10,000 before I found something that works for me. Even though I’m profitable now, it will take a long time to make all that back. :o
Back of the net, but what I keep thinking is - is it really that easy? Ok it’s probably easier than you thought it might be, but you could say the same for learning to drive, hard at first, but once you’ve learned it’s second nature.
Ha ha, I’m not that good of a driver either. Seriously, I’ve talked to very many traders. I only know of one who was profitable in the first year, and he had worked at a broker for several years before he started trading. Every other one I spoke to took 2 years or more to be consistently profitable. If I’d have stayed in demo for two years, I’d probably come to the same point, and still had the $10,000 to fund a standard account. I mean, I’m no dummy, I have a degree in science, but I really underestimated how much time and effort this would take. Other experienced traders told me to stay in demo until I made consistent profit. I just didn’t realize how hard it would be, or how long it would take.
so whats the plan then i lost £10 000 in the first 2 months 6 months ago but I am not giving up I am now demoing but hey its plan after plan after plan they work on demo but I seem to lose on real acount I gues its fear of the unknown any chance you could email me your knew 80% trading plan the magic word is PLEASE cheers:D:rolleyes:
I’m beginning to think this is VERY TRUE. Why do we bang our heads against the wall trying to complicate things when the answer is right in front of us?
Thanks for posting – INSPIRATIONAL!
I can say if you trade cash just as you trade demo, you will have exactly the same results. If you are having different results, you must be doing something different with the cash account. Perhaps the emotions associated with the cash account is causing you to trade it differently. I’d say, first find out what you are doing differently in a cash account and why. In my opinion, unless that is fixed first, I doubt any system will work in a cash account.
Never truer words spoken. I think over the years I’ve tried pretty much every indi, combo and TF… there’s 10,000 hours plus up in smoke right there! 
Yeah i agree, the only things that consistantly work for me are almost embarrassingly simple. Intuition definitely plays a part.
As I go over the thread, i think trading is very interesting… Thank you for the information…
The only advice I would add is instead of trading demo. open a live real money account with only $50 in it and trade ultra small lots. Oanda let’s you do this and maybe a few other brokers. That way you get the psychological impact of real money without the a huge risk. It is simple… and eventually it does get easier.