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so i've lost half my capital

  • #81
  • Oct 25, 2009 9:05pm Oct 25, 2009 9:05pm
Quoting Zen
The bolded ones....

You have anything more to support that supposition, or just your bosses says?

.
???? I trade the hedges for our company. I know the results. The value of our hedging is seen in the Balance Sheets of our Multinational company. Where do you you think the profits come from?
  • #82
  • Oct 26, 2009 3:40am Oct 26, 2009 3:40am
Quoting zarraman
???? I trade the hedges for our company. I know the results. The value of our hedging is seen in the Balance Sheets of our Multinational company. Where do you you think the profits come from?
I don't care where your company's profit came from. God can drop it personally upon your bosses laps for all I care.

What I asked is do you know for sure that all small timer like me are out there busting our butts trying to beat long term trader?

Because if it's truly like you said, then none of us here is able to say that "I make my living through forex trading."

Because, judging from your believe, only big guys like your bosses who trade not only long term but also with tons of Benjamin whom can make it. And small timers like us are snack along with tea morning, noon, and night.

So let me re-phrase my question:

"Do you have substantial proof that only long term big guys like your bosses survive this game, while the rest of us---small timers like me---are just a miserable bunch of loosers who're lying to their teeth about their source of income?"
  • #83
  • Oct 26, 2009 4:00am Oct 26, 2009 4:00am
if you are still day trading, you might consider the realtime Twitts from breakforex on Twitter. An impressive 1600 pips with 4 pairs in 5 months.
  • #84
  • Oct 26, 2009 4:12am Oct 26, 2009 4:12am
Quoting GreedyPIPs
Im new in forex. I traded for 6 months using demos, with satisfying results, so i moved to a real micro account.

i opened a micro with fxcm depositing $400. I trade using 5 min candle sticks and a 24 EMA. I take with trend trades, when pa is near the ema, or countertrend trades when i see a double top/bottom. I open 10 lots with 10 pips SL and take what the market gives me (around 10-30 pips).

So today i lost $330. I know its not a big amount but considering my equity was at $480 after 3 weeks of hard work, it was a devastating blow to my psychology....
I'm glad you realize that you overtrade, because I just found an article
that mentions the importance of not overtrading.

I'm using this method now because it tells us how to "scale into" trades
rather than "doubling down" like retail traders (i.e., amateurs like us)
usually do.

Trade Like a Dealer by Boris Schlossberg (click)


I've included the chart that demonstrates scaling in. Basically,
you're counter-trend trading the retracement of a daily trend,
because you believe the daily trend will resume shortly. ALSO,
if you enter three trades, the first is the smallest, the second
is bigger, and the third (if you make a third) is bigger still.
Attached Image
HELL IS EMPTY, ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE. -- Shakespeare
  • #85
  • Oct 26, 2009 10:55pm Oct 26, 2009 10:55pm
Quoting Zen
I don't care where your company's profit came from. God can drop it personally upon your bosses laps for all I care.

What I asked is do you know for sure that all small timer like me are out there busting our butts trying to beat long term trader?

Because if it's truly like you said, then none of us here is able to say that "I make my living through forex trading."

Because, judging from your believe, only big guys like your bosses who trade not only long term but also with tons of Benjamin whom can make it. And small timers like us are snack...
Zen, you need to calm down and get the zen.
I never said that all small traders are losers. If I believed that, I would not be preparing to leave my employment and become a trader for myself.
What i did say is that scalping is a losers game. Short term traders get frightened and react to minor losses and dump their positions.
Unless you are trading from longer term charts, then you have to be a very, very good to beat your opponent who can sit and hold a position for months. All the short term scalping losses from scared traders add up to their profits over time.
Do I have proof? Yes, in our company's hedging Balance Sheet every year for the last 10 years
  • #86
  • Oct 26, 2009 11:21pm Oct 26, 2009 11:21pm
Quoting zarraman
Zen, you need to calm down and get the zen.
I never said that all small traders are losers. If I believed that, I would not be preparing to leave my employment and become a trader for myself.
What i did say is that scalping is a losers game. Short term traders get frightened and react to minor losses and dump their positions.
Unless you are trading from longer term charts, then you have to be a very, very good to beat your opponent who can sit and hold a position for months. All the short term scalping losses from scared traders add up...
sorry to interrupt but i think zarraman is correct, Zen you misunderstood. he is right not everyone are losers, only the one than don't have a plan, and came here to become rich quickly. This takes time, I'm beginning right now, hoping a better future, if I fail, well my full time job awaits for me

