In my youth I was lucky enough to have a mentor by the name of Kevin Teppo who took me in and basically rewired my brain to that of a rich man. These are things you can apply to every walk of life. I've been fortunate enough to succeed in insurance (which I ditched due to the dishonesty of the whole racket,) real estate, stock trading, and now forex trading is my new frontier.
When speaking of the stock market, he said "You could give the perfect system to 100 people, and less than 10 would make money with it."
This is very true, my friend. I don't want to get all philosophical on you, but the fact is, the Forex market will deliver whatever you expect from it.
Let's say you take a little course on Forex trading, and you learn about a few indicators and methods of trading. Maybe the only thing you're taught is an EMA crossover system with a MACD filter. This is an ancient system. It's been going on for years and years and years. Do you know why it exists? Because people can make money off of it. Most systems are profitable, or we wouldn't have them.
But multiple people can trade the same system on the same currency and experience completely different results. I would say that your result has nothing to do with the nature of the Forex Market (or any market for that matter,) and only to do with yourself. If you are a successful trader at heart, you will be a successful trader in reality.
If you expect to lose, you will. You will cut you're losses before they become gains. You will hold on to your gains until they become losses.
And then, after you've learned the folly of those things, you will do just the opposite. You will cut your gains short for fear that they will become losses. You will hold on to your losses in hopes that they will become gains.
The secret, as I understand it, is to recognize a point that proves that your initial prediction was wrong. That is your stop loss. If the price hits your stop loss, I'm sorry buddy, but you were wrong. You will either choose a TP that you can reasonably expect to hit, or you can choose a trailing stop that you can reasonably expect to end in profit, or you can trust your system, which after all you've spent weeks and months developing and testing (right?!) to show you what to do.
What it comes down to is that if you are a system trader, and you deviate from your system, more often than not you will lose. If you are an intuitive trader, and you don't trust your intuition, then really, what hope do you have?
Just look at the EMA crossover. Trade it. There are more wins than losses, and the wins outweigh the losses 3:1. That's why people trade that system. It's so simple that it almost seems stupid, but there is mathematical logic in it.
To trade is to lose. It's a fact. You can't never lose. It's next to impossible. You don't have to never lose. You just have to be realistic. If you want to turn 1000 into a million in the next month, you're not being realistic. Could it be done? I suppose it could, maybe, but I can't do it, and I don't know anyone who can.
The key then is faith. Have faith in yourself and your system. If you don't have faith in your system, then you will "human error" the hell out of it. If you don't have faith in your self, you will lose. I probably sound like every self help book out there, but I'm dead serious. The market is not out to screw you over. It just doesn't work like that. It's been doing the same things for years and years.
None of us need a magic system. We could trade profitably using nothing but trend lines and S&R. The change has to occur within yourself. Know that you are a profitable trader, and you are one. Know that you are a loser, and you are one. The world is very simple.This is a very wise post..