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  • #1,021
  • Jan 10, 2017 9:49am Jan 10, 2017 9:49am
Quoting cat
{quote} Sure, spread for those still learning is important, as is the personality of the pair, so a pair like NZDUSD or EU are going to be more suitable for someone who is still learning the markets, but after you want a pair that really moves when it does. Spreads around the 1-4 mark are irrelevant because whether you're on a 1p pip or a 4 pip spread, a bad entry is still going to be a bad entry and will get stopped out on either. The bigger spreads and the pairs with the highest ATR will require a larger stop loss, but I'd rather be capturing...
The stoploss & targets are set according what the chart tells you it is safe to do so, your lotsize will be based on your atoploss placement factoring in
your own risk profile, so with a smaller stoploss your lotsize will be bigger, so as long as the TP is at the minmum of more than 1:1 RR or greater, your profit should be very similar. Yes you may have bagged more pips in number, but the bottom line is profit over capital risked.
I don't think it has anything to do with being a newbie or not. Again, it is about the personality of the trader & the currency pair.
It never gets easier, you just get better
  • #1,022
  • Jan 10, 2017 10:33am Jan 10, 2017 10:33am
Quoting Shabs19
{quote} The stoploss & targets are set according what the chart tells you it is safe to do so, your lotsize will be based on your atoploss placement factoring in your own risk profile, so with a smaller stoploss your lotsize will be bigger, so as long as the TP is at the minmum of more than 1:1 RR or greater, your profit should be very similar. Yes you may have bagged more pips in number, but the bottom line is profit over capital risked. I don't think it has anything to do with being a newbie or not. Again, it is about the personality of the trader...
Stop loss size shouldn't vary too much from trade to trade on a normal trading day, only after big news events when the range increases beyond the ordinary does it need to be considerably widened. So on my entry chart, which is 10 or 20 seconds, a 15 pip SL is usually wide enough as usually if I get stopped out it is due more to me making a bad entry than any unexpected adverse price movement. The bottom line is indeed profit over risk, but if traders are struggling to get ahead, finding as many do that their losses keep pegging back their profits, there are two approaches to take, the first being to increase your win/loss ratio, and the other is to move to a pair which will give considerably more pips per winning trade, so your win/loss ratio may well stay the same, buy your profit/loss ratio will increase because you are gaining more pips for each winning trade than you were before.

Risk profile of course varies from person to person depending on win/loss ratio, but generally any more than 1-2% is excessive. To earn a living from trading, that's feeding the family, paying the rent or mortgage etc etc, one needs to have a very big account which is why most traders who go full time never make it - their account just isn't large enough so that take on too much risk to compensate and soon blow their account. So it is all about being a newbie or not. Traders new to the business should never ever be doing anything except learning how to trade with risk they can afford, slowly building up their trading account if they have one. I have known traders chuck in their jobs within just a few months of looking at their first charts.

Lastly, it's got nothing to do with the personality of the trader or the currency pair, and everything to do with whether he'she has learnt how to trade, because whatever their personality or whatever currency pair they trade, they will lose money if they haven't built a solid strategy which gives a higher number of wins than losses. Only then does personality and pair traded come into the equation, and when one does have an edge, and is winning consistently, one can then begin to pick higher yielding pairs.
  • #1,023
  • Edited 10:56am Jan 10, 2017 10:45am | Edited 10:56am
To me everything has to be pre-calculated sl, tp, lotsize have to be precisely defined and calculated no matter what the pair or the timeframe for every single trade taken. I use a semi-automated expert which I manually execute that also do the trade management.

