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Trading is Extremly hard!

  • #21
  • Feb 16, 2017 9:37am Feb 16, 2017 9:37am
Quoting bloodpoodle
Trading is extremely hard! 1. price can stall for months! Look at u/j stalled for 8 months at 102 and barley moved! 2. You must wait a long time for a good setup.. sometimes days/weeks. Sometimes a few a day. 3. You need years of chart time to understand how price is likely to move. 4. Summer and Christmas get real slow sometimes. 5. Not many people can be consistent. 6. Once you find a good system.. the conditions may not return for months for it to be profitable again. 7. Nobody opens a chart places a few trades then goes to the beach.. Alll the...
When you are dedicated and are serious about trading for a living, through perseverance & hard work you will learn to overcome all the points
that you have listed. No-one said that it was going to be easy, this is the domain of the internet marketeers only.
It never gets easier, you just get better
  • #22
  • Feb 16, 2017 11:40am Feb 16, 2017 11:40am
Trading is as hard as you make it. The difficulty is specifically determined by your investor goals and constraints.

If all you want to do is protect your money and generate a small amount of cash flow each year and basically match inflation. Trading is easy. Go buy a bond.

If you want to speculate and make massive returns, trading gets really really really really hard really quickly.

And trading is impossibly hard when you don't have concrete investor goals and are aware of the investor constraints that face you.
  • #23
  • Feb 16, 2017 11:50am Feb 16, 2017 11:50am
I think of trading, now, as a puzzle, a very difficult, complex puzzle, and I say now after trading for 10 years because when I first looked at a chart in 2007, like most newbies, I reckoned I'd have it figured out inside six months!

This thread starter was right to list all of the reasons why trading is so hard, and right to put the cognitive skills and knowledge required near the top of his list, because above all, this is where most people fall short- they simply have no idea at the start, as I didn't, how long it is going to take to understand, fully understand, price movement. Trading is a complex puzzle, and puzzles can be solved by almost anyone with a healthy brain provided they stick at it long enough. Any attempt to trade live before the puzzle is solved always ends in failure. Trading when the puzzle has been solved, and many of the psychological challenges take care of themselves. Solving the puzzle will not produce perfection of course, but it will give the edge we all need to profit consistently, week in, week out.
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  • #24
  • Feb 16, 2017 6:55pm Feb 16, 2017 6:55pm
Well I must agree to what Cat has pointed out, ever since I started trading I have lost quite a sum of money invested in trading but that's because I never disciplined myself well enough to accept the money I had made on that particular trade therefore after acquiring profit I would immediately reinvest that profit but with a bigger lot size which was the biggest mistake I had made at that time "I should have followed my money management rule" of sticking to a reasonable lot size which will also allow me to grow my capital.

I also strongly believe and suggest that as Traders we need make adjustments in our character in terms of learning not to be emotional when we lose money instead we should be content with losing it because after all there is no reward without risk. I'm still learning alot in Forex hopefully I 'l be able to learn what I don't from you guys.

Happy Trading Every1
MrThabo
  • #25
  • Feb 16, 2017 7:16pm Feb 16, 2017 7:16pm
Quoting bloodpoodle
Trading is extremely hard! 1. price can stall for months! Look at u/j stalled for 8 months at 102 and barley moved! 2. You must wait a long time for a good setup.. sometimes days/weeks. Sometimes a few a day. 3. You need years of chart time to understand how price is likely to move. 4. Summer and Christmas get real slow sometimes. 5. Not many people can be consistent. 6. Once you find a good system.. the conditions may not return for months for it to be profitable again. 7. Nobody opens a chart places a few trades then goes to the beach.. Alll the...
Trade swings.Don't have to wait years.....average swings lasts 3-5days.You got to develop strategy that benefits your style of trading which in general how your personality is.I don't like scalping my focus is on swings but others do well scalping.
I treat trading like ART. As a painter I see how constructing a portrait takes lot of consideration.One never just takes a canvas and starts painting an eye.It start with overall domentions ,shape,the pose then skeleton generalities and slowly constructing the face features.
In trading is the same you start with the big picture,fundamentals,news then slowly zero in to price.
Good luck
In trading, you have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time
  • #26
  • Edited 9:39pm Feb 16, 2017 8:01pm | Edited 9:39pm
Quoting bloodpoodle
Trading is extremely hard!
Yes it is but for every problem there is always a solution. Please see below:

Quoting bloodpoodle
1. price can stall for months! Look at u/j stalled for 8 months at 102 and barley moved!
Know thy preferred timeframe. Are you going to trade few min. or hours or days, weeks or months or even longer? And then find an instrument that moves within the timeframe that you want to trade in. Every instrument is different; some moves within minutes and some don't move in months. Or alternatively, adjust your position size and shorten your timeframe. If an instrument is trading flat, trade larger size in shorter timeframe to capture the smaller movement and meanwhile if you still want to catch the large movement in longer term, keep a small position open for longer term to capture the bigger profit potential.

Quoting bloodpoodle
2. You must wait a long time for a good setup.. sometimes days/weeks. Sometimes a few a day.
Consider re-designing your setup rules so it will show up more often but without much sacrifice on profitability.

Quoting bloodpoodle
3. You need years of chart time to understand how price is likely to move.
Not the case for everybody. The ability to read charts DOES get better the more you observe charts in real time and doing more research learning about how PA moves and how they show up on charts.

Quoting bloodpoodle
4. Summer and Christmas get real slow sometimes.
Reduce trading during summer and ABSOLUTELY NO TRADING during Christmas or any other major US holidays. They are slow for a reason because these are the times that you are supposed to be spending with your friends and family ESPECIALLY your family. They are MORE IMPORTANT than ANYTHING in the world. You can lose anything in the world, money, prestige, status, reputation, even health but you CANNOT lose your family. If you want to succeed in trading, familial support is #1!!! I will repeat your familial support is Number 1!!! They are your financial and emotional support when you are still making losses trying to figure out the market and how to trade and they are your celebration companions when you do make it in trading. Without their support, you will NOT make it in trading. All of the successful traders have all made their windfall either when they were still in school (supported by their parents) or single or with a very stable family. You cannot name ONE trader who've made millions while going through a divorce. They can go through divorce later AFTER they've become successful but NOT when they are working towards their success.

Quoting bloodpoodle
5. Not many people can be consistent.
Eventually when you have found a trading system and you should, try to program it for the trading system to be automatically executed by the machine. While people are not consistent, machines are.

Quoting bloodpoodle
6. Once you find a good system.. the conditions may not return for months for it to be profitable again.
That's why you WAIT for your setup. And if you can, you can do the solution for No. 2 problem to see if it helps.

Quoting bloodpoodle
7. Nobody opens a chart places a few trades then goes to the beach.. Alll the good traders I know are constantly working at it. even weekends.
That is the reality for trading and that is actually the reality for running any businesses. Trading is a business NOT a leisure hobby so trading is no exception. If you don't like this reality, then the only solution is quit trading.

Quoting bloodpoodle
8. There will be down weeks.. Times when you work a whole week and don't make anything, and lose.
Again another reality of trading. Trading is like fishing or going to battles. You prepare everything to the hilt and you can still lose. So a solution for this is NEVER trade with money that you CANNOT afford to lose that means NO TRADING with money that you have set aside to pay rent, mortgage, food, clothes and transportation for you and your family. Trade ONLY with your spare savings that if you happen to lose will NOT affect your lifestyle in a great deal, i.e. the whole family sleeping on the street or going hungry. And if you don't have any spare savings or not enough spare savings that would allow you to absorb potential losses from your trading activities, then trading is not for you.

