Hey all. First up, thanks everyone for the excellent thread. I read it towards the end of last year over a couple of weeks and have been slowly going through it again. It's been good watching people pick it up and go from being a bit lousy to making solid gains. Actually been some pretty good stories in there. Hopefully now it's my turn
I'm pretty new to forex and had read all about the need for a strategy you trust but figured that working out one of my own could take years. Saw Udine's post for Invictus on google and followed his link here.
So anyway.. got some distance to go yet. Trading this system had me 30% down within a month (on demo) but practice and patience are starting to pay off and I made 12% for this week (Dredding's breakout strategy contributed 5%), even though I made couple of shocking trades last night.
The most useful change in my approach, if it helps other noobs, has been MM and closing out half at 1:1. So many of my trades would make it to that point and reverse me out. As I get better and see more of my trades making it to the second TP, I'll look at changing this but for while I'm finding my feet, locking in 1.5% beats the hell out of losing 3. I might make 3-5 trades a night so it all adds up. Converting those reversals into partial winners had me hitting at 70% for the first 3 days this year - up from about 25%
Also: chart time. I've bailed out on a few trades early because my growing experience told me that the charts were going too strongly in the wrong direction. Been right and wrong on them (mostly right) but the psych benefit of not staying so long in the red is pretty valuable when you're starting out. If you're a noob, looking at Paulus and that Zen ability to sit back and watch 5% evaporate, only to load up and try again, you have to take into account that he's been trading for something like 13 years. There's a certain perspective that comes with experience and I ain't got either of them yet.
Anyway, that's me and my starting point. My current challenge is with trends. I get stung a bit on picking the end of retracements, waiting 4 hours for that setup and missing all those intraday pips, only to jump in about an hour early, get stopped out, and then have the good trade's benefits spent on making up for the losses. Frustrating as hell but we'll get there
I'm pretty new to forex and had read all about the need for a strategy you trust but figured that working out one of my own could take years. Saw Udine's post for Invictus on google and followed his link here.
So anyway.. got some distance to go yet. Trading this system had me 30% down within a month (on demo) but practice and patience are starting to pay off and I made 12% for this week (Dredding's breakout strategy contributed 5%), even though I made couple of shocking trades last night.
The most useful change in my approach, if it helps other noobs, has been MM and closing out half at 1:1. So many of my trades would make it to that point and reverse me out. As I get better and see more of my trades making it to the second TP, I'll look at changing this but for while I'm finding my feet, locking in 1.5% beats the hell out of losing 3. I might make 3-5 trades a night so it all adds up. Converting those reversals into partial winners had me hitting at 70% for the first 3 days this year - up from about 25%
Also: chart time. I've bailed out on a few trades early because my growing experience told me that the charts were going too strongly in the wrong direction. Been right and wrong on them (mostly right) but the psych benefit of not staying so long in the red is pretty valuable when you're starting out. If you're a noob, looking at Paulus and that Zen ability to sit back and watch 5% evaporate, only to load up and try again, you have to take into account that he's been trading for something like 13 years. There's a certain perspective that comes with experience and I ain't got either of them yet.
Anyway, that's me and my starting point. My current challenge is with trends. I get stung a bit on picking the end of retracements, waiting 4 hours for that setup and missing all those intraday pips, only to jump in about an hour early, get stopped out, and then have the good trade's benefits spent on making up for the losses. Frustrating as hell but we'll get there