Dunno what to say about that. I read online that 35% per year is a great return, yet Michael gives the “easy 6%/month” example that results in 100% annual return. (BTW, i don’t know why the 100%/year might seem slow to some…It’s a fortune maker if u ask me)
I admit, I’m new to trading (<1 year studying) so I’m a bit confused about what is and what is not doable in this business. If u add all those comments that u read that FOREX trading is 100% random and that whole “fooled by randomness” popular theory (1 in 100000 traders becomes a guru/lucky_random_exception), one can completely feel lost. And to top that, i don’t know of any sites where trader’s results are displayed (if there are any) like in poker for example where u can see one’s profits at all times.
For now I’m learning and having a blind - ish faith that all this would work out at some point in the near future, but any clarification/proof/confirmation on this matter would be nice.
GLGT!
EDIT: I just remembered a line from a recent movie that pretty much sums up what the post is about: “I don’t need easy. I just need possible” .
I am not sure if anybody else has had a problem but twice now my computer detected a spyware thret while i was going through the core concepts video. If anybody else had a problem with it let me know so i can try and figure out whats going on with my computer.
I disagree. Whose concepts am i going to follow? A guy that can prove to me he has consistently pulled an average of 5risk monthly , or i guy that CLAIMS to pull a 12risk monthly average? You realize that the life you have is limited, right? It would suck so much if after X years you find yourself at breakeven, wouldn’t you agree?
I don’t understand what u mean. If u mean that u won 20K to get to B/E, then u have a fault in your logic. It was not “given to you”. You spent time, effort and money, just to show a 0% profit in the end. It’s the same as that joke: “Is it cheaper to ride the train than the plane? It is, if your time is worth nothing to you”
Not really… time can be useful in other endeavors than making money. Are you that materialistic? Do you have family? Do you believe in God? Do you enjoy camping or spending time with your wife?
See what I’m saying? And I prefer a car ride over an airplane any day of the week, even if it costs me more days of travel time. Clarity of mind and perspective is hard to put a “price” on.
Long weekend, bored, cant wait for markets to open, wanna pull the trigger more often, wanna test the strategies and tools we learning in ‘‘real time’’?.. :22:
I’ve found a new toy we can play with until next opportunity arises on the live market:
[B]MT4 Trading Simulator[/B], how cool is that?!
Now, you can ‘‘trade’’ over the weekend, backtest and fine tune your system, and best part, wont loose (or win) any real money doing that.
Did some research on the matter and the best I found is this:
Download the file from the second link, it is the newer version, posting both links, because the fella who made it didnt bother to repost the full instructions with latest version, only the changes, so you’ll need to read both. Creator is Russian, so instructions are a bit patchy, but is simple enough to figure how it works.
You can set your starting capital, lot size, SL, TP, also can scale out, set limit orders, etc… Downside is you cant change the time frame while simulator is running (best is 5m I guess), but you can have in another window/s different charts with various tools for reference (TT, SMT, Stoch, etc). You can pause the simulator, go to another chart to check for SMT for example and then ‘‘open’’ trade in LO, speed also can be adjusted… Tip from me: keep the test chart as clean as possible, because everything plotted there slows it down. Limit orders, partial close, etc are a bit tricky to use, but once used to it, goes smoothly…
I tested few other simulators, but finding this easiest to use, and taking the least resources (whole platform crashes with some others I tried).
Now, we can (hopefully) shorten up our learning curves a little bit
Interesting to see a big move with the GBP COT over the last few weeks. It looks as though Commercials have offloaded many long positions and are appearing in net short territory whilst the EURO still remains relatively strong with net longs. The two seemed to diverge slightly last October when extremes were formed.
A site called ‘Shatterfield’ uses COT Strength and COT Open Interest to get a further understanding and the explanations seem decent enough.
Beyond going and sitting on someones lap while they bring in that 5% a month consistently for a few years, there is little more you can do than progress through any method/book/course in stages, using your common sense and assessing its potential as you go.
