I'm lost..in FX

Hi guys,
I'm a newbie that wants to start trading with a live account.
However, the more I read about brokers and stuff, the more I feel that this Forex market is the hell on earth.
I'm a part-time poker player (not online) and full-time handicapper.
One of my bookies introduces me to Forex market and since then I’m spending about 4 hours a day doing research in order to find a decent broker.
With the bookies it's way easier. They are always against you but rarely they can change the market (decide the winner).
On Forex it looks like the brokers (Market makers, ECN/STP) they are going against you too but they are controlling the market and they can decide the winner.

Now, my questions are:

1. Why people are still trading?
2. How people are making their profit?
3. What is the best way to start?
4. What is the average profit percentage/month for the successful traders?

If there are people on this forum that can answer to these questions and can provide objective advises, I'm happy to read/listen/used them but please try to not start with "mfk they stole my money" or "I want to kill them" etc.

I like to know my opponents before I’m sitting at the table and here it looks like the game is fixed and they can see your cards. Is it true?

In other words, what you're really trying to say is that the markets have you tied up in knots and you can't extract money from them, right?

I didn't even try to make money on Forex.
Now I'm just trying to better understand the concept and I'm at that point where I have to choose my broker.
According with all the reviews, all of them are bad.
I'm trying to understand also who's going to lose money when I'm going to win.
I think this the first thing that you have to know when you are looking for profit, because for every winner there is a loser.
Reading all the reviews about brokers I feel like I'm playing poker against 3 Russians
with AK 47's knowing that at the end of the game they will take my money anyway.

95% of people lose money in forex...

5% of PROs earn what 95% lose.

Fact.

5% from FF itself. lol

95 % fail because they play with small money and have big expectations thinking they will turn there $1000 acoount into a million s
so they use
a bad money management
b hold on to losing trades
c take winning trades to early
d watch a winning trade turn to a losing trade hoping that it went 100 pips might go 100 more then bang gone



if you started with a $50000 account using small percentages will get you a good days wage with little risk percentage wise

but if you try and make a days wage on a $500-$10000 acoount risking to much

believe me i speak from experence was only a winner when had a bigger account blew 3 small acounts

Hi,

Judging from your post you are very new to trading. First of all you have to decide why do you want to trade. To become a millionaire, beat the hell out of "them", show everyone how good you are, and all this under a year? Or do you want to make this a career or a way to supplement your income, year after year consistently making money?

I will tell you right now you will not make any money for at least a couple of years (if you are on the right path) or you will blow account after account believing you are against "them" your "opponent."

After you read this you wont believe a thing I say and will think you are different, you are special, this does not apply to me, I am a poker player how hard can this be, they all suck...? This is how I used to think, spending hours calculting how many millions I'll make in a few years. (Did you start making those compounding spreadsheets, by this time I was supposed to be by 10 million at least, lol)

My advise is this. First start learning about the business you are in. Star learning about the market, why it exists, who are the participants, why do prices move, who moves them (not brokers). Learn what role brokers play, learn how they make money...

You said the brokers are going against you. That is not true. Do you really think anyone cares about your $2000 account in a market with a 4 trillion dollar daily turn over? You mean nothing, your actions mean nothing, no one is against you.

You say you're a poker player. Ive heard of many people who simultaneously find success in both. Why do you think that is? What are the similarities? Why do some poker players make money and others don't? Why can some make money over many long years?

Being ignorant can ruin you here. Be realistic. Do your research, do some reading, find a few senior members here and read ALL their posts, find what they do, understand what it takes to make it. Or most likely you will continue your search how to beat "them", or end up moving from system to system blowing account after account and finally giving up when you realize how hard it is and how much work has to be done. You have to understand that the forex market has gotten a bad name because th majority ended up blowing up, losing everything, or giving up due to over levering. Those stories get passed down to people like you and the whole process just repeats.

Your questions really are irreverent to anything that would truly help you. A few people make money consistently, some people are breakeven, and most are losing, never committing to anything moving around, and not focusing on self development in any way.

There is some very good threads and posts on this website. But you have to dig around (alot).

So...

