Any Successful Forex Traders

The "that-was-then and this-is-now" evidence will always be much stronger than just the "this-is-now" evidence.

Well, as hopefully considered one of the usual suspects, I just reply to make clear that 10k won't be sufficient to silence me..... LOL.
It's not even a question of money! Enough people sell their soul in this industry.

This excel statement, in its current form, is no valid evidence for a successful retail trader and you know exactly why.

You've described FF perfectly



Thanks.

It’s almost reached the point where that statement could read true for the entire forum.
We have armchair analysts cutting and pasting their stats from Wikipedia all the while citing academic studies
from acknowledged flawed sources. The hottest recent thread is about suicide, and the interactive
area is full of posters drawing a line above and below current price then telling you they know where
the market is headed lol.

And don’t get me started on the commercial members that FF should have put put behind a paywall a LONG
time ago.

This place has become the trading equivalent of a Philip K Dick novel - fascinating reading but likely to piss you off.

sucessfull i would define in my opinion, when you can earn more then 2 times (better 5-10 times to compensate holidays and infrstructure and people payed maybe) the money each month (in average over one year) that you could get with a good job ( or all your other opportunity costs for doing this trading, if you have still the job then the costs are very small and sucess is much more easy to get), so you are compensated for investing time and work and more risk. and of course the account has a upward equity curve, very small standard deviation and smaller max drawdown.
but sucess only to see in 1 account is often near impossible (maybe when someone has all his asset and money in this account), near anyone with sucess invest the shortterm profits in mid and longterm investments and the whole package performance needs to be rated as sucess or no sucess. so from 1 account it is difficult to say anything about sucess of a trader, only from all assets someone has.

I am successful, but not from trading. But I do cover the definition here, cause being successful and a hobby trader at the same time, covers the meaning of successful trader. I hope you understand that. My trading does not have to be successful, because in front of the word trader, I already have the word successful, which I am and after all, the outcome of my trading does not really count or matter.

Last, but not least, I have one of the best low IQs on this forum. That is another thing I can beat you at! No one can beat my IQ of 75 points! So, calling me Champ, would not be an inappropriate... Got that?

I am also successful. I have an online lead generation business. I am also part of a professional group trading account that uses a holygrailesque system. I have adopted this system to trade my personal account. I used the month of January to test and make sure I executed the system the way my group does and I have done very well this month. I will start using my personal money come mid Feb.

I also am political. I do some fund raising.

Hi Mr sharingan9, can i join your group too?

Unfortunately no. It is a private trading group that is connect to my business. Employees and intital investors only I'm afraid

welp.. haha

What should be the criteria to judge someone success???
I doubled my LIVE account in three weeks, is this success??

I would say at least year's equity curve to prove at least on some level your strategy can prove profitable through all 4 quarters of the year

mr sharingan9, when will you do new video? i saw your video on youtube but it almost a year and i cant get the indicator

https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=3156 the thread started at oct 22, 2005

The 5 Steps to becoming a trader

Step One: Unconscious Incompetence.

This is the first step you take when starting to look into trading. you know that its a good way of making money because you've heard so many things about it and heard of so many millionaires. Unfortunately, just like when you first desire to drive a car you think it will be easy - after all, how hard can it be? Price either moves up or down - what's the big secret to that then - lets get cracking!

Unfortunately, just as when you first take your place in front of a steering wheel you find very quickly that you haven't got the first clue about what you're trying to do. You take lots of trades and lots of risks. When you enter a trade it turns against you so you reverse and it turns again .. and again, and again.


You may have initial success, and thats even worse - cos it tells your brain that this really is simple and you start to risk more money.


You try to turn around your losses by doubling up every time you trade. Sometimes you'll get away with it but more often than not you will come away scathed and bruised You are totally oblivious to your incompetence at trading.

This step can last for a week or two of trading but the market is usually swift and you move onth the next stage.

Step Two - Conscious Incompetence

Step two is where you realise that there is more work involved in trading and that you might actually have to work a few things out. You consciously realise that you are an incompetent trader - you don't have the skills or the insight to turn a regular profit.

You now set about buying systems and e-books galore, read websites based everywhere from USA to the Ukraine. and begin your search for the holy grail. During this time you will be a system nomad - you will flick from method to method day by day and week by week never sticking with one long enough to actually see if it does work. Every time you come upon a new indicator you'll be ecstatic that this is the one that will make all the difference.

