Trading around the world

Hi renanc,
thanks for your feedback.

My trading stats are far from impressive. Keep in mind, I am a money manager (no, I don't take new clients, I don't sell any system and I don't teach - please don't send any more mails) and not looking for big returns, as most people seek in here. The number 1 priority is not to get any major swings and keep volatility as low as possible.
Therefore, my annual performance over the last 3 years averages 8,1%. If you do the math, this means 0,65% per month. This is my YTD equity curve taken from my portfolio.

South America and Brazil is def on my list. I was thinking of flying there for the worldcup but I thnk there will be better times to visit I'll let you know once I get there

Hello again Rolf,
That is a wonderful performance.
I think my next trade will be that:


Let my know if I'm on the right way.

I am not to say you are on the right way, but I have a limit sell in that area as well. There is another level before that where price might turn, but it has allready been there:

I am not saying you are wrong but it's not that great of a supply level. Ideally, you want to see price spend short time at a supply&demand level. The reason is, the longer price can stay at a level the greater the balance between buyers and sellers is. The strongest levels have a great imbalance and price cannot stay there long because you will have much more sellers than buyers (or vice versa) and there you can expect a strong reaction.

Compare the two level on the USDCAD. On both we had a strong selloff but what happened before was important. On the blue level, price could not stay there for long. There were way too many sellers and not enough buyers so price had to go down. And once price came back into the supply zone, price sold off again strongly.
In contrast, the yellow area had a very strong bearish reaction too but price could stay there very long (compared to blue) and once price came back, there was no followup short reaction.

There was just no way I could have skipped this setup on the kiwi. It had all the entry criteria on my list to trade this with a full position. However, facing news, I entered this not with a full position based on my data. Textbook! Like money on the street

Hello Rolf, thanks for the fast reply.
I think I took the essence of your way to trade.
So, tell me what you think about this yellow level at daily NZDUSD graphic.
The level, is between the 50 and 61,8% of Fibo retraction, I believe this fact makes the level stronger.
Unfortunately my buy order at 0.8390 was not activated and the market is moving up

Hi Rolf
It is impressive how u take money from market n price move in opposite direction, like on this last kiwi trade.
This thread n your videos on yt is awesome. I learn a lot and what to thank u very much for this.

If u could share with us more about your entry decision. I build my new plan, it will be based on 4 paterns:s/r,s/d, sfp and trendline breakout..
I just want to know how too select best trades.. when u use pending orders, what u look for? Only the quality of s/r? number of tuoches, number os switch from s to r or opposite, how long it was s/r, how strong was reaction.. or maybe something more then that?
When u sit n wait for a trade(as you say u don't use indicators) u look only for candlestick formation and fibo? or something more? Do u use ATR like trader Dante?

I build my check list for making decision, I don't want to copy, I just need to inspire

Greetings,
Rafał

hey rafal,
Thank you a lot for your positive comment. I am happy to hear that so many people find my thread useful.
I get the question regarding s&r and s&d quite a lot so I made a video. It might be easier than to talk about it again and again :-) However, this just covers the basics of the two concepts to provide a idea what to look for and how to differ between the two.

I trade both concepts with confirmation of some Moving Averages and Fibbonaci as well. I don't use ATR though. I have some other criteria as well to make a difference between good, medium and bas setups. I don't just trade the first retest but also several touches afterwards if there are some entry criteria met. I hope the video will help!

Remember to Practice the setups thousend and thousend of times. Then you know how good setups looks like and you should not need to think before if its a good setup or bad. You just make the decision on instinct or like a machine. No emotions.

I had that one also, but again I had no TP set:

And then you have to find a new way how to trade the markets as they have changed and what you studied and did for the past months is not working any longer
But basically, you are right. Trading should not be exciting or 'give you a kick'. Trading is quite a dull thing. You look for the exact same thing over and over again and when you found something that what you have seen hundreds of times, you will have to do exactly what you have been doing every time you've seen it. Trading is repetitive, monotone and boring (exaggerated). But it offers you a degree of personal freedom and opportunities that cannot be acchieved in many other fields.

Yea a bit but I have forwardtested with almost ten year of data and the demand/supply zones are the same But I know what you mean

Was some great CP-pattern on EURUSD today but im out because of NFP. Swedish National day here so chillin in the sun instead

I did two trades today on NSDUSD on limit sell orders. One was a little profit and one a little loss. Then I had another limit sell on a higher level. It was missed by about 15 pips. I would like to know readers opinion(s) on the levels and my reasoning / questions. Thank you!

Hey forexpiet,

I have been watching that kiwi too but I don't trade on NFE day so I staye out. Regarding your trades...
(1) was good. Just your TP was a little bit off. Look a little to the left and you will see some support&resistance. Pre-NFP, volatility is generall very low, so take closer TPs, if you have to trade.
(2) this was too short before NFE release. You cannot expect any big moves so close before NFP.
(3) price just did not make it up there.

In general, your S&D levels on (2) and (3) seem to be a little bit in the wrong places. (2) should be bit higher, (3) lower.
Overall good work. Keep building a sample size and analyzing your trades!

Thank you for this answer and also for the vids. I learn a lot. Feine Pfingsten!

I posted that my winrate is around 50%. Afterwards I received some mails where people said I cannot live of trading with such a winrate, since it's equal to gambling. If you believe this, you have no clue what you are doing here.

Should we all start flipping coins?

You might call it trading when your friends and family asks you about your new passion, but what most retail traders do is not more than flipping a coin. And the way the average retail trader approaches trading, they would be better off flipping coins as well.