You can’t trust anyone or anything until it has proven itself to you, in your own experience, over the long haul. That is not to say you can’t trust it at stages, and move forward along a path with more than just ‘blind faith’. The first step would be to prove to yourself that the market is not just random, but actually has some structure that can be analysed and therefore predicted. Michael told us that he tossed a coin and had a draw down on his account of something like $17,000, compared to a steady increase in equity using the tools that he does. I believe that, but I am not putting all of my trust in it - I need proof through exposure to the market, and in my case, lots of theory to back it up.
Michael has done a wonderful job of introducing Forex concepts to people in an easy to understand manner, and if you can see that the tools work on a practical level, then surely that is enough to move forward to the next stage and start back testing or forward testing them on a demo account. The next stage would be a small live account, and then build up from there, but this progression must move in tandem with your sampling and education.
How many documented screen shots of each of ICT’s concepts do you currently have, and how many do you expect to have before you become a competent trader? Chris Lori suggests 1,000 samples. If you log the trades with higher time frame shots working your way down, I think you should be looking to have at least 3 per episode, with a total of at least 3,000 screenshots. That is for one trade in one kill zone using one set of tools. How far down that road are you, and how far are you prepared to go without giving up? That will depend on your commitment to this business, and it will depend on how eager you are to start trading with (losing?) real money. I guarantee if you allow yourself the time to log and experience just 200 episodes of a particular trade that ICT teaches, you will be more of a believer than you were at trade 0. Imagine where you will be after 1,000 samples.
But you want to be able to trust without going down that long road, right? Well do some more reading until the concepts that you are seeing here have sunken in to the point that you know you are on the right track. You have heard Michael talk about Larry Williams, George Angell, Alexander Elder, John Murphy and a few others…follow up on those names and see where it takes you. For me personally, I need a lot of exposure to the market, but I also need a lot of theory to back up the reality of what I am seeing. I have followed up on all of the above mentioned names, and they in turn have taken me to other people that talk of similar things. Just recently Elder led me to a London Bond trader called Tony Plummer, and his highly theoretical work on systems and cycles, market structure, fair value, fractals etc. This has further reinforced the concepts presented here. It is not for everyone, but it is an illustration of one way in which you could go about reinforcing your belief in a system or methodology. It is clear that what doesn’t work is skipping from one method to another every few months.
I will back up AK when he says that it doesn’t help you one bit to know what another trader is making with a particular method. We all have a different psychological make-up based on different life experiences and personalities, and different environments and goals. This will create varying outcomes from the same methodology. What you can count on is the fact that this thread would not be where it is today if there wasn’t something to it!
Anyway, just thought I would pop my head in because I haven’t been around in a while. There are only so many hours in a day, and sampling, trading, and reading take up most of those. This post wasn’t aimed specifically at you, vladul11, as i don7t know your full story here, but your comments did spark some late night pondering.
You need to believe in two things to know if you can make a lot of money at this game.
That compounding works- proven mathematically.
That you can have an edge in the market.
What matters is someone proving an edge is possible, and many teachers on here and other forums have presented that as possible, so you only need the screen time and experience to fully prove that to yourself. So a track record matters not that ‘omg I can make a million’, but that ‘omg you can figure out this game’.
I will have a great week markets just opened and my goal for the week has been smashed already (had trade open from last week) hell its the 6th and my goal for the month (ICT 6%) has been smashed. Risked 2% on a 10 pip stop trade closed lased weeks at +91 currently sitting at +140 you do the math
Yeah, seriously same here. 35+ pip spike up from the GBPUSD open… closing the gap just like ICT said. Awesome… and week= Done (before it even started )
No inside info just seen AU go into a range before market close (as always in every market) but this time it broke to the bottom just as it closed so I decided to leave it open. I never ever leave trades open over the weekend or do I trade NFP. So I broke all the rules last week. But my son went playing on my laptop thursday night so I look over at my chart and see a perfect trade setup and short the Aussie. Come to find out I was not looking at a Aussie chart (dont remember what chart I was looking at. Then I switched to the aussie chart and seen it was not the worst entry I have made. Actually looked decent with a small stop. So I figured why not my son at 3 has a killer win loss ratio. Then in the morning of NFP when I was getting ready for work. Trade went far enough I could bring stop to BE. I figured since risk if off the table might as well see what NFP has to bring to the table. If I get stopped I had a great week if I dont then I have a better week. Then seeing the breakout right at the close I left it open. After the fact I understand now fundamentally it did not matter what the NFP report said the Aussie was a sitting duck and was going to drop.
