Before you even start trading, you must understand that you are not gambling. If your heart beat is racing while the pairs are moving, you're doing it wrong. Trading is just like any normal daily job: damn boring and repetitive. The idea is not to become a millionaire in a trade; rather the idea is to survive the market and make a living out of it. Few things you must have to learn before you start your trading practice: 1. Money management 2. Trend identification. Finally, 3. Support and resistance identification.
Money Management
Let me begin with the elephant in the room: money management. There's nothing more important than this factor. People always end up blowing up their accounts because they ignore this indispensable component of trading. Alright, let me go straight to the gist of it. First of all, You cannot risk more than 2% of the capital you're investing on any one trade and I cannot stress enough on this point. One major factor that contributes to the amount you will be risking is your STOP LOSS. SLs are very important because they determine the lot size you must adjust before you place your trade. Brokers allow you to move your Sl if you wish to BUT YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER MOVE YOUR STOP LOSS EVER once you have placed your trade. Why? well, because your stop loss is that 2% we talked about earlier. You have to adjust your lot size according to your stop loss. Then, the idea is to gain at least 1:2 from the trade but ideally you need 1:3 to be profitable in the long run. If you master this basic trick, if you can control yourself and never move your sl, never trade more than max 2% then, you have a chance to survive in this market. I'm going to attach the mt4 indicator which will do the boring maths for you and will give you the lot size based on your stop loss
. Now, there's lot more to that 1:2 and 1:3 philosophy which i have not included in here. You must do your own research on it before you start your trading practice.
Trend Identification
This is perhaps the hardest for most newcomers and professional alike. There's no one method out there to do so. Thousand upon thousand of indicators are out there which will claim that they will identify trend but to be very honest, they're all useless. Personally, I am a sucker for simplicity so I only use 3 SMAs to determine trend: 200, 50, and 10. The idea is simple, if the price is below 200 it's down trend and vice versa . There're fundamentals which also play a very important role in determining the trend and if you're the student of economics then you might have an edge over, let say someone like me, who do not completely understand the macro economics. I solely base my trend identification on those 3 SMAs I mentioned earlier and so far I'm doing well.
Along with trend identification, you must also pay attention to price patterns. The reason I'm not going to talk much about it here is because it is a very in depth topic and require it's own separate forum. But just to give you an overview: prices do not constantly move in one direction; if the trend is up then the price will move up for a while, retrace back, and then might continue moving in that direction. At least that is the main idea. There're lots of discussion and uncertainty whether the price will move again in that direction or not but generally, they do.
Support and resistance
Before i begin explaining the importance of SR, let me give a brief definition of each one of them for the real beginners.
Resistance: The imaginary line where the price stopped the last time when it was on up trend .
Support: The imaginary line where the price last stopped when it was in a downtrend .
As you must've noticed by now that both of them are imaginary lines and therefore very hard to determine. There's no one way to determine which one is a correct support or resistance. I'm going to attach the indicator i use to determine that
but by no means, it is the only one or the best one. Shop around to find a better one and if you do come across one, do let me now. Or, if you know a better way to calculate them than please do share that info with me. But one thing is very clear: you should NEVER place your trade without knowing them.
I've talked about STOP LOSSES earlier and mentioned how important they are and how you should never ever place your trade without them and the way to determine your stop loss is your support or resistance.
The idea to become a successful trader is not a make ton of money in the shortest period of time but rather it is to survive the market. If you practice patience, place only .5% of your capital, like I do, and get at least 1:2 of every trade you place then, I promise you, you will last very long and you will always be above your initial capital. These practices are applicable on all time frames; however, I use range bar chart which completely remove the time and show pure price. It works for me but does not necessarily be your cup of tea. I am going to include that just in case you need one. Good luck everyone and don't hesitate to ask me any question.
Money Management
Let me begin with the elephant in the room: money management. There's nothing more important than this factor. People always end up blowing up their accounts because they ignore this indispensable component of trading. Alright, let me go straight to the gist of it. First of all, You cannot risk more than 2% of the capital you're investing on any one trade and I cannot stress enough on this point. One major factor that contributes to the amount you will be risking is your STOP LOSS. SLs are very important because they determine the lot size you must adjust before you place your trade. Brokers allow you to move your Sl if you wish to BUT YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER MOVE YOUR STOP LOSS EVER once you have placed your trade. Why? well, because your stop loss is that 2% we talked about earlier. You have to adjust your lot size according to your stop loss. Then, the idea is to gain at least 1:2 from the trade but ideally you need 1:3 to be profitable in the long run. If you master this basic trick, if you can control yourself and never move your sl, never trade more than max 2% then, you have a chance to survive in this market. I'm going to attach the mt4 indicator which will do the boring maths for you and will give you the lot size based on your stop loss
Attached File(s)
PositionSizeCalculator_Separate.ex4
63 KB
|
447 downloads
Trend Identification
This is perhaps the hardest for most newcomers and professional alike. There's no one method out there to do so. Thousand upon thousand of indicators are out there which will claim that they will identify trend but to be very honest, they're all useless. Personally, I am a sucker for simplicity so I only use 3 SMAs to determine trend: 200, 50, and 10. The idea is simple, if the price is below 200 it's down trend and vice versa . There're fundamentals which also play a very important role in determining the trend and if you're the student of economics then you might have an edge over, let say someone like me, who do not completely understand the macro economics. I solely base my trend identification on those 3 SMAs I mentioned earlier and so far I'm doing well.
Along with trend identification, you must also pay attention to price patterns. The reason I'm not going to talk much about it here is because it is a very in depth topic and require it's own separate forum. But just to give you an overview: prices do not constantly move in one direction; if the trend is up then the price will move up for a while, retrace back, and then might continue moving in that direction. At least that is the main idea. There're lots of discussion and uncertainty whether the price will move again in that direction or not but generally, they do.
Support and resistance
Before i begin explaining the importance of SR, let me give a brief definition of each one of them for the real beginners.
Resistance: The imaginary line where the price stopped the last time when it was on up trend .
Support: The imaginary line where the price last stopped when it was in a downtrend .
As you must've noticed by now that both of them are imaginary lines and therefore very hard to determine. There's no one way to determine which one is a correct support or resistance. I'm going to attach the indicator i use to determine that
Attached File(s)
SDX-TzPivots.ex4
77 KB
|
321 downloads
Attached File(s)
SDX-TzPivots.ex4
77 KB
|
321 downloads
I've talked about STOP LOSSES earlier and mentioned how important they are and how you should never ever place your trade without them and the way to determine your stop loss is your support or resistance.
The idea to become a successful trader is not a make ton of money in the shortest period of time but rather it is to survive the market. If you practice patience, place only .5% of your capital, like I do, and get at least 1:2 of every trade you place then, I promise you, you will last very long and you will always be above your initial capital. These practices are applicable on all time frames; however, I use range bar chart which completely remove the time and show pure price. It works for me but does not necessarily be your cup of tea. I am going to include that just in case you need one. Good luck everyone and don't hesitate to ask me any question.
Attached File(s)
RangeBar.ex4
326 KB
|
330 downloads
Attached File(s)
PositionSizeCalculator_Separate.mq4
4 KB
|
342 downloads
SDX-TzPivots.mq4
24 KB
|
324 downloads