My experience, need trading wisdom

Hello everyone,

I just want to share with you my experience regarding trading forex. I discovered it about 2 years ago and since then until now I have lost about 1000$ trying to learn how to trade. The recent Swiss Franc unexpected movement put my broker(Alpari UK) into insolvency. Even though after all this struggle trying to make some consistent profits which ended up with a failure, surprisingly I still want to continue. Otherwise, if I give up, all the time spent learning would be just a waste.. Over the time I have tried tons of systems and strategies, from those based on indicators to those relying on price action. From my experience, all indicators have some sort of lag, and they cannot predict the future movement all the time. They are very illusive because in some market conditions they can work quite good. But market conditions change and in the long run indicators will lose money. Now the price action. It basically means support and resistance, including double/triple bottoms/tops, also “the old support becomes the new resistance”, plus candle formations like engulfing, doji and others. These things make more sense to me, especially on the bigger timeframes. But how do you trade these? Trying to catch tops and bottoms that are support or resistance won’t work. Even those which are let’s say weekly, monthly, multi year, old time highs and lows are not always reliable. There are many many examples of that, the most recent and obvious was the 1.20 peg on eur/chf. Who thought it will be broken… You simply don’t know for sure if a support or resistance will hold.

I also know that the money management and psychology are as important, if not more, than the strategy itself. But I think you need to have all three in check in order to be consistently profitable.

Right now I and very confused and I don’t know what to do. Success can be replicated if you have the steps to copy from an already successful trader.

Please share your ideas, thoughts and maybe the solution.

Thanks a lot.

I hate to say that, but you are mistaken. Even if I gave you exact details of how I trade you would not necessarily repeated it. Contrary to that, most probably you would fail without continuous supervision.

My best advice to you - stay away from trading and invest your money. Low risk - low reward - high probability.

A.

Big A : Thanks for your answer. From it I assume you are consistently profitable. Are you talking about failing to be disciplined enough to follow the rules of the strategy? Otherwise I can't see why..

I am happy to help if I can. However I have found many who ask for help in this manner simply want me to them them when, which direction and how much to trade. Then if the trade doesn't work they will blame my (how did one trader recently say?) "lack of effective skill".

I (as well as many here) can teach you the mechanics of trading, but the actual discipline and method for trading must come from you.

PM me and we can discuss it further on email. But I warn you...it will not be easy, or cheap.

If that was just a matter of discipline then mechanical systems would work perfectly and that is not the case. It's all about decision making process and at the same time being able to stay unbiased. Then it is our human nature and some parts of our brain (unconscious thinking) and even more things that sound fancy like ability to cope with stress and other bs like that. Unfortunately, despite being some bs thing it affects the outcome of the trading at the end of day. In some cases, this is why normally pro traders that work for someone work in group supervised by someone (despite overseers in a risk control departments and sophisticated software stop loss algos). One thing is to make profit and absolutely different story is to sustain profitable. And then there are myths placed all around (like 1 min TF is just a random noise or R:R ratio should be at least 1:1 or don't gamble but trade, etc.). Additionally, is your unrealistic goals and expectations (assuming you lost your money with MT4 platform broker, you have used at least 1:100 leverage which is two sided blade... not going to go in details here).
And (yes, a pity, really) every time I tried to help someone I failed - most of you (no offense) need no help but some miraculous technique / indicator / whatever that have never existed.
Despite saying all this it is possible to trade and sustain long term profits without getting deep into it. However, one thing is really worth one's attention and reflection - the last message (at least that's the story) J. Livermore left in the notebook or on the mirror in the hotel before he shot himself dead into the head.

I know enough about trading forex that I could hold workshops or write books. Everyone can learn the theory.
I am not looking for the "holy grail", neither for some guru to give me signals.

I guess it's a psychological issue which I need to figure out..

It may indeed by that...I can honestly say that for me that has been the most difficult part to deal with. I still have many "issues" that prevent me from realizing (what I believe to be) my full potential. I have a coach that I work with. Perhaps that is what you too might seek out.

