You put the ay in nay, as in aye or aymen. Good post and good advice.
tymen1,
I have found it hard to use candlestick trading ideas on short time frames where you would be scalping. Expecially on a 1minute chart I find that receiving a doji would be false or other candlestick indicators. Any ideas on this?
Cause the others have been banned. :rolleyes:
Why does it always get so fussy about techies vs naked trades. Does fundamentals or sentiment matter anymore? Or is it just “naked or go home!” or “tech or go home!”
It doesn’t matter who’s or what system or style is better. What matters is “does it fit you?” and can you use it to produce consitent gains over and over again with minimal downside risk.
Find what fits you and use it. I enjoy being mostly loose and naked and don’t have to “pinpoint” to the pip an entry. Some enjoy spaghetti charts with indicators all over the place with exact rules to the chicken bones and stars in order to place a trade. Some only guage and keep up with fundamentals and sentiment. Each personality type uses what they use because it works for them.
Practice, practice, and more practice with a few hard lessons is the only way to get to where you want to be. There is no particular style or system that will fast forward you there.
With that being said, it is a common theme that most “pros” or “veterans” have all used indicators at one time and dumped them one by one as time went on and became more naked if not completely naked. It doesn’t mean they don’t work. They just found out it’s about the trader and not the indicator or system that produces gains.
If you want to see a working indicator system. Check out Pip Surfers Cowabunga system. It’s a 100% indicator driven system that has produced consitent gains for years. So see, us naked traders are not right all of the time. That’s why we shouldn’t be biased and fuss over differences. The world and this profession has learned how to make many things work the same that are different. It’s the people and attitudes, not the system.
Candlestick patterns and indicators implied meaning has more weight as the time frames get longer. Candlestick patterns and indicators can literally be useless on 1&5 M charts. Use a longer time frame as a bias at least.
you guys are all so annoying with you stupid forum drama its ridiculous I see it in every post I go in. I think this site is a very good learning opportunity and I’m tired of seeing your crap that I neither understand nor care about. Can we focus on FOREX? Isn’t that why were all here? To better each other as a community? No more whining.
Well there is a kernel of an answer to your question buried in the replies, although I agree there has been a lot of waffle going down in the forum recently. Certainly if you are losing you should be on demo. You then need to consider your trading plan and what suits you. If you are relatively new why not try an ‘off the peg’ proven system like Cowabunga (which happens to be indicator based and relatively mechanical although not automatic), or any of the other effective approaches that have been put forward in the various threads. Shane makes some good points. Often people want to push their own barrow in order to be helpful forgetting that you have to find your own way. However you do need to adopt and practice a trading style that you can come to rely on no matter what and that takes time. There is a minimum knowledge base necessary as well and BPips school a good place to start - but it is only a start. I hope the recent shenanigans havent put you off the site or trading. Its usually a fun place to hang out here with some interesting ideas put forward. However you always need to test them for yourself
Finally, if it is literally true that your trade is always going against you then either your stop is too close if it eventually comes right or in some way you are misreading the phase of the market or the trend
Here is something for you to mull over 818. There are no right answers. These are the closing prints of GU on friday. Now lets assume that we are actually in peak trading time at the London open, how would you construct a trading approach. On the 15 minute we may have just completed a retracement in a clear uptrend so buy right? But what about the H4, that looks like we may have just completed a retracement in a downtrend so sell right? … and what do you think to that pattern on the daily. These are the real life complexities that we face in trading. You need to be able to identify what you would need to see to convince you to take a trade in a given direction. When that occurs whatever price action or indicators or combination thereof that finetunes your entry and allows you to calculate your risk parameters is up to you. Enjoy the journey!
What system/indicators are you using?
Happy trading,
Marius
I was using bollingerbands and rsi but I have since taken boll bands out of plan. I also try to trade with the trend always and use as many support and resistance levels as I can. Sometimes I will use fibbonacci but very rarely
Good for you!! 
Soldier on!!
To 818,
Know that what you are going through is normal… all good traders at one point in time were in your shoes… ignore these idiots that Naked>whatever pa is king blah blah… most of the people that you talk to on babypips are leaking money out of there account the post their wisdom to make themselves feel better that someone thinks that they are incredibly uber traders. There are a million ways to trade and no way is the end all right way. what it sounds like to me is that you are now going through the stage in your trading called “the profit gap” you know how to trade you know what things mean… but for some reason something is preventing you from making money…
My question is have you demo traded for more than 3-6 months?
and if you have… have you shown profitability?
