I finally quit my day job!

Hey folks,

Lot of good points raised by alot of experienced people so I thought I'd add my 2 pennies

Personally I could nt drop my job to trade FT b/cuz my transition to trading FT should be in baby steps.


I intend to take advantage of the fact that I can trade successfully on HTF and work at the same time. Then, once I am comfortable with myself and my plan I can open a 1K acc and take it from there.

I probably will have to increase my risk bit by bit but right now my focus is on myself and my plan. Strangely enough when I started studying Forex my focus was on the $.

Cheers

Anthony

If that's a fact then where did you garner your stats from?
I suppose it's true that most people will make more money from a regular job because that's what most people do.

Rather than focusing on what most people do to just keep the bills paid why not focus on what a few people do to accumulate all that you could dream of.?

Just a pipe dream? Maybe so. But keep in mind that a lot of reality began as a "dream".

And one more thought to keep in mind; "most people's fear of losing money is greater than their desire to make money."


What sets you apart?

which is not necessarily a bad thing. If it was the other way around, then we would have the majority going to the casino and just betting all they have.

Lol, i surely can relate to this.

Made myself a list of rules and one of them is : "Just because everything is going good, doesn’t mean take bigger risks, dumbass!" lol Happens when i get bored...

No offence, but asking questions like these gets you nowhere.

If you want to do it, then do it. Otherwise, don't.

Might as well start a thread that says, "Should I Marry?"

Unfortunately, conviction can only be found within YOU.

Regards
N

Beeing stupid and making stupid decisions is good !
As they show u the boundarys , either on your trading plan
Or psychological ,

Its like someOne said , oh no u didnt! And slaps u

Of course Its only benefical if u knOw that u where Playing outside
Of your field

If u dont know why you where , punished by the markets
Or by reviewing your dumb trade even if it made a profit
And u still know it was a mistake

U shouldnt trade fulltime


Cya

None taken. Just trying to figure out things through a bit. Insight/experiences from people who have done it (good or bad) does help.

Even if the beginning and end result is different for everybody.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

I'm posting from work, cannot view videos here. Is it known which platform/broker Giovanni's using? I think I'm pretty close to understanding how such a method would work. The only thing needed is super tight spreads, lightning fast execution and binded keys to enter/exit quickly.

On topic: traded professionally at two firms. Didn't make it at the first firm, had moderate success at the second, but had to quit due to family situation. tried trading from home full time for a year. Had a very small account. Made over 1000% in first 8 months, then lost it all during the next 3 months. Recovered psychologically for the remaining month. Started looking for a full time job. Got a full time job in the foreign exchange industry but remote from trading. Not really liking it. Have a feeling that if I got back to trading full time again, this time I would make it. Well... I'm planning to open a rather larger account this time with a solid broker and trade part time while working. As soon as I can invest enough to make a decent living off a fixed income (mutual fund and the like), I'll get back to trading full time. While my job is the only source of steady income, must keep it. I'm not one of the folks who don't care where their next paycheck is coming from, just not my personality, and not at the stage in my life to afford such a mentality.

Bottom line is: do what you think will work for you. I would say go for it, try it out, just make sure that (God forbid) should it not work out, you can get back into the employment force and move on. Don't burn bridges too quickly.

Borsi scalped Italian stocks with directa as broker. His equipment was a laptop with WLAN connection, nothing special. Super cheap commissions, good leverage. He did not even look at a chart, he only looked at the order book. Just like in a chart, you can find patterns there as well. I found (and read) an Italian book which describes his technique. The basic Idea is to look for big orders and to get in front of them. For example if a stock is at 10,00 bid (50k) and 10,01 offer (10k) while the next offer is at 10,03€ he would just buy all 10k at 10,01€ and immediately place an offer at 10,02€. This would be 10k*0,01€ = 100€ less commissions of profit. At directa, half-turn commission goes down to 2€ after the eighth trade of the day. So in the example above this would make a net profit of 96€. But beware of the losers - a single losing trade wipes out dozens of winning trades. Borsi had two losers of 400 trades - each loser cost him 2k.

