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Honest answers please! Are you successful trading on Forex or not?

  • #81
  • Mar 19, 2007 1:16pm Mar 19, 2007 1:16pm
Hi Rockrat,
I use strategyBuilderFX-Metatrader.....
I am posting the file for Murray Math lines.
The only thing you will need to change is the period.
This one is set at 64 day but you need to change it to 4 day.

I might add also that I use fib lines and pivots.

Murray Math lines,and pivots can be critical support and resistance levels.

The reason pivot points are so popular is that they are predictive as opposed to lagging.
Because so many traders follow pivot points you will often find that the market reacts at these levels. This gives you an opportunity to trade.

I use Fibonacci Retracement lines during news.
Again like pivot points so many traders use them you will find that the market reacts at these levels.

I recommend if you have not already done so to study these points of resistance and support.
I have also spent three years watching charts and reading as much as information on forex trading as I could get my hands on.
I am still reading and learning every day.

I would just like to add that this is my experience and I found it works for me.
Attached File(s)
File Type: mq4 Murrey_Math_Lines-2.mq4   13 KB | 325 downloads
  • #82
  • Mar 19, 2007 4:09pm Mar 19, 2007 4:09pm
yo dude, if you wanna only make 10% a year, i have a way you can do it
spending about 20 mins per day, no indicators, just a simple Price action setup, well It's not my way, its from the j16 thread, if you wanna know which
one it is let me know, otherwise i wont' bother wasting my time.
but realistically you'll make alot more then 10%



Quoting yakumojpn
I'm not hoping to make a fortune from 500$.

In matter of fact I haven't invested a single penny to Forex.

I hope I could make 10% return a year, I would trade with 100% discipline and all this fancy positive thinking - but there's isn't such a thing.
  • #83
  • Mar 19, 2007 6:13pm Mar 19, 2007 6:13pm
I made many, many mistakes that were very costly when I first started trading. I am happy to say that I have learned many lessons along this very educational path!! I have been trading full time for 4 years and have become successful and have been since about my 10th month. It was a LONG 10 months, however!!!! I spent many hours in front of the computer and barely slept! I have since developed my own strategy that I trade with using technical indicators and have used them for the last 3 years or so. Pretty simple strategy, but very effective.
  • #84
  • Mar 19, 2007 9:53pm Mar 19, 2007 9:53pm
Ive been with it for a few months, and ive started with 300, and gone a bit up, and a bit down, and havent made any major success's.
but, at the same time, i havent failed drasticly yet eathier, so i guess we'll see what happens.
With somthing like this, i guess you just gotta practice.
  • #85
  • Mar 19, 2007 10:57pm Mar 19, 2007 10:57pm
Quoting Mattf72
Ive been with it for a few months, and ive started with 300, and gone a bit up, and a bit down, and havent made any major success's.
but, at the same time, i havent failed drasticly yet eathier, so i guess we'll see what happens.
With somthing like this, i guess you just gotta practice.

A quick piece of advice to all newbie traders.
GO READ ALL POSTS BY JACKO.
Then start trading small scale. Trade less but trade aggressively.
Trust me, it works.
  • #86
  • Jun 20, 2007 9:16am Jun 20, 2007 9:16am
I belive that the best method to be profitable is:

1) Calm down, start your trading day with the thinking that maybe you will do not do one trade in all the day! You only are upfront the pc to look at the charts, not to trade! (but how can you do profit if you don't trade??)

2) Now, during the day you will see many occasions to enter the market, some one you will say:

- well, i want to go long! Maybe it's a good occasion! (DON'T TRADE! JUST LOOK)

After some hours:
- well, that's time to go short!! It's for sure a good time to go short! (DON'T TRADE!!! LOOK AND NO TRADES, OK?)

After another hour:
- Hey, this is a perfect setup, i am sure 100% about what i see, if i don't take this trade i am really an idiot!! i've never so sure about a trade like now, look, it's the perfect point to enter!! That area is a perfect stop-loss point, and it is not too expensive, i can afford to loose that number of pips if i'm wrong, but i'm sure i'm right! And that other area is the takeprofit, i'm definitively sure about this trade, i broke my "only look" rule, and i enter the market!! Because that's a perfect setup!

Well, this is my best strategy, anytime i do like this, i end the trade in profit (9 of 10), what let me have loss is when i am boring and as soon as there is a signal i enter the market, also if i'm 98% sure of that trade, probably it will be a loss. If you are 100% sure on a trade, probably it will be a profit!
The bad thing is that doing this you will take 1-2 trades a day, some days you will take no one trade, but think, how much times it happened that you have a profit of 10-20-30-40 pips on one trade, and the next trade you loose 10-20-30-40 pips? (next trade taked just because you won the first trade and you was so excited and thinking that the market will surely give profit also in the second trade, without be 100% sure about it!)

