What works, and what doesn't

Some of these points seems to be controversial to me but still you made a great analytical job by taking out the most important things. It feels like you really tried all of these. Now I understand that need to pay more attention to changes in monetary policy, good point.

they can only decide what works and what does not, based on their own experience.
many speak only in general and do not name things.

If it's about Forex, I think everything that doesn't work for now, will in the future for sure

A Central Bank, or monetary authority, is an institution that manages a State's currency, money supply, and interest rates. Examples of Central Banks would include the United States Federal Reserve Bank (FED), the Bank of Japan, and the ECB. The banks you mentioned are large money center banks, but not Central Banks.

That's just it man, you can't accuse no one of how they go about their trades or what work for them and what doesn't. It can't be same for everyone.

I know this is a late response but oh please shut up! You are his fanboy we get it, stop trying to hijack someone else's thread. The first signs of a scammer is when he claims to be an institutional trader. Those guys make a ton of money so why bother teaching a few broke forex traders how to make money when you can sit cozy making cool commissions?

Forex Factory this bloke is directly and forcefully marketing this "Guru" on a non commercial thread.

@ingot54

An absolute load of tripe. Not only have you incorrectly classified commercial investment banks, but you also haven't got a clue on how these firms trade. Here is a little tidbit for you to do read and educate yourself. Investment Banks do not care about retail traders, we are so insignificant to them it's just hilarious that someone even considers it relevant. They make their money in markets by dealing for clients and of course, they trade themselves but, in trading, for themselves, they do not give a donkeys nob about you and I, they are focusing on news flow and central bank activity.

https://news.efinancialcareers.com/u...-you-wanted-to

What Works, and What Doesn't?

In my posts I have not mentioned anyone else.
I have not given links, except to show proof of the banks' manipulation of the markets.
Small traders are caught up in the reversals, which no one has been able to refute here, with evidence,.
Proof please.

Post 399 gives a Daily Fx link
Surely Daily Fx has more credibility than a miffed rusted-on indicator trader?

I am voicing an opinion.
In an initial deleted post (thanks for pointing out my faux pas SirOrigami) I did indeed mention a link that woke me up to why and how I was unable to make trading pay.
I was happy to delete that, since so far I am bored with progress in the approach I erroneously mentioned in the now-deleted post.
The author is taking far too long to develop anything that could be realistically used, for my liking.
I won't mention that URL again.

But if you Google "Ingot54" you will see where I have thousands of posts on T2W, Traders Laboratory, Forex actory, Babypips, Incredible Charts etc etc etc - I have forgotten more than I remember of them - you'd get the drift that in +/-25,000 posts since 2004, I regurgitated the same as we are seeing on this thread.
I provided charts. I invented my own indicators (well variations of some smarter people's work).

I have worn out a pair of spectacles reading Alexander Elder, Mark Douglas, Van K Tharp and their ilk.
That stuff applies mostly to equity trading, and even so, how many equity traders have abandoned those mechanics as well?

In my next post I will post what I think is a useful link.
It might show some "What works and What Doesn't."

But please - instead of attacking me, it would be appreciated if you would ask some questions.
Making assumptions about the material and motivations of people answering the question of the title of this thread, is not productive.

I apologise for offending people here, and won't do so again.

Having worked in the industry for the last 20 years I know its bullshit. There are isolated incidents that's been uncovered and none of them involve manipulation at the level you are describing. That article describes how it really is, not what you make it out to be.

Think about it, if they were to pile a billion into the market, they need to square that position for profit at some point. Well if they just piled a billion into it, they need another entity to do the same else they will just make the market retrace by closing the position and then they have slippage. To add to the ridiculousness of what you are saying, they have risk management teams that's looking at their exposure constantly and trading like this with a hope that another large entity will allow them to square the position for profit is not how the business runs.

They trade the market using news flow and do not manipulate the market in any way, it Is simply too large to manipulate, even central banks struggle (snb is an example) You really need to stop peddling this bullshit because new traders will lap it up and perpetuate the lies. No wonder 90 percent lose because they are swimming in an ocean of bullshit.

@EcoTrader

That's fantastic - it's great to know I have someone who has 20 years in the industry to teach me "What Works and What Doesn't."
I have wasted a lot of time, effort and money trying to figure this out for myself.

Can you please tell me in simple language your trading story:
- how you started out
- what works
- what doesn't work
- which indicators work
- which indicators do not work
- which books to read/avoid
- and anything else you have found out that I need to know

I have had a depressing 15 years - my best year was +/- $25,000 which I have since given back.
No new car, world trip or new house for me.
Was just lucky I guess, because I could not replicate it, no matter how I persevered and read/applied the industry standard biblical texts.

I am hoping you can shed some light on this topic, since we are in the right thread for it.
I think all of us would like to have a few nuggets of hope for the future, and sure as eggs no one thinks I know anything.
They'd be correct, based on my track record. It's no fun being bashed over the head and castigated for having a different opinion though.

You have already told me your opinion of my opinion, so let's dispense with any more knocking, and get down to the thread topic.
That is why I am here.

