Are we being conned?

What's up fellow mole? Hey guess what, I got a raise at work. They said I was doing a great job of moling on the internet forums so they bumped up my pay.

Heh heh, I like that one! "Don't wish that the market was easier, wish that you were better." It actually mimicks the truth, especially in my case... I traded impatiently and undisciplined for over 2 years before I found the problem and it wasn't until I learned to put my trades from the history to the chart that it became apparent. What I mean is that most people (and myself) will trade a system and not give it time to work. Afterward they won't analyze their wins and losses to see if the trading plan was followed. If you win, you don't know why and it could have been luck. If you lose it could and often times is- you not following the trading plan. Many nay sayers will look at this and say correctly that this is basic information. But it is so crucial. I am a very lazy person, but since I found that basic trick of putting all my trades up on the chart I analyze every single trade on the weekends, I have a small general trade journal, and practice discipline techniques everyday. This has increased my patience and shown me that the problem I experienced for over two years was usually not the system that I chose to hop to, but my problem of interpreting it and worst of all - actually following all the rules to the exclusion of all others and not changing what should work in the first place. I am so my own worst enemy. Funny thing is? I taught my wife how to trade... Yes, kicking and screaming she listened to every "boring system" I ever came across after going through babypips to learn the basics...Now, she is still the more patient trader and can still let a trade run without looking at the screen every 15 minutes (we have automated exits). If she makes more than me again next month, I'll be doing dishes for a week. I think I'm in trouble guys.... On the note of stoplosses - one can use a variety of techniques on them. You can use a "mental stop" with a hard one placed far and away from the mental one. Personally, I like this approach, but I still use the same placement which is the standard: above or below the last high or low (this gets your stop off the runway as it was put to me... But I don't usually let a trade go that far against me before I exit. Another way of course is the following stop, A step or stair stop, and my favorite: the previous candle following stop (a couple pips above/below the previous candle after you have profit) I heard a couple others, but those are the main ones and of course you can just have one or several take profit zones which often amounts to the same things.... Last thing I'd like to share with everyone: you can improve almost any system by confirming basic direction with a higher timeframe. Heikan Ashi candles can do this readily and is a standard approach I've seen work very well in Ichimoku and a few other systems. Once again, this is nothing new, but when you do this it will force you to gain at least a small amount of paitence and discipline as you have to wait for a signal to set up and then you have to time it. I was pulling my hair out, cussing at the market, just begging for a proper signal the first couple times... Then a little profit came and the money hairs on my back started saying woo - woo- woo. And here I am today. "Yes, my name is Lazy Lobster and I am a Forex addict. I have it within' me to do serious damage to my accounts and financial well being..."

LL

SHHHHHHHHHHH.......

Gonna have to talk to my boss....

LOL

Thanks for the kudos...hope your trading goes well...don't pick your nose too much or your head will cave in.

That's, somewhat, cynical but, it is an accurate description of what happens to retail traders.

The worst market, in the world, to trade is spot forex. It's unregulated and there is no centralised exchange. If you trade via a market maker or, spread betting co., you will be at their mercy. They don't want you to win and will do everything possible to make sure that you don't. I've had accounts with many of them, over the past 12 years and, generally, they are a bunch of crooks.

If your trade system involves any of the indicators known to the trading world or systems mentioned in this forum and any other place online, then its highly probable that itll fail. Reason, you are doing the same thing every other person is doing. A truly consistently profitable system is one which is formulated to suite you as a person and the entry and exits rules would be more or less unexplainable to any other person because you and only you understand it. When you successfully get to this level of trading which should take you nothing less than 4 years, then ill happily welcome you to the successful 1% CLUB!!!

The major problem is that you don't know about the expectancy of your method.
You have to realize that most methods just don't have a positive expectancy i.e. don't produce profits in the long-term.
Whether you use a stop loss or not, trade with the trend or not doesn't matter in the end. You just need to know if your method, system or setup is producing a rising equity curve in the long-term.

If you don't know that, then it's time to go on the search.

And maybe something to think about for you. The lower your time-frame, the more you are at a disadvantage. You need to overcome spread, commission and slippage. This is harder to overcome than most people think.