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Giving Up

  • #41
  • Jul 10, 2009 6:45pm Jul 10, 2009 6:45pm
Quoting Xaron
The last weeks wer very hard to trade, so don't feel bad. In general it's a good idea to take out some money if you're doing good. Let's say, withdraw 20% of your wins per month - see it like a fee to yourself.
This is extremly true. The last weeks have definitly been difficult, at least scalping wize. Nothing is working like should work. Loss after loss. Headach after headch. Much SEE SAW. Then retry. Then loss again. Then curse a lot. Then desparate. And retry and retry. Then say after 3 years (that is me) I am so stupi?

I think you need to find way to identifik the market direction. Then trade in the direction. For scalping, I don t know best systems. But long term I think I find.

But like others say, and you are like them (and me) do not give up, at least continu in demo mode and practise continue pratcise. But pratcise like it is REAL.

Good luck.
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  • #42
  • Jul 10, 2009 6:46pm Jul 10, 2009 6:46pm
Quoting Anaphylaktos
SCOOBY-DOO:

Please, explain it to me, thanks!
BUY 1 * EURUSD/USDCHF Lots of USDCHF

Possibly the rate? As in:

1*1.3946/1.0845 = 1*1.2859 = 1.28 lots of USD/CHF
  • #43
  • Jul 10, 2009 7:17pm Jul 10, 2009 7:17pm
Went through the 1st page and remembered Diallist words on same topic. Though shall it be useful to somebody:
"My unwavering believe that a could become a consistent trader was the one, key thing that got me through the times of doubt and despair. When I would catch myself saying things like "I'll never learn this", or "I just don't have the talent for this", I would only wallow in my self-pity briefly before reminding myself that my conviction that I would succeed was far more powerful and important than the emotions I was feeling at the time. I would remind myself that the emotions would fade, but my conviction would remain. And it did, and it does."
  • #44
  • Jul 10, 2009 7:31pm Jul 10, 2009 7:31pm
Quoting pipsbull
Went through the 1st page and remembered Diallist words on same topic....
Excellent quote!

Thanks for posting.

  • #45
  • Jul 11, 2009 3:47am Jul 11, 2009 3:47am
Quoting Bemac
Lest we forget;
Hey Jimmy, where are you at exactly?
Monitarily & romance.
Maybe we can help you fix the former & you can deal with the latter.
... as a friend...
Ah yes, my marriage is doing well, always room for improvement but my wife has been nothing but extraordinarily supportive, even though I may have been a jerk once or twice in the past few months . She actually keeps telling me I can't give up, she has already seen me trade live profitably and she believes in me. I seem to have lost that belief in myself momentarily, but I'll figure out how to get it back.

As far as money I'm not in the position where I need to make money from trading to support my family. I am in the perfect position to be going through the process of getting to net consistent winner, and I have the option of staying here for several more years if I so desire. I devote almost all of my time to trading right now, occasionally I pick up some software contract work from the states to re-supply the bill fund for a few more months. But for the last year I have been spending at least 60 hours a week on average either trading or reading trading materials. I have a whole bookshelf full of books on trading (some were a waste of money ), and my hard drive is loading with pdfs, extracted posts, videos, ect. Perhaps my problem is information overload .

Really though, I believe some character flaws have come to the surface, things that need to be addressed, and as painful as some of them are I need to work through them, if I don't I will never get good enough at this to use it as my only source of income.
  • #46
  • Jul 11, 2009 3:55am Jul 11, 2009 3:55am
Quoting doblece
Possibly the rate? As in:

1*1.3946/1.0845 = 1*1.2859 = 1.28 lots of USD/CHF
Correct
  • #47
  • Jul 11, 2009 5:47am Jul 11, 2009 5:47am
Quoting Jimmy Jones
Ah yes, my marriage is doing well, always room for improvement but my wife has been nothing but extraordinarily supportive, even though I may have been a jerk once or twice in the past few months . She actually keeps telling me I can't give up, she has already seen me trade live profitably and she believes in me. I seem to have lost that belief in myself momentarily, but I'll figure out how to get it back.