You will test out automated systems on Metatrader, you'll play with moving averages, Fibonacci lines, support & resistance, Pivots, Fractals, Divergence, DMI, ADX, and a hundred other things all in the vein hope that your 'magic system' starts today. You'll be a top and bottom picker, trying to find the exact point of reversal with your indicators and you'll find yourself chasing losing trades and even adding to them because you are so sure you are right.

You'll go into the live chat room and see other traders making pips and you want to know why it's not you - you'll ask a million questions, some of which are so dumb that looking back you feel a bit silly. You'll then reach the point where you think all the ones who are calling pips after pips are liars - they cant be making that amount because you've studied and you don't make that, you know as much as they do and they must be lying. But they're in there day after day and their account just grows whilst yours falls.

You will be like a teenager - the traders that make money will freely give you advice but you're stubborn and think that you know best - you take no notice and overtrade your account even though everyone says you are mad to - but you know better. You'll consider following the calls that others make but even then it wont work so you try paying for signals from someone else - they don't work for you either.


You might even approach a 'guru' like Rob Booker or someone on a chat board who promises to make you into a trader(usually for a fee of course). Whether the guru is good or not you wont win because there is no replacement for screen time and you still think you know best.


This step can last ages and ages - in fact in reality talking with other traders as well as personal experience confirms that it can easily last well over a year and more nearer 3 years. This is also the step when you are most likely to give up through sheer frustration.

Around 60% of new traders die out in the first 3 months - they give up and this is good - think about it - if trading was easy we would all be millionaires. another 20% keep going for a year and then in desperation take risks guaranteed to blow their account which of course it does.


What may suprise you is that of the remaining 20% all of them will last around 3 years - and they will think they are safe in the water - but even at 3 years only a further 5-10% will continue and go on to actually make money consistently.


By the way - they are real figures, not just some ive picked out of my head - so when you get to 3 years in the game dont think its plain sailing from there.


Iv had many people argue with me about these timescales - funny enough none of them have been trading for more that 3 years - if you think you know better then ask on a board for someone who's been trading 5 years and ask them how long it takes to become fully 100% proficient. Sure i guess there will be exceptions to the rle - but i havent met any yet.


Eventually you do begin to come out of this phase. You've probably committed more time and money than you ever thought you would, lost 2 or 3 loaded accounts and all but given up maybe 3 or 4 times but now its in your blood

One day - im a split second moment you will enter stage 3.

Step 3 - The Eureka Moment

Towards the end of stage two you begin to realise that it's not the system that is making the difference. You realise that its actually possible to make money with a simple moving average and nothing else IF you can get your head and money management right You start to read books on the psychology of trading and identify with the characters portrayed in those books and finally comes the eureka moment.

The eureka moment causes a new connection to be made in your brain. You suddenly realise that neither you, nor anyone else can accurately predict what the market will do in the next ten seconds, never mind the next 20 mins.


Because of this revelation you stop taking any notice of what anyone thinks - what this news item will do, and what that event will do to the markets. You become an individual with your own method of trading


You start to work just one system that you mould to your own way of trading, you're starting to get happy and you define your risk threshold.

You start to take every trade that your 'edge' shows has a good probability of winning with. When the trade turns bad you don't get angry or even because you know in your head that as you couldn't possibly predict it it isn't your fault - as soon as you realise that the trade is bad you close it . The next trade or the one after it or the one after that will have higher odds of success because you know your system works.


You stop looking at trading results from a trade-to-trade perspective and start to look at weekly figures knowing that one bad trade does not a poor system make.


You have realised in an instant that the trading game is about one thing - consistency of your 'edge' and your discipline to take all the trades no matter what as you know the probabilities stack in your favour.

You learn about proper money management and leverage - risk of account etc etc - and this time it actually soaks in and you think back to those who advised the same thing a year ago with a smile. You weren't ready then, but you are now. The eureka moment came the moment that you truly accepted that you cannot predict the market.

Step 4 - Conscious Competence

You are making trades whenever your system tells you to. You take losses just as easily as you take wins You now let your winners run to their conclusion fully accepting the risk and knowing that your system makes more money than it looses and when you're on a loser you close it swiftly with little pain to your account

You are now at a point where you break even most of the time - day in day out, you will have weeks where you make 100 pips and weeks where you lose 100 pips - generally you are breaking even and not losing money. You are now conscious of the fact that you are making calls that are generally good and you are getting respect from other traders as you chat the day away. You still have to work at it and think about your trades but as this continues you begin to make more money than you lose consistently.

