I'm a lurker

Hello Forex Factory people! It's nice to meet you. I'm iggi! I've been utilizing FF for news releases and so much helpful info when it comes to trading. I only registered an account here a few days ago. Thank you all so very much for your contributions. It truly makes this website amazing to have such a great, helpful and knowledgeable society put together like this.

I just want to give a general run down on myself, simply because I feel introductions are important if something is meaningful enough. The first trade I ever made was on Coinbase. I bought 3 ETH for $30 in early 2017. The price went up above $600 mid to late 2017 and I sold them. This interested me big time.

I came to learn what FOREX is in late 2017 (after having already been trading on Binance for a short time). I truly did not know FOREX existed at the time I was trading Crypto. I didn't even know this kind of investing was possible. I was naturally drawn to stocks and financial education in Economics class in school, but had always assumed I wouldn't be the type of person to have enough money to ever take part.

Between my introduction to the FOREX market and today, I've learned a plethora of information, and continue learning daily. My first deposit was $500 into a JAFX broker account. I was drag racing at the time, and between runs I was trading several quick-close long positions on Ethereum and caught pretty much every bounce in the trend during that day. My account jumped to $900 in 1 day, and my uneducated greedy self at the time didn't stop. My account went to $0.

After a few more small deposits being lost, I decided I should stick to demo trading until I was able to get consistent growth. I have been doing this demo trading consistently now for about 9 months, and am finally starting to get a grasp on my own self control, risk management abilities and trading style. I am very much committed to becoming full time, whether it takes 2 or 10+ years. I love the psychology, analytics, politics, data interpretation and statistic analysis of these markets. I am very much dedicated to it, if not just for entertainment.

I've read several books, watched endless hours of YouTube videos, paid for signals groups blah blah blah. Currently I'm reading a book on Elliot Wave Principle and have only started attempted to use Pivot Points recently. I've always used MACD, RSI, 50MA and 200MA on my charts, occasionally implementing Stochastics, PSARs or Bollinger Bands. I've found use in all of these tools, but I don't find them all equally useful. I also am a FIB nerd. I think it reigns true in every single aspect of this life.

Thank you for having me FF. I'm so grateful to be here with such amazing people.

Hi Iggi, welcome and good luck ! Are you trialing FX now, or trading cryptos?
Cheers h

I was trading Crypto when JAFX was my broker, but they stopped servicing US clients, so now I'm on OANDA. It seems they only offer FOREX, no crypto, which saddens me. I still keep a close eye on the crypto world through my JAFX demo account, and I do have a limited amount of long term holdings, but not nearly as much as I would like to have! I feel that NOT investing in the cryto space is the worst thing someone in their 20s-40s could do! And here I am on the sidelines

Crypto will come to the retailer soon. There are some brokers that you can trade with but that spread is a bitch!

Good advice. Thank you. I do sacrifice alot of time currently to spend in charts, and I've always had the mentality of "whether it takes 1 year or 10 years, its possible, cheaper than college and the same duration. With my limited experience here so far, I only struggle with my patience in waiting for setups and greed by occasionally throwing up too many lots. Either way, I'm fully dedicated and very grateful the opportunity exists for me.

Things can only get better from ground 0.

That's what I'm looking right now. Are there any brokers offering reasonable spread for crypto?

An open mind, persistence and constant willingness to learn will get you far. You've got that right. Good luck in your journey.
As a side note, after 7 years of trading, pivots are the only indicator that stood the test of time for me.

I've only used pivot points for the last part of the recent trading week. I had lost $365 and earned back $360 with them so I'm hopeful I'm on the right track.

I seem to have good strength with picking the peaks of reversals which I know isnt a common thing. My biggest issue is not knowing when to exit the trade. I get scared when I see a small correction and tend to exit the trades leaving LOTS of pips on the table. EURNZD and CAPJPY last week were perfect examples. I watched them from Monday to Thursday, knew the drop was coming, got in at the tip of the reversal, saw the $ amounts in profits and closed the trade. CADJPY obviously plummeted, but I wasnt in it for the majority part of the trade. I could have made significant gains but my fear stopped me.

Atleast I dont lose more than 2% of my account on wrong trades now. I've gotten my ego in check after losing too much too often. All progress is good progress though! I always welcome advice.

You know, the thing is that those elements or strategies that fit you best may not fit me at all, and vice versa. A lot depends on how well you understand a strategy, whether you use it in its classic form or have somehow adapted it for yourself, etc. In fact, at first it seemed to me that I would never be able to find something that would really bring me constant results. And actually it turned out to be so, in the sense that I often change my approach or use certain strategies for certain assets, because I have found certain regularities and I have some kind of flair in the market. Yes, it's time and a lot of effort, but I can't imagine how to achieve a stable result in any other way.