I continue to look for a successful trader whose main source of annual income comes from trading, so that I can learn from them.

Also could you please stop using profanities - you used the word "BS" three times in your last post.
If you want to discuss a topic, please try to just use English - most readers understand it, and you don't need profanity to bolster true superiority.
I can understand you just as clearly without it.

If i have offended you please accept my oligopolies. It is a case of seeing so much rubbish spoken in the retail side of trading that ultimately leads to widespread failure. This is why I used profanity as it really winds me up reading comments where there is assumption disguised as truth. So lets get on with the subject then and put the rest aside.


I have been working with traders and analysts for years with a keen interest in the market since puberty. My first role on a trading floor was working with analysts on their research and moved up through various roles in trading divisions of investment banks and several hedge funds. It wasn't until a few years ago however when i first dipped my toes into the waters for trading. Like so many retail traders, i focused on technicals and after a while of struggles i decided to reach out to professional traders at the workplace that i had worked with on several projects. My approach was to ask them what type of setups they use for trading and the response was being laughed at. I shall offer you the eye opener they offered me at the time before my journey into trading stepped in the right direction.



Take a look at our workstations, i was told, do you see any Christmas trees on them (implying charts). Looking around i noticed very few screens with one or 2 tiny charts on them, the rest was:

 

1. news flow (various tabs with filtered news feeds)
2. chat room (direct access to other traders and analysts)
3. Video feeds (bloomberg, cnbc etc)
4. research windows where they research ideas
5. trading windows where they can execute trades

That's the summary of my introduction into how they trade and it was followed by several conversations on the overall process with each trader having slightly different strategies and areas of focus but all of them are following the general process of news flow. The trading floor has different sections, some of it is client order related - they don't trade just execute orders for clients including fixes. Other areas of the floor, sometimes a different floor, is wealth management where they do trade client fund but its typically portfolios of strategies across markets etc. The guys i spoke to were trading for the bank and not client related so they are more closely related to trading as we know it.

what doesn't
Take a look at the forum as a whole then contrast this with ESMA regulations, specifically the reporting requirements. Brokers are mandated by regulations to disclose client statistics. The problem is their reporting is merely snapshots in time. I personally believe this is the compromise made by the regulators because if they were to correctly report success it would be scoped on individual accounts over a period of months and not just a snapshot. The stats as they are currently shows 76% lose but if reported correctly it would be higher than 90%.
So if you want to know what doesn't work just follow the herd on the forum and by that i mean ignore the key elements of markets and just focus on historical price as your guide. The vast majority of professional traders take their assessment of markets using fundamentals, not historical price. This is why they spend hundreds of thousands to millions every year on news terminals. This is the major disconnect with retail traders and there is a general lack of understanding when it comes to the topic. Just this morning some trader on here told me he doesn't care about news so long as price moves. Well how do you know where price is going and why - yet you are betting on an outcome using only history as your guide! Ultimately he is coin toss trading and has zero context to what is going on and if or when price can change. here are some other lies about fundamentals that's widely regurgitated on forums like this:

 

1. it is only long term - a complete load of crap. I trade news daily, often multiple times a day.
2. it is already known beforehand - against regulations and doesn't happen. economic releases are tightly controlled
3. it is already baked into price - sentiment is, but how do you gauge it by looking at a chart. Is it strong, weak, likely to change? there are so many variables that you are simply gambling by assuming the chart is providing you with enough context to make an informed decision. News that hasn't been released is not priced in however, no chart can tell you what it might be either.

So in summary what doesn't work is technical analysis, at least not for the majority. There are a few that seemingly are able to make it work but i can honestly say that their success doesn't seem to have longevity. This is because the markets change enough periodically that their strategy loses any small edge it might have had. Look at sites like myfxbook and zulu trader. You won't find a trader that has been consistent for more than a few years. Their rigid systems and likely directional bias crumbles as the economic cycle shifts gears or enters a new cycle.

The other aspect of failure has a lot to do with opportunity. The vast majority of retail traders with technical systems have no concept of pairing. They will trade the same pair or maybe a handful of pairs and have zero thought as to which ones present the best opportunity. Behind each currency pair is an economy and they are all at different stages of the cycle. Some central banks are tightening, other are very loose, and others are neutral. The best opportunity daily is pairing strongest with weakest. This is done through sentiment analysis but with a backdrop of central bank policy. Without doing that you will likely enter an assumed setup that does nothing (likely pairing a weak with a weak) and miss out on a different pairing that ultimately provides the opportunity you were looking for. I am sure this has happened to you, it used to happen to me when i ignored this vital analysis.

What works
doing what the professionals do. You can't obviously mirror them but by following a similar process of assessing the markets, you can see the opportunities they see and with the right trade management strategy you can essentially piggy back their transactional flows to your advantage. I am sure you have heard the term along the lines of "if everyone can see it, they can react to it". Well all the professionals are watching news flow and applying trading strategies with a backdrop of fundamental analysis. They are not looking at macd, rsi, or moving averages with so many configuration options that you will have a better chance of winning the lottery than having a configuration that is widely seen. You will have a greater chance of being on the right side watching the same information as those with the buying power to move price. conversely, every trader on this forum will have a different view of the markets based on their technicals strategies. If the market was only scoped at this forum, then there wouldn't be any significant agreement and price will have no trends whatsoever.

