An ordinary journal

An ordinary journal by an ordinary non-high-impact member.

Last couple of months I got really pissed off by some people at FF, pretending to be so experienced , so good at trading, that they can tell the "truth" to others and they will lead them on the path of the force. People that form their thinking from the tvs,ads, articles and paid websites etc, people that probably never made it for themselve so they have some need to be honored and valued on an anonymous forum.. I have been affected in a very negative way from such people during my 7 years of trading experience, so I thought a lot about about it and decide that I have to give something back to this community. That is why I am openning this thread, as a journal , because it will contain personal views, some advice to people that are inexperienced with forex, I really hope that there will be some lines here on this thread that are going to change others, help them to recognize what is the garbage and what is valuable and perhaps make them better traders. I dont consider myself as a professional trader, nothing extraordinary, however I may have learned something during those years that majority of struggling newcomers will find valuable and I could save lots of time for someone. I wont be selling anything, I wont be giving any indicators or templates or whatever, I wont be introducing a system or methodology and I wont get into arguing with anyone who doesnt share my opinion. Trading is about opinions. Every winner and loser has one. But I dont start this thread for arguing and discussing. I will lay down some thoughts, if someone benefits my goal will be reached. This thread is just about giving back something. I wont be aiming at saying/revealing anything specific as I posses no secrets, no superpowers for trading or whatever, there are many people with more skills than mine. But perhaps I can stimulate less experienced traders to think in a different way and change their style for the best. My posts may be infrequent, but I doubt that there will be many readers missing my presence anyways. So lets start. I will reserve few posts below so I can make some structure and get back with a content for the thread.

22.09.2015 Post #1:

I am really not sure where to begin. My intention is to make posts that will benefit complete beginners but also people with some experience that are still struggling to find their way. So maybe I should start with a general post regarding trading endeavour.
I started trading back in 2009. Don’t know where I heard it from, it was all over the internet and tv even back then. I downloaded my first mt4 platform from a scam broker and immediately got into some 10k demo. Metatrader seemed to me like a space-shuttle control board, I didn’t have a clue about anything. I understood only that there was some price rates of currencies. Long story short- I found the first forum that came before my eyes, it was not ff, made a registration and started exploring the amazing world of indicators and already made eas, blinking lights etc, I learned fast what they were, then the giant mistake, I came upon a martingale ea (a very popular one) and immediately started backtesting and optimizing to find the best .set file and conquer the markets. I got some good backtest results and decided that in one or two years I would probably be a millionaire ! And put 5k live. Huge mistake.. got the mfirst to a bout 7-8 and then lost all on a strong trend without retracements. That is the usual martingale fate. The good thing for that first year was that I learned a lot about indicators, how to put them in the right folders, I learned to operate the platform in a basic way, I understood lots, tp and sl levels, for swap I had no idea what it was. So the conclusion from my first year is the following – any new trader must avoid bringing live money to this game at all costs. Before you don’t have solid experience, just play a demo, or stay aside and read, learn. There is no way to start with real money and be good, when you haven’t seen such thing. Trading is not very complicated but it is hard and needs lot of scars and punches before you start getting it. So be prepared to face lots of challenges and invest lots of time, It wont happen in months and in a year or two, even if you are a fast learner I don’t think it is possible. There is extreme information overload this days, mostly bullsh*t on the internet so you will be facing a lot of misleading always and especially in the beginning, as you are not able to make difference between what information is useful and what is not and what information is intentionanlly spread to disinform you. The best favour that a totally inexperienced trader can do for himself for the first 6-12-maybe 18 months of his experience is the following: Learn how the platform operates, what are the different platforms, why are there different platforms and what is the difference between them. Learn what are the common indicators, how are they calculated, what do they show, why could they work and why they do not work, but don’t rush to use them on live accounts and don’t expect them to bring you profits. Concentrate on trading discussion forums and not too much on trading systems. Trading discussions include lots of bulls* , but still you will get some foundation, and most importantly you will be challenged to think ! If some conversation is not understandable, you most probably haven’t reached the level to understand what is being discussed, but it will come with time, slowly. There is no need to rush. Market is not going to run away from you if you don’t chase it. Just remember - the trading systems section on any forum wont bring you any good. Do not use EA’s that you ahvent created and you don’t know how they operate or you don’t know the reason why they should make profit and when they don’t make profit, those are EAs that you don’t understand, money losing is guaranteed. Never put live money with manual or any system that is freely provided in the internet – money losing guaranteed. But reading about those things will get you experience. You can experiment as long as it is on a demo. A very important point here – ALWAYS open your demo accounts with smaller ammounts. The default offers of 10k or 100k or whatever are intentionanly created so they induce the dream of making big bucks so you can jump soon and with as much money as possible. Trading has a serious psychological aspect, so you must learn and practice on account that is going to be as big as what you will someday get started with. And even if you already have money , there is no reason to start with a big account initially. It is close to 100% you will lose your money. So doesn’t matter the arguments – you must always prepare to start small !
I don’t think that I summarized and structured my thoughts very well in the first post , but more will come in the future. In next posts I will try to explain my next years of gaining experience , what was difficult, what was a mistake and what could be good.