I agree with cat about choosing higher yielding pairs. But it may be that eu/nu may yield more than gu on some days and this may not be due to news release.
  • #1,024
  • Jan 10, 2017 11:02am Jan 10, 2017 11:02am
Quoting cat
{quote} Traders new to the business should never ever be doing anything except learning how to trade with risk they can afford, slowly building up their trading account if they have one.
...............and everything to do with whether he'she has learnt how to trade,
It never gets easier, you just get better
  • #1,025
  • Jan 10, 2017 11:43am Jan 10, 2017 11:43am
Quoting cat
{quote} Stop loss size shouldn't vary too much from trade to trade on a normal trading day
Stoploss placement is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp for most people. It can't be a set size for all currrency pairs, fixed stoploss sizes
or stop placement at the obvious places mean they will get hunted by professional traders.
I know News events will change things that's why I trade shortly after the News event when things normalise.
Stoplosses & Take Profits will require a bit more knowledge of reading charts than just picking a number.
It never gets easier, you just get better
  • #1,026
  • Jan 10, 2017 11:51am Jan 10, 2017 11:51am
Quoting Shabs19
{quote} Stoploss placement is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp for most people. It can't be a set size for all currrency pairs, fixed stoploss sizes or stop placement at the obvious places mean they will get hunted by professional traders. I know News events will change things that's why I trade shortly after the News event when things normalise. Stoplosses & Take Profits will require a bit more knowledge of reading charts than just picking a number.
This is where experience comes into it, you just get to know pretty much where you need to put it. As a standard though, beyond the Bollinger band usually gets it about right, which is the main reason I use one.
  • #1,027
  • Jan 10, 2017 11:51am Jan 10, 2017 11:51am
Quoting Shabs19
{quote} Stoploss placement is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp for most people. It can't be a set size for all currrency pairs, fixed stoploss sizes or stop placement at the obvious places mean they will get hunted by professional traders. I know News events will change things that's why I trade shortly after the News event when things normalise. Stoplosses & Take Profits will require a bit more knowledge of reading charts than just picking a number.
If stoploss placement is difficult, takeprofit placement is a lot harder. When the trader knows exactly when to enter a trade it makes the stoploss placement a lot easier. It becomes difficult if the trader does not enter his trade at the optimal moment, he gave no thought to his trade entry process.
  • #1,028
  • Jan 10, 2017 12:01pm Jan 10, 2017 12:01pm
Quoting skyway
{quote} If stoploss placement is difficult, takeprofit placement is a lot harder. When the trader knows exactly when to enter a trade it makes the stoploss placement a lot easier. It becomes difficult if the trader does not enter his trade at the optimal moment, he gave no thought to his trade entry process.
Yes. If it takes years to get the entries down to a fine art, it takes just as many more years to reach the same level of accuracy with the exits, if ever that is possible, which it probably isn't.
  • #1,029
  • Edited 11:51pm Jan 10, 2017 11:17pm | Edited 11:51pm
Quoting cat
{quote} That's the difference. You need to make winning trades net significantly more per trade than you risk. You can do this with the likes of GJ or to a lesser extent GU, but it is much harder to do it with the more sluggish pairs like EU. In fact, I'm always amazed why so many traders gravitate to them...I think its more herd mentality than anything else.
You bring up a good point. Risk to reward ratio is essential. In the long run even if your winning trades are about 50% if your risk to reward ratio is 1:1 you'll end up breakeven at best.

I trade EURAUD because its less chaotic and somewhat predictable ( I'm still fairly new ). I used to trade from 5AM GMT through Frankfurt and usually used to skip London. Trading EURAUD during these hours the risk was just not worth taking, so I started trading London again. One thing to consider (trade London if you're trading EU currency) I think for new traders if they've settled on a pair like mine that doesn't move as much as GJ.
...
  • #1,030
  • Jan 11, 2017 1:38am Jan 11, 2017 1:38am
Quoting Piquant
{quote} You bring up a good point. Risk to reward ratio is essential. In the long run even if your winning trades are about 50% if your risk to reward ratio is 1:1 you'll end up breakeven at best. I trade EURAUD because its less chaotic and somewhat predictable ( I'm still fairly new ). I used to trade from 5AM GMT through Frankfurt and usually used to skip London. Trading EURAUD during these hours the risk was just not worth taking, so I started trading London again. One thing to consider (trade London if you're trading EU currency) I think for...
R:R needs to be a minimum of 1:3 really, at least that's what we should be aiming for. We risk what we can afford though so that even after 5 consecutive losing trades, or even 10, we're still in the game ( though you'd need to seriously examine your strategy). Risking more than 2% per trade and in trouble? Bring it down to 1% or less.
  • #1,031
  • Jan 12, 2017 5:26am Jan 12, 2017 5:26am
Incredibly important that as a trader you keep physically fit, I would never be able to stress this strongly enough. Long hours sitting will turn your muscles to jelly if you do not, every day, do at least one hour of at least mildly strenuous physical exercise.

Also, if you suffer from back ache, which I know many traders do if they do not make a concerted effort it prevent it, then try this exercise. I hold it for four minutes every morning as part of my morning exercise routine, and I promise you it will help cure back pain by strengthening the core muscles your spine needs for support. If you allow your core muscles to weaken to the point where they are no longer strong enough to prevent curvature of the spine, you are going to get back pain.

To begin with, hold the position for as long as you can and work up to 4 mins ( I could go higher but 4 mins seems to be sufficient ) Make sure you keep your back straight, and get cats and/or dogs out of the room as they normally see it as a game and start jumping all over you ( my cat likes to stick her ass in my face, which doesn't help concentration!! )
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  • #1,032
  • Jan 12, 2017 8:59am Jan 12, 2017 8:59am
Quoting cat
{quote} Yes. If it takes years to get the entries down to a fine art, it takes just as many more years to reach the same level of accuracy with the exits, if ever that is possible, which it probably isn't.
In the game of trading what separates the true masters against the also runs is their profit taking plans/strategies, not their entries....