I tried it, I opened an account at directa, deposited 10€ - just to get the quotes. Then I started paper trading that way. I found it to be profitable, but nowhere close to where Borsi was. I was able to place about 5-10 trades per day. Not enough to make this style worthwile. Obviously, there is more to it.

Borsi has a follower who has adopted his style and who is showing this kind of trading on trading expositions. His name is Davide Biocchi. Quite a nice guy. He showed me some secrets which I did not know of when I tried to trade like this. I think that he is not as good as Borsi, but still he is quite good. He makes about 5K per month with an account of only 5k. I watched him a whole day trading and he even placed several trades while explaining his approach. He was very calm. Unlike Borsi, he goes for only 5€ per trade instead of 50€ to reduce the risk of a single trade.

Nowadays I think that this style is too limited and therefore not worth pursuing anymore. I have found another way to scalp the markets - no need to tinker with Italian stocks and small brokers. Forex and futures are good enough to make money.

There is definitely the way to trade the order book. I've seen it, the trade duration is in seconds and the gain is exceptional...

I find it interesting that a number of people in this thread have come out and said that trading FX full time is essentially an unrealistic goal. They hold that this is a goal that is practically unattainable and that the few examples of "supertraders" are to be treated as the exception to this rule.

The crazy thing is that we know that as many traders as there are out there, there have to be more than a handful that are making a living at it. We're not talking 2 or 3 isolated instances, but thousands of people making money day-in/day-out via trading. If some are doing it, then that is proof positive that the haters are wrong.

To be honest, I be that there are a handful among the thousands of full-time traders who got there within the course of 12 months starting with $1,000 or less.

Sure, the "odds are against you" and all that, but those who are successful at trading didn't just win the Forex lottery and have a string of winning trades all in a row betting 10% of the account each trade and compounding up. They achieved their success by doing something (probably a lot of things) different. The question is, what did they do different? Let's start a list of possibilities:

1) Thinking Different - they obviously think different about trading. They thought and believed first that they could go full time before they ever did. They did the exact opposite of what the nay-sayers are doing in this regard. Their thoughts led them to choose to make some, if not all, of the following choices

2) System Selection - after testing out a few different systems, it's apparent to me that they are about as diverse as the day is long. Nobody is really doing the same thing as everyone sees things differently. The thinking of the guy who places stop orders before going to work while looking at daily charts has little in common with the guy who is sitting in front of the screen all day scalping on the M1 & M5 charts. Bottom line on this, though, is that they chose a system which would allow them to achieve success in a short time frame. I don't think that can be done trading daily charts. There's just not enough setups over the course of a given month unless you throw money management to the wind and start taking on huge lot sizes. That means that they are trading on lower time frames. I'm guessing H1 or lower.

3) Risk/Reward Management - I think this is the most important thing in all the world of trading. We've all seen test where people flip a coin at the beginning of the day and place a buy order if they get heads and a sell order if they get tails. It boggles the mind but as long as the Reward/Risk ratio is 2:1 or greater, these guys always seem to make a (small) profit at the end of a given month.

4) Money Management - everyone talks about money management. I've convinced that this whole 2% of your account or 1% of your account thing is bunk. Niel Fuller has a good article about this on his site. The fact of the matter is that if you have a string of losers and keep trading at your set-in-stone 2% level, then it will take a lot of winners just to get back to where you were. A better approach is setting levels which correspond to actual dollars risked on each trade. When a new level in the account is reached, the risk is adjusted up. If one falls below that same level, the risk is adjusted down. The Symphony System thread (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=315572) had a good example of this.

So, here's the big idea. If you have a system which wins 50.50% of the time, and each time it does you earn 2x what you typically lose, the question then becomes how fast you can crank through as many of these trades as possible. That's really it.

Thus, to make this work you need to find a winning system that earns 2:1 or better and gives enough signals through the week to be able to crank through as many winners and losers as possible. That's it. Well...not really.

