Ramblings of a Forex Junkie

Just saying guys........

Great music guys, can we just turn this into a music thread now?

----The Man Comes Around is EPIC

Happy to oblige: We lost a great one when she died.

last one from me, it's not Country but it's got heart, it's not Zep but it's got a nice riff, this guy is from Sweden.

Dayum!! My favorite Zepplin song,,, courtesy of Cruise. Just crank em in the music thread if you don't wanna clutter up SP's thread...We don't bite... Often!

Don't know how to pick a favorite zep song, but this one is up there.....

Bonham is so on point

My favorite song ... by far

I haven't heard that song in ages. Thanks.

Anyone remember this?

Hi there guys

i couldn't find an active relevant thread to ask the questions i want to being frequented by people who seemed like they knew their stuff and could give valuable answers so i decided to choose an irrelevant one and apologise sincerely for intruding
i have recently taken a basic e-learning course on trading that teaches just the very basics of what it is, i have become fascinated by a great many aspects of it and i know it is something i have the time and patience to learn, study and practice before going live, which i appreciate will take a year or so just to properly learn the basics and study the price action of the instruments i intend to trade and consider why it moves how it does, and none of this takes into account the psychological or money management side of trading which i understand are equally if not more important than being able to consistently predict price moves a decent level of accuracy, i'm not someone who is expecting to get rich quick or easy. i've been looking for something that i have the passion to study in my spare time and i've found it. I'm beginning to get a few ideas of how i think i'd like to trade or the styles that might suit me but they change with every source of information i come across, my basic plan is to read the famous books and one on each of the basic important aspects of trading e.g. technical and fundamental analysis, money management, psychology, the different derivatives, the possible instruments to trade and benefits/negatives of each.. theres more aspects i need to learn about i know, i would then probably take an advanced course with the guys i did the basic course with as the methods they promoted from what i've read elsewhere do seem to make sense for a beginner and i need some form of structured learning on how best to approach going live, i would then spend a few months at least developing my methods and strategies, back testing and practice trading them on whatever instruments i decide to start with and then when i'm satisfied i've got a grip of what i'm going to attempt to do and only then, would i go live, i'm in no rush, i work 9-5 and enjoy my job, it just doesn't offer the opportunities i'd like it to, outside work i have no responsibilites and an abundance of free time (not anymore as i am literally dedicating all of it to learning about trading). What i want to ask people who are much further ahead in there trading than i am is: Does anything i've said not make sense? am i chasing dead ends or missing the point in some areas? How should I best structure my learning, i have found myself reading a couple of books and thinking i would have digested whats inside better if i read them the other way round, as everyone has different ways that work for them (or not as i'm led to believe in most cases) and the markets are so vast its impossible to know everything about everything and there is no course for learning what works best for you as such, where should i start looking, what should i be considering? As this is a Forex trading website i'm interested as to why people solely trade forex, many even only one currency pair at that, my premature opinion tells me surely diversifying would be better, is it a case of jack of all trades is a master of none sort of thing? most sources of information i've come across has suggested beginners should start with stocks and if they havnt got the money then save and study until they do, would in your opinions, forex be a better place to start? also, anybody who frequents this forum a lot what are, in your opinions, the best threads to read from start to finish? In trading i've learned enough to know theres an awful lot of garbage to sieve through and as i'm dedicating every spare second i have to learning, being pointed in the right direction away from the garbage would be greatly appreciated.
thanks for reading, any advice at all will be considered and apologies again for disturbing the thread!

Could Seneca or some other kind soul please give me a heads up on these 2 points, Point 1 Seneca wrote about stop loses Quote "For daily levels I use the 5day ATR smoothed with the 5EMA (five days in the week)"I unerstand the 5day ATR bit but unsure of the corilation with the ema part (I know what Ema is before I get shot down), point 2 if we look at todays E/U chart at the 3 x1hr candles before the London open,and put a pending buy limit order once the 8am London candle had broken above the bracket range,do we remove the order when it climbs high during the day and is obvious its not coming back to our order level?or just leave it on for a few days, thanks for any info guys.

You are already on the BEST thread to read from start to finish. Why are you still asking? Geez.

If you use MT4 for charting you can place an EMA on top of your ATR indicator. The purpose for this is to smooth the data a little bit to average out the really big days and the really small days.

If the opening range trade is not triggered within four or five hours I usually just cancel. I don't really like to take the entries after London close. Some of those will work and I occasionally will take a late one but normally I pack it in if it doesn't trigger within a few hours.

There is a lot in this question:

First if you are thinking of taking a course where indicators are taught as trade triggers, do yourself a favor and skip it.

Second, I would suggest that the trading books you read be kept to a minimum. You should read more about game theory, gambling money management, trading psychology, and things like the Market Wizards series and memoirs of proven traders.

I have linked some research papers and the draft of a book early in the thread that will teach you the mechanics behind the markets and give you a frame of reference from which to understand why and how price actually moves.

In my opinion any market or instrument can be traded with a good and robust method. If you are being taught anything that requires that you only trade specific instruments or pairs (if forex) it is probably a gimmick and won't last. In this thread we discuss trading basic support and resistance that is formed by prices at specific times. The forex market is driven by very large commercial banks and the governmental central banks. These banks control billions of dollars every day for their large business clients and government agencies. We attempt to trade along with them by trying to enter along with them at areas of expected big concentrations of orders. We are not always right but we do ok.

What ever market you choose to trade you should make sure that it is liquid. I think forex is the most liquid and predictable market there is. Futures would probably be the next most liquid as long as you stick to the index products. You should avoid anything that has low daily turnover as it can kill you if everyone heads for the exits at the same time.

Welcome to trading, If you protect your capital you will love it. Use demo trading to learn the platform you intend to trade with. Once you know how to enter and exit trades and control the features of the platform so you don't make simple mistakes you should open a very small live account so you can start early with the mental part of trading. The mental part is the hardest. Finding a trade entry is easy but managing that trade to a win or a manageable loss can be very difficult. The earlier you begin to tackle this and risking very little (100 dollars or less) get over the natural mental barriers to trading success the better off you will be. Forex is the only market you can really trade with such small stakes so it is the natural place to begin for most traders without a larger amount of money to risk on learning.

Good luck and enjoy the ride.

a lot of questions. you are certainly on the right track, your general methodical approach will stand you in good stead.

there are no experts in how to learn to trade. everyone goes on their own personal journey and you will have to do that too. I would suggest (though others may not!) you dive in to the EURUSD thread, read it through the day to see how others approach trading the market. you will learn a lot about trading there but not necessarily how to trade.

obviously this is OT so feel free to pm me any questions and I'll do my best to clear anything up for you/help you along.

The "enter" key is your friend. Don't be afraid to use it

Progress for the day:

Interesting, is that an indicator you've got to calculate daily high/low/close? what software is that?

lmfao, good luck wading through all the muppets and bullshitters in there......

Chris, can I ask - do you have a daily target?

Some say it's the way to go, others say take what the market offers, when it offers it.

I've found having a target is great when I have reached it - it helps me not give back profit; but I end up chasing trades if I haven't hit it, leading to stupid mistakes.

I don't have a daily or weekly earnings target. I take the trades and let it all work itself out at the end of the week. When things are really cooking well why would you want to shut down at an arbitrary target? The bad weeks are not too often but they do happen. It is nice to make the best of the good ones. Goes back to poker and game theory. Never leave a good game no matter how much you are up.