02.10.2015 Post#2:

Ok. So after the initial drama with EAs created by others and lot of blinking indicators, I slowly started understanding that it just cant be that easy. I know it is stupid that it takes maybe 1-2 or even 3 years to start realizing that making money cant be as simple as downloading some indi (created by another person, and even not asking yourself why would anyone share something that is making money in a competitive game) and waiting for the red/green signs. After that another concept enters my head - PRICE ACTION. Most of the average degree traders are already past the blinking lights baby stage and are seriously convinced that price action is the way to go. I was one of those. Some people here and on other forums/sites convinced me that trading really IS simple, however the indicators that we use are just made by price represented in another way , so there would be no use of them and we can directly view price and just follow the patterns. Patterns is a key word here ! I got introduced to them. Candle formations/ different kind of candles, the pinbar,doji,hammer,engulf,whatever. And since I have promised to be honest and try to help people.. Just ask yourslef, how could formations and candles have any significance, when they look absolutely different depending on the timeframe and type of chart that you use ? The same price fluctuations can form opposing and different type of patterns, depending on the timeframe, on m2 timeframe you see through different lens the same price that you will see with an M18 timeframe (I suppose that majority traders at least know that you can have any timeframe you want and even you can have chart without a timeframe). And the result of all this - you have an absolutely subjective perception of the REAL price action, which has absolutely no statistical significance and the market really gives absolutely no shit about your imaginary pattern. Back in my first years, I also gone through stages with trendlines, s/r lines etc but they will be covered in some other post. Lesson that should be learned today -> patterns and candles are just some way of representing information so that we can assimilate it and make some decisions, however the form and way of price representation has ABSOLUTELY no influence on the price, where it will go and not go. It only has an influence on our own trading decisions, and majority of time, you will be making a WRONG decision if you think that the pinbar will reject a level or the engulfing bar will bring any desirable future prices for you. Especially if you dont have in depth knowledge of the markets, do not put your real money at risk, trying to predict what will happen by looking at the candles forming in some shape or way. Save yourself that trouble and understand that those charts are just our subjective point of view on something which is not subjective at all.

R1

R2

That's me after few years trading.

NFP afternoon in pictures. congrats to those who were not buried

05/10/2015 For today : the eternal question - Stoploss vs No Stoploss. The debate on the subject is great in forex circles and it is really a total waste of time. Understand that you will be exiting with a market order and for the market it really does not matter if you click a X box on your metatrader, have an input SL on some equinix shitty server for your order or have an EA running on a dream cloud vps that closes the position or whatever. What matters is if you are profitable with your exit, regardless how you exit. And you need to have a point where "enough is enough". And that point must be far enough so it wont sabotage your good trades and close enough to maintain your equity curve pointing up. Again the market doesnt care about how you call it. Call it a stop, a break, a cut, call it luqidation of position, hedge it, margin call it. It is just execution at market. There is only edge vs no edge. You need to think about the exit point, not the exit method.
And stay away from martingale, although you won't. But at least you have been warned. Market cannot be tricked with money management alone.

I see that my jorunal really gets zero attention. And that is perfectly right. What I understood for my 7 years of lost time with trading is that people are indeed foolish. Majority of people. Some recent threads were dedicated to the question whether forex trading will exist in the near future. The answer is clear - while there are people willing to throw their cash out of the window, there will always be those others, standing down there with bags full of other fools money. And that is how most of our modern world things are designed. Social networks, millions of videos that waste your whole life, while you learn nothing. Fashion clothing, thousands of useless gadgets, million books full of someones shit, tuneless songs that you must listen to, because they are labeled cool. You are cool. You lose your money, and then you lose your more valuable resource called time, but you are cool among your fellows! In fact, you are so cool that you trade forex and make money without striving. Just read the threads, other cool people have already told you how it is done and it is so easy. You are so cool that you are willing to spend your whole life in a dream. That is how money is made. 1% of Earths population is exploiting the ignorance of the other 99percent. I feel that most are not willing to get up from this stupid dream. So maybe there is really no point for me posting my thoughts here anymore, as it is just a waste of my time. And what benefit do I have at all, when I am trying to get the money from those asleep? P.S. and do not get it wrong, there are many clever folks here at FF, but they are mostly wasting their time.

Hey feline, will you also be posting live trades ?