Oh Boy,
I have a holy grail for you my friend, but consider this:
A live trading room was formed about 2 years back with a guy who is still working for bank and advising multiple funds. Unfortunately for you, last month was his possibly last training class ever, it looks like he will be concentrating on day trading in the room from now on. However there are recordings from all the previous classes and sessions which at this moment comes well over 10k hours, which are pretty much invaluable and he is also teaching when nothing is happening in the markets anyway.
But be warned, what you get is pretty much what the institutions will teach you should you ever get to prop trading desk in their 6 month training squeezed into one month. Unless you can trade full time and have no life for next few weeks/months (seriously you are looking at 4 hours of sleep a day if you are lucky) and get your brain melted and your entire knowledge about trading turned upside down cause here is the secret nobody will tell you. 85%-95% of knowledge that is available out there or depends on any kind of lagging indicator or any indicator which properties can be changed and adjusted all you do is proving liquidity for us and we thank you for that.
If you ever studied anything hard, like really hard before, multiply that by 10 and you may possibly get little closer to the intensity you are going to get should you decide you want to torture your self.
Consider the fact that you are competing with the smartest people in the world. Do you think that to be successful in this business will be easy? Hell no!!! It is tough, it is exhausting, requires you to do you homework every day.
Also get ready for the fact that you will not understand about 50%-70% of what we are talking about even thought you have extensive previous market experience for about first two weeks till you get through the recorded classes.
If you ever placed a trade and you felt somebody is f******g with you and something is hidden from you, you were correct sir!

What will you get if you decide to go through this HELL
1, Clarity, you will know why the markets are moving the way they do.
2, If you ever had doubts after entering, if you made the right decision, that will be gone cause you will know exactly what is happening.
3, You will learn how to establish the value of your desired market which will make you confident about position before, during and after entering.
4, You will get the "WHY" no second guessing.
5, You will get the ability to see what the big guys are doing, when they are doing it where they are doing it and you will be able to copy then quite easily.
and sooooo much more.

As to what you are can expect well what I used to make in a month what I make now in few days. Before I joined I thought I can teach how to be profitable and I am backed up with my 15 years of live profitable trading so coming into this I was thinking I will find some little "thingy" that will help me tune my already impressive performance.
This guy put me back to school. I have never felt so angry, frustrated, exhausted, confused .... in my entire life. My wife was so pissed off at me cause I haven't seem her or my kids for nearly 50 days. But once the stuff started to click. There is no way how to describe that.

I believe that we are creating our own universe and on the way we are coming across people that may help us to do so. I have no idea how I got here to this post or why I decide to reply, I don't generally do that but I felt I should.

Your move buddy.
Ttyl
JJ

I'm interested JJTtrade,

How can one access this knowledge?

Diego

Check you PM

Hello Christian,

I have only a few key sentences for you - trading like any other "job" requires you to learn and dedicate yourself.

a) learn candlestick patterns - and trade exclusively the more reliable ones - there are not more than 30 basic candlestick patterns which aren't difficult to learn
b) if you trade without a stop loss, you should stop trading and go do something else.
c) stop reading crap in forex forums suggesting you everything which comes down to nothing - that is just huge noise and it will lead to losses exclusively.
d) stop following news
e) and finally - a)

With regards,

Demo

p.s. if someone "offers" you the knowledge about "why and how markets move the way they do" - I suggest you run away far far away.

So you are telling me that the banks, funds and any other big boys don't know why the markets move the way they do? And there is no way to get the intrinsic value of any market at any time?
What you are describing sounds very like efficient market hypothesis which is a total BS cause otherwise you would never make any money. If you can get the value of the market or currency all you are doing is waiting till the price and the value will be in different places and you trade till the price finds acceptance.
Look I understand your point of view I had the same opinion coming in, In fact the only reason I joined was cause a friend on mine was bugging the s**t out of me and I really wanted to prove him wrong. But I am thanking him ever since.

I am not forcing you to do anything you can just ignore my comment.
As I said I have no idea how I ended up here. I don't do forums. So most likely in a while you will never hear from me again.

A word of advise if you are trading purely based on candle patterns, they work a hell of a lot better in supply and demand levels add volume to the occasion and if you learn how to trade candles with S&D levels with volume you will have a hell of a lot better accuracy. But you are still missing a ton of info. Trading purely on candles is like driving blind on a car with one wheel. When you add S&D and volume you are driving old car car that is good, but still you are driving blind.

I wish you guys all the luck in the world, you are going to need it.