As far as money I'm not in the position where I need to make money from trading to support my family. I am in the perfect position to...

Jimmy, I have been there and you'll soon realise that most, if not 95% (now there's a familiar figure!) of all trading books and forex courses are an absolute load of bull crap. Humans have a fantastic tendency to complicate things and reinvent the most basic of principles, be it in trading or all other areas of business and life. This is particularly the case in forex trading where the education aspect is highly unregulated. It is why retail forex trading exists. This of course does not help the trader trying to learn the craft. Once you strip your trading down to basics and rules you can then concentrate on the biggest barrier to your success and that is you and your emotions. Once you get past that then trading will become second nature and boring (but you can try and push yourself further psychologically if you wish to raise your game).
  • #48
  • Jul 11, 2009 6:04am Jul 11, 2009 6:04am
Quoting Jimmy Jones
How many times per year do you guys feel like giving up? I'm feeling it pretty strong right now, after several months of great performance followed by three months of just terrible performance.

A short time ago I felt great about trading, what I wanted was crystal clear and how to get it made sense.

Now I feel like I'm completely lost all over again, as if the last year of 60+ hour a week studying and trading was nothing but a dream that produced no skills or experience in the marketplace. Like a noob, all over again.

The scary thing is I know...
This will go against conventional wisdom, but I think the problem is the 60 plus hours a week. You are trying too hard.

To be honest, less is more. I don't mean in just your system....but your time. If you are spending 60 hours a week.....try doing the math. How much are you making an hour? That's a form of leverage too.

You will be surprised how little it probably is at 60 hours.

Just a thought.
  • #49
  • Jul 11, 2009 9:07am Jul 11, 2009 9:07am
Quoting clockwork71
This will go against conventional wisdom, but I think the problem is the 60 plus hours a week. You are trying too hard.

To be honest, less is more. I don't mean in just your system....but your time. If you are spending 60 hours a week.....try doing the math. How much are you making an hour? That's a form of leverage too.

You will be surprised how little it probably is at 60 hours.

Just a thought.
Clockwork, you hit it right on it's head! In a lot of cases, Less Is More! That statement is not only targeted towards simplifying your strategy, but stepping away from the trading screen from time to time. Also, trading less pairs, would be appropriate in our case.

Simplifying you strategy could include less indicators and more price action. Less "predicting" the market and more, "trading what you see" instead. Less guessing and more knowing at which way the market is heading. Less complicated and more simple!

Another, less talked about negative aspect about trading is, "over-trading. Staring at a screen for 24 Hour/day 6.5 days/week can take it's toll on any trader, professional or rookie alike. How about this, Less screen time, more Me time. Less thinking about trading, more pondering about your hobbies. Less reading books on trading, more reading GQ magazines. Less worrying about trading, more fun activity planning.

Simplify your trading abilities could get you back to profitable but your "state of mind" have to be right in order for you to do so. I've never met a profitable trader with a negative attitude. 90% of your profitability will come from a open-mind, positive attitude, & willingness to learn. The other 10% is trading skill & money management. We've all been where you are today. You must overcome this and continue if you want to make it in this game. Take a week or two off and enjoy yourself. Live it up. Go outside and enjoy the weather. Get out there and be somebody. When you are ready to come back, things will be a lot clearer .... I promise!

When you come back, start fresh! Wipe the slate and your charts clean of any distractions. No indicators of any sort. Apply the price-action panel and just look at it. Do nothing, but look at at. Find a pair that goes with your style of trading.

For Example: I like to trade using Pivots so I chose Eur/Gbp because it's a pair that respects pivots and S/R Levels to a tee. It's not a fast pair and it's not errotic/chaotic. It's a profitable pair for my trading style and strategy.

