Advice I wish I had as a complete forex newbie

Hi


I consider myself one of the good guys, thats the only reason i post this. I dont think ill get into heaven for doing so and i dont think ill be a bear instead of a fly in my next life. Those things are just baseless speculation. I do it because it feels kinda nice, and thats not because i think people deserve it in general, but because some people deserve it. To be specific, some of the people in this forum are good guys, some of the seniors and some of the noobs, the others i dont even want to think about.

So onwards. Heres a couple of things i wish i knew when i started out trying to trade forex.

Its going to take you a lot of hard work, anguish, soulsearching and pure angst to even have a chance of trading forex profitably.

LEARNING to trade forex from my experience isnt generaly pleasant and fun. I have seen people litteraly walking away from theyre computer after loosing a lot more then they planned on. Its not fun to get youre dreams and hopes smashed. If ever you get to a point of a steady system you trade, that might be OK, but its not fun, its not pleasant, its hard work (EDIT: to get there).

The real reason why i started trying to learn how to trade is that i dont want to have some shithead telling me what to do (a boss), ive had enough of that. So it was not because of any hopes of large monetary gain that i wanted to learn how to trade. If you have such hopes, and thats the big reason you want to learn to trade, i would say thats probably a bad thing, it will lessen youre chance of profit.

I dont think there is any so called "system" that works. I have tried pretty much all of them. There is little golden nuggets of smart things in some of them, but they are mostly propaganda, lies, treachery, bullshit and people wanting to rip you off. The one thing you should try to do is trust hard empirical evidence, facts that it. How exaclty that is done takes time, but suficed to say, dont belive ANYBODY just because they tell you its so, not even me. Id say that whay people consider "a system" is actually maybe the core of something that could maybe, just maybe be worthwhile. What people consider a complete "system" is actually more like 10-20% of what you really need to be profitable.

The way i ended up trading is VERY, VERY complicated, i wish it wasnt so, but i do it because i dont know how i would do it differently. Often i misinterpret my own system because its so damn complicated. I doubt i could, and i doubt i will ever try to teach anybody my way of trading. Its probably better for everybody to come up with theyre own, very personal way of trading.

Ive read many times that trading is simple, that you JUST do this and that and then you are in the green. I havent seen a single speck of hard empirical evidence that it is so, and i have looked and i have looked and tried and tried. I have done a lot a things in my life, and i can verify that trading currency is probably the craziest, weirdest and hardest thing i have ever tried. And i dont plan on doing it until i get old (over 65).

About people selling webinars and charging you for theyre system i say this: Dont buy into theyre damned bullshit. If they where successfull they would not sell anything, they would trade. If someone wants to collaborate or teach you something for free, well that just might work, but probably not.

You must be willing to fail. You must try things you think will fail, just to prove it so you can move on. If you still think trading could be something for you: use demoaccounts until you have a lot of experience and all kinds of price action. Every time you think "Hmm this is weird, whats going on?" you dont have enough experience, and should not trade that at all.

The problem with searching for something and this maybe seem paradoxical, like when searching for a profitable system, is that its not certain you will ever find it. You must be willing to accept that you might never be able to find what you are looking for, otherwise you dont stand a chance of finding it. I searched and searched all the time knowing i might not find it. This means that at some point you must be willing to give up. I cant tell when that is, maybe its smart for you to keep searching for 20 years, thats an existential question i cant answer for you.

Most of anything you see happening on any price in any market is orders made by EAs. That doesnt mean what happens is predictible, most of the money is controlled by EAs that is very, very advanced, EAs that is not available for people or even large companies. These EAs are secret, and the people who code them know only a very small part of what they are doing. These EAs belong to the banks. The banks have many advantages, among other things they dont care if they loose money, since money they gain they can multiply by lending at almost no interest to other banks. Profits they make often counts for collateral to borrow 10 times the original amount. Some of these EAs operate with a "wiev" of price as a physical object. Suficed to say, most of the money is controlled by EAs we on this forum could never and will never be able to code. So dont think for a second that you could easily make/use an EA that works allt the time. It is however easy to make/use an EA that trades well for about 1-2 months, and then it will probably start to loose money. If you want to use EAs i suggest putting them to use after london close, and shutting it off when london opens. I dont use EAs because i havent found a single one that i think is good enough, because there isnt enough periodicity/predictability in PA.