Decide why you want to trade.
Learn about this business.
Understand what it will take to become a long term consistently profitable trader.
Find a method of extracting money from the market that works for you.
Practice, learn, hurt when you lose, be humble or you will get humbled.

And

If you decide to make this your businesses/lifestyle you will learn things about yourself like no where else. When you find things about yourself that are limiting or negative or effect you trading in any way dont ignore them, work on them, constantly strive for improvement, iron them out to realize your full potential.

Here are a few places to start:

http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/addpub/usfxm/
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=7484
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=1#post1
http://www.fxstreet.com/education/le...center/unit-3/
http://www.babypips.com/school/
http://transcripts.fxstreet.com/2008...ng-and-us.html

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=39514
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=6948
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=2331

I hope that helps and I wish you the best of luck,

tormo

Brokers are a pain, not necessarily because they ARE against you, but the fact that they stop-hunt, spike and other assortment of things that will boot you out of a trade which you SHOULD have been in.

1. Why people are still trading?
Because they have found ways in which to make profit, whilst sidestepping the obstacles that are present in this market.

2. How people are making their profit?
Often by creating a system with which they can trade mechanically. That is, they create a set of entry, exit, stop loss and take profit rules that they can follow to the letter, which will net them pips at the end of the week/month.

3. What is the best way to start?
Read. Study. Read some more.
No one knows all that there is to know about trading and the markets, so never assume you do, therefore you can never stop learning.
Also, open a demo account and get a feel for the markets

4. What is the average profit percentage/month for the successful traders?
That's down to the individual to be honest. Not a helpful answer but hey.
What I can give you is a pip indication. A healthy, chunky trade i would say would be 80-150 ish pips on a time frame under an hourly. However, 40 is fine, as is 20 and as is 60.
Try and avoid aiming for 10-20 pips, sure any pips is acceptable and money is money, but if this is your target then you are focusing on the less profitable side of trading IMHO.

What you make per-pip is down to your and your money management.

Take a read of "The 5 steps to becoming a Trader"

This pretty much describes most peoples journey =]

See below:










The 5 Steps to becoming a trader

Step One: Unconscious Incompetence.

This is the first step you take when starting to look into trading. You know that it’s a good way of making money because you've heard so many things about it, and heard of so many millionaires making their money with this profession. Unfortunately, just like when you first desire to drive a car, you think it will be easy - after all, how hard can it be? Price either moves up or down - what's the big secret to that then - lets get cracking and get rich quick!

Unfortunately, just as when you first take your place in front of a steering wheel you find very quickly that you haven't got the first clue about what you're trying to do. You take lots of trades and lots of risks. When you enter a trade it turns against you so you reverse and it turns. Again. And again, and again.


You may have initial success, and that’s dangerous –cause’ it tells your brain that this really is simple, and you start to risk more money blissfully unaware your acting like a nutjob.


You try to turn around your losses by doubling up every time you trade. Sometimes you'll get away with it but more often than not you will come away scathed and bruised, you are totally oblivious to your incompetence at trading.

This step can last for a week or two of trading, or even years. But the market is usually swift and you should move on to the next stage.

Step Two - Conscious Incompetence

Step two is where you realise that there is more work involved in trading and that you might actually have to work a few things out. You consciously realise that you are an incompetent trader - you don't have the skills or the insight to turn a regular profit.

You now set about buying systems and e-books galore, read websites based everywhere from USA to the Ukraine. And begin your search for the holy grail. During this time you will be a system nomad - you will flick from method to method day by day and week by week never sticking with one long enough to actually see if it does work. Every time you come upon a new indicator you'll be ecstatic that this is the one that will make all the difference. THIS IS IT!

You will test out automated systems on Metatrader, you'll play with moving averages, Fibonacci lines, support & resistance, Pivots, Fractals, Divergence, DMI, ADX, and a hundred other things all in the vein hope that your 'magic system' starts today. You'll be a top and bottom picker, trying to find the exact point of reversal with your indicators and you'll find yourself chasing losing trades and even adding to them because you are so sure you are right.

