PipsMatter: Live Trading & Traders Education

My Introduction

Dear Traders, my name is Dennis and I am the founder and CEO of PipsMatter.com, in this thread I trust that I will give you enough information about the markets, both from the traders and the brokers side that will help you in one way or the other.

From the traders side I will be giving information about the way I trade, what I am trading and how I will trade. On the broker's side I will be giving you specific information about the industry and how it operates.

The main objective of this thread is to give you all the knowledge I have of trading, the markets and anything else that might help you become a better, more consistent trader. I will be giving you more than 7 years of direct experience, this experience has been valuable to me and I am sure it will be for you too.

I believe that in life, as the great book "Think and Grow Rich" advises, we must have some definite aim to achieve happiness, good health, wealth and knowledge. Money will not bring all the happiness nor will it help you attain much of it, that is why they say that if you want to become a millionaire you must first be one.

The best way I know how to help others is to show them how to help themselves, that is why knowledge properly presented to others is the greatest good that I can do for them and at the same time I will do good for myself.

I have been involved in the markets off and on since 2007, I started off by teaching myself via BabyPips and by reading different books, I then started working in a Binary Options broker and due to my work ethics I was quickly promoted in a managerial and trainers role. After working at this broker for 2 years, winning different awards, such as Employee of the year, I moved into Forex, I worked as a trainer and educator before becoming a consultant and fund manager. I worked for a total of 6 different EU regulated brokers and have assisted in the creation of two others. As you will see, I have vast knowledge and understanding of the financial markets and I earnt my knowledge with consistent and hard work over a number of years, and I am only getting started.

When I started trading, just like many newbies, I failed numerous times, I look for the "easy" systems that would give me clear buy or sell signals and all I would have to do is click my mouse and I would be rich... how wrong was I... Below I explain the different roles and experiences and what they have taught me. Especially about trading.

I hope this thread helps you in your trading or atleast guides you to the right path.

How Brokers Operate

First of all.... I can tell you right now that 9 out of 10 "account managers" in the B.O and FX industry have no clue what trading is, ok they know the small stuff, the stuff they learn on Babypips or in training, most of them have never read a book about trading and I can say with all certainty that 9.9 out of 10 of them have NEVER had a real trading account... they are working in the industry because they cannot find another job (since 0 of them studied economics or something else that might be related to trading/investing.

They are being paid to bring more clients to their employer, not help you and that is a fact since 9.9 out of 10 brokers are Market Makers, thus it is in their interest for you to lose.

They earn commission on your deposit and a VERY SMALL volume (if at all) from your trading, thus it is in their interest for you to deposit and deposit BIG, if they sense you have money, they will be your best friend.... until.... you deposit and especial when you lose, that is when other tactics come into play but I will speak about this another time, the moral towards what I am saying is. Do not trust your broker, in fact don't even trust me but especially your "account manager", he/she has little interest in you.

So in summary, most brokers operate on the B book license which means they earn 100% of your losses and have to give you 100% of the profits from their pocket. If that is not CONFLICT OF INTEREST then I don't what else could be.

Don't get me wrong, you are always being B booked by someone else, but I would rather be B booked by a liquidity provider than my broker... that is why there are only a few brokers I would trade with.

One way to notice you are trading with a B Book Broker is that they have an offshore license such as Belize or any of the other "barely regulated" is trading against you, I won't mention names but you can check the bottom of their webpage to see who they are regulated by and a wise thing to do is to actually double check with the actual regulators if they are regulated.

You can never be too safe in the markets and I say that from real experience, I saw some f***** up stuff and that is with FULLY REGULATED brokers. I have even had bad experience.

This is a non-commercial post

I will not be speaking or answering questions about my business. My apologies in advance but I will simply ignore your question. This thread is only about the financial markets.


My trading system (Technical)

The complete technical system is pretty simple, I believe that simplicity in trading is important, we need to make trading (execution, management and exits) effortless, the hard work remains in the preparation (research and everything else that happens before a trade is taken) this is why my system is easy to use and again, I hope it helps you with your trading.

