Help a struggling trader! - page 3

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peepingtom:
I have been in Forex for over 2 years now and discovered I am regressing rather than progressing!

The last few weeks have been especially hard on me...I keep losing trades and it is just beating me down further and further. This has happened once before, about a year ago, and then I got so fed up that I took out all my money and quit trading for a few months. I don't want to be a quitter again, I really want to succeed at this. I know that not everyone is cut out to be a trader, but I'm confident that it is right for me.

I am here just to get some feedback and also ask for any suggestions or recommendations.

Here are my primary weaknesses:

  1. Patience. I hate sitting/waiting and am sometimes eager to jump into the market. I am not a suitable scalper. I have tried several scalping systems and just do not possess the patience to sit at the computer waiting for an entry, only to watch it turn against me and cause me to panic and exit quickly, or let it hit my stop loss (only to go in favor minutes later!!!!). Also, I do not trade EAs or robots.....they seem to be high-risk/low-reward and none have worked for me (several have malfunctioned).
  2. Consistency. I will place a trade at the full size of my normal position and usually it ends up a loser! Then, on the next trade, because I don't want to lose another $XX amount (as small as it is), I will use half size of my normal position or even quarter-size. This sometimes ends up a winner! But because my loser was bigger than my winner, it's like taking one step forward and two steps back.
  3. Confidence. It doesn't matter how many books I read or videos I watch, I lack some confidence. This is more of a natural attribute-- I have self-esteem issues and have battled depression and social anxiety much of my life. Needless to say I seem to work best with trading systems that require little time in front of the charts, so I can just let the trade do its thing.
  4. "Following the crowd." This goes along with lack of confidence. I like to follow IFR Market's trade recommendations (Short/Long signals)-- sometimes they win but usually only if I'm not in on the trade lol
  5. Age. I'm not saying this as an excuse but as a weakness. They say the older you are the better a trader you make because you have better control of your emotions and manage money more conservative. I'm only 21. Some people may argue it doesn't matter how young/old you are but honestly how many billionaires are younger than 30? Most are close to the grave. Greed is not really a problem with me but it does creep in every now and then.

Also, I have never had a trading "mentor" or any mentor for that matter so may be one of my issues as well.

.......................

Thanks so much.

Let me be honest here....

all of the strengths you named wont do you any good, nor anyone else. The weaknesses you named are common to majority of the traders.

Patience and discipline are one of the main concepts to be learn. If you think you are disciplined you are most likely wrong. How about this, if the entry does not meet your criteria would you seat there all day not clicking the buttons? How about another crappy day? Two days in a raw? Damn.. you must be strong if you can do that.

Forget all success stories you have heard about trading (those are lie, building a successful trader takes long time) and put off all the pressure off you. Take all of indicators off your screen. Leave only ą chart at your screen, max 2. It is all about you and the market. Only you and the Market. Watch, observe and learn. After staring at the moving price for long time you will start to see something common.

A proper mentor is a shortcut, you can use it or not. It is up to you. A wrong mentor misleads you and puts you away from your final destination. Don't ask me what is a good mentor. Just make sure you see him trading live before you make your decision. That would be your answer about mentors.

There is more than enough info here for a start.

good luck

 

And here is yet another suggestion to you. Take a long break from Forex no matter how hard you try, you won’t get any result if you are not patient and calm enough to analyze the market (well analyze is a strong word), but at least to have a clean picture. Trading Forex is a very complex thing. Read all previous posts, it will be good for you. But here like poker, it's better to stop in time.

I am writing this based on my experience, just to be clear.

 

Reviving a dead thread, but...

Even tho it seems nothing has been posted here, I read this thread and thought I might have some advise that could help someone in a similar situation. I'm not an expert. In fact, I'm a newbie. So, from beginner to beginner, rather than give you "advice", let me tell you what I've done/am doing.

Firstly, I am still using a demo account. I have not even funded my live account yet. I feel as though I'm ready to, but I also feel like I have a lot more to learn. So, I'm cranking on my demo account and working out the kinks. Mostly personal kinks. When I started, probably like most people, I downloaded every indicator and EA that looked good to me. I've got arrows and dots and lines and dings and dongs that go off, alert pops-ups, etc... It's a veritable 3rd grade concert coming out of my computer.

As this went on, I started realizing how a lot of these indicators misled me. Or rather, maybe I didn't know enough about the technical aspects to fully understand them. Either way, it became apparent to me that I was allowing myself to be "led" by all these EA's and Indicators, expecting them to make my decisions for me. It was a partial epiphany, I suppose, that assuming I had a live account, I was letting computer scripts that I didn't fully understand do my trading for me. I wasn't doing anything except hitting buy and sell. Seriously, in a market that's difficult enough, why would anyone want to voluntarily give up control over their actions?

Don't get me wrong, these indicators and EA's have purpose. They were written for a reason. Each author thought they found a way to consistently win the market. It was even more frustrating when different indicators didn't agree on what the action should be. Or one would say buy/sell and 2 candles later, another would say buy/sell, just as the trend reversed. So, relying on EA's and Indicators to tell you what to do is not the way to go.

One person wrote that a new trader should get rid of the indicators and EA's and "feel the music" of the market. A response was posted that he shouldn't be listened to, but I have to agree with the "music of the market". In fact, that's where my epiphany started. I was frustrated, It took off all the indicators and just sat and stared at the market movement. I'm not necessarily suggesting this, as starting at your screen can drive you crazy and cause you to have impulses which bite you. However, there is an ebb and flow, and you can almost imagine it in a musical sense. That is what I saw when I just stopped for a while and watched.

