Disliked{quote} Do you mean something like this ?: I plotted the itinerary of your average retail forex trader. I hope it helps. <<<<"i personally make money trading and so many others" >>>> Extrapolation, allegory and meanderings on the true nature of the search for "building wealth" with retail forex: Lose and lose and lose some more, go on a Guru search and systems and indicators and spend lots and lots on the "sure fire" things and so called experts and do training some more and more books more systems and more money spent and lost in the market. Now...Ignored
Your premise of so called retail Forex is too traumatic and despite all horrific stories that might have happened to some people in this carrier, this picture that you've depicted is unbelievable to me. I hope it hasn't happened to you. I can't believe there are people that stupid to lose that much to figure out something is not tailored for them. I can perceive why people open threads like this looking for prosperous traders to convince themselves that this market could be profitable and find motivation to pursue their goals, but on the other hand I can't find out why people such as you seek nothing and squander their time on something that they won't believe and they don't want to believe, never ever. I don't really know why you are here with this attitude towards this market? My only conjecture is that you are used to surfing and reading FF and you couldn't give up your addiction.
Regarding to giving advice to newbies, I should say that this kind of attitude you have is as poisonous as not having solid and comprehensive information about this market. So what is a more useful advice? It can be something such as:
-Don't open a real account when you haven't studied at least 2 years.
-If you see a strategy based on an indicator, do not use that until you know exactly what the indicator does, what's its formula. After that you don't need that indicator and you can make better calls regarding that indi and even without it. It's a good idea to study some of metatrader's indicators. It helps understand the price movements better.
-If and when you study trendlines, be as precise as possible. Draw them in a way that they cover as many candles as possible. They must cover all the possible shadows without crossing the body of any candles. It may take a long time to be master at but when you do that you'd be amazed at the results. It's the subject that I haven't seen anywhere and it's another reason that you'd better study the chart by yourself despite everything that you might see and read in the books or at forex forums etc. and use these exact trendlins as supports and resistances. If you can become master at them they'll give you very good entries when the price hits them.
-When you want to open a real account, you'd better start it with a small amount like 1000$ or even less (it depends on your monetary status) and divide it to 10. Use each section to test the strategy you 've made and if you test that for a reasonable number of positions and it works you can add a larger chunk of your capital but don't add all the money because you would probably have psychology issues and you need to get used to that little by little. If you have problems with your strategy and blew your account you should spend more time on it before you recharge your account with another part of the money. By using this method, you won't be flat broke as Mingary pictured and in the worst scenario you've just lost a small portion of your money but learned a really prominent lesson. Moreover, you don't need to get a divorce and your kids won't leave you or you won't sleep on the streets.
There is lots of other advice that one can give but the most important one, in my opinion, is: don't be discouraged and distracted by some people who haven't been successful in this market. Not everyone is cut for this job, so do it as optimistic as possible and try to do your best so if you figure out some day that this job is not suitable for you, you won't regret anything and you'll know that you've done everything you could. Of course I'm pretty sure if you believe in what you do and be positive about it, the percentage of your failure is near to zero.
Good luck newbies and stay positive.