Practice, practice, practice. I can't say that enough. Open up that demo account again and get to work. Run that demo for a few months. When your ready, get back on that live account. And remember, just because your strategy worked then does not mean it will work forever. The market changes. Strategies usually dont. Keep up and stay current with market news and anything concerning your trading pair.

KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid. Four profitable words to live by.
  • #50
  • Jul 12, 2009 6:20am Jul 12, 2009 6:20am
Jimmy,
I don't know whats your style of trading but from my own hard earned experience I have learned it is neccessary and vital for a trader to depend on its own rather than any type of a system.. sharping up trader skills will lead to trading with intuition which is the art of trading.. all mathematical systems will keep you dependable and results in losses once the market goes through cycle (which it happens often).. market is like moving sands you got to move around with it.. you can not depend on your magical system to bail you out when things go wrong.
Once you remove yourself from systems and focus on improving your trader skill results will change dramatically for you and on your way to become a consistent earner.. not a lot of traders can do that and it won't happen over night.. it requires all kinds of dedication and its not impossible.
my humble advise to you is to not depend on crutches (no system no indi's) after some success it deceives you and again puts a knief in your heart and you will feel fragile as you are experiencing now.. just simply study pure price action.. train your naked eyes to recognize patterns.. with time and hard work you will become profitable for life.

Recommended FF price action threads: feb2865 / jacko / james16.

best of luck to you.
  • #51
  • Jul 12, 2009 9:36am Jul 12, 2009 9:36am
Thanks for the kind words everyone.

I removed all the indi's off my chart and added the monthly, weekly and daily pivots as well as sweet spots. What I see makes sense and is comfortable to me. I can look back at this last week and see the areas where it was ludicrous to be scalping a 5m chart (in the middle of those areas of confluence, where no order flow having won out over the other yet).

This chart I feel comfortable with, I'll be spending the next week or so (or longer if it takes it) thinking about how to take advantage of these areas of confluence with a systematic approach that takes the most discretion as possible out of the decision making process (by systematic I don't mean indicator signals, rather watching order flow around these areas to spot when one side wins out over the other and follow them). Maybe it's a live feed of futures volume and some VSA analysis, or as mike_85 has done, some type of multi time frame analysis at these areas of interest with chart patterns. Maybe it's a multi market analysis, watching gold, crude and the DJI. Who knows.

I still have the belief that some discretion in a trading approach is needed to be successful in this game, if it was not all of the smart people would be sucking the markets dry. I point to RR here at FF, who appears to be using an army of robots to trade but applying discretion on when to trade them.

Anyhow those are just my beliefs at the moment, from where I am at on my journey. I'm sure they will change and evolve as I continue on.

Thanks again for the kind words.

JJ
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  • #52
  • Jul 12, 2009 10:09am Jul 12, 2009 10:09am
Say Hey Jimmy Jones:
Its the middle of Summer, take a holiday. Two weeks off - preferably a month. In cooking sometime you must set the ingredients aside in the fridge overnight for the flavors to 'meld'. Time off will do the same to the learning you have done up to this point.

From an old Star Trek episode "The more advanced the mind, the greater the need for play!"
In trading, there is no bullshit. You either make money or you don't.
  • #53
  • Jul 12, 2009 10:23am Jul 12, 2009 10:23am
There are times when a person wonders why you still visit forums when your trading is doing well and has been doing so for a couple of years. Reading through a thread like this just makes you situp and take note of the realities of being a trader.

Also, one reads through all the support and advice messages and while doing so you realise why you just cannot stay away from FF. It is a huge network of support and advice and on this forum there must be the largest group of unselfish traders I have ever encountered.