But as Cat rightly points out, it's never going to be possible to have a perfect profit taking plan. The way the game is setup, there is no way to get there. Although you can probably have the perfect entries.
Road To Wisdom? To err and err and err again, but less and less and less...
  • #1,033
  • Jan 12, 2017 9:57am Jan 12, 2017 9:57am
Quoting cat
Dollar basket looks to me to be putting in a top on the weekly, which wouldn't be a surprise as its very over extended. This will have implications right across the board, obviously bringing the $ and US/European stocks down, the euro.sterling up. Keep an eye on it, we could be a t a pivotal juncture in the markets. Time will tell. {image}
As I thought, it was topping, and the Daily has put in massive diversion as you can see. Bye Bye US Dollar!
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  • #1,034
  • Jan 15, 2017 2:23am Jan 15, 2017 2:23am
Quoting cat
Incredibly important that as a trader you keep physically fit, I would never be able to stress this strongly enough. Long hours sitting will turn your muscles to jelly if you do not, every day, do at least one hour of at least mildly strenuous physical exercise. Also, if you suffer from back ache, which I know many traders do if they do not make a concerted effort it prevent it, then try this exercise. I hold it for four minutes every morning as part of my morning exercise routine, and I promise you it will help cure back pain by strengthening the...
Yes, becoming a master trader turned my muscles into jelly. This is not a joke. Attractive women are physically fit generally. When you actually put yourself in the position where you can compete with resources, you might find that you left your body behind. I am in the process of trying to fix this now.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #1,035
  • Jan 15, 2017 4:38am Jan 15, 2017 4:38am
Quoting cat
Incredibly important that as a trader you keep physically fit, I would never be able to stress this strongly enough. Long hours sitting will turn your muscles to jelly if you do not, every day, do at least one hour of at least mildly strenuous physical exercise. Also, if you suffer from back ache, which I know many traders do if they do not make a concerted effort it prevent it, then try this exercise. I hold it for four minutes every morning as part of my morning exercise routine, and I promise you it will help cure back pain by strengthening the...
Just tried a 7 minute workout app this morning. Ended up running the threadmill for 15 minutes and did some planking. Felt good mang.
  • #1,036
  • Jan 15, 2017 8:26am Jan 15, 2017 8:26am
Quoting jmn5611
{quote} Yes, becoming a master trader turned my muscles into jelly. This is not a joke. Attractive women are physically fit generally. When you actually put yourself in the position where you can compete with resources, you might find that you left your body behind. I am in the process of trying to fix this now.
Good to hear it 5611
  • #1,037
  • Jan 15, 2017 8:30am Jan 15, 2017 8:30am
Quoting CrocodileRex
{quote} Just tried a 7 minute workout app this morning. Ended up running the threadmill for 15 minutes and did some planking. Felt good mang.
...you see, just one post about the importance of physical fitness and the whole ff community is running on treadmills and turning their marshmallow abdomens into rods of iron
  • #1,038
  • Jan 15, 2017 11:08am Jan 15, 2017 11:08am
If your computer is running slow, you probably need to free up disk space. There are loads of 'clean up your computer ' ads on google, don't bother with them as they are a scam. What they do is offer a free diagnosis which then shows you that your computer is infected with thousands of bugs and gremlins which you then have to pay $30 or so for the disk cleaning software they offer. Many people do not realize that Windows has the facility to free up unwanted disk space already. For Windows 7 and vista follow these steps.

Click Start, then choose ' All programs ' - Accessories - Systems Tools - Disk Cleanup.

In the Disk Cleanup box you will now see, tick all the boxes ( don't worry, if anything was important for the running of your computer, it wouldn't be there ) One exception is the ' Hibernation file cleaner ', if you see that, do not remove it.

Press OK. Your computer will now start deleting unnecessary files, giving you more disk space and speeding up your computer. If you however see a ' Delete files ' button after you've clicked ok, then click that and the clean up process will begin. When it's complete, the ' Disk Cleanup ' window goes away and you are done.
  • #1,039
  • Jan 15, 2017 11:20am Jan 15, 2017 11:20am
Thank you for this tip. It's been a while since i have done some computer clean up. Yes, my mt4 has been running very slow lately with all the extra indicators added. Too much junk on my computer now i think.

My computer still have about 500GB free disk space but i think it won't hurt cleaning up once a while.
  • #1,040
  • Jan 15, 2017 11:54am Jan 15, 2017 11:54am
Quoting cat
If your computer is running slow, you probably need to free up disk space. There are loads of 'clean up your computer ' ads on google, don't bother with them as they are a scam. What they do is offer a free diagnosis which then shows you that your computer is infected with thousands of bugs and gremlins which you then have to pay $30 or so for the disk cleaning software they offer. Many people do not realize that Windows has the facility to free up unwanted disk space already. For Windows 7 and vista follow these steps. Click Start, then choose...
In addition to what cat posted, ensuring you have sufficient amount of RAM will go a long way when it comes to performance. In my opinion, a PC should have a minimum of 8 GB to optimally run most of today's common user software as well as the software of the next 2-3 years.

Right clicking on 'This PC' and selecting 'Properties' will open a screen where you can find 'Installed memory (RAM)'.
Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things...
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