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A fool and his money are soon parted

However... Trading attracts mostly intelligent people, but their sharp brain is playing them a trick. Because after that they would need to drop their biased attitude which is not easy, and look out of the frame they have been put in. They do not realize it at first. Some never do. I see it all the time here. Posts from people that obviously have some good brains working and hard ambition. They have logic, they have the mental capacity to solve the problem. But they are also obviously on a wrong path, seeking the wrong truths. In fact - that is the really big secret to trading success, if there is any, from my perspective. No matter how good you are as a person, how smart you are, how dedicated you are, how passionate about trading, there is a chance that you waste your time chasing the wrong truths and asking the wrong questions. It is important to know what to look for, what to ask. The truth will come from the inside out and not from the outside in. NO ONE is going to tell you how to make it. That is why a major quality is to train yourslef to ask the relevant things. There are many interestings and yet irrelevant things. Beginners don't know how to make the difference. They want indicator settings, platforms, ea's, large lots, 4-digit gains in a month, how to trade the news, how many lots will move a pair up 1 pip etc etc... They never ask the right questions! If someday someone starts asking the right questions here, and moreover someone in the know actually decides to answer them, now those are gonna be some interesting times then. But there are good reasons why that would probably never happen.

Hi,sorry for late reply, I just saw your post. I will probably not share my trades in the future. I have no reason to do it for now. I wont be going in details why I enter/exit a trade, so there is no point to just post some trades without a logical explanation. I will be just like majority of posters. Instead, this is a quiet place where I put two thoughts together from time to time. Maybe someday someones brain could click because of something I wrote. But I doubt it.

Never lose your hope and your faith, because that is all youre gonna have through most of your journey. Money is just digits and it has nothing to do with your inner true self, it comes after you and you must never let money enslave you. Its a powerful weapon, but its not an objective. The greatest lessons of being a trader are different from learning how to make money. Years back, If I knew what I am was going to learn after, I would have thought it would make me a very happy person. It didn't. Even if I get much more succesful than currently am, It still wouldn't matter much if I don't know what is the purpose of being here with you and with others. So think first, what you want in life, it may have nothing to do with trading, and you may be losing your years at the wrong place, chasing a dream that is not your dream. You should really consider all of it. Forex speculation does not create anything worthy in this world, it just transfers wealth from those that don't know to those that know and can do more. It is the individual that makes any difference. Trading itself is nothing, no matter how complicated and great. Billions resting quietly in bank accounts, what do they do for people? Think for yourself. Life is short, digits are not going to give us peace. They take a lot from us.
How much are you prepared to lose, in order to win in the war of digits?

There is no loss recovery in trading. Because every next trade carries more risk and is on its own a profit/loss. We make connection between our trades, but the market does not. The recovery trade is nothing more than the next trade that lives on its own. The only thing that matters is when and why you swallow your losses and accept that you are wrong. If the trader is good, profits will be more than losses and there wont be the need to recover anything. As to loss avoiding , well I think the best way we can do that is to make better trading decisions sounds easy but...
If you make good trading decisions and you do not take excessive risk, you dont have that much to worry about.

When you pass through that same cycle 5-10-20-30 times, then you have a chance to become part of the small percent of profitable traders. Cannot even remember or describe how many times I have gone on that same loop - almost there, have some method, lacking consistency, lacking discipline, lacking who knows what? That is the biggest issue. For the first years of the trading journey, most people just don't know what they don't know. You have no idea what exactly needs to be learned to pass the barrier. There is no other way but to fail many many times first. Do not try to avoid it, just try not to lose your life savings through that phase and ruin your job/family etc.. Keep in mind that most people do not succeed in trading and those that do succeed have invested about 5-10 years and more, not as a hobby, but as a main interest. About the qualities that are needed. I will just share my opinion. First - way above average intelligence. The smarter the better, because you have higher brain capacity and with time you can develop more complex ideas more accurately than majority of people. It is a competition game. The richer and smarter win. Second - extreme discipline. It took me some years to start developing that trait. But do not confuse discipline to rigidity. Extreme discipline does NOT mean having a 1,2,3 checklist to open a trade and make ticks in squareboxes or aiming for some fixed profit/loss or number of trades. That is rigidity and stupidity. Hard discipline means that you are very dedicated and develop a routine with trading that fits perfect or close to perfect with your daily life and other agendas. Everything in your life could be an obstacle for your trading success - kids, wifes, bosses, nights at the club, weekends at the spa etc.. When you understand to what extent you could sacrifice other things for trading, what could be done and could not be done, then you will become more disciplined. You also have to be very disciplined with money, outside of your trading activities. Traders are not people that spend all their cash on bullshit stuff, they are quite the opposite - good negotiators, savers, investors..yep. Good traders are most often people that very well know and control their incomes and expenditures. Another very special quality - brain/mind flexibility and philosophy. You need to be above the bullshit on the internet forums and train yourself to think out of the box and to think with your own brain. A very high dose of skepticism towards anything that you read about forex on the forums, articles, books, especially tv ads and COMMERCIAL STUFF! That is life saving also in the first years of your journey. Then how can I learn when everything is bullshit? That would be the first good question to ask and has the potential to push you strongly into your desired direction. As much time passes by, you will embrace more professional attitude and you will start to understand how absurd are most of the things that you come across on the subject. The ones useful outside information stream will be gradually replaced by your own thoughts and ideas. And you will start to develop your OWN and unique approach towards trading, and I guarantee you that it will be better than anything that you will ever witness being posted anywhere.
It all takes a lot, a LOT of time, brains, hard work, dedication and also some luck..