Patience, Hardwork, Money Management,blah,blah,blah. I'm sick of these cliche's now :

Lets say you threw a coin and every time it was heads you would get $20 and every time it was tails you would pay $10. It would be a good deal your odds would be:






x= (1 + ( heads win/ tails loss) * chance to flip heads) -1
x = (1 + (20 / 10)) * 50% - 1
x= (3)*50% -1
x = .5

so .5 * 20 (your win) would be 10$ a flip on average


You prollly dinna need an equation to tell you that but it helps when calculating larger differences


Ok now lets say you buy gpb/usd, you dont care the direction. If it goes up you get a pip if it goes down you get a pip ($10)
x = (10 + (10 / 10)) * 50% - 1
x = 2 * .5 -1
x = 0

so 0 * 10 ( your win) would be $0 per trade


lets add spreads, just 3 for starters. To test the odds for to get a pip on on a 3 pip spread just add 1 pip for up and 1 for down. so you are working with 5 pip range and need to get 4 pips before you loose 1. your odds are 20%:
x = (10 + (10 / 10)) * 20% - 1
x = 2 * .2 -1
x = -0.6

so -0.6 * 10 ( your loss) would be -$6 a trade. You can make it up in volume


some people tell you the way to win is to have short stops and high limits. we will go 20 stop 100 limit. 20+3+100. you need to get 103 pips before loosing 20; your odds are 19.4%.
x = 2*16.2%-1
x= -.676. or only -$6.76 a trade.

there are ways to mitigate the odds by widening the range, but you can never exceed the break even point. say you will do a stop of 200 and limit of 200, so you have 200 + 3 + 200. you need to get 203 before loosing 200. Odds would be 49.6%. it helps some:
x = 2 * 49.6% -1
x = -0.008 only a $0.08 loss per trade

beyond that i have found that *all* brokers cheat. some are worse then others but you can figure they shade within their spread so you might as well double you spread when figuring things. (eg 1+3*2+1 = -$7.14 for pip to pip odds)

So even if you brought it up to 50% odds by increasing the range you still cant win unless you learn how to trend, counter trend or read the news. (btw putting a 200 stop on something with the "never risk more the 2%" rule would put you at a possible 2030 draw down so you could only trade one set per $101,500 you had)

So I'm not sure you would *have* to have patience or hard work but you would need to study study study. You need to practice til you know what a good trade looks like because you can win on a slot machine.

there are 3 things you need to learn, i listed them from least important to most imho

1. where to get in. you need to go through historical data and see when things tend to take off and why.
2. where to get out. look through that data and figure what signs to look for on ending trends
3. where to put you stops. each market has different speeds. as you get better at finding entries to the market you will find that stops steal your money if they are not in the right spot. knowing where to put a stop so it doesnt catch a retraction but still catches reversals is where the money is at. also, sit by your computer and manually stop, do not put them is as stops, your broker *will* spike you! If sitting at your computer all day seems like work, well it prolly is


Noticed i dinna say anything about money management. If you dont have money management you dont have money.