Also the only reason I left the trade open even close to the end of day Friday was the Aussie broke the 1.02 figure which has been a major number over the past year. Also broke daily support. Now I will keep stops tight since last week was so bearish (not one bullish candle on the daily all down) and we just entered OTE to go long. With that alone I can reasonably expect some type of retracement to say the least. I dont go long on the Aussie. Only short. Makes my life easy I dont have to watch all these pairs for setups. I dont have to decide long or short. Simple I see a short set up I take if I dont see a short setup I go do something else. No stress no worries. Most of the time when we are in a bull market I make money (I am trying to forget the week before last so dont remind me) when we are in a bear market well we have what we had here last week which is the way I want it and I get it :p.
I dont know about that I took 2 trades last week. One with a 9 pip stop and the other with a 10 pip stop. Happen quite often on how I trade. I use ict concepts but I had a strategy long before I stumbled across this thread. Check out nikitas thread pure price action for dummies I have many many trades there all with 10-20 pip Stops. All close to 10 pip profits (well not all but you get the point). Its not hard I use these concepts and when they line up. I look for S/R at these areas with a pin bar. Once I get that bar I enter on the 50% of the pinbars wick. Go check out a aussie chart one time and see just how powerful this concept actually is. There is a reason I only trade one pair (besides I am to lazy to look at many more) I do use the NU and usdx for smt divergence. but I only trade the Aussie. I honestly could careless what the NU is doing but when I have SMT lining up its just all the sweeter.
Hi Bob
This is probably not the right place for this but…
What time frame are you talking about? When you say 50 percent of the wick, how would you know when that level has
been reached?
Unless you wait for the candle to finish then enter when the next candle moves in the opposite direction?
Do you have an example of a trade?
All time frames it dont matter. I do it by looking at the higher time frames mainly the daily and 4hr when they set up at the 50% retracement then I will drop to the lower frame either the 1hr or 15min. and look for the exact same setup. How do you know if price has reached the 50% mark? You look at the candle I am not looking for exact pips here just about the half way mark. With this set up on the daily at an S/R level and OTE if you wait for the 50% mark to be hit usually you just got in at the high or low of the day. BUt trading off the daily my stop would be to high. So once I got to that level I drop down to lower time frames and repeat process. Thats how I get small stops. Now how do I know price is going to reverse there? I dont. I get stopped out just like everyone. But with a 10 pip stop looking for a swing on the higher time frames it is not uncommon to hit swings of 100 pips or more. Now following ict methods my win percentage has shot up a great deal than last year. Less trades more winners. But even if I have a bad week (it does happen when you short bull markets) think about it following ict method of dropping risk after a loss. It will take a whole lot of losses in a row to even come close to whipping out 1 win. 1 win can whipe out an entire string of losses. So yeah last week I hit 100% winners and close to 40% of my account. But you got to keep in mind with 10 pip stops you will be stopped. Shorting bull markets you will be stopped. Also trading part time, Working and playing with my kids I may not get another trade setup for a while. So sure that winning week looks great and it is but dont think every week is like that. I know last year I would have some major draw downs but because R:R was so good I survived with profit. This year after reviewing my trade journal and cutting out where I was lacking (long trades was a major part of that) and following this thread win % is pretty high. I was at 78% currently sitting at 71.5% which to me is off the charts. OTE is my most used concept. Kill zones on the Aussie dont work to good right now LO seems to be setting up. But generally you can apply LO to asia open for the Aussie. That concept is probably why I like the aussie so much. Before I even knew about kill zones I just knew all other pairs I would trade (Pacific-early Asia) I would just see the trade go side ways and get stopped. Execpt for the aussie or yen pairs but I dont like yen pairs. Yentervention last year was nice when I caught it. The Aussie will move during Asia when I can trade so it fits me. Dont move like the cable or fiber but good enough for me to have a smile see
thanks man I take pride in my tank. Its my little underwater world. Not cheap but I do frag my corals (cut a piece off grow it and sell it) and it helps with cost. I also switched over to all LED lighting (again up front costs are step) to help hold the electric bill down