- are you explaining me, and supposing my trading methods? you could conclude that from those 4 sentences i wrote? I'm amazed.
1) market doesn't have "hypothesis"
2) there are candlestick patterns which have 73%+ success rate as reversals confirmed in the next two trading sessions
3) there are candlestick patterns which have 65%+ success rate as continuations confirmed in the next two trading sessions
4) "big boys" as we call them haven't got the slightest clue as to why and where markets will move in a given period - yes they can try to buy us out or shake the tree from short positions, but that has nothing to do with their awareness or knowledge. It's simple business.
5) I know 3 old traders who don't even look at the frikin' ticker symbol when they trade - they are 65+ years old and doing very good

- the only point of a vague agreement I have with you is the "add volume to the occasion". But to correct your statement - candles ARE supply and demand, they tell ALL that one needs to know.
I was in the same loophole of burning accounts while looking for the news, thinking what "might" the big boys do, drowning myself in tons of mathematics behind oscillators and volume studies... ALL of those things LAG incredibly and the more volatile the market asset, the more one looses.
By reducing all that noise to candlestick patterns only, one will understand why it works incredibly good, even in forex, which doesnt have any volume whatsoever. Do you think Stevie Nison to be a twat?

Haha that is exactly what we want you to think. It is called probing, what we do is "probe" what kind of size will start slowing or reversing market at prices we like. If at any time I will decide that this is the price I would like to buy and reverse the market for my company I will do that. No problem. In fact I will create an illusion that the market continues in the previous direction only to make sure I will be able to fill my entire size. Well unless there is another "pal of mine" from different company/bank that decides to do the opposite, but in most cases we can clearly see if that is the case anyway. Here is another secret. We can't loose (to some extend). In fact if the position reverses against me most of the time I make even more money. Unless I am an idiot and I will forget to do, or screw up the hedging procedure. Lets make things clear in order to do this effectively, the hedging I mean you would need 500k + as a retail trader and I really need to know what the hell I am doing, but there is no way in hell you can influence market with that account though. That is like dropping grain of sand into a big river. When I am playing with few yards that is a different story.

In no way, shape or form have I underrated the importance of candles. Combined with volume for retail trader that is the largest piece of the puzzle. All I am saying is you will have better accuracy if you are paying more attention to candle formations in stronger supply and demand levels, you may have little less trades but your winning rate will improve significantly.

That is a point we agree up on 100%. As I said before "Any kind of lagging indicator or any indicator which properties can be changed and adjusted all you do is proving liquidity for us and we thank you for that."

Here is another secret that if you know how to use it properly your trading will skyrocket.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...rrency-traders
The author of this article has most likely no idea how correctly use this. But the title it self is 100%. If you are not watching the EUR USD spread interest rate swap and the yields and some other stuff, you are driving blind. And this is usable on W, D, 4h, 1h 5m. 1m, it doesn't matter what time frame.

If you would enter a position on my prop desk and I would ask you what is the case for entry? And you tell me "we have a declining volume coming into 4h level which is also where our sentiment trade is, and we got a beautiful engulfing candle. I would ask is this all? That example I gave you is a a good technical retail entry. But you do this on my floor without giving me any other reason for entry and you have a warning. One more warning and you are gone.

1 out of 8 monitors has chart on it, and the only reason why is to see where I can fool you into loading my position.

As I said twice before I don't do forums cause I believe it is a total waist of time and this conversation just proved my point. So I bid you guys fare well, I wish you all luck in the world and I am out.

P.S. We do not trade news, we are in our positions hours, days, in advance

What on God's green earth would incline you to speak of what I would say when asked what is the case for my entry? How do you know what I would say for a given potential market position?

- that's all you sellers do here - assume and think all traders act alike and will catch themselves on your hooks. Ah well...you gotta earn somehow right?

All this bickering aside, you practically didn't see anything I wrote - about candlestick patterns - they tell trader everything there is to know. Full stop. And less than 5% traders trade based on patterns...wait? isn't it true that 95% of wannabe traders fail? And you're telling me they fail because "WE" (what we do is "probe") control the price when we see fit?

If that is true, why didn't "you" shake the tree (Eur/Usd) on Sep 18th and Oct15th where I traded perfect Dark Cloud Cover patterns respectively, and I switched first pattern (after 150 pips in profit) into long position on Sep23 where I noticed perfect Piercing Line (SL: 100 pips, profit target 250 pips) until the second Dark Cloud Cover....

And that's what "YOU" have been pumping new traders all along...Good job on that

- whenever someone links something that has words: "100%, successful trading, bloomberg, skyrocket" I just run away, as I said before...