  • #87
  • Jun 20, 2007 10:21am Jun 20, 2007 10:21am
Looking at the data, it seems about right where half people make money and half people lose money. More losing than winning but that makes sense since the clearinghouse takes big chunk. I am personally positive. I have been doing much better nowadays to the point where I never really go negative (per week basis), and when I do go negative, I usually bounce back within a week or so. BUT I have to say, I sucked the first year. I got it all back the next year. And the last couple of months (6 months ) is where I started making good sum of money.
  • #88
  • Jun 20, 2007 11:08am Jun 20, 2007 11:08am
What is your system?
  • #89
  • Feb 11, 2008 2:58pm Feb 11, 2008 2:58pm
Yakumojpn Check out this tread.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=25918

It lists the 5 stages new currency traders go through before achieving success. I think I'm currently in stage 4 and am looking forward to stage 5.

You sound like you're stuck in stage 2. Like you, I was ready to give up at around stage 2. (Stage 2 sucks!!! ) I actually did give up, after studying FX trading for about 9months and having it consume every spare moment of my time. After testing many systems, I came to the conclusion that no system could work. Plus, I was convinced that it was impossible to be consistently profitable and anyone who claimed they were must be lying or very close to having a major drawdown. I even got it into my head that broker employees were planted in forums such as Forex Factory claiming that they were successful in order to sucker people into currency trading in order to increase FX broker revenues. :

Anyway, about 4 months after quitting I was drawn back into it. That's when I discovered ForexFactory and I went back to testing out different systems again. This time I was more hopeful. Anyway, my patience and perseverance paid off because I finally passed stage 2 and entered stage 3, then 4. Man, let me tell you, you are going to feel soooooo good when you enter the next stages, especially since you suffered so long in stage 2.

I think you need to take a break from FX and just enjoy living for a few months. I know it's easy for FX to consume your life and after a while one can burnout. I suggest taking a break and then going back to it with new hope. Don't give up.

Also I've backtested and forward tested systems, and nothing beats forward testing/live trading. In fact, I think backtesting is pretty useless. With backtesting one needs to define a set take-profit and stop-loss, however I think to be successful one needs to be discretionary about when to exit a trade, since market conditions are always changing. Systems and indicators are great to use for entering trades but I think the exit needs to be discretionary. And discretionary systems cannot be backtested. For example, sometimes price moves up really fast (lots of buyers pushing the price up), but then all of a sudden the price freezes, you might even check your internet connection thinking that you've been disconnected because the price just stopped moving, -In an instance such as this I would consider closing the trade since it seems as though we've run out of buyers. Backtesting doesn't take this kind of price action into consideration when exiting a trade. That's why it's so important, IMHO, to forward test/trade live. With practice and a lot of screen time you will get a feel for the price movements and be better able to predict what the price is about to do next. You can't get that from backtesting.

Also backtesting often involves taking trades at any time of the day, but I find that certain times of the day are really bad for trading, and that if you trade at the wrong times you are likely to end up losing.

http://www.babypips.com/school/market_hours.html

Anyway, hope this helped, good luck getting to the next stages, and I swear I don't work for an FX broker.
  • #90
  • Feb 12, 2008 1:17am Feb 12, 2008 1:17am
That is acutally a very well know process that all humans go through, to learn anything.

I think the Soul added the eureka moment though, as the conventional learning cycle only has four.

Very valid article though.
Nice one!
Carpe Divitiae
  • #91
  • Feb 12, 2008 1:26am Feb 12, 2008 1:26am
The other importan cycle I thought I'd drop in here before I p-off is the more subtle change cycle, or change curve.

I only mention it because, as evolving traders, we are, or should be rather, continuously changing and managing change.

The thread starter, wherever he/she is, may do well to take note of this one. Infact, probably all of us. Especially on those "difficult" days when you rack up a few losers in a row :

The Change Curve has three phases, each containing three emotional states, which are as follow :

  1. Stage 1 : Shock, Denial, Numbness
  2. Stage 2 : Fear, Anger, Depression
  3. Stage 3 : Understanding, Acceptance, Moving On

I'll spare you the details of each stage, you can look into it further if ya like.

Carpe Divitiae
  • #92
  • Edited 8:07pm Feb 13, 2008 7:52pm | Edited 8:07pm
Quoting fsiltd
That is acutally a very well know process that all humans go through, to learn anything.

I think the Soul added the eureka moment though, as the conventional learning cycle only has four.

Very valid article though.
Nice one!
Not sure if this thread is still "alive" but I found a 5th stage in some of my old study materials.

