Who here is making money?

Im making money, not a lot but im still hanging in there..

I have seen a lot of traders move to new trading systems after they experience a "bump" in the road. I have been trading forex since before online platforms were widely available, and have been making money doing it.

I suppose if more traders were willing to work on their psychology they would be less likely to jump from system to system to system, and they would be more likely to make money......perhaps.

I´m now 3 years trader, lost some accounts and back to demo trading. Back to scholl again to find my own style. Seen people here doing real money gives me more confident. I take this as an enjoyment becouse I like what I do even when I´m not doing well.Take out pressure on you and try to enjoy the journey, I think this is a good start point.

*cough

Hi zek132!

I must agree. I, myself, am not a consistently profitable forex trader (yet, I hope ). However, I already had very positive months in the past (more than 200% profit!), but as you'll certainly guess that was at the cost of very poor position sizing and management, no stop-loss, etc. I was lucky. But luck is ephemeral. Of course, that luck didn't last and I quickly lost all my gains and more...

I frequently wonder if it is possible to be both significantly and consistently profitable at forex trading against the brokers and/or large banks. There are many academic papers stating that the big financial players (large corporate banks, national banks) tend to look at technical analysis mostly as an amusement; allegedly, they trade based on fundamental data instead. Of course, one must not forget that they do not probably trade the noise that constitutes the bread and butter of day traders... So the time horizon for these two groups is quite different.

I do believe that fundamental data is crucial to the understanding of the big picture, even though the "big picture" (which spans weeks or months) is much larger than the timeframe used by most small traders (minutes or hours timeframe). However, the big picture may be relevant to the small speculator because it may allow to reduce risk, by taking trades only in the direction of the global trend.

Now, how to be profitable? With hindsight, it all seems very simple: follow the trend and enter on retracements, ensuring a position sizing such that the noise inherent to the market you're trading will probably not take out your stops, but also that your stop-loss will protect you from real reversals. Now that, I believe, is the real but elusive "Holy Grail" of trading, because that equilibrium is dynamic.

One relatively "naïve" approach would be to dynamically sample, say, the range of the last 200 bars, calculate its statistics, then build a probability density function (pdf) based on these values and put the stop-loss at a 2.576 standard-deviations below (for longs) or above (for shorts) the mean (corresponding to a <1% of being hit). The position sizing would then be determined such that, for a long, (EntryPrice - StopLoss)*PositionSize = a certain arbitrary % of Equity (2%, for example). The derived pdf could be computed through Monte-Carlo simulation... Does anyone sees any merit in this approach, or am I just trying to reinvent the wheel?

Cheers

- HighHopes


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| "Who is wise? One who learns from every man" - Ben Zoma |
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does 23 pips last week count?

hi, i also agree. for me as well the first months were lossing... so i started again with the demo account. now it looks like i'm back and the is a slight optimism.. the thing that helped me most was learning everything i can about the market, the indicators etc.

I posted a similar poll to try and get an idea on the truth behind forex gains but not had many responses. I've attached the link below ... it may be of some interest to you :

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=256553

i think forex is a kind of casino. you cant be sure you make money tomorrow even you did them yesterday.

i used to win $100,000 from $50,000 within month or so. Than lost about 90% within the next 3 months and left the forex for quite a big time.

My forex manager has paid for past 10 years average profit of +35% per annum. He has good performance record.

WOW, 20% per month and almost a 100K account?

This post was in 2007... how about now? Did you REACH 100K yet?

And what is your secret? Who teached you and told you the SECRETS of FOREX?..

I want to know the secret too. I am sure it has to do with this Super-Galactic-Ancient-Mayan-Calendar-no-loss system that I have heard so much about. I have to have it to win at forex, so pleaaaase tell me.