Let continue making another guy rich with my knowledge only if I fail... but it won't be easy to give up.
  • #87
  • Oct 27, 2009 8:31am Oct 27, 2009 8:31am
Quoting zarraman
Zen, you need to calm down and get the zen.
I never said that all small traders are losers. If I believed that, I would not be preparing to leave my employment and become a trader for myself.
What i did say is that scalping is a losers game. Short term traders get frightened and react to minor losses and dump their positions.
Unless you are trading from longer term charts, then you have to be a very, very good to beat your opponent who can sit and hold a position for months. All the short term scalping losses from scared traders add up to...
I believe that it depends on your definition of scalping. Some people trade for 1-2 pip moves off the tick chart, and some people trade for 10-20 pip moves off a 2-15 minute chart, and both can be considered scalpers. But typically, if you are trading 50 full size lots or less, there is no real opponent you are trading against, because most brokers will take the opposite side of your trade as soon as you place it. So in the end you are just trading the short term moves while others are trading the long term moves. One is generically no better than the other, but is based on operating capital, confidence and basic skill of the individual. For me, it is easier to make the correct call to make 10 pips and be out of the trade usually less than 30 mintes than to make the correct call for a 100 pip move that may take days to materialize. There are safe 10 pip moves happening all the time....not so many 100 pip moves.

I think the key is to be able to recognize those safe (or at least safer) moves forming and be able to take advantage of them regardless if they are off the 4 hour chart or the 4 minute chart. To me, that is a better definition of a "trader" than someone that sticks only to specific time frames.

Just my opinion...
  • #88
  • Oct 27, 2009 9:16am Oct 27, 2009 9:16am
Quoting moneymaker2
I believe that it depends on your definition of scalping. Some people trade for 1-2 pip moves off the tick chart, and some people trade for 10-20 pip moves off a 2-15 minute chart, and both can be considered scalpers.
..
How can they be profitable when faced with 2 or 3 pip spreads, and alllowing for loss trade losses?
  • #89
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:02pm Oct 27, 2009 1:02pm
I can not answer that, as that is not how I trade (I trade 10-20 pip moves, typically off the 5-30 minute charts), but I suppose if you trade for a 2 pip move (that's 2 pip profit--above and beyond the spread) and can consistantly do that, you will indeed make a profit. And depending on the number of lots traded, maybe even a very, very good profit.

As far as losses, sure they are the nature of the beast, but I think if you spend more time determining your loss potential than determining how to predict price movement, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know a trader that spends his time determining max risk and risk/reward ratios and loss probability and several other things that focus on what he can lose rather than what he wll make. He has honed his talent until he is very good at calculating all of those things rather quickly, but he has never spent that amount of time to hone his skill at chart reading. So to him a good trade is one he may not lose much on.

If you can develop your skills so that it is not unusual to make 25+ trades without a loss, then all you have to do is maintain control when you do get in a losing trade. No calculations involved.
  • #90
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:24pm Oct 27, 2009 1:24pm
Quoting moneymaker2
I can not answer that, as that is not how I trade (I trade 10-20 pip moves, typically off the 5-30 minute charts), but I suppose if you trade for a 2 pip move (that's 2 pip profit--above and beyond the spread) and can consistantly do that, you will indeed make a profit. And depending on the number of lots traded, maybe even a very, very good profit.

As far as losses, sure they are the nature of the beast, but I think if you spend more time determining your loss potential than determining how to predict price movement, it becomes a self-fulfilling...
  • #91
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:28pm Oct 27, 2009 1:28pm
Quoting zarraman
Zen, you need to calm down and get the zen.
I never said that all small traders are losers. If I believed that, I would not be preparing to leave my employment and become a trader for myself.
What i did say is that scalping is a losers game. Short term traders get frightened and react to minor losses and dump their positions.
Unless you are trading from longer term charts, then you have to be a very, very good to beat your opponent who can sit and hold a position for months. All the short term scalping losses from scared traders add...
I am calm down. This just the way I talk, check all my posts and see the tone of them.

Back to our discussion, you're saying what you said, and I have to keep hammering this down to you cos it is misleading. The one you bolded, for example, is only happened to those who hasn't overcome his/herself. I did that myself not so long ago.

Again, you said---and please check your own post which started my respond---unless you are trading from Daily and even weeklys charts, then you have to be a genius to beat the long term traders. Well, please ponder this bad news for you: unless you are an idiot with big dreams or a normal but misguided trader, you don't try to beat anyone else but yourself. Check all thread which taught others, newbies and not so newbies, about trading---none boasted about beating any long term traders.

Like it or not, Zarraman, your statement above is misleading. You shall not trade any time frame to beat anyone else. You trade a certain time frame cos it's the right time frame for you---base on your strategy or character or whatever.