You'll go into the live chat room and see other traders making pips and you want to know why it's not you - you'll ask a million questions, some of which are so dumb that looking back you feel a bit silly. You'll then reach the point where you think all the ones who are calling pips after pips are liars - they cant be making that amount because you've studied and you don't make that, you know as much as they do and they must be lying. But they're in there day after day and their account just grows whilst yours falls.

You will be like a teenager - the traders that make money will freely give you advice but you're stubborn and think that you know best - you take no notice and overtrade your account even though everyone says you are mad to - but you know better. You'll consider following the calls that others make but even then it won’t work so you try paying for signals from someone else - they don't work for you either.


You might even approach a 'guru' like Rob Booker or someone on a chat board who promises to make you into a trader(usually for a fee of course). Whether the guru is good or not you wont win because there is no replacement for screen time and you still think you know best.


This step can last ages and ages - in fact in reality talking with other traders as well as personal experience confirms that it can easily last well over a year and more nearer 3 years. This is also the step when you are most likely to give up through sheer frustration.

Around 60% of new traders die out in the first 3 months - they give up and this is good - think about it - if trading was easy we would all be millionaires. another 20% keep going for a year and then in desperation take risks guaranteed to blow their account which of course it does.


What may surprise you is that of the remaining 20% all of them will last around 3 years - and they will think they are safe in the water - but even at 3 years only a further 5-10% will continue and go on to actually make money consistently.


By the way - they are real figures, not just some I’ve picked out of my head - so when you get to 3 years in the game don’t think its plain sailing from there.


I’ve had many people argue with me about these timescales - funny enough none of them have been trading for more that 3 years - if you think you know better then ask on a board for someone who's been trading 5 years and ask them how long it takes to become fully 100% proficient. Sure there will be exceptions to the rule, they do exist and pick it up at an annoyingly fast pace. But that’s not everyone.


Eventually you do begin to come out of this phase. You've probably committed more time and money than you ever thought you would, lost 2 or 3 loaded accounts and all but given up maybe 3 or 4 times but now its in your blood. Your hooked.

One day - in a split second moment you will enter stage 3.

Step 3 - The Eureka Moment

Towards the end of stage two you begin to realise that it's not the system that is making the difference. You realise that its actually possible to make money with a simple moving average and nothing else IF you can get your head and money management right You start to read books on the psychology of trading and identify with the characters portrayed in those books and finally comes the eureka moment.

The eureka moment causes a new connection to be made in your brain. You suddenly realise that neither you, nor anyone else can accurately predict what the market will do in the next ten seconds, never mind the next 20 mins.


Because of this revelation you stop taking any notice of what anyone thinks - what this news item will do, and what that event will do to the markets. You become an individual with your own method of trading


You start to work just one system that you mould to your own way of trading, you're starting to get happy and you define your risk threshold.

You start to take every trade that your 'edge' shows has a good probability of winning with. When the trade turns bad you don't get angry (well maybe at first) because you know in your head that as you couldn't possibly predict it wasn’t your fault, the market will do whatever it wants, it wasn’t personal – as long as you closed the trade when you realised that the trade is bad, you did your job . The next trade or the one after it or the one after that will have higher odds of success because you know your system works.


You stop looking at trading results from a trade-to-trade perspective and start to look at weekly figures knowing that one bad trade does not make a system a poor one.


You have realised in an instant that the trading game is about one thing - consistency of your 'edge' and your discipline to take all the trades no matter what as you know the probabilities stack in your favour.

You learn about proper money management and leverage - risk of account etc etc - and this time it actually soaks in and you think back to those who advised the same thing a year ago with a smile. You weren't ready then, but you are now. The eureka moment came the moment that you truly accepted that you cannot predict the market.

Step 4 - Conscious Competence

You are making trades whenever your system tells you to. You take losses just as easily as you take wins. You now let your winners run to their conclusion fully accepting the risk and knowing that your system makes more money than it looses and when you're on a loser you close it swiftly with little pain to your account

You are now at a point where you break even most of the time - day in day out, you will have days/weeks where you make 100 pips and weeks where you lose 100 pips - generally you are breaking even and not losing money. You are now conscious of the fact that you are making calls that are generally good and you are getting respect from other traders as you chat the day away. You still have to work at it and think about your trades but as this continues you begin to make more money than you lose consistently.

