Trading strategies are highly individual dependant, I have realized this after testing multiple strategies and only settling on a few, some strategies just don’t click with you and forcing yourself to stick to them is just bad. e.g. Some strategy may have low R:R, you may not want that so it wont’ suit you.
The only thing I can suggest you to do is find strategies that suit you, and backtest and forward test them to see if you like them and if they are viable.
I do this a lot, I usually have a few strategies I’m backtesting one by one, most I don’t like right away due to things that I can’t adhere to.
Nope moping doesn’t help, as one of my instructors says “I am the best loser I know” just move on. But I am very serious about writing down you trading plane and reviewing the stats the adjust the plan and morph into a new strategy based on results.
In this manner, you will construct a strategy that fits your personality and will last until the next review. But that is how you become intimate with your charts and the plan. And that intimacy what it takes is what it really takes to become a consistently profitable trader.
Indeed sometimes after long years learning but still facing difficulties it could be leading us to fall in desperation, but in trading forex I am only treated as part-time, so if ready with capital in account hence will start trading, but if facing margin call hence will break awhile and not rush to start again, something that I realize is no perfect system and risk always involved in trading
Hi Manxx
What you say is very true. A trader has to be comfortable trading his or hers preferred method and time frame. Me I am a short term price action trader. So five minute charts are the only charts I trade.
I have tried long term trading and all I have successfully done is lost money. I see your system, which I am not familiar with, uses a 400 pip take profit and a 150 trailling stop. I have used trailling stops and find that whilst they are effective they can also limit the amount of profit the market will give you. By that I mean that if your trade gets to 350 tics and your stop is at 200 tics if that price pulls back to your stop then yes you made 200 pips (happy days) but you left 150 pips on the table. That’s big bucks. That’s why I believe that at times taking the money when it is on the table and price action suggest your taget will not be reached is not a bad strategy.
This is not meant to be a criticism just a general comment. I use discretion all the time and most of the time I get it right as price is king and the market will only give you what it is prepared to give you and nothing more.
The HLHB is not MY system and i do not personally trade it either. It is one of the standard methods promoted by BP under the “trading” tab above and developed by Hucklekiwi Pip.
I agree with you totally about automated trailing stops and never personally use them for exactly the reasons you mention.
Naturally, there are times when one might move a stop level to lock in a profit or if price exceeds a certain TA-based level, but this is usually with longer term trades.
Well judgment; basically trading with a specific tool is an illusion. Traders need to work on technical & fundamental analysis instead of trading tool.
Hi Ria, I am with you 100% and from what I see in the group of traders I am with, this is completely normal and even shows you might be on the right track. From what I understand of trading, the progression is as follow:
1 - we start: read a few books, open a live or demo account, get a few wins, think we have it figured out, get losses bigger than the wins… lots of people stop there, others go to the next step:
2 - find an edge in the market: it takes a few years to develop technical knowledge, own our own psychology, derive methods and organisational tools and discover strategies with an edge. At this level something incredible happens: Even with all of that… IT STILL DOESN’T WORK!! Grrr (just trying to express the frustration we feel). We usually feel stuck. Some quit. Some stick with it. We get to the next step:
3 - we stick with our method which works - it is the TRADER that does not work. I can tell you I have at least 8 different ways to screw up my trades. I do good for 70% of them but then… I have recurring mistakes (self sabotage such as: jumping in opportunities because they look good (instead of really analyzing rationally), be too fast in my execution and place the order poorly, trail my stop too aggressively in the early stage of profits and get a small winner instead of a nice big one) and the list goes on and on. The self sabotage can be corrected with discipline (rehearsing the perfect answer till we do the right thing automatically) or psychological work (letting go of underlying emotions leading to screwing ourselves over). I am currently in this phase of work and honestly, it is an act of faith since my results are not improving. But because I trust I can evolve into trading flawlessly one day (flawlessly: not making mistakes when i implement my trading plan), I believe I can get to the next step:
4 - getting the results of the trading systems (=make more profits than losses consistently, as mistakes are eliminated and my approach to the market has become second nature). Then the challenge is to grow the account, trade with more risk on, and keep doing good - with a balanced mindstate.
Oh my gosh. I’m kinda embarrassed that you’re seeing me like this because I did not want to disappoint you, especially you’ve been very supportive in my learning. Sorry.