Quoting bloodpoodle
9. Trading is a struggle with yourself more then the markets.. Humans arn't programmed for trading.
Trading is a skill that can be learned. Just like anything else, you need to be proficient at a skill to be successful and trading is no exception.

Quoting bloodpoodle
10. black swan events can ruin you in seconds.. Look at e/chf when they dropped the peg!
DO NOT TRADE NEWS!!! If you have a sound trading system/strategy, just ordinary PA should give you decent profits already. It is NOT worth it to gamble with those news events. You WILL lose more than win with news trading because even if you were correct about the news event result, you will NEVER be sure how the market will react with the results of the news. You could've guessed correctly that the news event that should result in your currency pair moving one direction but your currency pair might still not move in that direction and instead move the opposite direction could drop in value with you incurring a loss still let alone black swan events where the news event results is a complete surprise to the market. If you stay away from trading news then you would reduce tremendously the exposure to risks caused by those unpredictable black swan events. A good rule of thumb, any events having to do with central bank should at best be avoided, events such as rate decisions (SNB event was a rate decision event), meeting minutes, key speeches and also major economic numbers like unemployment rate, employment numbers and etc.

Hope these helps. Good luck!
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #27
  • Feb 16, 2017 8:28pm Feb 16, 2017 8:28pm
It's a life game , and demands dedication.
  • #28
  • Feb 16, 2017 8:42pm Feb 16, 2017 8:42pm
Trading is extremely hard for people who do not know what they are doing. I have repeated this many times : You are at most risk of losing money when you do not know what you are doing!

Sadly most people on FF don't. They come on this site to look for answers but they ask the wrong questions.
You came here for the truth and let me unveil it for you
  • #29
  • Feb 16, 2017 11:00pm Feb 16, 2017 11:00pm
Quoting cat
{quote} Most of your points are valid, though I'd like to pick up on one or two of them if I may. 1/ This only applies to trading off large time frames. A typical intra-day retail trader trading off of time frames down to 1 minute or lower, this does not apply. If price on any one day on the pair you are trading is trapped and not going anywhere, look elsewhere. The markets offer thousands of wonderful trading opportunities every single day, and our jobs as traders is to identify and capitalize on them. 2/ Again, it's relative to the time frame....