You'll start the day on a 20 pip win, take a 35 pip loss and have no feelings that you've given those pips back because you know that it will come back again. You will now begin to make consistent pips week in and week out 25 pips one week, 50 the next and so on.

This lasts about 6 months

Step Five - Unconscious Competence

Now we’re cooking - just like driving a car, every day you get in your seat and trade - you do everything now on an unconscious level. You are running on autopilot. You start to pick the really big trades and getting 200 pips in a day doesn’t make you any more excited that getting 1 pip.


You see the newbies in the forum shouting 'go dollar go' as if they are urging on a horse to win in the grand national and you see yourself - but many years ago now.

This is trading utopia - you have mastered your emotions and you are now a trader with a rapidly growing account.

You're a star in the trading chat room and people listen to what you say. You recognise yourself in their questions from about two years ago. You pass on your advice but you know most of it is futile because they're teenagers - some of them will get to where you are - some will do it fast and others will be slower - literally dozens and dozens will never get past stage two, but a few will.

Trading is no longer exciting - in fact it's probably boring you to bits - like everything in life when you get good at it or do it for your job - it gets boring - you're doing your job and that's that.


Finally you grow out of the chat rooms and find a few choice people who you converse with about the markets without being influenced at all.


All the time you are honing your methods to extract the maximum profit from the market without increasing risk. Your method of trading doesn’t change - it just gets better - you now have what women call 'intuition'

You can now say with your head held high "I'm a currency trader" but to be honest you don’t even bother telling anyone - it's a job like any other.


I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this journey into a traders mind and that hopefully you’ve identified with some points in here.


Remember that only 5% will actually make it - but the reason for that isn’t ability, its staying power and the ability to change your perceptions and paradigms as new information comes available.


The losers are those who wanted to 'get rich quick' but approached the market and within 6 months put on a pair of blinkers so they couldn’t see the obvious - a kind of "this is the way i see it and that’s that" scenario - refusing to assimilate new information that changes that perception.


I’m happy to tell you that the reason i started trading was because of the 'get rich quick' mindset. Just that now i see it as 'get rich slow'

If you’re thinking about giving up i have one piece of advice for you ....

Ask yourself the question "how many years would you go to college if you knew for a fact that there was a million dollars a year job at the end of it?

Take care and good trading to you all.

You mentioned that you research a fair bit.

I highly recommend - scrap that - urge/plead/beg you to read

FX Bootcamp - Wayne McDonnell

Practically my favorite FX book, excellent read, full of helpful info and is perfect for existing traders or people with limited experience.

BEST starting point ever =]

Accompanied with the internet that book will teach you stuff you will end up using after blowing your mind with a million indicators and realize it is all about support and resistance after all =p

Must Have.

Hope this helps.

Hi SavioRoca, the biggest thing you need to be afraid of is not your broker but yourself, lol. Don't listen to idiots which deposit to unknown companies and then face problems withdrawing the moneyo r stop hunted, they deserved to be cheated for lack of knowledge. Noawadays it is easy to check companies background, understand how big is the company. Be sure, if you are good trader the worst thing might happen with you you will be asked to change broker.
The best to start is Demo account , then micro account and in case of straight 6 months (atleast) of success you can start investing more money. If you afraid to lose or can't afford to lose better not to start at all, but as you mentioned you are poker player, so you should have stainless balls Forex somehow similar to N/L Texas Holdem, no need to win every hand (trade), most import is a total profit, which can be done by 1 good trade, moreover, it is imposible to trade without loses, usually people who try to trade without lose trades lose much more. Try to follow the rules, use MoneyManagement , be ready to lose few times, don't invest loan money and life will be good .

I have to thanks to all of you for your time and answers.

Bottom line these are the answers that I was looking for.

I'm not afraid to lose; however if I'm taking a risk I like to be a calculated risk.
I know also that good investors, poker players, traders, etc. are counting their profit on a long run.
I’m not seeing this as a way of showing off or becoming rich after one night or a week or a year. For me it’s just something interesting and it looks like a new opportunity to make some more money for my living.

