Some lessons from the real world

Treating trading as a business pretty much changes our perception of it. Everyone knows a business can take a long time to become profitable, it carries the risk of losing the investment, needs knowledge, needs a plan and needs time - like trading.

About trading systems there is something to be said. Frequently traders are using trading systems that work, these are more common than many people believe. The biggest problem is sticking to it and accepting its drawdown, profitability, maximum draw down time, etc... Having said that, although dissing auto-trade EAs appears to be the trend, like manual trading systems there are many that work too. I could make a long term profitable EA with a SMA dual crossover method, but I had to accept the drawdown and maybe the not so good profitability compared with manual trading.

I agree, manual is better but ea's work also. Pf's of 2 plus aren't out of the question. it takes years however to develop. I am just over 5 years into it and have been demoralized more than a few too many times but you dont' give up. I dont undertand all this psyco babble and theories ...I cant tell where the market is going even 1 pip based on indicators..oh well.

I just think Darkstars comments in response to hedginghog thread was to be the first to criticise him for his own gain. You targeted the one thing in his first post (trading psychology) which you perceived as a weakness in an otherwise good post. Did you get a buzz from being the first Darkstar ? Did it make you feel good ?

In actual fact it is not a weakness at all, it is HIS OPINION on 'trading psychology', but such was your eagerness to look good in this thread, you missed that.

It is a positive and informative thread that he created but you lacked respect for that, instead strengthening your own perceived reputation as a trader.

To make one thing clear, if i had an option of having 3 to 4 trading partners in a live trading room, you wouldn't be one of them 'darkstar' !. One, due to your lack of research into hedginghogs efforts to create the post, which would worry me as it is likely to repeat itself in your trading and also shows a lack of respect for a fellow trader, and secondly i know of no successful traders who would use an image of some sort of alien with green eyes as a profile image. This strikes me as potentially childish and a sort of maverick mysterious attitude which has no place in trading. You are certainly one to avoid and you could have gone about challenging hedginghogs view of trading psychology far better.

In the meantime, thanks for a creative post hedginghog which if all else, provides food for thought.

This is actually my first post on FF although I have been following this site for over five years and now feel I'm consistent and comfortable with my own trading and that I want to give back and engage with other traders; to share experiences (the highs and lows) and help those kind enough to listen and to thank those who having read their contributions to this site have helped me on my way.

Thankyou Hedginghog, I first read this thread back in early 2011 before I went live and it made me pause and think. I had spent the time prior to 2011 educating myself and graduating through 'babypips', hours of reading time through books and these forums amongst others. I'd demoed and then trialled my trading plan part time and was just about to go live when I read this thread which made me think... my plan was mostly mechanical (at that time) although my SL and TP were fixed in stone I had shown consistency in hitting these in my demo and live trial; however your statement made me think that actually my 'line in the sand' idea is false and actually I should adhere to the market and take what it gives me and be grateful not the other way round. Repeatedly price action would retrace prior to exiting my trades (I use a breakout/trend strategy) and thus losing the opportunity of pips when in fact scaling out proved to be more profitable.

I have to agree with number 9, like you said. Also another thing that I noticed that goes along with that is people relying too much on the demo accounts that they make. The problem with that is you start to develop certain risk-loving behaviors that will surely ruin your live account in no time. Many of the top Forex brokers will try to caution you and tell you that putting too much faith into these because the results achieved with a demo account, mostly because such achievements are emotion-free. Since you don't risk real money in a Forex demo account, even with the best Forex trading platform, your results won't be reflective of what you could achieve under similar circumstances with a live trading account. That is why you always have to be so careful when it comes to training. And making sure that you're reading all these tips that people are giving are important.

#7 is the most important one when you're really deep into this business...

May I add one more? It's to control your emotion. You may find it easy to control your emotion when you're playing around in demo account and got loss some, but don't expect the same when you loss some in live account.

Experience is a tough teacher it always gives the test before providing the lesson

I can only say for my part of trading which is mainly trying to figure out intraday flow in an attempt to extend this into 2-4 day trade.

Try to see the intraday picture and act NOW. Importance of figuring the flows on the market at the moment we speak - NOW.
Now is the most important ascpect of trading. If flow changes you have to act NOW again. No easy way. One needs to be ultra flexible and have upper hand of MM of your account.

seems, there is more than this, but I would concetrate on that

laterz