BUT this was super helpful @anon46773462! Reading your post made me realize so many things and I’m actually planning to grab my journal to write the answers to the questions you mentioned, and yeah, maybe take some time to really think about what I wanna do. As much as I don’t want to admit it (cause you know, I wanna think that I know myself and that I know what I want), I can’t deny that I forgot about these things while “following” the system. I thought that as long as I follow the system for my entries, the rest won’t really matter. But I now know it doesn’t work that way. Thank you again for giving me some of your time. I think it’s best if I step back a bit from trading (maybe for like a week) and just think of where I go from here. I’ll definitely continue though! I just wanna be more sure about how I’d go about it.
Thank you so much @J_C_Anderson! Yes! This is what I plan to do for now. I just hope that it doesn’t take so long before I finally find the one that I can work with. Have you ever gone through this stage?
Oh really? Then I guess we could say we’re like “batchmates.” Hahaha. How has your trading been? Aww. I wish we were able to talk more from the start.
Anyway, thank you for this. :)) Before diving in again with my learning, I’m gonna take a quick break from trading (but I won’t leave the forums!!!) Huhu. I’ll definitely check this out though once I’ve contemplated about how I’ve been doing things so far.
I will! Thank you so much @ClayStar! I hope you don’t mind but I was just wondering how long you usually try each strategy? I just wanna have a better idea of how long I should try each strategy before moving on. Thank youuu.
Thank you so much for your wise words, @midwest. I’m super duper grateful for your support and patience. I will! Like what I told Manxx, I’m gonna write these things down and just take a few days to analyze.
I’ve only been trading for around a year and I already feel super depressed for feeling stuck. I could just imagine how hard it must be for those who get stuck after trading for years. Have you experienced this before?
Awww. It really means a lot to me that you shared your experience with me. I can really relate to the experiences you shared and I guess, right now I’m still at the 2nd stage. But I’m still super determined to get to the 4th stage and become profitable. Thanks again @Leo_FX_Trader!
ria, my first into to Forex was Jan 2017, and I took 6 months off from June thru 1 Jan 18. Much screen time and about 75 K trades later. The emotional part must be resolved in order to be consistently profitable.
Most new traders try to hard to get the market to bend, it doesn’t, then the over trade and over leverage.
This why a detailed trading strategy with rules and a log of you trades/statics is essential for growth.
@ria_rose do you use a spreadsheet to record and analyse your trades? If not, and you think it might help you, then I can send you one that might help you in tracking what is working and what is not, as well as your overall progress.
I love statistics about things, so I have set up spreadsheet for backtesting, I prefer manual backtesting to automated because as a beginner chart time is really important and it gives you important feedback on the fly that an EA won’t. So I write down the ruleset and strictly adhere to it, backtest it on a year or two worth of data, I usually get 100-150 trades per pair with this and I test at least 5 pairs on a give strategy, usually these pairs are a mix like majors, minors, cfds (XauUsd, USOIL) so I can get a feel of all kinds of markets and then I calculate their win ratio, their R:R, and all other goodies that you can get.
Forward testing in a similar way, I have set up separate demo accounts to forward test strategies and check them daily to take possible trades and if I missed a trade etc. and write it down in my spreadsheet. That’s about it.
I believe this kind of thing is easier if you are trading on an intraweek or swing level, otherwise the amount of trades would be so much that it would get really time consuming doing so much testing. but it can still be done.
If you wanna discuss strategies or do backtesting together be sure to message me, maybe we can come up with ideas that can benefit us both. After all, I’m as frustrated as you at this point too
The best things in life are for free, and knockbacks don’t cost a penny / cent
Anyone who says they got this game straight off the bat are either lying or have not made it, it’s really one or the other. Now straighten that tiaria on your head and get back to the charts - strip off all the indicators and just have daily dividers. Mark out your round number levels, London and New York session absolute high and lows and look at the magic that will become clear on the charts. Keep it simple, it’s a simple game after all, we just over complicate everything in life…
I’m kinda embarrassed that you’re seeing me like this because I did not want to disappoint you, especially you’ve been very supportive in my learning. 
As much as I don’t want to admit it (cause you know, I wanna think that I know myself and that I know what I want), I can’t deny that I forgot about these things while “following” the system. 
I thought that as long as I follow the system for my entries, the rest won’t really matter. But I now know it doesn’t work that way. 
Yes! This is what I plan to do for now. 
Have you ever gone through this stage? 
Then I guess we could say we’re like “batchmates.” Hahaha. 
I just wanna have a better idea of how long I should try each strategy before moving on. Thank youuu. 
Have you experienced this before?
