Something no one told me two years ago

Hi fellow traders.
First boring:
When i started had no clue about FX. I had to explore things propabyly explored.
Here reflection, so new ones dont't have to suffer from lack of tutors. If old ones would add something, or comment, good to share thoughts.

Disclaimer?:
Theres no dictionary nor methd here. Just reflections I wish someone told me before

Interesting part:

1. The newest of my thoughts is that no one know what real price is nor should be, according to any fundamentals or any other instruments.
It worth of thinking.
It's means that all the time, price can go either up or down.
All we [we retail traders, we bankers and so on] know, is a point where last time price turned back. [Where are some fib levels, pivots and so on]. That's why we are usually afraid of buying near resistance points etc. And it has nothing to do with real currency value.

2. Another thought come frome my wonderfull girlfriend question
What trader should be like.
I think most important is some kind of acceptance for some level of uncertainty.
It happen many times, that when you are 100% sure - it's too late.
[understeand please that 100%=100% it means "Yes it must be trend"].
It means that one day you start to feel comfortable or uncomfortable with your position or size of lot - this happen when you breathe and sleep with your candles quite a lot, or Holy Angel come to you in dream and tell, what to do. Most of the time if you wanna make money - say good bye to neurosis

3. Another, more practical:
Session time is when plenty of people need to feed their families from FX.
It's much easier in trending market.
So its more probable, that last bottom or top on your chartaround opening hours will be high or low for couple of hours = and price will go one way 50, 100 or so pips.
If it will range - less people will feed their family, or it means, that some other pair went up or down.
This knowlidge can give you three 10 pips loosers each covered by 50 or 100 pips gainer.


In near future I hope to learn is tat worth to post threads on FF
Chris

Well, market ranges 80% of the time so it's a safer bet, but when trend happens ofcourse range players get slapped, just create a trend and range system and Bobs your uncle.

Huge level of uncertainty because well there is no way to be certain, when i see someone who's certain about the market especially over a longer time period then i just laugh!!

Kaligula

Keep on Keepin' on.
Your rational is almost pinpont.

You Sir, are on a track & I suspect, the Track that will carry you to your destination.

Hey thanks for the post man, always helps to see what someone else is going through on this path of forex trading

No one knows what the future brings. The only certainty is uncertainty.

It's like being a meteorologist. You have knowledge and instruments which provides you with information. Based on the information you have at the time, you make an attempt to predict. Sunshine or rain.

But you could be wrong.

If you predict sunshine and have rain, accept it.

All of my losing as well as my winning trades have one thing in common. Based on the information I had, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

You can end up with stomach ulcer without this one.
I mean such kind of acceptance, that let you stay calm while in fact you don't know what will happen to your money

Another practical:
probably 90% of time when I've closed before SL when on red, in couple of minutes I've realised that It wos at pick or bottom

That's what guys mean while talking about sticking to your plan.
And that's a thing to consider while projecting your method for entries and exits. It depends on method, but most of the time after mechanic entry and exit signal price retraces.


next one will be longer thing, so write it separately

Brief at the end

About a method:
For me best for learning price action was to take one trading method form FF, study it on my charts, realising its weakness, giving it up [cause of missing my standards] and studying new one.
After such studying I startd to figure out some shapes on charts. Especially breakout after range. I started to look for ranges to find out what price does after it, how to spot breakout etc.
After five ranges spotted in a row it became harder to judge is it range or no. Can I accept this or it's to trendy yet. Maybe rangy but to volatile etc.

Finally i decided, that Bollinger will be helpfull [now Keltner is my friend]. And this was how I put BB on myscreen.
Applying indicator until you know what it should indicate is a disaster!!!
You can try open chart open some indicator and see what price do when indic do what etc... But why waste your time?
Remember it is a must when you study other's people method. Remember - guy that wrote it knows what he look for.

Good example is MA cross over. It croses almost always on spikes. This gives you evidence of trend change, but quite often after spike there is some reversal, so i would give up most of such signals. [Not apply if spike is expected]
Also rangy time might give plenty of false signals - remember it


Summarise
1. First just study price
2. When you see some repetitive patterns you wish to trade, you can try to help yourself by using some idicator[s] to detect it.
3. Your method looks like - when i observe price doing this and this, indicator confirms my observation - i should be ready. If indicator don't confirm - i should take a walk or shower, talk to a friend about anything but FX, go shopping, then think of it again, and make my decision even in spite of what indicator says. But if for all that time you did all the things I mentioned, but couldn't get rid of thoughts about price and decision, it might be better to not trade this time. [does it apply to scalping..?]
4. Sometimes f.e. spikes occure - they might fool your indicator - you may also apply other indicator that will say - was that a spike.
5. Other time rangy market might give many false signals both direction - you can use other indic to filter rangy times

Whatever you do use your brain indicator. When it says - "You're not in a mood today" - It's strong prediction of heavy bears on your forex account.

It's absolutely clear, that when you trade EJ, you watch EU and UJ.
You wach it for SR and trend. It gives you nice trustfull tips, is it gonna be strong trend, or why did it stop right now.
When you expect EU to go down, but suddenly EJ goes down and UJ goes down, you take trade on EJ.
It makes me mad and frustrated while trying to backtest manually my method. But when you go live - aways look around

The market always trends.... at least one pip up or down.....

You are the last person I expected to hear that from...
You shouldn't you rather said that market is ranging 100% of time between 0.0000 and infinity?

Weekend is a great time to backtest new strategies, etc.
But whatever you work on it's good to leave it for some time [like 5 min break after every 20 min of learning, then 15 min after an hour etc]
So plan your two days break once a month or two.

Approx seven pips from top and bottom are probably the most expesive ever. Never try to get them, cause it will cost you a lot.
Many times it will happen that you place your stop exactly at top or bottom, but dont try to guess that some point on your chart is exactly bottom to enter oposite direction, or close position.

It hurts much much more when you close and need to reenter ten pips in your favour later, than closing 1/10 below last top.

It's 1:10pm GMT,
last ten minutes I was waiting for anouncement @ 1:15.

My eyes can't be patient - calendar - quotations - calendar again...
Then - I found out that calendar says it's gonna be 1:30 [?!?]

Lesson is:
NEVER BLAME YOURSELF
Never.

It's part of psychology of trading no one told you. It's the way your subconscious may sabotage your trades. If you feel guilty because of missed trade, because of taken wrong one, change winers into losers,
YOU MUST LIVE TRADING UNTIL THIS FEELING LIVE YOU

Dont push it. Take your time to humiliate yourself in your mind, agree you are stupid, or whatever, let the thought go, don't fight them. Just know they will go, and then you'll go back.
If they not leave you - take some therapy untill you back to trade. It's cheaper than your accounts.

Most trades are mumbo jumbo...darn tough to make money....From my experiene markets are up above the 200 daily and down below the 200 daily sma.. the best trade level with least risk is 80% win rate with 150 pip stop loss. There are probably only 1 maybe two indicators (at least I feel) that can assess a market condition. The rest get blown through at just about any time.

From my observaton it's more like all indicators work, but only if you make sure before that there is some kind of trend actually, end you make sure that some general trend is with you.
If you din't do it in front - you are close to get some 50% system.