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  • #181
  • Oct 31, 2013 7:53am Oct 31, 2013 7:53am
BTW, just to close up this thread... I am finally on board of the consistently profitable full-time trader bandewagon, i.e. left my job and making it finally.
This is the proof that it can be done.
I am now totally focusing on my trading career and working towards becoming the BEST I can be at what I do. I will do that even more in the future while living a balanced every day life. When time permits, I'll share some thoughts around here.
Cheers!!
Success to you all.
  • #182
  • Oct 31, 2013 8:39am Oct 31, 2013 8:39am
Quoting tradista
BTW, just to close up this thread... I am finally on board of the consistently profitable full-time trader bandewagon, i.e. left my job and making it finally. This is the proof that it can be done. I am now totally focusing on my trading career and working towards becoming the BEST I can be at what I do. I will do that even more in the future while living a balanced every day life. When time permits, I'll share some thoughts around here. Cheers!! Success to you all.

wow, congratulations a ray of hope for many (including myself), good luck!
  • #183
  • Nov 15, 2013 12:14pm Nov 15, 2013 12:14pm
Quoting swingtraderf
{quote} {quote} Look at the stock indexes and fund managers. Most of them generate between 6-17% return per year and that is called outperforming their benchmark. Taking a 1K account to a 10K account in a year is a 1000% return which is a large increase. The only way to achieve this is to gamble and that is the only way for one to get hold of a large account. I will laugh at anyone who says he is going to make a steady % increase for months on end. I will give the man who says he will bet his account all-in a few times to obtain a large account...
I have to hand it out to you, man, you were right IMHO. After more than a year of fine tuning and building a realistic and professional trading plan and a grounded approach to my trading, gathering statistical data from my testing period, defining monthly & yearly goals based on back and forward testing performance, I now totally agree with you about the 1K to 10K no being a realistic goal. The best route is to set aside some starting capital, just like any other business endehavior... that's what I ended up doing anyway.
  • #184
  • Nov 15, 2013 12:49pm Nov 15, 2013 12:49pm
Quoting tradista
{quote} I have to hand it out to you, man, you were right IMHO. After more than a year of fine tuning and building a realistic and professional trading plan and a grounded approach to my trading, gathering statistical data from my testing period, defining monthly & yearly goals based on back and forward testing performance, I now totally agree with you about the 1K to 10K no being a realistic goal. The best route is to set aside some starting capital, just like any other business endehavior... that's what I ended up doing anyway.
how many live transactions do you have?
  • #185
  • Nov 15, 2013 1:13pm Nov 15, 2013 1:13pm
Quoting deltatrade
{quote} how many live transactions do you have?
Considering that I scalped, swing'd, etc and blown 6 live accounts during my learning journey and a few K, I’d say I might have around five hundred live transactions under my belt… could be more, as I had weeks of 50 or more live trades. How about you?

I now know a few things about the psychological aspects of live trading... the hard way!

Nowadays I’m satisfied with just 1 to 3 trades a week.
  • #186
  • Nov 15, 2013 3:02pm Nov 15, 2013 3:02pm
Quoting swingtraderf
You guys are delusional, it´s impossible to generate a steady income out of FX without having a few hunderd K in your trading account.
5k starting account
2 trades a week
1 winning and 1 losing
3:1 risk reward per trade
risk 500 a trade
1000 a week with only 50% win ratio

Why do you need a few hundred thousand?
  • #187
  • Nov 27, 2013 5:22am Nov 27, 2013 5:22am
Quoting tradista
{quote} I have to hand it out to you, man, you were right IMHO. After more than a year of fine tuning and building a realistic and professional trading plan and a grounded approach to my trading, gathering statistical data from my testing period, defining monthly & yearly goals based on back and forward testing performance, I now totally agree with you about the 1K to 10K no being a realistic goal. The best route is to set aside some starting capital, just like any other business endehavior... that's what I ended up doing anyway.
Hi, so what percentage annual returns are you making now that you are trading for a living? Have you been able to pay off all your debt?

Any steps that you can write down for those who are just stating to learn to trade?
I have recently started to learn / trade and realize that what makes this whole journey harder is the lack of enough guidance for the newbies. Sooner or later most loose paitence and give up. That's why i joined this group to get the much needed guidance.