The reason i ask is there is two things that would prevent you from making money… The knowledge factor or the Profit gap…
If you are successful on Demo and can run up accounts like no ones business odds are the profit gap is the stage you are having trouble with…
The profit gap comes faulty money management and discipline … not understanding your TRUE edge… and how the law of large numbers will bring you into profit with your edge… its normal to see streaks of losses even with a high 90% system… thats the way probabilities work… You may be stressing hard about your losses and worrying about your system if you are trading to much capital as smaller losses are easier to take and wade through. Tymen actually mentioned one great thing… among a seemingly endless pile of bull**** which is that you should have stages of profit taking…
Maybe some of your trades move into profit and then turn into losers though its tuff to say without knowing you or your trades… but by securing a first exit you can inturn lessen your overall trading risk by nullifying a portion of the negative effect of the losing trades… by exiting 1/2 of you position at an easily obtainable area
Since you are being stopped out maybe you could be advised that stop location may be hurting your trading… remember that your system may be 60% without a stop but once applied it can drastically reduce your winning % by greater then 20%… your True edge come from all the factors of your system you need to know your edge with stops and staged exits applied.
An example i can use is this you draw a trendline across several troughs in a trend that seems to be moving upward… initially you receive and entrance signal from your indicator and you begin looking for and entrance you know that price is moving up and it has retraced quite a bit and is touching the trendline… you enter long on the touch set your stop below the swing low and set a first profit target at a would be retracement fail area for the trend … price moves to the area you exit 1/2 your position and move the stop to the new swing low… even if the trend fails you are now risk free and are ready to take the opportunity to see bigger gains by trading with the trend. exiting at the failed retracement areas and moving stops to swing lows until your position is completely liquidated…
to be successful you must have a COMPLETE system detailing every aspects of your trading… you must also know what it takes to fail and what to expect when you are profitable.
Some things that are never brought up in this forum is … what is a COMPLETE system…
A complete system is
your EDGE
your Signal
your TACTIC
your MANAGEMENT
your Profit taking strategy
and your Money management
when you combined all this together your complete edge
when you combined the all these except the two forms of management you get your odds of success.
your signal may be your indicator
your tactic may be your way of entering based on that signal
your management is you careful eye watching your trade as it progresses many problems can occur in a trade and be realized before the stop is even hit sometimes.
your money management is how you control your positioning… this is very important as well me… i use a volatility adjusted dollar positioning strategy that makes sure that when i take the trade im always trading with the correct portion of my capital and the application of this can lead to much smoother gains less fear better will power in the trade and will grow with your account and you wont have to make the decision as to when to change your position size.
anyways this post is getting long … but dont listen to these people jsut remember to learn as much as your can and keep learning never let yourself say i already know enough and i know what im doing already… stay ahead of the game and yourself… do your own thing and be inventive no one knows you and your trading style better than yourself.
Well said pipynotstockings. I like the way you explained it. very simple to understand. Now can you tell me alittle more about your volitility adjusted dollar positioning strategy if you don’t mind. Im pretty new and im trying to get a handle on risk management as well.
well its nothing new the turtles used it to do the same thing its units = % of account/(volatility * Dollars Per point) units is how much to purchase. % of account is your comfort level higher time frames will use a lower %… lower time frames will use a higher % volatility you can use average true range… and dollars per point is the value of a pip .001 if the currency is 1.9876 its .0001 is its .05765
numbers have been made up to protect the currency…
if u are looking for longer term setups use less coin… as stops will be wider and target will be wider itll take more time to hit the take or stop but itll give you a slower less worrysome ride… esp if you are using a very small portion of your capital. but it adds up just slower then high turnover over leveraged trading and much safer.
Have you considered you are may be trying to trade a trending market condition when there really isn’t a trend? Although forex pairs are some of the best trending vehicles to trade, they are NOT always trending.
See what is their not what you are hoping for. I know everyone preaches, “go with the flow,” and, “the trend is your friend.”
Easy enough to say, but first you need a way to determine the flow and if there really is a strong trend.
There is difference between having a bias for a direction and a clear trend. A trend is obvious and powerful and leaves little doubt that is it a trend. Also, a sudden breakout up or down is not a trend.
You need to learn to trade three market conditions: Trending, ranging, consolodation. If you try to trade as if the market is trending when it is really in a wide range, that too some may seem like a trend, you could get into trouble.
I recommend this book: Forex patterns & probabilities By ED Ponsi.
P.S. Put the fibs back in. Everyone uses them and you will begin to see why they are considered self fufilling prophecies.
So far this is a great book. I’m learning alot!!! I’m on chapter 12 now and its hard to put the book down. SERIOUSLY ITS A GOOD READ!!!