Lose small, win BIG

Loose small, win BIG in long-term effect

Nice equity curve! Well done, looks like you have found a strategy that's working for you.

Thank you mate. Please take in mind it is a backtest.

Regards,
Adam

How to prepare your trading and yourself to be a good trader? a.k.a. what to do before going live trading with a new system?

Please bear in mind, this is not any kind of guideline but my subjective opinion. This might not be the best choice for you, please find your own way and be skeptical about every thread you read in this forum, mine including. Don't trust any information blindly. Think about it if it make sense and then test it and don't try to prove that idea is right. Try the opposite - try to prove that an idea is wrong. It saves plenty of time.
When you can't prove idea is wrong there is a good chance it's an interesting idea. Still not 100% sure, but most likely...

I like examples, so let me give you an example.

My assumptions in the market are:

1. Trend makes money
2. Price will revert most likely on S/R level
3. Once market moves like crazy, movement will probably continue in the same direction.

Once you find your assumptions you can move one step ahead and ask yourself how this can be used for making money? This part takes a lot of time- from couple of weeks if you're lucky to couple of years. Took years in my case but I'm optimist and I believe your capability is better than mine.

Nowadays, you can read couple of good threads here in FF. But be very catious - many of them are really really bad but few of them are just amazing (it's goal of this thread as well, so no fairytales... sorry guys). If you prefer fairytales I recommend Shrek, Kung-fu Panda or Tangled. Those are really good. Please don't pay too much for trading fairytails.
It is possible to make a shitload of money in forex. That's true. But you won't make it if you've just started to trade. I've read about 10.000 hours before starting to trade and thought it isn't my case. How wrong I was. Please don't expect too much at the beginning. Not to lose your initial capital is a really achieveable goal for novice traders.

After first year of trading probably more than half of new traders will quit this business. After 5 year probably only 10% survive (I don't have any statistics and numbers are random). Then you're really on the right track to become a good trader.

Are you so patient? Is it worth? No idea, depends on you. Hopefully you can say that after 1st year of trading you're a trader.

But back to the topic. Once you find how to use your assumptions you can start testing. I prefer backtesting software where you can test very quickly. I don't like to trade any specific pattern because it can influence results. Make it as much simple as possible. Then you don't have to think a lot about it. Now I open a trade and I don't care if it was a good trade or not. It is just a trade with pre-defined risk. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't analyze too much why trade was or wasn't successful. It doesn't make sense. I hate losing trades, of course. But there is no sense to overanalyzing them.

Once backtesting software shows you that your system makes money you can open small live account. I don't like demo accounts. It's good to know your trading platform but has nothing to see with real trading. So many traders are successful on demo and are not able to make money on real one.
When you feel comfortable and you're able to trade it according your plan and expected results feel free to deposit some money. But be sure you allow your "play" account to play long enough.

I ussualy play with no more than 500$. I have never lost any account till now. Hopefully I never will. This way you can play safely and with confidence.
I hope this post make sense because I'm not going to read it now.

Regards,
Adam

My job is done. Let's wait and hope

EU on BE
XAGUSD still in the play

Taking loss by loss. First position survived and adding to it.

Leaving from public forums for couple of months, years...

Good luck to everybody.

Dear ProstaJa,
Could you give me what system ,Robot or EA do you used it.
Please give me to try it.
Thank

Hi Mianlien,

To create a profitable system took years of hard work. I felt guilty if I'd give it to you. I can advise you to study hard and work hard and you will succeed in whatever area you like...

Good luck mate.

I have spent couple of weeks thinking about my future trading. My greatest concern was how to let my position growing and take some partial winners to increase my balance regurarly in order to increase my position size and be able to cover losers. I couldn't find a solution for a long time because my mind was not opened enough.

Then I reviewed all my progress along the way and found interesting technique I was using. This method I learned in James16 thread couple of years ago. It is about opening multiple positions and take partial profit. If I do the same with my current method I can let profits run and take some nice profit as well. If I'm able to hit 1:1 RRR and rest to lock on BE I'll be able to cover all losing trades and increase my balance as well.

My biggest problem was that my positions hit very often RRR 1:2 and better and then it hit my SL or BE. This way I don't need to check my positions so often and I'll grow. Sometimes I'll hit bigger loss because I'll open multiple trades but according to my past stats it should be growing in long-term.

Hope you have amazing holidays and time to be spent with your family and friends.

My psychological trick

Did you know that the worst for your psychology is to lose a trade? Or better said to see that your balance decreased? You can read in psychology books that negative change has biggest impact than actual value.

To lose your 10M account and find your balance at one million dollars is not the same as getting 1M from 500K. The value of your asset will be the same but feeling different.

I've created a small trick for this reason. Not looking at my current balance in platform as it is.

I consider my real account balance according this formula:

Real balance = platform balance - all possible loosers

platform balance ... number you see in your platform
all possible loosers ... all dollar SL size

if I have 3 positions opened and risking 10$ each my all possible loosers are 30$

That's really easy and works for me.

Beginner's luck

I always hear about beginner's luck but nobody has never mentioned unlucky moments at the beginning we experience so often. We increase position size and we hit long losing period. I recently started to open multiple positions in my discretionary trading and I hit immediately couple of losing trades. We tend to think that we make any kind of mistake.

But be consistent in your decision and you will see truth in long-term period. Most likely I will delete my previous growing period as positions are bigger but hopefully it will go the right direction.

Hope so.

Hiding the Terminal toolbar and hiding the Trade Levels works for me.

Totally agree with you!

Good idea. Thank you for suggestion

There are 10 open positions at the moment and equity reached black numbers for the first time on my play account and my goal is to reach 200-400$ monthly by trading small account but I will deposit around 700-800$ to reach at least 1k. Playing with 200-300$ is quite boring game but it is interesting experience and showed me that money can be made with a very small account as well.

I'm really curious how much can be made with 1k account...

I screw it up yesterday and I closed all positions today with very low profit. I feel really bad about it. I must realize it is part of the game. Sometimes it is hard to play and we have to accept these days. But I need to find something positive about every shit I made.
Positive shit is that my balance is 10% up...

Let's improve it for next time.

Why is good to keep balance in black numbers?

Couple of posts above I've explained why is diversification good for - it helps your balance to grow. It seems that diversification is good and necessary. Now I will contradict my words to complicate it little bit. Sorry for confusion dear reader.

Keeping balance in black numbers is only psychological effect. Sometimes it is necessary to take profits because market is turning but very often it is better to let yoru profit grow without diversification. One closed position can destroy 100%+ profit (if you trade way I do). For that reason I make a diversification only after big drawdowns to go quickly up to black numbers. It is just because it is comfortable for me this way.

But try not to diversify a lot for at elast one month and you will see how it affects your trading and you will know what is the best solution for you. I think I don't need to tell you much. All answers are inside of you.

Regards,
Adam

Be the first who enter a market and then decrease the risk quickly...