About the 95% vs 5%, I accept this as far as the 5% and 95% are playing the same game following the same rules and the difference it’s made by the skills, attitude, knowledge and why not balls. When you have two American Football teams playing on the field everything is OK but if the 5 % are American Football (brokers) players and the 95% are Soccer players (traders) the game is not right.

I tried few demos accounts (FXDD, ALPARI UK, CMSFX, FXPRO, GFT) and Meta trader it looks the same for all of them.
CMSFX they have a nice platform but I didn't hear good thinks about them. GFT has also a different platform but is not so user friendly.

It looks like the FXPRO is popular, however the fact that they are in Cyprus it's raising question marks.

I think I will start with FXPRO for the beginning and I will try to make fewer mistakes possible.

SavioRoca,

I have no idea why you are so concerned with brokers. Again, they have no effect on price movement, or anything dealing with an outcome of your trade. They are not against you! I suggest you do some research, take a few months seeing how things work on a demo account, go over the links in my previous post.

You are very eager to open a live account and start making money. I will tell you right now that will not happen. You are overconfident and have a naive view of how things actually work and that can ruin you in the beginning. Why not open a demo account and trade that for 3-4 months until you prove to yourself you can do it. During that time your goal you should be to keep the demo account around breakeven. Dont even worry about profits because that will come when you take care of other factors. After that you can start looking to improve an work on things that limit you. After you see some improvement and learn risk control, then open a small account with Oanda and but only after you prove yourself on a demo.

I will tell you again, you don't have a realistic view of anything yet. I am only trying to save you some money and time.(its all probably useless anyway) When I started I had no money to trade but knew I want this. I was forced to focus less on the money and more on what it takes to become a trader, learning about the market, my weakness, my strengths. I wont even tell you how many hours I spent and still do trying to get better. At the beginning money can only hurt you. I still don't have any but when I do I'll have a solid foundation and confidence in myself and my abilities.

tormo

Why do you want to start trading live if you still very new to Forex?
What capital do you want to start with?

about forex = price goes up or down. fact.
about brokers = you take your chances. fact.
making money = probabilites. fact.
I too have opinions but can't back 'em up with facts.

Hi Savio, I am going to take a logical and reality approach to your post. I read through the whole thing and you are reading way too much into conspiracy theories. Like others said no one in the liquidity of the fx market cares about a measily $2K acct, well to them its a measly $2K account and to you its big money (or maybe not). However... judging on what you are doing I dont believe you have studied everything fully. Go through the baby pips it is an amazing read and cuts out all the fluff. Its free and much better than the forex for dummies or whatever is out there,

You need to learn indicators inside and out, not all but at least ema, stoch's, ma's, rsi, bb's and when to use what settings on what charts, yes this is big.

anyhow, read a bit of my testimony, I am somewhat probably same time frame practicing as you, but you will see the difference here between yourself and myself (please by all means do not take this the wrong way, I am not claiming to be better than you I am just pointing out a difference between two amateurs). Now ask yourself after you read my post if everything you invest your time reading about is hokey pokey. Its not there is truth out there...

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=221518 Please read this, yes it is a question I posted but I put out my entire history about

OK I got it. No live account until .......... I don't know until when but I will find out with the time.

One more time, thank you for all the advises.
I will stick around and if I will have any question I hope that I will find the same support.

Also remember that you are trading against professional ,it is either them or you................so you should have a good armour and good weapons.

Find your trading edge first- What is your trading edge? This is the most important thing.

Once you have got a trading edge, start trading 1 unit in oanda- It is as good as demo with benefit of live trading.

Then progressively move up to start trading 1000 units, then 3000 units, then 5000 units etc.

But the bottomline question is: What is your trading edge?

Brokers hedge for liquidity reasons. I have personally gone to many a broker headquarters to see what they're up to and the ones I have been dealing with are not working against you. My experience is that some traders, usually not using proper money management and not understanding the laws of supply and demand, get blown out of the water a few times come out with this nonsense about "my broker is against me".

Of course some brokers are just schmucks but those are usually the small time guys.

my 2 pips.

95% - 5% yepper.