To be honest, I had already depleted 50% of a 3k demo account at this point. So, I put my indicators back on (the ones I had chosen as my favorites) and again, just watched and waited for the music. As non-professional and unrealistic as this sounds... this is what did it for me. I still need to understand the indicators more. What they are for, what they say, why they are saying it... but, there was a click and I noticed something. These indicators that never agree at the same point in time... DID agree every now and then. It was at those points where I would make my action and profit amazingly.

I thought I would put this to the test. So, rather than relying on anyone else's scripts and indicators without any thought of my own, I started putting together my own "system" based on these EA's and Indicators that I have and that I understood. In fact, the EA I have only does one thing... It puts the trailing stop in for me when I buy/sell. Of course, I can input the other functions to add stop loss, take profit, etc... but I only use the take profit and trailing stop options. The rest of this "system" is all about waiting for my indicators to all agree at the same point in time. And when they do, it works.

I mentioned my depletion of my demo account. It had a 68% drawdown rate. After getting my head straight, I've reduced that by almost half, it is at a 38.75% drawdown rate now. I've still got more work to do, but it's not with the market or my "system" it's with me. Yesterday, I only had 2 losses the entire day and both were because I made impulse actions based on what I saw on my screen and not what my "system" told me to do.

So, what does all this amount to?
  1. Remember that it's your money (whether you're on a demo or live account. Although I suggest staying on a demo account until you have the patience, confidence, and strategy to serve you well on the live market). Because it's your money, don't depend on something else that you don't understand to make your decisions for you. Understand why you're making each action before you make it.
  2. The indicators and EA's will do nothing for you if you don't understand the market itself. Before we had computers and MT4, you had a bunch of guys in suits on Wall Street, with papers in their hands, watching a ticker and waiting for a price drop.. they didn't have indicators and EA's... they had to understand the market to succeed.
  3. Remember to come up with your own system rather than using someone else's just because other people do. Else, understand that product before you use it with a live account
  4. Lastly, the original poster made a comment about "billionaires under 30". Here is a BIG point in Forex Trading. Many people jump in expecting to win big money with little or no effort. They want to become a billionaire. This kind of thinking has to be left at the door, seriously. Desiring that "big money" will cause you to make "big mistakes". Rather, get it into your head that you want to first earn a minimum wage paycheck. At $7.50/hr and an 8 hour day you make 60.00 a day. Doesn't that seem more realistic and reasonable? How fast can you make 60.00 on the FX market? I'm thinking like 1-2 minutes, right? So, set your goals at 60.00 per day. It will teach you patience, it will teach you to be realistic. It will also teach you the concept of acceptable losses (which WILL happen every day). Eventually, of course you can move up... give yourself a raise. You're the boss... But tell yourself that you're earning the money. You're starting at the bottom, learning, and pretty soon, you'll be able to make weekly withdrawals from your brokerage account as a "paycheck" while letting the rest of your profits ride in the market.

Be smart, be safe, be confident. Good luck.

 
gregwendland:
So, I put my indicators back on (the ones I had chosen as my favorites) and again, just watched and waited for the music. As non-professional and unrealistic as this sounds... this is what did it for me. I still need to understand the indicators more. What they are for, what they say, why they are saying it... but, there was a click and I noticed something.

Looks like someone finally figured out the proper way to use indicators, congrats. This 'Music' that you refer to is called pattern recognition, and IS the holy grail. Indicators should be used as part of a pattern recognition process, not as a 'buy-sell' signal generator. They should be used to help you 'hear' the music so to speak. Buying or selling when a macd crosses a zero line is kindof like buying and selling when a candlestick turns red or green. Look for patterns and relationships.

 

EA -- most people use it as all-or-nothing-at-all coin flip -- so I don't use it at all

I don't help struggle ones, but if there is a whiny one, I like to read the lyrics

pattern recognition -- agree ; market condition -- I will test my theory to see whether the last week , and next week marketing condition is a FAIR condition using my own triangle drawing method

don't go to real account, only do so, if you got spare cash to throw down the attic of a glass-shielded buildings, and your demo go fine even if you double the bet, I am still doing 0.1 lot, i.e. 1 pip mean 1 cent to me -- so happy with my consistent winnings

did you watch the ketucky STEPHEN KING birds news -- am I the clever one : why not have a firework show to see how many can they shoot down during the day time (or put some cats up the tree at night, stray cats don't need pounding or put down, just need a leash that just touch the ground when hanging up the tree -- it won't be cruelty if we place a pond of water and an unopen pet food down the tree while the length of rope is just able to land that 4 feet on the ground level

watch?v=j35Levw5GD

v=j35Levw5GD

before you go to real account, throwing your real savings into real account, make sure you understand one thing -- forex won't get you rich, can you GET EVEN for every mistake, if so, GO FOR IT

hey, you won't get minimum wages for your work in forex

more or less, like offer the premium for those people who offer financial volatility products to the bankers who trade forex

imagine a fruit coin slot machine with one 777 and the other symbols are BAD_LUCK or TRY_AGAIN -- I can guarantee that if you got couple of months EXPERIENCE

just like home-buyer -- are they estate virgins? !

as DIY aussie will say -- chill mate

 

I had not think about my weaknesses and strengths till now. But now I am listing my weakness and strength so that I could avoids more loss in trading.

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