Once again I must say that I like the conversation going on in this thread. Seems that very reasonable people contribute here. Everyone has experienced both, big drawdowns on their live accounts - maybe even margin calls, and prosperity times where profit went into their favour. With moving back a few steps and taking a look onto both experiences, a person gets a better perspective of what truly was good and what were the main errors that prevented the success.
If this same person learns from its own mistakes, then he has a greater chance of not fail again. At least not on the same mistakes. And if a person learns that a fire is hot, he/she has two possibilities:
a) To completely avoid fire in order to prevent any possible damage.
b) To learn how to deal with fire and try to use it in his/her favour.
In our country we say: 'Donkey goes on ice only once...' and a human supplement would be '...While icehockey players are on it every day'.
It seems that donkey has chosen option a), while icehockey players found a version of the option b). I leave it open for each individual here to decide whether there are similar possibilities in Forex.
In addition, I couldn't agree more with the following statement of twoblink:
People are different, no matter what comparison you make. If differences do not seem obvious from the far distance, they surely exist in a detailed view.
Luckily, there is a math. A logical and fair invention of human civilization that helps understanding things around no matter if your are black or white. We tend to define denominators in order to make things clearer. We learnt apples are not pears and pears are not apples. Going more into details, even apples tend to be different among themselves.
And in Forex things are no different. You can talk about euros, dollars, pips, percentages, drawdowns, etc. But honestly, what is your most essential denominator here?
I would say it is absolutely your profit. Not just today, not just tomorrow. The one on a long term. Denominator's biggest challenge - consistency. Can we handle it?
If this same person learns from its own mistakes, then he has a greater chance of not fail again. At least not on the same mistakes. And if a person learns that a fire is hot, he/she has two possibilities:
a) To completely avoid fire in order to prevent any possible damage.
b) To learn how to deal with fire and try to use it in his/her favour.
In our country we say: 'Donkey goes on ice only once...' and a human supplement would be '...While icehockey players are on it every day'.
It seems that donkey has chosen option a), while icehockey players found a version of the option b). I leave it open for each individual here to decide whether there are similar possibilities in Forex.
In addition, I couldn't agree more with the following statement of twoblink:
QuoteDislikedI believe that just like you can get 10 chefs and give them the same recipe, you'll end up with 10 different dishes; so it is with FX. All 10 dishes can taste great, and all 10 methods for FX might be profitable, so there is no one right way.
People are different, no matter what comparison you make. If differences do not seem obvious from the far distance, they surely exist in a detailed view.
Luckily, there is a math. A logical and fair invention of human civilization that helps understanding things around no matter if your are black or white. We tend to define denominators in order to make things clearer. We learnt apples are not pears and pears are not apples. Going more into details, even apples tend to be different among themselves.
And in Forex things are no different. You can talk about euros, dollars, pips, percentages, drawdowns, etc. But honestly, what is your most essential denominator here?
I would say it is absolutely your profit. Not just today, not just tomorrow. The one on a long term. Denominator's biggest challenge - consistency. Can we handle it?