I dont like the concept of money. I dont like the concept of modern economy. I dont like the banks and theyre ways. I dont like governments. I dont like the idea of nations. I dont like the idea of separate races of humans. In fact i think we are all equal and all these things would make it so that we are not. So i like people. But, trading is stealing from eachoter, you need to know that. Mostly stealing from the banks though, which stole from us in the first place.

So maybe something on the upside: Trading is looking into the mind of people, both through the work of the EAs people coded for the banks and investors of many kinds, and the mind of actual people putting down orders. This to me is fascinating, its actually by definition, trying to read the mind of other people. If you are not fascinated by this, i think that also lessens youre chance of being profitable.


If my advice is sound or not, you will not know if you dont start finding out things for yourself. If you dont find out things for yourself, my advice is worthless, you should not take my word for anything other then something somebody is saying. I dont know "the truth" and i dont claim to either, those hwo do are bluffing charlatans and hoaxmakers. I wish you the best things in all aspects of youre life, whoever you are, where ever you are.


EDIT: A small clarification: It was the road to get here that wasnt that fun and a lot of hard work, now that my way of analysis is complete, its application is quite fun, that is a bit more like fun and games with fiat money The particulars of the intraday analysis takes quite a lot of brainpower though so its best applied before noon.

Oh boy, I don't know where to start with that lot!

I'd hardly call it 'advice' though, it's more like your own personal thoughts and opinions based on your experiences so far. Hopefully they'll change as you become more experienced and familiar with the market and trading.

Well i agree sort of. I dont see a definite difference between thoughts, opinions, facts and advice in this case. Whichever it is other people will have to decide for themselves.

That was deep. I need some time to process all this advice.

I guess it depends on what experience that advice is based on. There are several things, in fact 99% of it (sorry!), which could be called inaccurate or 'unusual'.

It will be interesting for you to refer back to your post in a year or two to see if/how your outlook has changed......hopefully by then you will be enjoying your trading and will have found a system which works for you.

Wow wtf was that.



I'll give some advice.

Pipmutt's posts are pretty good. One of the only things we can control in this game is risk. So my advice is watch the market, read the news, watch the market, watch price, oh and watch the market. Skip 99% of the posts on this forum and stay out of the system forum. Question everything.

Yeah mutti that was exactly what I thought - the young man should print his long post, put the date on it, put it away and read it back in a year or two.

"Its going to take you at least somewhere in the region of 1.000 hours of hard work, anguish, soulsearching and pure angst to even have a chance of trading forex profitably. Im saying this from only personal experience......
The way i ended up trading is VERY, VERY complicated, i wish it wasnt so, but i do it because i dont know how i would do it differently. Often i misinterpret my own system because its so damn complicated. I doubt i could, and i doubt i will ever try to teach anybody my way of trading."

Rightly or wrongly, I got the impression from the above comments that the OP is profitable, but that it had been a long hard road to get there.

"I dont think there is any so called "system" that works."

"About people selling webinars and charging you for theyre system i say this: Dont buy into theyre damned bullshit. If they where successfull they would not sell anything, they would trade."

I would have thought that most folk here would agree with these sentiments.
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Anyway, no matter, it's just my observation that there are two possible opposing schools of thought:

1. Trading profitably has got to be extremely difficult. The big funds have the R&D budgets to employ the most knowledgeable and experienced analysts, traders, economic and statistics PhDs and IT people, and yet they struggle to make a consistent profit each month. Many of them would consider a return of 20% per ANNUM, every year, to be an outstanding performance. Given his comparative lack of expertise, capital, influence, etc, how can a small retail trader possibly compete against these giants, in what is a zero sum game?