And, one more time, check out your own words I underlined above. Didn't it say "all"?

Finally, about the proof you claim. I'm sorry if I sound cynical to you or anyone else, but do you really thinks that the forest of forex trading only consist one big tree which is your company alone? Dude, wake up! It is a forest of many trees, big and small. Not to mention shrubberies and others. You just see one tree and, even if it's the biggest motherf**ker in town, it still just one tree. Not the forest itself. So if you derive your opinion about the forest from a single tree, you are misleading.

Quoting Forex4pty
sorry to interrupt but i think zarraman is correct, Zen you misunderstood. he is right not everyone are losers, only the one than don't have a plan, and came here to become rich quickly. This takes time, I'm beginning right now, hoping a better future, if I fail, well my full time job awaits for me

Let continue making another guy rich with my knowledge only if I fail... but it won't be easy to give up.
Forex4pty, you're wrong and right in a couple of sentences.

You're wrong saying that zarraman is correct and I misunderstood. Please read his post which prompt my respond. He did say "all" in his post and I don't bother with that statement only the misleading part of it---which you can read above.

And you're right that only those who don't have a plan or come here to become rich quickly that will loose in the end. And that is which slipped from Zarraman's grasp.

Quoting moneymaker2
there is no real opponent you are trading against, because most brokers will take the opposite side of your trade as soon as you place it. So in the end you are just trading the short term moves while others are trading the long term moves. One is generically no better than the other, but is based on operating capital, confidence and basic skill of the individual. For me, it is easier to make the correct call to make 10 pips and be out of the trade usually less than 30 mintes than to make the correct call for a 100 pip move that may take days to...
You just miss the first point, moneymaker2, which is you do have a real opponent when you trade big money like Zarraman's company does.

But, about the rest of us small timer...boy, do I glad to read your respond. I myself can't say more clear and right on like you. Not even close. Thanks.
  • #92
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:42pm Oct 27, 2009 1:42pm
i am happy to report that my almost blown account has taught me some valuable lessons. Im trading daily graphs and doing fine, im actually up 380 pips. Im not having problem controling myself when trading daily candles, money managemet is next to impossible though with a $80 micro account when using 100 pip SL. I need to open a bigger account soon, but dont know if ill stick with FXCM or not.

Let me clarify something. i know that intraday trading is doable because ive worked with professionals who were doing just that. BUT those people had alot of cash in their hands, risked tiny fractions of the capital (0.3%) had a manager above their heads, and were not trading forex! I assume that it would be much safer day trading stocks or indexes, rather than forex or futures.

I do not use indicators, but i have decided to freshen up some forecasting formulas i learned back in college. i am following the news without trading them, and base my decisions solely on TA and dow jones principles. i might not be making the most out of every trade, but for the first time in a long time i have 3 profitable positions and only 1 losing.

So for the first timers out there, STAY AWAY FROM INTRADAY TRADING, its a big boys game, and its very very hard!

Thanx to however gave me the advice on carry trade roll over positions, i had been doing that, without knowing that big money does that.
BTW i have not disabled my pm.
  • #93
  • Oct 27, 2009 1:51pm Oct 27, 2009 1:51pm
Quoting GreedyPIPs
i am happy to report that my almost blown account has taught me some valuable lessons. Im trading daily graphs and doing fine, im actually up 380 pips. Im not having problem controling myself when trading daily candles, money managemet is next to impossible though with a $80 micro account when using 100 pip SL. I need to open a bigger account soon, but dont know if ill stick with FXCM or not.

Let me clarify something. i know that intraday trading is doable because ive worked with professionals who were doing just that. BUT those people had alot...
Good on ya Greedypips, glad you found what works for you

Now get out there, and pocket them pips
  • #94
  • Oct 29, 2009 11:21am Oct 29, 2009 11:21am
I didn't read the entire thread but I'm sure you've got good advice. Maybe somebody else pointed this to you but all the MM, discipline, tech. analysis will not do because it's all in your head. Trading is the most difficult endeavor you will ever embark on. The market will twist and turn you like nothing else. Read this book. It's highly recommended by many traders.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073..._ya_os_product
  • #95
  • Nov 2, 2009 6:33pm Nov 2, 2009 6:33pm
Quoting blunderbuss
Trade Like a Dealer by Boris Schlossberg (click)

I've included the chart that demonstrates scaling in. Basically,
you're counter-trend trading the retracement of a daily trend,
because you believe the daily trend will resume shortly. ALSO,
if you enter three trades, the first is the smallest, the second
is bigger, and the third (if you make a third) is bigger still.
This is a very useful technique. As Boris points out, it's important to limit risk (e.g. 2%) on the entire trade; that's the distinction between scaling in, and averaging down without limit (which is suicidal - read the article in the link for more info). I use a very similar method myself, using a script to calc the pos sizes at each entry level that I specify (just in case anybody asks, sorry, the script is not for sale).