Well done guys/girls, you do this forum proud.
  • #54
  • Jul 12, 2009 11:28am Jul 12, 2009 11:28am
Jimmy Jones

can you post an indicator that you have on the right corner of you chart.


also, a question... how many live trades did you make since you started trading...?

thanks.
  • #55
  • Edited 2:30pm Jul 12, 2009 12:07pm | Edited 2:30pm
Quoting Jimmy Jones
Thanks for the kind words everyone.

I removed all the indi's off my chart and added the monthly, weekly and daily pivots as well as sweet spots. What I see makes sense and is comfortable to me. I can look back at this last week and see the areas where it was ludicrous to be scalping a 5m chart (in the middle of those areas of confluence, where no order flow having won out over the other yet).

This chart I feel comfortable with, I'll be spending the next week or so (or longer if it takes it) thinking about how to take advantage of these areas...
This is exactly the right approach IMO. The markets are about demand and supply, this is basic economics why should it be any different to the forex markets!? Demand = Support and Supply = Resistance. Understanding this and using multiple time frames using these same principles gives you a bigger picture of the market. You can then use a smaller time frame to refine your entries at these levels. Now watch the herd using conventional indicators selling into demand and buying into supply, it happens day in and day out. Using SR levels will get you in before the herd. The herd will react after the fact pushing price up further in your direction and by then you'll be thinking of scaling out whilst the pro's turn the market against the herd once again...hence the wave action. This is pure market psychology and why most people using lagging indicators burn.

Check out clockworks silent service method and BRV's thread No Brainer trades.

It takes a lot of balls to enter a market contrary to what the candles are showing you. It will challenge you emotionally. But just remember, only the misguided would enter long after a long move up or short after a long move down. This is what the pro's want you to do. Trust your SR levels to guide you to high probability set-ups. The later you enter at these levels, the higher the risk and the lower the probability that the trade will work out in your favour.
  • #56
  • Jul 12, 2009 1:08pm Jul 12, 2009 1:08pm
Quoting Porkpie
This is exactly the right approach IMO. The markets are about demand and supply, this is basic economics why should it be any different to the forex markets!? Demand = Support and Supply = Resistance. Understanding this and using multiple time frames using these same principles gives you a bigger picture of the market. You can then use a smaller time frame time to refine your enties at these levels. Now watch the herd using conventional indicators selling into demand and buying into supply, it happens day in and day out. Using SR levels will get...
I wholeheartedly agree with you about supply and demand, but I am not really sure about the role "the herd" plays here. The vision you present is probably correct when talking about stocks (a large part of the stock of a company can be in the hands of thousands of individual speculators), but I have to wonder whether that applies to the forex markets... retail traders like us move a negligible part of the market. Is there a herd to begin with? If not -or if it exists but it does not move significant volume- who is on the other side of those -mostly- winning trades the big players are taking, then? It is a truckload of trading volume being moved on a daily basis.

My guess is utilitarian traders (companies that use the market for "legitimate" exchange purposes and are not into speculation), but I would love to get confirmation and/or see some numbers, if somebody has information on this.