Reflective Competence
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: competency_matrix.png Size: 86 KB
Carpe Divitiae
  • #93
  • Feb 13, 2008 8:06pm Feb 13, 2008 8:06pm
Honestly; I'm + since the last post. And... that standard...
  • #94
  • Feb 13, 2008 8:10pm Feb 13, 2008 8:10pm
Quoting Bemac
Honestly; I'm + since the last post. And... that standard...
Not sure I know what you mean.
?
Carpe Divitiae
  • #95
  • Feb 18, 2008 8:39pm Feb 18, 2008 8:39pm
WoW, A real eye opener for a newbie like myself.

I've followed Forex Trading for over two years now in the hope of becoming a trader someday. I have attended seminars, viewed numerous websites, looked at various systems and programs, joined forums on the subject matter and then discovered Forex Factory. My first logOn (this one) was to search the Forum for news/topics about Forex Trading from people who have actually been trading, especially those who have been trading the markets for the past 6 months or so and referred to as 'Newbies'.

Not surprising to read about the pros and cons of success and/or failure about some people's experiences. Personally, I have never bought a system or a program that states it could make me "rich" trading the Forex Markets, I have however spoken to some people who have actually bought and used Forex "systems" but sadly, none of them lived up to the purchasers expectations which was another lesson for me.

I have no doub't that Forex Trading is a lucrative business for some, but like any business one needs to tread carefully from the very beginning or face the concequences of failure.

It seems (like most things) Forex Trading works for some and not others, time will tell if I fall into the catagory of 'some' or the 'others'.
  • #96
  • Feb 18, 2008 11:41pm Feb 18, 2008 11:41pm
Quoting Inlike
WoW, A real eye opener for a newbie like myself.

I've followed Forex Trading for over two years now in the hope of becoming a trader someday. I have attended seminars, viewed numerous websites, looked at various systems and programs, joined forums on the subject matter and then discovered Forex Factory. My first logOn (this one) was to search the Forum for news/topics about Forex Trading from people who have actually been trading, especially those who have been trading the markets for the past 6 months or so and referred to as 'Newbies'.

Not surprising to read about the pros and cons of success and/or failure about some people's experiences. Personally, I have never bought a system or a program that states it could make me "rich" trading the Forex Markets, I have however spoken to some people who have actually bought and used Forex "systems" but sadly, none of them lived up to the purchasers expectations which was another lesson for me.

I have no doub't that Forex Trading is a lucrative business for some, but like any business one needs to tread carefully from the very beginning or face the concequences of failure.

It seems (like most things) Forex Trading works for some and not others, time will tell if I fall into the catagory of 'some' or the 'others'.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Forex and ForexFactory.
Work hard. Learn lots. Persevere. Papertrade/Demo.

It takes a strong mind, (and stomach sometimes) :.

I'm sure you'll make it.
Carpe Divitiae
  • #97
  • Jul 7, 2008 9:50am Jul 7, 2008 9:50am
i could not agree more with Hanover. If i have sent my experience before people could say that i was a clone of Hanover.


Quoting hanover
Very interesting!

In the thread http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=21008 we have a trader who claims a 100% win rate using a mechanical, TA-based system (even if his claim is thus far unsubstantiated), while the initiator of this thread claims that even a 60% win rate at 1:1 is impossible.

For more than 5 years I tried to construct a profitable system for trading stocks and derivatives, and more recently with FX, and, now especially that my health is failing, I've pretty much given up.

IMHO it's mathematically self-evident that to profit one has to find an aspect of price behavior that is predictable enough, on balance, across all market conditions, to be systematically exploited. Anything less than a provable edge ultimately amounts to nothing more than guesswork, and luck. So far nobody has managed to convince me otherwise (and I would like to think that I have an open mind).

I don't believe that it's possible (as was suggested earlier) to be consistently profitable by entering and exiting using a coin toss, i.e. that money management, discipline, perseverance and positive outlook alone are enough. I challenge anyone who believes this to buy when their system signals them to sell, and sell when it signals them to buy. If entry and exit are irrelevant, then their profitability should remain unaffected, even after several hundred trades.

Moreover, it is also a self-contradictory aphorism: if entry and exit are irrelevant, then price movement must be completely random, hence any kind of success is completely fortuitous, and therefore not indefinitely sustainable. I believe that those who say that trading is 95% (or more) psychology are taking the contribution of their entry/exit signaling system for granted. So let's rephrase more accurately, and say that trading is 95% psychology after one has established a (consistently) successful method of entry and exit.

With FX, I don't see how it's possible to use solely technicals to trade profitably intraday, unless one somehow works around significant news events. Announcements like NFP, interest rates, etc can easily move prices 50-100 pips in less than a minute, with spreads and/or fills affected accordingly. I'm not saying that it's impossible to trade the news profitably – there are folk who specialize in it – but they certainly don't rely solely on technically based signals. It's much more about the difference between the "actual" and "forecast" values pertaining to a given announcement, than it is about EMAs or MACDs.

