Only Real Money-Making Traders Apply

I haver been at this for a few years. I have read a lot. Tested a lot using Forex Tester 2. I have watched the market. I have paper traded for what amounts to years.

I am still not mkaing money at this.

I want real money-making traders to share with me what works and what doesn't.

I know the ones who make money at selling a system. I am not intrerested in buying a system.

I want to hear form those who are actually making money...actually making a living at trading 4x.

Thanks in advance!

Randall

Consistency. Finding what works and sticking with it. With consistency in a trading system also goes along with consistency in money management. 2% max risk for me per trade, no more than 2-3 trades open at once.

I used to be crazy intraday trader....awake all hours of European and NY markets....then I discovered you can make just as much money on Daily charts. Now I am more swing trader and it's so much more comfortable. Sticking to the trend and place trades based on Fibonacci retracements, trendlines, and S/R lines. No other indicators. Analyze charts on weekends and maybe once a day. As simple as it gets. Forex is my only 'job,' but since I have spare time I do extracurricular activities and am even working on an economics degree (already have one degree).

You just have to find your style and stick with it. What works for me or someone else might not work for you, everyone is unique.

😄

Looking at your account, you almost win half your trades. April-May 2011 you were profiting....so what happened? Find out why those weeks were profitable. If you had 2:1 reward/risk you would be profiting greatly right now. The key is making winners bigger than losers. Also, you trade too large position size. And you chicken out of trades too soon. (I've never met a scalper who makes a living!) And you should focus on 1-3 pairs not so many. And and and. I'm sure you're not looking for critique 😁

check this websait .hxtp://www.learntotradethemarket.com i foud it very usefull . especialy PRICE ACTION strategys

Forex ain't my job, but I have to give props to any and everybody trading on the daily charts. I would compare it with sailing, it may not be the fastest or most exciting mode of transportation but, man you sure learn how to navigate the open sea.

@Splexin, thank you (!!!!) for your response and the critique is welcome from somone willing to take a look at my account record!

Last year, I was trading day bars. I would use the same method every time. I am very good at following rules and my system. I looked and looked and could not find a reason for why my system worked and then didn't. Maybe the volitility was too much for the system. I think you are right about getting out too soon. I like to bank proifits, and maybe that cost me in the long run.

I took several months off and worked a half hour bar system to my liking. I used forex trader 2 to back trade over the previous 6 months on the EUR/USD and the GBD/USD. I tested very positively. I am able to take three pips off the fib bounces of 5 and 13, depending on the trend that is working. I don't trade news events (I use the myFXBook calendar religiously). Like right now US employment numbers are coming out, so I am not in the market this morning.

Here is my fear. I want to make money so I set my stops at 10 pips. I trade 5 lots (which is 2%) onmly looking for 3 pips, plus the spread; 5-6 pips total. Only one trade at a time, two very rarely (my brain can't handle more than one usually 😁). I My fear is that if I set my stop tighter I will lose too many trades, but as it is the stops are wiping out my profits.

I know trading takes a special breed or everyone would do it. I wan tot be one of thoise people who makes a living at this so I can meet my goals of bneing home with my family, not working for anyone else, etc.

I am very postive minded and wrote the post above coming off a bad trading day (as you cans see). Any more suggestions?

One thing about backtesting, since you are looking at the past, it is worthless as an indicative tool of the future. I only rely on what works in the real-world.

IMO, Those stops and targets are way too tight. That's like something you would trade on a 1 minute chart. I'll repeat what I said earlier-- scalpers do not make a living in Forex. I've seen a number of members here who would argue against me (or those who think EAs are profitable in long-term...LOL....they aren't) but I just laugh all the way to the bank. The idea of a forex robot or making $500 in 5 minutes being so 'quick and easy' has popped up from marketers and brokers luring in amateurs, and it's completely the wrong approach to forex.

Think about what Forex really is-- a market collective of the world's central banks and financial institutions. They move currency around based on what's 'safe' as well as overnight interest rates. Do you know what charts the big guys trade on? Private banks use the 1 hour chart (or at least make their decisions on that), the 4 hour chart, and the daily chart. Anything below that is just random and deceptive noise. I trade with the banks since they know more than me!

The ATR for any given currency pair is about 100-150 pips PER DAY, usually in the direction of the general trend. With proper MM, even if you only capitalized on half that much, you would net about $1500 per day! You need to quit thinking about individual trades and think of the series as a whole-- nevermind that you won/lost big on the last trade. Aim for consistency instead. Is it really going to kill you to have a trade open for 3 hours or longer? No. Forex is supposed to give you freedom, not take it away! I also suggest you find a different method of trading-- obviously what you're doing isn't working and it's time to step back and do an evaluation.

@Splexin, thank you, again....

First how do you know when the banks are trading...I have heard they trade all different bars, so how do you know this to be true?