A winrate of below 100% is something that the average retail trader just cannot accept. I often get messages where people say that trading with a 50% winrate means gambling, as chances on winning a trade are the same as when flipping a coin. So far, they are right.
But instead of connecting all the concepts of trading, retail traders constantly seek the ultimate method without the least amount of losing trades. If this applies to you then you do not understand this profession and you might be better off flipping coins indeed.

When you are flipping a coin 400 times, you can expect to see tails 200 times and heads 200 times. And this is where the coin game beats trading by far. When you flip a coin you KNOW that your winrate is going to be 50% when you bet on heads all the time. It has been, and it will ALWAYS be 50% in the future. In trading you might have a huge sample size with thousands of trades that look very similar and you can estimate a winrate of around 50% for your setup pretty accurately. But the markets are an ever evolving field where millions of participants interact on a daily basis based on assumptions, opinions and individual interests. If the participants change, the game might change, and the pattern you have been studying might not work in the same way anymore. The edge you have been trying to find and tweak has changed, and if you are unable to understand this, you will lose your account – promise.

And, indeed, there are some parallels between trading and flipping a coin. Any trade you take should look like the one you did before, just like any coin flip will look identically to the one before. The outcome of any trade, and any flip, is completely independent from what happened before, and totally random as well. And you don’t have any possibility to change the outcome of a trade, as well as on the coin flip.


So far, flipping a coin seems a lot easier than studying trading for years and constantly experiencing frustration and disappointments. Are you sure you still want to be a trader? But we are almost there; just give me a little more time.
The unique opportunity in trading, and why trading is an amazing way to make money, is that YOU can CONTROL the outcome. Again, you cannot influence the outcome of any single trade and you will have to accept that your setups will fail and fail and fail… But, at any given time, you can control your risk and the way you manage a trade, whereas, managing a coin flip is quite a hard thing to do.

The most unique thing in trading is that you can interact with your trade once it is on – and even before that. If you don’t like the way price is moving you can close it, or close some parts of it. You don’t have to wait until your full loss has been realized. But once the coin is in the air, it is pretty hard to tell, for the average human being, if it is going to be heads or tails and try to minimize your potential loss. And what about the great invention of the stop loss? Once your trade starts moving, at any given time, you can modify your stop loss, changing your risk profile. How amazing is it being able to secure profits or limit the amount you can lose? Try this on a coin flip!

Another example. Let’s say you are about to flip a coin and you want to see heads. You will just have to throw it in the air and wait what happens. In trading, you have to put on your order and let markets do the rest. But, you have a direct influence WHEN you want to enter, whereas it does not really matter when you start throwing the coin. When you want to buy, but you see current prices moving down you can, and should, wait to get a cheaper entry. It is the same in your daily life and common sense is a tool that traders should use more frequently. When you expect a discount on the new smartphone, you don’t just run to your dealer on day 1 and pay the current, highest possible, price. You wait and see what is going to happen. And by entering a trade on a cheaper price, you will guarantee yourself a bigger profit while limiting your potential loss. In the coin game I have never heard of a method where you can delay your entry to shift the odds on your side.

But the feature about trading that will guarantee you a profit over the long term is that you can control how much you want to win, in relation to your loss – we call this risk:reward ratio. Although you can use some, doubtfull, money management techniques when flipping a coin, like martingale or anti-martingale, there is no room to use decent risk management techniques. When flipping a coin, you need a direct opponent who must be willing to take the other side of your bet. If you can find someone who is willing to accept to win 1 unit on heads and lose 2 units on tails, equal to a 2:1 reward:risk ratio from your perspective, you have to be really lucky. And even if you find someone, he will pretty quickly realize that his bet is not the smartest one and leave you. Whereas in trading, you don’t need a direct opponent. You will usually be able to buy at the current price and risk the amount you are willing to risk. And if the trade moves in your favor, you have the ability to wait until you reach a price where you are willing to sell again. You can virtually realize any reward:risk ratio, of course, if you find a method that makes this possible.

I hope you can see that looking at the winrate on its own and judging a method just by this single figure is not enough and will only expose yourself as the consistently losing trader. When you want to be successful in trading, you have to connect the dots, understanding that everything is interwoven. The degree to which you will be able to make money in trading is directly related to your ability of understanding the mathematical and statistical nuances of the trading business.

If you cannot accept this, you should start looking into flipping coins for good.

And it's Sunday again. Time flies by. I just uploaded my newest video where I talk about the upcoming trading week and what I see on some of the major forex pairs. I identify important support&resistance and suppl&demand areas.



Wishing you all a good start into the new week!

I created this poll, asking who is actually writing a trading journal. Atlhough there were only 23 votes, the overall picture is the one you could have expected.

Only 6 people, me included, do have a trading journal and update it regularly. Meaning, 73% don't have one or don't use it to its full capacity.

In all the years, I have never met a trader who is actually living from trading and does not have a very detailed trading journal. After helping many retail traders and suggesting that they may start using a trading journal, the vast majority became profitable in a reasonable time frame. If you want to take this business serious, you HAVE to have your own journal. If you don't, don't waste your time with trading.

Here is how I record my trades in my journal

HI

I am new to this thread and to overall trading , hope I can trade with you guys and see which pairs has clean and good opportunities, I always wanted to have a trading journal but didnt know where to start from, hope this is a new fresh start , many thanks for the thread and the inspiration

Hey TheScorps,

welcome to the thread and thank you for your nice words.
I hope you will find some ideas you can use for your own trading.

Forex has been good to me, so I feel I can give something back by helping out new traders who really want to make it in this business.

cheers