Firstly I use some called Mathematical Points of Interest, it is basically the 12.5% added from the lowest low to the highest high (all-time). In the below images I will explain how this works. I also add Pivot Points to the mix and I top it up with 2 EMA's a 30 and 60 day setting.

I will be explaining the full system in another post and will join them in later next week. Stay tuned for the system.


What will be happening from today

I will begin releasing analysis, the trades I will be taking and their outcomes. I will also release information about trading, such as educational material.

THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED.

Interesting!...

Losing is a part of the process


The only way to have confidence in your trading is to have a system that is going to win in the long run. Losses are a part of winning and they will always be around but, I know that my system supports me in the long run if I stick to it. As long as I follow my rules and system I am going to come out on top.

What I like to say is that "we cannot change the past but we can create the future", this little phrase/quote has helped me look at the future with confidence and the confidence comes to me from working hard on the way I trade, analyzing the markets comprehensively and rehearsing my rules and outcomes with the power of future pacing.

Most people give up on trading systems pretty quickly so in this post I will be sharing with you a new rule, rule number 12, a rule I will be adding to my already 11 trading rules that will help you with bad periods which of course bring losses.

(When the post above is edited I will be attaching the trading rules and other PDF's such as the winners manifesto and risk management calculator)

My knowledge came from 3 places, books, action and experience, from reading books I was able to develop an interesting technique that has helped me lower my losses and increase my profits, I know it sounds cheesy but just read below.

The process of anything in the world is that is that opposites, for example... the day is followed by night (the sun by the moon), good weather with bad weather, fresh food with rotten food and the list goes on... that means that in trading good times are followed by bad times and bad times are followed by good times so if we can lower our trading activity or trading size in the bad times or at the peak of the good times our chances of winning increase and the opposite goes for the losing.

Risk Management

Before I explain this technique it is important to note that I have 3 different layers of risk

 

1. Conservative: Not risking more than 0.6%
2. Moderate: Not risking more than 1.5%
3. Aggressive: Not risking more than 3%

*In special cases I would sometimes increase my risk on 1 account to achieve a goal by ONLY RISKING PROFITS (such as the case of my current account)*

The risk I take per trade depends on the trade (everything about it is analyzed, all the troubles that can affect me or assist me) and how my account is doing in the last 3, 6 or 9 days.

The best way to set stop losses

Rule number 1 in my trading list is STOP LOSS and the rule goes like this,

NEVER MOVE OR REMOVE YOUR SL: Once a trade is open add an SL at an area that if reach will mean you were wrong and the trade idea didn't workout.

Now here is how I set stop losses, it is a 3 step process.

1. Find the area where if price goes will mean you are wrong. This is where my SL will be.
2. Analyze how much you are willing to lose on this trade. Also check what the possible reward is on the trade.
3. Determine your position size based on how close/far my SL will be.

Trading Discipline

I believe that successful traders have 3 things in common, 1. Losses 2. Mindset and 3. Discipline. The technique I am about to mention can only be effective if you have the discipline to follow through but I can assure you, if you follow this little trick, you will seriously increase your accounts longevity in the markets and possibly your returns too.

This is simple, no big deal. Like I explain above, periods of winning are followed by periods of losing, just like good days are followed by bad days.

The Idea

When you are on fire or just doing well in the markets (have made profits) it would be wise to lower your risks (not increase them like most traders do), for example, lets say you just earned 10% of your $1,000 account and you were taking a risk of 1.5% per trade to make that, since losses will follow as they must, it would be best to lower your risks on 0.5% for the next couple of trades/days in order to protect what you have... then when you have passed through the bad days or the days the markets are not giving you clear signals to trade... the good days will come and you will have more confidence, more money and more motivation to trade with.

I can tell you with out most confidence that this technique has helped me a lot in trading.

The good following bad is called a "Karmic Cycle" and it truly works in life, if you just track your trading or life and see how good is followed by bad and vice versa you will become a believer of the laws of the universe (which I use a lot in my trading)

IMPORTANT: All of the post I will be releasing will be summarized into a smaller post that will be created in a PDF with clear explanations and way of application.

Thanks! I will be rather active here in the next couple of weeks so I hope it helps!