Years vs Methodology...

How many years have you been trading forex succesfully and what is your prefered approach?

I have a theory that the majority of new traders lean towards scalping as it feels safer; as traders trade and get comfortable and begin to understand the market better they begin to lean towards longer time frames. To be honest that is a really limited observation, but I just thought it would be interesting to see where everyone was in their approach vs their experience in this market.

Bulldog: 5yrs Trading; Trades - holding 2 days to a month.

about 3 years... medium-long term mostly.. and some hedging strategies... I traded smaller time frames initially.

My trades are not time frame specific, but they do tend to last for a couple to several days to weeks. I tend to add to positions over time. I have looked at scalping, but never felt like I was close enough to the market to do it with any consistency, so I never have done it as a method of trading.

When I was trading options, I was trading on dailys. I never liked options at all. The time decay was of course the fly in the ointment. The leverage and the limited risk were the draw, but those are both available in currencies as well and no time decay. I am much happier here in Forex.

...started in 1987,

traded everything from comodities, equities, treasuries, interest rate derivatives for people/firms I worked for - since 2001 primarily spot fx for my own accounts plus some client accounts on a proprietary basis.

I trade short term (no scalping) from several hours intraday to medium term (up to several weeks) depending on market conditions. One method across the board.

I work together with traders who came from the LIFFE pits and they still trade that way on ECN basis (TT) and make money - although, I admit that I wouldn't want to trade that way....extremely stressful due to the increased risk.

regards
daytrading

I traded stocks for a while, started long term, then tightened up my time frame, holding from a few days to a few weeks.
Moved to Forex three years ago and ran the typical course. Scalping, then short term to medium.
Now, I like to hold my trades from several hours to a few days. The rythymn of that time frame just happens to agree with me.
Many times I look at longer time frames and say "Wow, wish I would have held that." But the truth is I don't have the patience for long term.
Our success depends on many things. One of them is being able to stay around long enough to find a method that agrees with our personality. I think success is unlikely if you can't trade your method easily and with confidence.

I've been trading currencies full time for 13 months and am not yet consistently profitable, but I'm very, very close, and have made money 5 of the last 6 trading days.

I average 2 to 4 trades per day off the 4H to 15M charts. I'll go lower to tune entries and sometimes exits.

I'm just not wired for longer term than that.

Edit: on my IRA's I have everything in funds, and check them once per week, make changes very slowly over a period of weeks to months. That's what works for me there. I usually get 20 - 30% per year.

Trading 9 years. 5 years FX fund management Singapore. Intraday, medium and long term. Also, exotic strategies wrt portfolio spread diversification. Mainly, GBP/USD, GBP/JPY carry AUD/USD, AUD/JPY carry. Scalping is the fastest way for a beginner to drain their account. Scalping cannot be effectively done thru a retail broker, due to buckets, commissions, platforms, etc.
Good Luck with Your Trading and Be Careful Out There! Houdini

i started in 1986

Hi FatCat!

How has your trading evolved through all those years? Have you switched methods and timeframes like most of us?
I know when you started twenty years ago scalping wasn't an option like it is now. Maybe by starting back then you were spared the temptation to over trade. Just calling in the orders would have been a giant task, not to mention trying to monitor the current prices.

Bill hi,

...the term scalping originated during those days 20+ years ago when the guys and some girls stood in the pits of the CME, CBoT and LIFFE. That's where you could actually do it best. Here in the UK where it started late (in 1979, the currency controls were removed), around 1982 the locals would be the ones who scalped predominantly - and they got extra opportunities from around 1990 when the german equivalent (DTB) opened on an electronic basis. Although it bacame the nail in the coffin of open outcry floor trading, at the time you had plenty of arbitrage opportunities because of the difference in price on both exchanges - and only the locals and the institutionals could take advantage of them.

What many people refer to as scalping today is not the real thing. To nick a tick on best price through the retailers is very often suicide. If you want to scalp nowadays as an individual, you need to have software that mimics the floor conditiond on screen like our guys using TT (trading technologies) and whats called the "ladder". These guys pay about £1k to £2k per month just to have access to that....and they need to be registered just like the floor traders used to be with minimum capital requirements.

Sorry to ramble, I hope it helps.

regards
daytrading

Currently +240% YTD ROE this year.

Have 3 years experience learning with Forex/Futures and now 1,5 years live trading Forex. Only 22 years old so far.

22 years old? What took you so long?

6 years off and on.

2 years FX.

I blew up 3 different accounts before I became successful.

I trade pivot points based on a 15 minute chart and utilize trend line analysis, fibs and psych levels.

I spent too much time looking for the perfect system.

The system is only a fraction of the successful trader.

November was my worst month - I finished it with a 6% gain.

I average 10-15% monthly and I trade very conservatively.

No more than 2% risk on any trade.

Thanks Daytrading

That's interesting. Sometmes I forget about pit traders and the whole trading world beyond retail trading. It's always great to hear from someone with a diverse commercial background, someone who has seen how things work at many different levels.

I was thinking more of retail traders at home, manually drawing trendlines on paper charts and dealing with our brokers over the phone.
I started market timing mutual funds in the eighties. Back then our brokers were human voices, and usually our friends at some level.

Bill

Bill, hi -

...yes I remember those days. Fond memories my friend.

I have just started a blog since some friends encouraged me to which has my journey in the markets as the main content.

If you are interested, you can find the link in my profile.

It has nothing to do with trading advice - it just shows how the mind plays a more significant role in life than we like to give it credit for - and how we should listen more to ourselves...

regards
daytrading

wow, impressive!

Nice to hear (again) that you're doing so well, and how young you are.

Now, how about answering the question?

What answer do you need??

Read the first post.

I think I can agree with the initial statement, I've been trading full time for half year, when started I used to use the tic and 1 min, chart, then moved to 5 min. and then to 15 min. after that moved to 1h and 4h but while I couldn't be profitable with the last ones I use 1h to support my trades, then I returned to scalp 5-15 min. charts, but...

I think the time will come when I will learn to plan and hold my positions longer so that I won't need to be glued to the screen.