And let us not forget that trading is a zero-sum game (actually negative, if we consider costs) where the experienced – the banks and institutions that have vast R&D budgets – plunder those less so. For every $1 gained, somebody elsewhere (who is equally convinced by their own analysis, despite reaching the exact opposite conclusion) loses $1.0x; and a broker pockets the difference.

As a trader who has also tried and failed, I sympathize with Yakumojpn. Friend, you are definitely not alone.

There is a very illuminating post by TheRealThing, #4 in the following thread:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=3691
which the moderators have seen fit to make sticky in the Q&A "hall of fame".

The author suggests that the number of traders who are successfully trading for a living in the US might be as low as 800, and also that 99.9% of the posts on this forum are from losing traders, whose comments are more hopeful than useful. Irrespective of whether this is true or not, it tells me that consistently successful trading is extremely difficult, which happens to concur with my own experience. And I ask which is the more misleading: folk like Yakumojpn who are at least posting their opinions and experiences with honesty, or the BS artists who are giving newbies the impression that profitable trading is ridiculously easy?

Is it not curious that (apparently) 95% of traders fail, but as soon as we have somebody here who admits that he has yet to achieve parity, he gets slammed for being negative? Is there a forum rule that says "only traders who have achieved an arbitrary level of proficiency may post here"?

And does this not in itself suggest that his critics are insecure about their own methodologies, so that they become vehemently defensive because somebody dares to suggest that successful trading is extremely difficult?

Whatever, the conclusion I reached is that, at least for most of us, successful FX trading requires years of perseverance, experience and practise, while one forward tests a variety of different methods across a statistically valid number of (i.e. several hundred) trades. For me personally, I would need something approaching full-time, hands-on mentorship, if I was to shortcut this learning curve.

To those who are genuinely trading profitably - and I believe that it is possible - you have my utmost respect and admiration.

David
================

Quoting hanover
Thanks, guys, for your responses.



I've always wondered whether my approach from the beginning was completely wrong. It evolved as a result from reading maybe 30-40 "classic" books on trading (Schwager, Elder, Tharp, Pring, Murphy, Guppy, etc) and thousands of posts on several different forums not unlike FF's. I also back-tested several dozen mechanical entry/exit systems over the most reliable data that I could find (albeit mainly stock and index prices, rather than forex). Have to admit that, along the way, I was also influenced by my background in statistics and software development.

In the 5 years I never managed, even on paper, to devise a tradable system of entries and exits, i.e. one capable of profiting significantly, on balance across all market conditions. This suggests to me that I missed something really basic, but nobody ever managed to tell me what it was.

Hence I would be very interested in the opinions of successful traders, as to what questions I should have been asking, and what the correct way to formulate the problem actually is.

David
  • #98
  • Edited 2:31pm Jul 7, 2008 2:05pm | Edited 2:31pm
Quoting yakumojpn
I'm not hoping to make a fortune from 500$.

In matter of fact I haven't invested a single penny to Forex.

I hope I could make 10% return a year, I would trade with 100% discipline and all this fancy positive thinking - but there's isn't such a thing.
I've been making that right out the gate per week. Lotsa study and demo + a great mentor with an outstanding system. Some of the best advice I've recieved "don't take advice from losers". I thought I'd also add. While I've made more than I've lost most of my losses were due to fear and greed. The number one reason people aren't successful in this business imo is responsability. You, not the market or Joe Shmoe, mom dad etc are the reason why you win/lose. Play the blame game and you will never be a successful trader.
  • #99
  • Jul 7, 2008 2:12pm Jul 7, 2008 2:12pm
Yakumojpn, I asked a broker the same question. Who was consistently successful at his brokerage?

The answers are interesting.

80% (not 95%) are in the losing pile. Most have more winners than losers, but small winning trades and massive losers (old adages about cutting winners short etc)
In the remaining 20%, most were consistently around break even (an edge of sorts I guess, if you consider the spread).
A few winning traders were just long-termers (eg quarterly futures trades on longing EURUSD for example).
But of the active traders who were consistently profitable, less than 10 people (of tens of thousands) were actively monitored by the brokerage - ie, their trades were considered worthwhile enough to pay attention to them and use as a guide for hedging in the market.
  • #100
  • Jul 7, 2008 2:45pm Jul 7, 2008 2:45pm
Quoting Kanon
My opinion why 95% of traders loose money is because they take $500 and think they will make a million $. I have read a lot of forums and all the succesful traders have more than $100 000 in their accounts. I believe that is the secret to FX trading. It is the same as taking a teaspoon to empty a swimming pool. You wont win. Just my opinion


it all depends on the level or taste of the trader.besides not every1 can afford 100,000USD to invest in forex. if i have 500USD and i am okay with 50-100USD target monthly and provided if i am a professional, i can be succesful and okay with dis, applying all i am supposed to take in2 consideration.
know thy edge and abide by it ! 4 in it shall thou be successful !
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