Anyway, this is probably not the thread to engage in this kind of discussion, and I don't want to hijack it. Just wanted to share that thought/question.
  • #57
  • Edited 3:30pm Jul 12, 2009 2:49pm | Edited 3:30pm
Quoting PipAdder
I wholeheartedly agree with you about supply and demand, but I am not really sure about the role "the herd" plays here. The vision you present is probably correct when talking about stocks (a large part of the stock of a company can be in the hands of thousands of individual speculators), but I have to wonder whether that applies to the forex markets... retail traders like us move a negligible part of the market. Is there a herd to begin with? If not -or if it exists but it does not move significant volume- who is on the other side of those -mostly-...
I don't know the percentage of what type of trading vehicules use the forex for transactions but my guess is that the bulk of it is speculation namely the large financial institutions. Companies would not do well to trade in such a way that their income from exports is vastly reduced due to a declining currency (hence the futures contracts - which is speculation). It all gets included into the liquidity pot. Demand and supply is not static it is constantly evolving. But in terms of what comprises the herd I think you are right it is quite difficult to define - there are plenty of players in big instituions who shed millions in losses on a daily basis, not just the hundreds of thousands of retail traders. At the end of the day these big players will make massive losses but their money management is such that many will also make those losses back and more over time. The market is too dynamic- different time frames and profit objectives etc etc, and its component parts too complex to say the retail traders are the herd and the professionals are always the winners. This evidently is not true (credit crisis). Pro's are trading against pro's and are also using a multitude of different trading methods against each other. But at the end of the day, there are a large number of players who are trading purely from an emotional perspective. There are patterns in market activity as there are in all economic markets, and it boils down to supply and demand - the balance between those wanting to buy and thos wanting sell. This change in balance can be repeatedly seen on the charts and those bigger instituions and large players who know what they are doing will be buying where there is support and selling where there is resistance. Without the traders doing the opposite (the herd) there would not be a market. Many of these traders will be trading to a different time frame and profit objective. It does not mean they are wrong. But the herd of traders trading off the same time frame/objective as you that are just following their emotions and lagging indicators will be wrong a lot of the time. Its all time frame relative of course.

Oh just one more thing. Retail traders CAN move the market. In principle it only takes 2 players to move a market, one buyer and one seller. Therefore, price CAN move on low volume. If you study VSA one of the principles of price action to volume is that 85% of volume is made up of the big players. Low volume on a large move is very suspect. It usually indicates that the pro's are not interested and the move is unlikely to be sustained in that direction for any length of time.

sorry this is way off topic
  • #58
  • Jul 12, 2009 4:22pm Jul 12, 2009 4:22pm
Hey Jimmy Jones,
Hang in there. We all have been where you have.
I noticed only one poster brought this up & I think it does bear repeating & that is not to spend too much time reading post here. They say 95% of traders fail, yet the second statement to go along with that is 95% of posters here probably don't know what they are talking about either (I am including myself in the 95%.) Remember, just because some one has thousands of posts behind their name does not mean they are expert traders. You have to ask if they are spending all that time posting, when are they trading. Just something to think about.
I found my trading improved 1000% when I stopped reading all kinds of posts. It just confused me. Now I just look at the calendar, news and a few posts here and there.
The posters & groups I find useful are
The No brainer trades group - The closest way here that I trade.
The James 16 group
Merlin
NewstraderFX
Jacko
After that in my very humble opinion its a pretty step drop off. There may be a nugget or too around but its a lot of noise to find it.
Anyway just some thoughts from some one who has been where you are now. Good Luck. There is a light at the end of that tunnel.
  • #59
  • Jul 12, 2009 4:34pm Jul 12, 2009 4:34pm
And that's what I've been trying to say! The market is based off of basic economic ... supply and demand, or support and resistance in our case. I'm totally aware that every trader has their own method of trading but there is no other that has awarded me more profit than Pivots Support & Resistance levels and Trendlines (if I decided to glance at a chart.)

With Pivots S/R levels, a trader do not need to stare at a chart. Stay abreast of where those levels are and only play it by price action. Basic princible of Pivots ... if Price Action is below the pivot line, only place a SELL order and never counter trade unless you are absolutely sure. The opposite goes for buy orders. That is what we call a, "Safe Play". Gauranteed profits if you follow this very simple rule. Only trade pairs that respects pivots, such as: Usd/Jpy, Aud/Usd, & Nzd/Usd. Not to mention the many cross pairs that respects S/R levels (which are most of them).
  • #60
  • Jul 12, 2009 10:38pm Jul 12, 2009 10:38pm
Quoting ForexSV
Jimmy Jones

can you post an indicator that you have on the right corner of you chart.


also, a question... how many live trades did you make since you started trading...?

thanks.
I have many thousands of live trades over the past 10 months, many of them on the 1 ad 5m charts.

The indicator is the thv info panel, you can find it in the THV thread in system discussion.
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