Lack of practice in forex trading?

When i trade live, i keep on watching screen every minute and makes a mess out of a great trade.

After the trading is over and when i watch the charts in night and apply my trading system, i am amazed how simple it was to just apply my rules and get pips.

Why does it happen? Is it the lack of practice i have trading forex live?

It probably happens because either you have a small account balance and you are overly concerned with losing money or you just need to have more discipline.

Sounds like its a case of 'lackanookie' - just put on your trade - go fool around w/ the box the kids came in for a few hours - then come back to the screen - problem solved

Lackanookie is a disease....

Lack of nookie... sex.. is what he is implying I believe. It's not a real disease.

its seems Lack Of Practice, discipline and fear of losing money...

Patience. Patience is key in this business. Optimum setups take patience. Trading spot fx successfully takes patience to the extreme, as well as extreme discipline.

If you think you have patience and discipline now, TIMES (X) that by 100...that's what you need in FX.

LOL - nookie is an American slang term - I wont go into the exact meaning - as long as your not in China you can google the meaning

Just saying that you need to do something else and get away from the screen. Appears your getting caught up in watching the market noise. If your system takes a bit of time for the trade to mature then let it have the time.
Put on a small position so that you don't worry about the money and do something else. Start w/ small positions and practice letting your trade mature. As you grow in confidence of yourself and your system you can increase the position.

For practice!!!

I hope you are talking trading..

Hey, practice makes for some good fun, and a good way to pass a minute or two .

Just search FF for it...great way to test your strat's!

Good advice given on patience and just walking away.

One reason people will watch a trade once it's on is because they suffer from the illusion that they have some control over the market once they've put their money into it. If you have a clearly defined method for exiting on both ends, then there is no need to watch the market. You could use orders to exit, or you could have price alerts sent to let you know it's time to take a look at your charts.

Try writing down your thoughts the next time you're sitting there watching a trade. Be honest with yourself. See if it really is the belief that you HAVE to watch the trade because you NEED to control it.

Shit like this will kill your account if you don't address it and learn to control it.

Dopey has given good advice there and I have little to add except that a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a pornography site on the internet. To be honest I was a bit shocked but friends of mine just laughed when I told them and assured me there were other pornography sites as well. I'm not suggesting you should search for them but I have found them diverting and sometimes stimulating to such an extent that it took my mind off trading almost completely.

Other hobbies could include building model aeroplanes or embroidery. Chopping wood is one of my favourites. It doesn't save much money but it's cheaper and better than an exercise video.

Hope this helps.

Great advices...

I think i lack screen time..as soon as trendline gets broken, i immediately enter a trade without waiting for a pullback.

Because of that i get caught up in false signals thus destroying my trading confidence.

I used to do this a lot. A lot of trades will go into drawdown anyway, but as you get better, they will get fewer. Try reducing your risk until it's pennies and then you can observe impartially. Or even go back to trading a dummy account.

Experience is only gained through the errors and the time taken to learn from them. It is very tough to teach someone something even with all the tools in the world. Think of the occurances in life where someone told you or warned you of something but you went ahead and did it. That's experience.

Trading is actually quite simple, we make it hard. How many times do you go back to look at something you did and it looks so obvious. I dont think screen time is necessarily the answer. You could look at your screen 10x longer than someone else and still make bad trades. I think it comes down to broadening the scope. I always start my day looking at the weekly chart, taking note of the areas that I have pinned, then the daily chart and seeing where we are at, looking for those areas pinned and where the market is in relation, then I look to see if there is a setup; a Price action bar mixed with some reason to trade. If I dont find enough compelling reasons to trade I move onto the next chart and repeat the process.

People take trades because they want to be in the market, they lack the patience for the market to to come to them and offer the trader enough reason to place a trade. All to often out of fear of missing a move traders place orders in the hope that the market will continue. All to often the result is a small amount of profit and them a larger case of drawdown then the traders out of fear of the unplanned trade closes it for whatever loss (its better than holding onto hope and watching the trade sink further into the red). Having a set of rules, or a game plan with some criteria for trading will naturally minimise your trading, however it will give you better trades by stacking more odds in your favour.

The other side of the coin is your account size. It is often very difficult to trade with a small account without being very rigid and disciplined in your plan. When you look at the opportunities to make money the most compelling moves are the big ones, the money trains. Why? Because they will multiply your account X times over in the event that you get on one. The problem being that you could have the signs to trade and your take it. The next move is in your direction, it moves up some 50 pips and your happy. What happens here will often decide your future success.

Depending on the position size, that 50 pips will either seem lame or huge. For general trading population (here) that move would not represent a great deal of return in $$$. However if that move was worth say $1000 or more I could almost lay down an even money bet that most would look to protect it, or even take some off the table. So I guess as I have mentioned before (in previous post) it is very tough at times to look at the reward and relate it to where the market is at and make a descision that is in your 'accounts' best interest. $50 may mean very little to most people but in retrospect to your account size it may a good % of growth.

So I guess to sum up. Have your criteria for trading and have your analysis done. If you get the signals to trade that you want and your in a trade then set some alarms at areas of concern, that way you can atleast get some rest from screen time and the emotional distractions from your plans and lastly treat each profitable trade like it is worth the world. All to often we get suckered into the lures of huge rewards compared to our trading size and watch as the profits we could have made, or at least come out breakeven, vanish and our accounts go backwards. If you are unable to trade a small account with enough discipline to treat small profits as large then chances are that you may never get to the point where small gains are huge and runners change your life.

Take care

Razor

The only problem with the post above is, that the reader really needs to have some experience with the topic to understand the TRUTH behind Razor's post. I dont think I'm right, I know I'm right, because if I looked at post like that 2 yrs ago, it would be a nice read, but I would move on.
However, from my present perspective, it is very well structured reply to the topic at hand.

Bluefish

P.S. That is one of the things I like about fx. There are no shortcuts. Either You do Your homework or You go broke.