Here is a trade example - the market expectations were surprised and sentiment immediately priced in the new information

EcoTrader - that is about as genuine and open an answer as I have ever received in response to a question.

I can only say thank you for taking the question(s) at face value and being open and straightforward in answering.

It is very humbling to have someone (with the intelligence to understand what they are talking about) actually take the time to give a decent reply.
It is hard to let indicators go, since they take so much effort to locate and apply in the first place.
But I have known - or at least strongly suspected I should say - that indicators on their own are far too late to the party.

In your response above you have not allowed any space for indicators, and only maybe 5 in a hundred aspiring traders would want to try trading without them.
But if I/we dump them all, that means going back to class and starting the learning process all over again.
Who would want to do that?

That is a rhetorical question, because the truth is anyone who wants to find success in their trading would need to do that.
I probably won't at my age, but I will still follow along where I see interesting things in trading.

However, if there is anyone reading this thread who has the dream - the passion - to succeed, I would encourage them to do that.
ie - start again from the beginning.

What you have posted deserves to be read and re-read, and then pursued by traders who truly "get it."
By that I mean to pursue further knowledge and gain the skills and expertise to engage trading from a different angle.

Finally, it is saddening for me to feel the depth of the time I have wasted in pursuing trading from an approach that was doomed from the outset.
I will never be able to get back the years or the money "invested" (read: wasted) but I am trying to be humble enough to show other traders it is not too late.
Opportunity is still here is you desire to know.

The alternative is for traders to continue with the indicator approach, and one day wake up and find themselves in the same situation I find myself today.

It's not all depression and gloom, however.
I remain upbeat about life, and pleased that I have the capacity to see the truth and recognise the folly.
My mentioning of another approach earlier was a symptom of my need to keep digging for what works and what doesn't.
At least I have been shown that even that is not what it seems.

I believe there may still be some traders who have found a niche in their approach to trading, and if that is the case, then they should continue with it, if they want.

For the rest - maybe it is time to look at what you have said, and ask some questions of their own.
Maybe another thread would be appropriate, if you are willing to answer/teach a few things.
It needn't necessarily be a long thread.
Meanwhile I will re-read your post and try to take it on board a little more - thank you again for taking the time to construct that incredible post.

Don't be disheartened, all retail traders are faced with an ocean of shit and left for themselves to decide. If i can give you a glimmer of hope it is that you do not need a degree to relearn how to trade. Take your experience to date as merit to perseverance and dedication to making it a success. all you need is 3 months to get rolling on a new trading journey. Letting go of charts will actually be a relief i assure you because its smoke and mirrors. You can fit any narrative to a chart and repetition of structure is like a dangling carrot. If you looked at completely unrelated data like population growth, births and deaths, whale migrations, seismic activity; you will see the same patterns you see in price charts (a hard pill for TA worshippers to accept). The conviction and understanding you can grasp by understanding the causes of sentiment is unlike anything you could ever experience using technical based systems. With a technical system you hit the trigger and hope it all works out (probability). With fundamentals you are not trading probability, you are trading an event that when breaches expectations is like a void that needs to be filled. I don't look at a chart until i have entered a trade and i only use it to manage a trade, essentially as a gauge to sentiments strength.

to begin

1) start with central banks - understand their policy, understand their tools, understand their effect on the market, tune into all communication including press conferences and speeches. Also understand what forward guidance is and note the areas of the economy that the central bank is watching (they will disclose it)

2) get an idea of the economy by looking at major key data points like employment, inflation, gdp, trade, services and manufacturing

3) use the economic calendar to pick out the major economic releases (red and some orange items on fx factory calendar). Opportunities come when there is a deviation in expectations (like the example i showed)

in about a month ill have a website up with a lot of free info to get you started in understanding how to put this all together (pm me for the link)

If you want a better guide (the best 14 bucks you will ever spend) https://www.udemy.com/learn-to-trade-the-news/

Another thread on a similar subject but also provides context to this thread. Chart patterns in data that isn't market related.

https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...6#post12092516

This is true. He always shows what NOT to use and has 15 min videos of what you shouldn't do.

As far as strictly fundamental trading goes, I think you have to mix it with TA in order to get the right mix. Fundamentals are longer term views I think.

Every one of these lines represents a potential trade. That's 66 opportunities this month alone - far from long term

Potential trade? Reading your response, I glean when numbers shock or surprise, that is the opportunity you speak of. Or am I missing something?
Thanks, Cheers!

It is but you need context to make the right decisions which you get from the analysis and research side. You only need a few those a week to be more than profitable at the end of the month.

"Letting go of charts will actually be a relief i assure you because its smoke and mirrors." - EcoTrader

thanks so much I knew I was just wasting time with uselss statistics... you're the man! 3 months of fa and that's it... THAT'S IT

how silly I am

Very by the looks of it