Even the greatest speculators in history never made consistent profits. Spectacular ups come with spetacular downs.
Indicators (the useful ones at least) were created to lag to act as low-pass filters.

To assume that price action has a 'leading' quality is also misleading. Any prediction of the future is a statement of opinion.
1. Ride your winners.
2. Cut your losses.
3. Manage risk.
4. Get a system and stick to it.

Demo,

I understand your comments on candlesticks -- that they tell the trader everything there is to know. But I'd also like to point out that there are several ways to trade profitably.

JJDtrade also talks about volumes, and S/D zones: the folk from TradeGuider have built a complete system around VSA, and Sam Seiden has built one around S/D zones. One trader I know is very successful using candlestick patterns, pivot levels and a few basic (dare I mention the word!) indicators. My friend Simon uses Ichimoku and harmonics (Gann, Gartley, Fibo etc). I also know two traders from the UK who trade range bars, GMMA, and some proprietary indicators that they developed themslves; one of them manages a large fund (including a small part of my invetsment portfolio, so I hope he knows what he's doing!). There are traders (like srmfx) who follow the "big money"; traders (like Darkstar) who use "orderflow"; traders (like Forexhard) who trade breakouts; and traders (like CrucialPoint) who follow price. And so on.

On the other hand, there are folk who will tell you that candlestick patterns provide no exploitable bias, fibo levels are no better than randomly drawn lines, indicators are lagging, tick volume is meaningless, most breakouts are fakeouts, TA doesn't work, FA doesn't work, that trading is nothing more than luck, and so on. Yet there are traders making money using every single one of those techniques. It's usually a case of people not knowing what they don't know. Here's a personal example:

Some time ago I believed that FA was unhelpful, that it was too esoteric and complex, that price responded illogically to news outcomes as often as not, and that most news outcomes were already 'priced in'. Just over 12 months ago, I met some traders who changed my views on FA, showing me a completely new and useful way of interpreting economic measures, to the point that FA has recently become one of the pillars of my trading. And these folk are among some of the biggest account traders that I'm aware of. Back then I was ignorant, now I've been suitably enlightened, and my trading is 100% better for it.

So when people say that X can't be made to work profitably, Y is useless, or Z is irrelevant, I reply "you don't know what you don't know yet". One trader's trash, perhaps used with a little discretion, can be another trader's treasure. There is no right or wrong way of seeing the markets, or performing your analysis; as long as you're comfortable with your own approach, and it brings you a level of income that you're happy with, that's all that matters.

There's also plenty of heated debate about semantics. There are folk who will tell you that entries are important than exits; that you should trade only with the trend; that S/R traders should wait for confirmation; that you should take profit quickly; that you should trade only the longer timeframes; that you should always use stoplosses; that method is more important than psychology; etc etc. And then there are folk who are equally insistent that the exact opposite of each of these things is true. Again, I believe that there's no correct answer: all are worthy of consideration, but it ultimately comes down to viewpoint that's been proven by personal experience. The more traders I talk with, the more I've come to learn that this is true. Here's an example of Bilstein and shellsnail using completely opposite techniques, and yet I'm sure both are profitable.

It's always uplifting to read comments from folk who agree with my own trading philosophy. But I recently read a comment from a FF member saying that he learns more from people who disagree with him. I wonder how many folk (including me!) would have the humility needed to embrace that.

Happy New Year to you,
David

This is a copy paste from jjdtrade's post - I have highlighted some very dangerous sentence constructions:

"""""If you ever placed a trade and you felt somebody is f******g with you and something is hidden from you, you were correct sir!

What will you get if you decide to go through this HELL
1, Clarity, you will know why the markets are moving the way they do.
2, If you ever had doubts after entering, if you made the right decision, that will be gone cause you will know exactly what is happening.
3, You will learn how to establish the value of your desired market which will make you confident about position before, during and after entering.
4, You will get the "WHY" no second guessing.
5, You will get the ability to see what the big guys are doing, when they are doing it where they are doing it and you will be able to copy then quite easily.
and sooooo much more."""""

Don't make me laugh...

644 words 3720 characters

FWIW, when I read a post, I tend to sift out things that might be helpful to me personally. For example, the material of JJD's that you copied is too vague to be useful, hence it makes no difference to me whether he knows what he's talking about, or not. But his earlier comments about filtering candle-based setups by using volume and S/D zones could be worth investigating.

If he's selling a course, he should be posting in the commercial section. Either way, I wouldn't consider buying it.