Learning live account trades with The Rhodie (Fibonacci, etc)

This is a place to learn about the markets and what it means to trade on them (not in them). My specialst area is spread betting which is illegal in SOME countries but legal in UK. My primary platform is MT4. All the charts I post are based in MT4 although in the future I may change to other platforms too. Occasionally, people ask which are the best markets to trade, and that is a very interesting question as the best are the most volatile. the worst are the slow movers. Slower markets require patience to watch over long periods of time unlike volatile markets like Gold, Strong currency:Weak currency crosses. The major currencies are usually a good start, but they require more discipline than volatile markets which react and change faster.

Most thread replies should encourage use of a chart to explain their meaning.

Rules: (Stolen from XTrade!)
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THE THREAD RULES:
1. Respect your fellow forum users. Treat them the way you treat yourself.
2. NO WILD CLAIMS OR PHISHING FOR BUSINESS. IMMEDIATE BAN WILL HAPPEN WITHOUT WARNING
3. POST CHARTS - "A Picture is worth 1000 words"
4. Provide REASONS with BACKUP For your CALLS
5. AVOID SWEARING. IT'S NOT IMPRESSIVE, IT'S NOT CLEVER AND NOT IN GOOD TASTE. 6. IF YOU DON'T KNOW - ASK.
7. Banning - Warnings will be given once if you are completely out of line and disruptive.
The second warning is silent and permanent. If you disagree with a banning PM me.
8. TRY to stay on topic. When the market is dead we can joke, do discuss currencies Other Pms welcome.
10. No PLAGIARISM - of other people's posts - If using other's material please give credit.
11. NO TROLLING.

Furthermore - if you have a PERSONAL gripe or argument with someone take it elsewhere or PUT THEM ON IGNORE.
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I use gold as my trade market of choice. usually it is listed as XAU or GOLD.sb in various provider's platforms. Any market will do if you want to learn how to do anything in particular.

Nice Mate! Great Rules!!! (maybe I should make mine more strict!)

I would like to see some further explanation on how you are using these ellipses for trading.

Wish you well and just keep working harder and harder. Only way to true success IMO....


XT

Good job and Good luck! I will stop in.

Some things you should discuss -
Stops and Limits
Margin
Leverage.
These simple things many do not understand.

Great Mate!!!!!

Stops and limits.
A trader who does not use a stop is like a man who opens his bank account, loads it full with everything he owns, deposits his credit card limit into it and then shouts to the world that anyone can use it without his permission. It will soon be cleaned out and make you bankrupt.

Always trade with a stop. The stop prevents the market from robbing you of your entire account balance and more.

Limits are positive stops. Traders who trade with limits are like horses with blimkers: they only see what they want to see. They limit the amount they want to earn, but they are good if you want to pre-plan a trade direction and leave the market to make money for you while you go away and do something else.

Margin
Margin. Yeah, that's the thing that tells you how much you are allowed to trade with and how much you have left to trade with. If your margin does not allow you to trade then you have blown your account and need to top it up or forget about trading.

Leverage:

The amount you bet with against the return you get on that investment. It can make a market more profitable or not, depending on the spread.

Spread:
The difference in price between the ask(offer) and bid. Can be very volatile and differ greatly between brokers and markets.

Hi Rhodie,

Gold is my market is my choice as well, in fact I trade Gold exclusively ATM. I am new to forex, only been trading live for about a year but I shudder to think about the sort of risks I was taking for the first 9 months of that and subsequently learnt a valuable lesson about trading in such a volatile market (the first of many I am sure). I am an experienced trader/investor in stocks and I have had quite a lot of success in equity markets, which is why I thought I could emulate that success on forex right away. WRONG!

I have started to make some of my losses back in the last three months, I am only trading 0.01's so my losses don't amount to much and I have been able to claw back an average of $10 a day over this period, mostly scalping. I plan to keep trading 0.01's for the next year at least, as I consider the first few years of trading gold my "apprenticeship".

I hope you keep this thread going because a lot of the people that post on forexfactory seem to be gambling without much logic and a level head seems to be rare. I also follow the gold thread started by XTrade and I know you post on there too. I would like to learn more about those charts you posted above if you have time. In particular all those ellipses an explanation of how to interpret them would be much appreciated, but no big deal if you don't have time as I am going to look into it myself anyway.

I look forward to learning more about trading from you, XTrade and others and in time hope to contribute to all of our success.

Cheers mate!