I am not initerested in EAs. They seem too prone to programming issues and I am not a programmer.

Why would trying to get 5-6 pips be unresonable? It has worked quite few times since I started live with it in mid-January. Its the stop I seem to have too tight. Or maybe not tight enough?

Since back testing seems to mean nothing to you, how do you go about trying a new method? Trade a practice account?

Most banks, not all, trade only at the top of the hour on the Hourly chart. They take an institutional perspective (trading by Daily, Weekly, etc) but because the market is so big, every hour one or more banks are making a move (I'm talking high volume sessions, London and NY). I know this because I know a guy who traded for a European bank.

It's unreasonable because it's too small and insignificant to prove profitable over the long term. Spreads don't only widen during news....if you're shooting for such a small target you're paying more spread then you need to. Why would you give your broker more profit than you are getting??

I'm not against people trading their own style...if scalping is profitable to you then stick with it. But in my opinion, the more trades you take the higher the probability of losses and mistakes. 5-10 pips is nothing to the market, someone at a trading firm could misspell a word in their order book and move it that far in one millisecond. It's just not realistic. On the other hand, if you give the market breathing space and you trade in the direction with the highest probability then profit will turn in your favor.

When I try a new method I trade on my real account but use significantly small position sizes (i.e. 1,000 units). Demo or practice accounts are in the same category as backtesting to me. Myfxbook you see a lot of demo accounts, but then the guy goes live and starts making excuses or justifications as to why he's not profiting like he was on demo. Big difference.


I don't really trade Intraday anymore, but here are links to two systems that I've traded successfully:

Intraday Momentum-Based
https://www.traderszone.com/personal-trading-systems/9268-my-lien-momentum-trading-system-pictures.html

Intraday Range System
https://www.traderszone.com/personal-trading-systems/9001-my-intraday-system-pictures.html

The second one I actually made a good call live (page 2).

good point -- let your profits run bigger .. and widen your sl 5pp is just ludacris ..

The Higher your TimeFrame = less Technical analysis and more Fundamental
The Lower your Timeframe = More Technical and less Fundamental


Hope this helps someone.

DrVodka. you post is not clear to me....my stops atr 10 pips. Are you saying widen them to 15 pips or?

   MetaCoder posted:
   The Higher your TimeFrame = less Technical analysis and more Fundamental
The Lower your Timeframe = More Technical and less Fundamental
Hope this helps someone.

Metacoder.....thanks for the info. I am unsure what you trying to get across to me.

sorry Randall my english is not very good .. YES widen your Stop loss at list to 15 pips posible to 30 pips ...i u cant handle 30 pips SL Reduse ammount of lots u trade then , and start managing MONEY NOT PIPS ..

Hi, my history is like this.. the money i loose at my first year of trading was my 'school payment', then i understand that i had to respect the market.
For me this is what i finally found i love to do, (i just closed a restaurante that i had and really didnt like to work on it) I think is a fundamental part of it.
Ive been looking the charts for hours, days and months.
I just use 4 easy indicators, rsi, stochastic, bollinger and heiken ashi, few fundamental to know if there can be a spike on the markets caused of news, always entering my trade with those indicators on 1m, checking suport and resistance on 5, 15 and sometimes 30m ALWAYS ON DAILY tendency, (marked with a heikenashi candle), never against it, accept when my trade became wrong and sometimes close it before my sl.
I hope this can help cause everyone of us is learning... and i hope it is understandable, cause my mother language is spanish

   DrVodka posted:
   check this websait .hxtp://www.learntotradethemarket.com i foud it very usefull . especialy PRICE ACTION strategys

Very usefull information. Thank you for sharing.

Paper trading is a good way to learn and develop systems and test strategies and EA's, but the key to success if to start trading with real cash, because real cash include a LOT of other skills that you need to have like patience for example. Or if you are having a BAD day with some emotional issues.. you better stay out of your trading platform. Or simply try to avoid recovering losses from previous trades. If you lose accept the losses and call it a day.

In my point of view you need to find a system that you understand and can actually use. But the most important thing to have in mind is Money Management, most of the traders out there try to over leverage themselves in order to get high returns, but once the market turns... they crash hard, so the key is Money Management with tight SL.


You can allways check PAMM accounts with verified broker results or third party. You will find out that following systems with real verified results will allow you to sit back an allow other traders/systems work for you. And you can learn with those systems as well. This does not mean that there will be profits on every door, but at least you will know your risks and control your investments based on real results and not fancy charts or fancy performance records.

My 2 cents.