I'm curious, what kind of personality is (in your opinion) needed for trading?
  • #30
  • Feb 16, 2017 11:18pm Feb 16, 2017 11:18pm
Quoting michisuperfr
First it's extremely hard and then it's extremely boring
if you are excited, while trading, you are doing something wrong... that is what the professional mentors teach the young professional traders, right?;-)
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Maadik Hugiis. IQ 69.
  • #31
  • Feb 17, 2017 12:19am Feb 17, 2017 12:19am
Quoting profitkeeper
I think you have summed it up nicely. This is a dose of reality for every trader or wanna be trader.
I used to think so, then i got into volume and price profiles, and trade retracements. There are plenty of set ups in forex with just with the main ones every day using reversal times with the profiles, you also have london and U.S sessions, and good plays after news. I don't use big time frames i trade off 5 min charts, works for me!
  • #32
  • Feb 17, 2017 12:28am Feb 17, 2017 12:28am
The trend is your friend until the end when it bends.. mr ed well said, just go with the trend.
  • #33
  • Feb 17, 2017 1:16am Feb 17, 2017 1:16am
Quoting RondaRousey
Trading is extremely hard for people who do not know what they are doing. I have repeated this many times : You are at most risk of losing money when you do not know what you are doing! Sadly most people on FF don't. They come on this site to look for answers but they ask the wrong questions.
This is a very true advice
Let Market Tell You
  • #34
  • Feb 17, 2017 1:33am Feb 17, 2017 1:33am
Quoting bloodpoodle
Trading is extremely hard! 1. price can stall for months! Look at u/j stalled for 8 months at 102 and barley moved! 2. You must wait a long time for a good setup.. sometimes days/weeks. Sometimes a few a day. 3. You need years of chart time to understand how price is likely to move. 4. Summer and Christmas get real slow sometimes. 5. Not many people can be consistent. 6. Once you find a good system.. the conditions may not return for months for it to be profitable again. 7. Nobody opens a chart places a few trades then goes to the beach.. Alll the...
1 now it moved... xD
2 find more setup, i got 3 kind of setup.. for any market condition (i trade 3 system) and put the biggest money on the best setup at that moment.. thank fully 2/3 setup is working nicely...
3. depends on what time frame.. i trade in m5 h1 and daily
4. true
5. damn true
6. as i said before... dont trade on one strategy, use minimum 2/3 on a different time frame and conditions
7. i can, because im a semi automatic, lazy trader
8. thats life..if u keep doing it.. for a long term..money will come .
9. best trader is a combination of robot and human
10 which is why, money management is the most important
  • #35
  • Edited 2:28am Feb 17, 2017 1:59am | Edited 2:28am
Quoting TalonTromper
{quote} I'm curious, what kind of personality is (in your opinion) needed for trading?
If you are someone who can pursue a dream or an ambition relentlessly for as long as it takes, and is willing to sacrifice anything, and I mean anything, to reach that goal, and can get up to fight again with even more enthusiasm than you had before despite being punched to the floor again and again and again, then as long as you have a good head on your shoulders and are a reasonably well organized, disciplined and rational thinker, you have as good a chance as anyone of making it in this business.
  • #36
  • Feb 17, 2017 2:35am Feb 17, 2017 2:35am
Quoting cat
{quote} If you are someone who can pursue a dream or an ambition relentlessly for as long as it takes, and is willing to sacrifice anything, and I mean anything, to reach that goal, and can get up to fight again with even more enthusiasm than you had before despite being punched to the floor again and again and again, then as long as you have a good head on your shoulders and are a reasonably well organized, disciplined and rational thinker, you have as good a chance as anyone of making it in this business.
You mean like someone in your profile picture...

All jokes aside, thanks for the sane advice and the brutal truth...
  • #37
  • Feb 17, 2017 2:43am Feb 17, 2017 2:43am
Quoting aaven
{quote} You mean like someone in your profile picture... All jokes aside, thanks for the sane advice and the brutal truth...
You're welcome. And I should have added that you have to be someone who is able and willing to learn by your mistakes and that there is no such thing as perfection in trading, even though you must always seek it...
  • #38
  • Feb 17, 2017 2:55am Feb 17, 2017 2:55am
in case you have not noticed how smart and intelligent i am, here is a little drop of my ocean of wisdom...
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Maadik Hugiis. IQ 69.
  • #39
  • Feb 17, 2017 3:05am Feb 17, 2017 3:05am
Quoting Spidey
{quote} Alphaomega, I admired your post. In many ways it reminds me of me. I've been trading (or trying to) for 6 years. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of charts and I like the chart setups I use, but the last 6-8 months have still been among the worst I've gone through. I've made a bit here and there, but the biggest problem for me has been failing to set a stop loss... hence I've had many huge losses that have, over time, blown my account 15-20 times, or maybe more. Despite all that, I'm still confident that I can earn money. At the...
  • #40
  • Feb 17, 2017 3:43am Feb 17, 2017 3:43am
Quoting alphaomega
{quote} No bosses, no business partners, no clients.... you don't have to answer to anyone. 100% independence... But even this is not enough motivation. Because people are lazy like hell. Lazy and fearful.
Thanks for the whole post, it pretty much sums it up.

I really like your idea that there is no bosses, no business partners and no clients, that's why you have to pay attention on different area while you're trading and also this is why it's "harder" than e.g. a regular job. In a job there is specific goals and task, clear objectives, but in trading objectives and tasks depends 100% on you. You are the boss, the business partner and the client. =>
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So many people couldn't handle that much amount of freedom and give up to feel the comfort of the clear objectives (which is actually not yours).

Thanks again for sharing your ideas!
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