One has to have the backbone to do what's necessary to make it happen once you've found what you feel is going to work for you. If you live on the east coast (as I do) and your system requires you to trade from London Open to 1hr after New York open, that means you have to do the hard thing and get up a go to work at 3am. If you work full time, you have to do whatever necessary to allow you to sit in front of the screen until 9am. You have to work two full time jobs and dedicate a year to this heavy struggle as you try to overcome the odds and become a short-term success.

Honestly, I don't know how many people can actually do this last step. Even if they find their own "holy grail" or whatever. People will either ignore their own system or won't do the hard work necessary to actually crank through a large number of winners and losers. Some, who feel that success in the short run can't be achieved, are doomed from the beginning. Same goes for those who feel that growing their account by 15% per year.

While I agree that it is a good idea to look for setups with reward/risk 2:1 or better, I have also found that it is possible to trade setups which have a very bad r:r, like 1:5, 1:10 or worse. Of course, such setups need a very high hit rate like 90%, 95% or better.

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. You might also put a 20-period ema through your capital curve. If your capital is above that curve, you go big size. If it drops below it, you cut the size down. As I have an automated strategy, I always look at its paper trading capital. If it is above the ema, I happily place real money trades. If it is below the ema, I cut position size or stop real money trading until it has recovered.

I think that this sort of money management is crucial for success. If you do not adjust position size to the market conditions it is unlikely you will survive. Markets do change and you have to accommodate for that.

If you consistently make money then why dont u quit But when u r learning plz dont quit . As a business start up you have to look after your expenses for 1 year minimum , you cant take your money out of any business for the first 1 year . So Just do it when u have more experience .

Ramy3


Yeh normal thread evolution on forex factory.

I run a small biz plus I trade... so I have the flexibility atm... But I like what you have written..

l have a 8-15 pip target per day that I chase between 4pm – 8pm aussie time. I only spend 4 hours trading a day on the AUDJPY and EURJPY. In that time span i will only take 1-3 trades max.. I find that lowering my time watching the markets keeps me fresh.

The main thing you need to have going FT is as much capitail as you can as many have metioned will keep the mind in place... I have also found forums a negative for me.. hence i rarely come on here anymore.One thing I have learnt about trading is you not doing it to be right 100% of the time and needing to prove yourself.


If you do take that step I wish u success with it.

Nope. Just bills like rent, electricity, internet, tax, etc. So far they have been easy for me =)

Yeah, too bad,

Pretty sure more people here have some experiences to share. None the less, have managed to get a 6 month sabbatical to give me some "sorta" of idea of how I will behave having more time to put towards trading. Will see if I start over trading and making up trades because of boredom or whatever. Got myself into a "little pickle" last week because of boredom (Lesson learned..., I hope… )

Quite a bit of very good info in this thread already. Well worth re-reading.

Thank you all for having participated in sharing and best wishes with your trading!

Funny how this has been a very long awaited goal for me, and know that it is finally here i am at a crossroad. Never thought it would be this difficult to make up my mind about taking the plunge when the moment arrived. :/ To be quite honest, sometimes i thought it would never arrive…

Well, wishing myself luck!


Ramy3


By the way, this person is pretty amazing, been popping in once in a while, gheezz…
http://www.tradeitdontdateit.com/live/

TraderJF posted this person's link earlier :http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=5884633#post5884633 #54

The point of crossroads is the most important thing .

There are things in life where when you take a path at crossroads it becomes your life for good .
Trading for living is one such thing .
Though the concept is well over complicated on FF by many people claiming to be fulltimers yet they are not .

The subconscious set of trading mind becomes part of your life when you trade for living .
It not only changes you financially but changes all aspects of your psychology and hence every part of daily living .
You start applying trading psychology to everything in life ---mainly emotions and outcomes of your decisions.

All the best!

Thks, you got me thinking even more differently. Hmmm… Been analyzing myself since your post and , hmmm… Think you got something there. Still analyzing myself a bit more before i can really say… I have changed a bit, or maybe it's all part of growing up.

Maybe it all was already inherent, it just needed to be developed a bit.… Not sure.

I can definitely see what you are saying.

Hold up... law of attraction... as in that law described in the recent mums book "The Secret" ???

Please tell me your not referencing voodoo like that here?