Hi Randall,

You like 10 pips for stop loss, that is OK.
What you will do is to find a system were you can use a 10 pips stop loss.
By your profile you shold try to be a scalper trader.
You will use only very low spread pairs.
It´s pretty hard to back test low time frames, the MT4 platform is very limited, so you have to do it by yourself.
How that is possible?
You will find broker with cent account.
There you will test you, your discipline, your system and everything else with real money.
In a cent account one cent is equal one dollar.
If you start with 20USD your account will show 2000USD.
That is 200 microlots, it´s a very good start for test any system.
When I started there were no cent accounts broker with MT4.
Today I use TradeFort, I put the worst everything in the options, like bad spreads and lot of bad things.
Why that?
Because I want bad things to happen in this account, it is a destrutive test.
If my system can make money in poor conditions, it will make money everywhere.
When the system is OK there is time to find the best broker that I can.
I like to use Forex Peace Army to see coments about the brokers before I open a new account.
A very good broker make a lot o diference.
A excelent broker is much better.
You have to study hard to build a solid ground to what you will do trading.
I am always studing and buying books.
The books I buy at Amazon takes usualy 60 days to get in my house.
Finaly I got a Kindle and that problem is solved.
Today I bought 'Seven Simple Scalping Strategies' for only 0.99USD for kindle, instant delivery.
The reviews from the readers where good.
I am not a scalper, but as I told you before, I am always studing, and if I have to become a scalper to make more money, you may bet I will be.
The book that made me start making money is: 'High Probability trading by Marcel Link (Mar 17, 2003)'
The book that told me that a very good trader may have a 70% drawdown and get back in profit was:' Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders by Curtis Faith'
Forex is hard money and NEVER easy money.
You won´t make money right away before you read it but you will become a much better trader.
The number one skill - DISCIPLINE
The number two skill - RISK MANAGEMENT
Those book will help you with that and much more.
Here in Myfxbook I have two public accounts:
Tradingboy Lab and Tradingboy PAMM.
And more two private.
One private is my cent account and the other is from a client.
I have a webpage: tradingboy.com
A very good place to study for free is Baby Pips.
Best regards.

Tradingboy

   Alanfx1 posted:
 Tradingboy

Thanks for all that, tradingboy....got the scapling book for my kindle. will read that today.

Randall

I agree and disagree with Splexin. His approach to trade daily is very valid. Price action makes all the sense. But his comments about scalpers just show that he based his opinion on the losing bunch of retail traders and robots. Scalping work wonders, but they key to know when to trade and when not to. Besides knowing how, of course.

Randall, you system sounds like a road to a poorhouse, forgive my cut-to-the-bone tone. 3 pips targets is bad even for most mad scalper, but it's much worse for a system based on 30m bars. 10 pips is pretty small too on this time frame, you will get many stop outs, but with 3 pips tp it is a madness. Look at something like 20 pips stop and 30 pips tp for this time frame. And forget about the mini-bounces, been there, done that, sometimes work, sometimes does not, impossible to build a profitable in a long run system on it.

I recommend you to read some books about the market microstructure and market making if you want to play high-probablity bounces, for example Beat the Dealer book, just google it.

Randall, when it comes to systems, courses, gurus, webinars, books, CDs, DVDs, etc., etc., etc. I've done ALL of it. Had one of those trading courses put out by a guru. Studied it backward and forward and knew it inside and out. Installed the software on my computer that was supposed to tell me when to take the trade. I attended all of the online coaching. I LOST MONEY...LOTS OF IT!

I am now at the point of turning a consistent profit. Not a lot of money, but it is a profit. I have learned how to turn a profit for free. Let me suggest a couple of places to get you started.

First, a guy named Chris Lori.(www.chrislori.com) he has a lot of good resources in the free members area. He trades price action. Nothing fancy, just simple support and resistance. Next I suggest Twitter. I learned a lot by following guys there who will help you for free. Some of the best ones there are @brasil61, @pipczar, @50pips, @pipstealer_ and @tradercisco. These guys are professionals who do this for a living. They are not out to sell you ANYTHING but they are more than willing to help as much as they can. @brasil61 and @pipczar do a TOTALLY FREE webinar every day of the week. They break down the charts and show you what they are looking at and where they are looking to place trades. Watching a professional dissect a chart will help you more than any book you will ever read. They are very methodical and very easy to understand and you can shoot them questions through Twitter and they are glad to answer. From watching and learning from these guys I went from a trader looking to make 10-20 pips on all trades to going for no less than 150-200pips on my swing trades. I am in 2 swing trades now...one I opened on Dec 26th of last year the other I have been in for 3 weeks I trade these on weekly charts. @50pips does a webinar on Sunday afternoons where he goes over what he's looking for during the next week. He has different mechanics than the other 2 but it is still support and resistance.

I encourage you to check these guys out and yeah there is a LOT of noise on Twitter but these guys are the real deal. My username is @knmtechnology on Twitter and you can see my comments and charts on my swing trades there.

Good Luck with your trading...keep at it...don't give up...