You'll start the day on a 20 pip win, take a 35 pip loss and have no feelings that you've given those pips back because you know that it will come back again. You will now begin to make consistent pips week in and week out 25 pips one week, 50 the next and so on.

This lasts about 6 months

Step Five - Unconscious Competence

Now we’re cooking - just like driving a car, every day you get in your seat and trade - you do everything now on an unconscious level. You are running on autopilot. You start to pick the really big trades and getting 200 pips in a day doesnt make you any more excited that getting 1 pips.


You see the newbies in the forum shouting 'go dollar go' as if they are urging on a horse to win in the grand national and you see yourself - but many years ago now.

This is trading utopia - you have mastered your emotions and you are now a trader with a rapidly growing account.

You're a star in the trading chat room and people listen to what you say. You recognise yourself in their questions from about two years ago. You pass on your advice but you know most of it is futile because they're teenagers - some of them will get to where you are - some will do it fast and others will be slower - literally dozens and dozens will never get past stage two, but a few will.

Trading is no longer exciting - in fact it's probably boring you to bits - like everything in life when you get good at it or do it for your job - it gets boring - you're doing your job and that's that.


Finally you grow out of the chat rooms and find a few choice people who you converse with about the markets without being influenced at all.


All the time you are honing your methods to extract the maximum profit from the market without increasing risk. Your method of trading doesnt change - it just gets better - you now have what women call 'intuition'

You can now say with your head held high "I'm a currency trader" but to be honest you dont even bother telling anyone - it's a job like any other.


I hope youve enjoyed reading this journey into a traders mind and that hopefully youve identified with some points in here.


Remember that only 5% will actually make it - but the reason for that isnt ability, its staying power and the ability to change your perceptions and paradigms as new information comes available.


The losers are those who wanted to 'get rich quick' but approached the market and within 6 months put on a pair of blinkers so they couldnt see the obvious - a kind of "this is the way i see it and thats that" scenario - refusing to assimilate new information that changes that perception.


Im happy to tell you that the reason i started trading was because of the 'get rich quick' mindset. Just that now i see it as 'get rich slow'

If youre thinking about giving up i have one piece of advice for you ....

Ask yourself the question "how many years would you go to college if you knew for a fact that there was a million dollars a year job at the end of it?

Take care and good trading to you all.

I left of the name of the author of this piece by mistake. If anyone knows the name of the true author, please let me know and I'll add it here. Thanks and sorry for the confusion.

Dial
sxaxlxvxaxtxixoxnxbxyxgxrxaxcxexdxoxtxoxrxgx

those videos were just testing systems. I do not trade those systems with real money

Crucial Point I believe.

Totally agree, although it usually takes more than a few anonymous strangers to piss me off. I don't take too much of what is said seriously any more.

I believe the Eleanor Roosevelt quote ("great minds discuss ideas..... small minds discuss people") is very apposite for trading forums.
___________________________

Well, I certainly won't be killing the account just to show a few anonymous strangers that the money is real! And of course even if I did, there would be no way of providing "valid evidence" over the internet -- given that apps like photoshop allow images to be easily faked -- that any withdrawal was bona fide. As I indicated previously, my confidence comes primarily from understanding their approach; the results are secondary. I'm happy to simply leave you to your skepticism.

I doubt that it's readily possible to prove -- or disprove -- proficiency objectively, in any case. Personally I prefer qualitative evidence -- a demonstration of how a given 'edge' exploits current market microstructure, for example -- to quantitative evidence, because (as exemplified here), it's very easy to be 'fooled by randomness'; and there will always be outliers, and a margin for error, where statistics are concerned. Whether the retail failure rate is 90%, or 95%, or 99.9999% doesn't concern me; I merely sit here on the sidelines as a sometime hobbyist, but most of all a curious observer.

Many thanks for the discussion. I appreciate the time and effort that went into your replies. If I may say so -- and I attempt to do so with as much sincerity and humility as I'm able -- I rate your ability to construct a sensible and substantive argument as being well ahead of that of the 'usual suspects'. Much respect, and good wishes.

David

you survived the failure phase? so happy to see you,please share your story.

I mean that the "this is now" is a snap shot. All you need to do is revisit this track record some time in the future... Usually, you will find that it's no longer doing so well.
So the "that was then" (when it was winning) becomes the "this is now" (it's losing)
and of course the reverse will happen also.
It means that a track record is absolutely meaningless as the wheel of fortune turns and turns in a rather random and annoying fashion

I think that there are plenty of these kind of traders too. Of course their percentage is much less than regular ones, but afterall this sphere also bears it's fruit and good profit.