[quote=“sumaruktrading, post:1, topic:134947”]
before becoming confident with the tools you are going to use, and the money management decisions you will apply to your trading…[/quote]
You will receive much better advice from others here than from me, and I don’t post much here anymore for that reason. But I like what you say here and I would just like to encourage you and say that you show the right attitude and a good understanding of what is required.
You are right to refer to these as “tools”. That is exactly what they are - and are only as good as the expertise of the person applying them to their trade. They are not (as some seem to assume) some kind of Harry Potter wand that somehow mystically tells you what to do and when without you having to take your eye off the golf ball.
Some people prefer to rely mainly on “price action” techniques such as identifying patterns and support/resistance areas, etc. Whilst others prefer the type of indicators that you mention in your post. With these indicators it is worth remembering that they only show you the result of a mathematical calculation and, of course, markets do not always conveniently move in a consistent manner such that any of these types of indicators will always give a consistently satisfactory signal.
There is no reason to assume that you should be either a Price Action or an indicator person. These are all tools of the trade and it is for the trader to select which tools from either/both of these approaches will provide the most suitable combination.
I am sure all of those tools that you mention will work for you some of the time - and none of them all of the time. Also, you will find that if you apply them all to your chart and give each of them equal priority regarding their signals then you will end up in a situation where there is always one or more tools saying one thing and others saying another. It is worth planning your tools so that they are each showing different attributes such as direction and momentum. If you have 2 or more indicators showing the same attribute then it is best if one is the prime indicator and the other is only a confirmation.
There are many issues to think about here:
It is important to decide which type of trading suits your circumstances, capital, interests and psychological make-up. For example if you are interested in just sitting a few hours during each trading session intensively scalping a few pips off multiple signals then many of these tools will be useless. On the other hand, if you are interested in taking longer term positions and also following the dynamics of the currency and its economic developments and the policies of the central banks involved then a different set of tools will apply.
As you also mention, risk and money management issues are at least as important as the direction of the market. It is easily possible to get the direction right on more than 50% of trades but still lose money. And vice versa, one does not need to get more than 50% of trade directions right in order to profit overall.
Personal skills such as patience and discipline are almost clichés on this site - but that is because they are essential components of successful and consistent trading.
I guess your purpose in considering the tools that you mention is mainly to help in identifying entries. But I personally believe that successfully optimising trading depends more on defining your exit conditions than your entries. For example, it is easy to set a reasonable stop that gets you out of a wrong position but a wrongly timed exit may mean you miss out on even hundreds of potential pips from the continuing move, especially if you find it hard to define a re-entry level.
Well, I have already said too much here, so please excuse me and just jump to the next post!