2. FX trading has got to be incredibly easy. Price can only move up or down, beyond which the only enemy is costs (spread, swap). Hence it shouldn't take much of an 'edge' to shift the probabilities into a trader's favor. Given that price movement isn't a random walk, there have got to be exploitable edges there. Unlike casino games, for example, there are minimal rules and constraints in forex: the trader is at liberty to choose the information and setups that he wishes to use, and devise his own strategy of entries and exits, scaling in, out, varying stake size; while the smallest edge, backed by some leverage and compounding, can result in some serious, exponential gains. And the market's vast liquidity means that the stakes are completely scalable.

So is trading incredibly easy or incredibly difficult? Take your pick, LOL. But I'd suggest that the only way anybody ever finds out is not by placing their trust in forum posts, but by the process of self-discovery.
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"About people selling webinars and charging you for theyre system i say this: Dont buy into theyre damned bullshit. If they where successfull they would not sell anything, they would trade."

I have personally lost thousands to snake oil vendors, and have come to the obvious realization that skepticism is the buyer's best form of insurance. However, once again I also believe that there are two points of view. Re the question "if he is a profitable trader, why is he selling something?", here are some possible reasons:

1. It takes a significant amount of capital to trade for a living. Not everybody has $100k sitting in a jar on their kitchen bench.

2. It would seem that even the best traders encounter equity swings; losing weeks, occasionally perhaps losing months. Trading offers the promise of exponential gains through compounding, while teaching offers more limited but consistent gains, and at no risk. Hence the two income streams complement each other well.

3. At various stages along the journey, trading can be an intensely stressful, lonely, and boringly repetitive occupation. Ego being what it is, the desire to communicate one's success to others can become a pressing one. Altruism and charity represent the ultimate expression of the human spirit, but it could equally be argued, especially in the cutthroat, zero sum context of forex, that there's nothing unethical about selling information that is extremely valuable. (However, there seems to be a growing mentality that those who are successful are obligated to gift their hard-earned wealth and/or intellectual property to those who aren't).

"That doesnt mean what happens is predictible, most of the money is controlled by EAs that is very, very advanced, EAs that is not available for people or even large companies. These EAs are secret, and the people who code them know only a very small part of what they are doing."

Hmmm okay?

Baseless speculation much?

A picture paints a thousand words.

respectfully I dont agree That picture is of another game not our as retail traders!! They manage billions...Just go and see how much return UBS get in his FX accounts...probably nothing that will impress you or me, and certainly nothing that will be OK for us

Regards

Pepe

????

Sorry don't make the connection what does that have to do with what he said?

When you program an EA do you not know what it does? lol

I never said that algorithmic trading is a small part of fx I was laughing at the thought most of these programmers don't know what the thing does that they are programming.

I apologize; it seems that my attempt at being tongue-in-cheek has been misunderstood.

What I meant was: if EAs are "controlling most of the money" (as the OP was suggesting), then what are all of these folk doing? Programming? [edit] FWIW, I've changed the quote in my post to reflect that.

(In fairness, though, maybe the pic I posted is several years old. I have no way of knowing).

Great advice... thanks for sharing.

I was giving advice I can do whatever I want.

I've never used any of the systems posted. But I click active threads and just whatever pops up I check out the postings never know when something might spark further investigation.

Now go troll somewhere else smart ass.

I've never been easily mystified maybe that's why I can go through active threads which might include system threads without losing my common sense. But most people cannot judging by the amount of activity therein.

lol

It appears to me that you are VERY easily mystified.

You're an imbecile, with a bad attitude... tell tale signs that you'll never make it in this business.

Mmm ok.

The best threads to visit hands down are the journal threads and trading blogs of people who grind day in and day out. you get a sense of what's workin and what's not just reading about their experience. I can tell you my strategy revolves around seeing how people fail and how they make money.