Am Starting from scratch here so any guidance will be appreciated.

Kam
  • #188
  • Nov 27, 2013 6:17pm Nov 27, 2013 6:17pm
kam.tngr

If you want to reduce the learning curve and not make the mistakes that stubborn people (like myself) have done, you'll need to accept that becoming a good trader requires you to have a long-term approach to learning this craft and not rush things. There will be times when you think you know it all when in fact you're still "blind".

I'd put it this way:

- give it 1 year to learn the basics about forex and do not even consider wasting a cent of your money. Use demo accounts to try everything that you are learning and grow your starting capital on the side. Resist the temptation to think you can make a few bucks in a live account... (you might get lucky one time and the next you'll give it all back and there you start the emotional rollercoaster)

- Learn all the indicators stuff, play with it and understand what they do. Try out some EA's. ALL THIS IN A DEMO ACCOUNT. This is a fun phase but do not even consider that the holy grail lies in here... it doesn't!

- Give it a 2nd year to work on your psychology: Buy yourself a couple of classic books about trading psychology (Van Tharp, Mark Douglas) and work on yourself at this level. At the same time, toss the indicators completely and begin learning PRICE ACTION and naked charts. STILL IN DEMO. Do some hard backtesting and record some statistics about your performance. Start building some estimates about your probabilities and strategy.

- Draft a simple trading plan with an enphasis on money management and price action rules. Open a small live account for "testing" purposes to take very small size trades (do not even think you will make it at this point, this is a couple hundred that you most likely will lose), record all your trades and most of all, analyze your behavior. Record everything and analyze over and over again.

At this point, there will come a time when you start to have a feel for the market and the many hours of screen time will start to reveal a sense of knowledge about the instruments you constantly watch.

Refining and constantly reevaluting your trading plan, putting it to the test and gaining confidence in it will gradually prove that your edge is developing, and consistency will start to show, gradually. I'd say this will happen by the end of the third year.

A lot more to say, but overall this seems like a nice summary for a starter... :-)
  • #189
  • Nov 28, 2013 4:50am Nov 28, 2013 4:50am
Thanks tradista for taking the time to give me some guidance.
I have been demo trading futures for about 6 months now (not religiously on a daily basis, but for 2 - 3 hours 3 - 4 times in a week).
To be honest i did try live trading couple of years back, got lucky and made some money but what made me stop was the fact that i could not determine how i actually made that money - and everytime i would trade it felt like gambling and kept me on the edge as if i watching a horror movie. One of the reasons was because i did not have a trading plan back then. And i plan for a living in my job, so i feel a lot stressed pulling the trigger if i don't have the strategy on paper.

Before i started demo trading six months back i did read books by Alexander Elder, John Murphy, Van Tharp, Mark Douglas and accordingly made an attempt at preparing a trading plan and covered points like risk per trade (1% per trade), risk to reward ratio (1:3). Helped ease my nerves a bit as i had some structure to this chaos. Recently i added criteria's for entry, exit and SL to my plan and that drastically reduced the no. of trades that i enter to about 2 - 5 per week, not sure if that is good or bad, any thoughts on it?

Can you suggest any good books to learn PRICE ACTION and naked charts?

BTW, what is your win to loss ratio? I tracked my trades done in the past on a demo account and it between 30% - 35% in different months.
  • #190
  • Dec 3, 2013 12:15am Dec 3, 2013 12:15am
To all senior and bros here,
Can you guys share some of you guys experience, I seem cant find any extra time for me to focus on learning forex. I might having a bad time management that is why I am seeking guidance here.
Thanks in advance for your valuable guidance.
  • #191
  • Dec 3, 2013 8:29am Dec 3, 2013 8:29am
from the end it can not be the source...
  • #192
  • Dec 3, 2013 10:45am Dec 3, 2013 10:45am
I am an aspiring full-time forex trader. I feel I am finally turning the bend to consistent profits using price action and longer time-frames. Does anyone here trade with a completely naked chart? I mean NO lines or indicators drawn at ALL?
  • #193
  • Dec 3, 2013 12:36pm Dec 3, 2013 12:36pm
Quoting Mnmlst_Trdr
I am an aspiring full-time forex trader. I feel I am finally turning the bend to consistent profits using price action and longer time-frames. Does anyone here trade with a completely naked chart? I mean NO lines or indicators drawn at ALL?
I think very very few are able to do that.
  • #194
  • Dec 3, 2013 1:51pm Dec 3, 2013 1:51pm
dang! you have a long way ahead of you! my live losers might be 10X of your 500, lol.

i'm a loser though, anyway.........