You can improve the odds further by timing the entries around potential reversal levels (S/R, pivot, fibo retracement, round numbers etc), and/or strong lower TF candles/patterns (pinbars, outside bars, engulfing bodies, trendline breaks, etc) that suggest a resumption of the major trend. And the exits likewise (scale out at S/R levels, fibo extensions etc).

The major benefit lies in the improved overall RR of the trade, in that the majority of the position is entered nearer the SL than the original entry, reducing risk; and also at a 'better' price than the original entry, increasing return. (Sure, the overall risk is still 2%, but the return relative to this risk is significantly increased). The trade-off (and there always is one, when it comes to MM) is that the position might be only partially filled, or not filled at all, if none of the entry levels are reached. To those who view missed opportunity as being less damaging than an actual loss, this won't present a problem; there's always next time.

An alternative is to put the remainder of the position (topping up the risk to 2%) on the breakout (of the "breakout candle" in Boris' screenshot), should that occur before the pullback to one or more of the entry levels. The breakout trader will argue that a strong breakout provides improved probability that the trend has the strength to continue (or conversely, that a deep retracement into the candle increases the probability of the trend breaking down). And if the breakout point is never reached, then one is saved from loss altogether.

One psychological dilemma that Boris' approach presents is what to do when price reaches the breakeven point. Given that the pullback represents an adverse move, leaving the initial positions in loss, it may be very tempting to exit when the breakeven point is reached, depriving oneself the opportunity to make the improved returns if the profit targets are later reached.
  • #96
  • Nov 2, 2009 7:46pm Nov 2, 2009 7:46pm
Quoting GreedyPIPs
I've never said i expect to make millions... Nor thousands.
All i want is 50 pips a day. Small steady profits.
I think you are unrealistic in your expectations. 50 pips a day is not a "small steady profit" it is huge fabulos gains. I am sure nobody makes here 50 pips a day, even legends of Wall street don't make 50 pips a day.

- cash_machine
  • #97
  • Nov 5, 2009 2:46pm Nov 5, 2009 2:46pm
To ensure PM is enabled, double click on your user name. On the left side of the screen, click on Edit Options. Check Enable Private Messaging then scroll all the way to the bottom and click Save Changes. I could never understand why my changes never took, but it was just because I didn't scroll to the bottom to Save Changes....it just took me forever to figure it out!

Quoting GreedyPIPs
.......Thanx to however gave me the advice on carry trade roll over positions, i had been doing that, without knowing that big money does that.
BTW i have not disabled my pm.
  • #98
  • Nov 7, 2009 9:24pm Nov 7, 2009 9:24pm
Quoting GreedyPIPs
Now my account is down to $80, after trying to trade with 5 min and 15 min candles. I do not use indicators, i do not go counter trend, i simply try to go with trend and take small profits. Problem is that my profitable trades are as many as my unprofitable trades.

So, I guess i should give up intraday trading, small time frames, etc, and stick with what i was successful in the first place, Daily candles.

.
A smart decision, but you could trade the 4H too
  • #99
  • Nov 17, 2009 2:10pm Nov 17, 2009 2:10pm
Well I am happy to inform you that since going back to daily candlesticks im doing great. Have only had one losing trade out of 7 so far. Problem at this point is undercapitalization. A very strict 100 pip stoploss equals 10% per position on my $100 account. So i open only one position per time, untill i break even. I go after positive roll over positions, and let the profits run. i think i'm going to stick to dow jone's theory, and not close a profitable position until i see a double top, or a clear trendline break, if there are higher lows, im staying in.

On a side note, i started demo trading S&P index on a 15 minute tf, and it is waaaayyyy easier than any currency i tried trading on 5 or 15 tf.
Much less volatility! I guess the instrument traded is something i seriously overlooked.

Anyhow i've set a few ground rules for my trading habbits, which unfortunatelly i have to break due to undercapitalization, but as soon as i can prove to myself that i can make small constant profits on my $100 then ill fund it suffieciently.

happy trading everyone, and please keep it simple, stupid and fun!
I really hope someone learns from my mistakes without having to go through them like i did...

PS: moneymaker u were right, i had not saved the enable pm settings
  • #100
  • Nov 17, 2009 2:19pm Nov 17, 2009 2:19pm
Get a decent broker where you can trade with nanolots. Problem solved.
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