Hey folks. Im pretty new to all this. Im a 20 year old guy who has pretty much decided that no matter how long it takes me, im going to get good at trading. Theres just simply too many benefits to this line of work, and I damn well intend to learn to do this well.
But ive got a bunch of questions. Some probably dumb, some less so. Im really hoping you guys can help me out here and just set me on the right path.
Ive been trading for 6-7 months now. The first 4 was spent on commodities mainly, where I learned most of the basics. Probably kind of silly, but I went in hot with real money right away - I made a little, I lost a little more, but I learned a great deal, and that period basically served as my introduction to trading. The last three has been spent on forex, which seemed to me a real "step up" from commodities.
Heres the deal - when I started on Forex, I had huge success initially. What id do is look for a trending currency, and using the charts, feel out what is "high" and what is "low" for it, and simply short or long at extremes of that range. I guess you could call it support/resistance trading.
USD/CAD for a long time bounced between 0.9900 - 1.0, and I had a lot of success there. GBP/USD floated between 1.5800-1.6000. And again, there was a lot of milking to be had. In a pretty short amount of time I went from £1000 to £2000. The plan was to basically go from one pair to another whenever the one I was trading on stopped trending.
But things have started going downhill. Im finding it increasingly difficult to make money this way. I dont know if its the mess in Europe or just bad luck, but im struggling to make... well, any money now.
So here my first questions pop up
What I was doing at the begining - was it just newb luck, or was I onto something there? And if it was legitimate, are there any ways to make trading by support/resistance lines more successful?
But as I was saying, things started going downhill pretty quickly. I went from £2000 down to £750 on a bunch of bad trades on pairs which stopped trending, and what was "high" on those pairs previously, now wasnt even a low. So I tried to learn a new method which exposed you less to all the news, and tried trading by the news. Using an audio news bulletin service, I basically just try to "beat the market" to good/bad news, and milk the small amount of pips I can. This consistently works, but the profits are tiny, and there are plenty of days with no news or unimportant news.
So here I am with £800 (made £50 on this news style trading over the past week) and im not feeling satisfied with my current methods.
1. Should I expand on the current methods I know, or should I start over with a method thats popular on here?
2. For somehow who-knows-what-theyre-doing-but-not-really, would it be worth signing up with james16group (http://www.james16group.us/), or a similar sort of "help group"? Ive heard them recommended by a poster or two, but im not sure what the consensus is on whether these sort of sites are worth it
Whew. Thats it. I know its a lot of text, but im just feeling kind of lost and overwhelmed. Really appreciate any help
But ive got a bunch of questions. Some probably dumb, some less so. Im really hoping you guys can help me out here and just set me on the right path.
Ive been trading for 6-7 months now. The first 4 was spent on commodities mainly, where I learned most of the basics. Probably kind of silly, but I went in hot with real money right away - I made a little, I lost a little more, but I learned a great deal, and that period basically served as my introduction to trading. The last three has been spent on forex, which seemed to me a real "step up" from commodities.
Heres the deal - when I started on Forex, I had huge success initially. What id do is look for a trending currency, and using the charts, feel out what is "high" and what is "low" for it, and simply short or long at extremes of that range. I guess you could call it support/resistance trading.
USD/CAD for a long time bounced between 0.9900 - 1.0, and I had a lot of success there. GBP/USD floated between 1.5800-1.6000. And again, there was a lot of milking to be had. In a pretty short amount of time I went from £1000 to £2000. The plan was to basically go from one pair to another whenever the one I was trading on stopped trending.
But things have started going downhill. Im finding it increasingly difficult to make money this way. I dont know if its the mess in Europe or just bad luck, but im struggling to make... well, any money now.
So here my first questions pop up
What I was doing at the begining - was it just newb luck, or was I onto something there? And if it was legitimate, are there any ways to make trading by support/resistance lines more successful?
But as I was saying, things started going downhill pretty quickly. I went from £2000 down to £750 on a bunch of bad trades on pairs which stopped trending, and what was "high" on those pairs previously, now wasnt even a low. So I tried to learn a new method which exposed you less to all the news, and tried trading by the news. Using an audio news bulletin service, I basically just try to "beat the market" to good/bad news, and milk the small amount of pips I can. This consistently works, but the profits are tiny, and there are plenty of days with no news or unimportant news.
So here I am with £800 (made £50 on this news style trading over the past week) and im not feeling satisfied with my current methods.
1. Should I expand on the current methods I know, or should I start over with a method thats popular on here?
2. For somehow who-knows-what-theyre-doing-but-not-really, would it be worth signing up with james16group (http://www.james16group.us/), or a similar sort of "help group"? Ive heard them recommended by a poster or two, but im not sure what the consensus is on whether these sort of sites are worth it
Whew. Thats it. I know its a lot of text, but im just feeling kind of lost and overwhelmed. Really appreciate any help