Quoting tradista
{quote} Considering that I scalped, swing'd, etc and blown 6 live accounts during my learning journey and a few K, I’d say I might have around five hundred live transactions under my belt… could be more, as I had weeks of 50 or more live trades. How about you? I now know a few things about the psychological aspects of live trading... the hard way! Nowadays I’m satisfied with just 1 to 3 trades a week.
  • #195
  • Dec 3, 2013 3:01pm Dec 3, 2013 3:01pm
Quoting Mnmlst_Trdr
I am an aspiring full-time forex trader. I feel I am finally turning the bend to consistent profits using price action and longer time-frames. Does anyone here trade with a completely naked chart? I mean NO lines or indicators drawn at ALL?
I do, i.e. i just draw a couple horizontal line to spot my price levels.
You're on the right track.
  • #196
  • Dec 3, 2013 5:28pm Dec 3, 2013 5:28pm
Quoting charvo
dang! you have a long way ahead of you! my live losers might be 10X of your 500, lol. i'm a loser though, anyway......... {quote}
I guess I was just able to stop sooner... get back to the drawing board and draft it all over again.
  • #197
  • Dec 3, 2013 6:28pm Dec 3, 2013 6:28pm
HiddenGap, as my income from work is possibly going to decrease to well near ZERO then anything I make from trading is a bonus right


Okay I'm not there yet, but I think I'm close, if I can not lose my mind ofcourse, cause this gets kinda tricky.

Say I need $2000 to cover my living expenses and some fun, I currently have a $500 account, I also have cash for 3 months maybe 4.

Obviously there will be some losers, but at $1 per pip, GA had some 50+ pips, 4 to be precise moves and some 30's, I'm not far off being able to harvest most of those say 1/3rd of them subtracting losers say 70pips ?? So that's $70 profit call it ??

Even if I can only average 50per day, within 2 weeks account is up 100% and can trade $2 per pip, then 2 weeks more, $2000, scale the risk back $3 pp $3500 so on and so forth. How long before your trading at $10 pp and making $10000 per month ?? 6 months I guess with risk reduction.

So I've got a month to get better, +37 pips today despite a very nearly stupid trade i let run against me, then I've got 2 months of huge growth to get to wage level.

That's the plan, don't think in % terms, think in pips and $$'s, there is enough intraday swing pips available just got to find a way to get them.



Will I make it ?? dunno, but been working on it very hard, method is coming along nicely find out in a few months.

Chasing the dream!!
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #198
  • Dec 3, 2013 7:06pm Dec 3, 2013 7:06pm
Quoting Turveyd
within 2 weeks account is up 100% and can trade $2 per pip, then 2 weeks more, $2000, scale the risk back $3 pp $3500 so on and so forth. How long before your trading at $10 pp and making $10000 per month ??
Have you done it already on a demo account? If not, then stop dreaming and make it happen in DEMO account first. You must treat this like a business, plan things ahead, base your trading decisions on a solid foundation that YOU KNOW and have experienced not on some basic assumptions that you calculated out of your reasoning or some quick spreadsheet.

Probably not what you want to hear but still I'd wish someone would have found a way of engraving me this deep in mind so that I could focus on the "reality" of trading earlier in my journey.

Wish you the best of luck.
  • #199
  • Dec 3, 2013 7:26pm Dec 3, 2013 7:26pm
Thanks for the wise words, tradista.
  • #200
  • Dec 3, 2013 8:11pm Dec 3, 2013 8:11pm
Hey Turveyd.......how are you doing mate?..........it's been a long time
Very interesting thread this well done tradista and if I could just add my favourite quote from Thomas Edison...."Many of lifes failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up"
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