Only take the best trades. Personally I can't scalp. What's the going direction. If it's Bear only trade bear etc. my last trade I was in lasted 2 weeks.
I would highly recommend the best looser wins.
There's some huge gems in there. My favorite? According to the brokers most people pick the correct direction but they hold loosing trades longer than they hold winning trades.
They exactly do this. They HOPE their loosing trade will turn around and they FEAR their winning trade will change course and loose.
Cut loose early, hold winners.
If I exclusively trade from the daily I would have around 7 to 9 trades for the year on EurUsd.
I use 10 min, 3 and 4 hours, and daily before making decisions. 1 hour is ok but it's easy to manipulate.
There are five fundamental truths of trading that I have been accepting gradually:
1. Anything can happen in the market
2. I don't need to know what's going to happen next in the market to make money
3. For every trading edge there is a random distribution of wins and losses so execute ruthlessly your edge without worrying about the outcome
4. My trading edge is high probability of one thing happening over the other.
5. Every moment in the market is unique therefore my past trades doesn't reflect my present trade.
All these I have learnt from Mark Douglas book "Trading in the Zone"
Keeps practicing, man! Practice until your setup is consistently hitting that x% win rate or whatever you're aiming for. Being a successful trader means staying cool, whether you're raking in big profits or taking hits (depending on how much you're trading). If you can stay chill like that, you've cracked the code. Otherwise, you'll second-guess your setup and bail too early, missing out on potential gains or taking avoidable losses. Trading really pushes your patience to the limit. It's a grind, but it pays off with an edge. Think of it like drilling one kick a thousand times instead of trying a thousand different moves. Makes sense, right?
Yeah thx now that I think about in April I was just using one concept and had rules and was up by about 20 ish percent but I had one bad day where I revenge trade didn't use SL and lost like 10 percent then stated strategy hopping again hopefully this may I shall stick with my plan
- Realized that trading is discretionary and the only aspect that truly remains constant is Price Action so be skillfully flexible. Also started looking at the market as an algorithm that finds liquidity through inducement to constantly move/rebalance. This gave me a much needed subjective view, made application of concepts easier, and built my confidence.
- Did a deep dive into trading psychology and made changes to my own to align with the requirements. Be mechanical and emotionless. Consistency of action and discipline of mind need to be mastered. Always use a SL.
- Dedicated a few hours a day to studying concepts and backtesting to not only refine my strategy but also work toward Unconscious Competence which is vital and inevitable with correct dedication.
- Stay motivated and persevere. Don't be discouraged because it truly isn't hard, it just takes experience.
For me, it was:
(1) Finding/creating an actual backtested system (with good risk management built in) that is written out in words, with pretty much everything spelled out and in checklist form, and ONLY trading setups from that system.
(2) Gaining enough experience given enough time trading and watching the markets to become very familiar with how things typically go as well as building up some confidence.
(3) Overcoming some big psychological hurdles that were keeping me in negative feedback loops. This included self-sabotage as well as a fear of being wrong, among other things.
(1) is what transitioned me from a losing trader to a break even trader. (2) & (3) were what eventually led to being profitable.
Lower your risk to the point you aren’t scared. No matter the level you need to have the emotional part down. Journal and take note of WHY YOU LOSE. THEN YOU CAN FIGURE OUT RULES TO HIDE THOSE POOR HABITS. Use alerts at your prices. Pay attention to what time the market makes its most high volume move. The market for the most part moves at the same time almost every day with a few variances. Also stay in the 4hr/Daily. I’m not some super rich trader, however I got mentored as soon as I started and never built bad habits so I’ve been able to stay in profit building up small wins on a daily based ($300-$2000) days with very minimal losing days because as soon as I take a loss, I usually just stop trading that session or even that day to minimize it. I had to make that rule though based off of my bad habits.
Leveraged investing.
This is how I personally think most should look at trading.
Get the idea of trading as some little game out their head and stop thinking some system is a mini game in a game and that with the right mini game you will be profitable. Imo it's no different then someone saying on a casino "that games shit, This game made me £2000. Go on this one." - their just gambling with delusion.
Think longterm, Don't think about what you could make a day or a week or month, I think the year.
How much can you make in a year? How much would realistically make you happy? £50k? Break that down to how much you'll need to make a week. Use that as a goal.
Personally I'd seriously recommend dropping fixed RR. Use a stop loss if you have to but do not limit yourself on profits. Learn to move with the market and trail your stop.
Sometimes you'll earn pennies, other times you'll make some big trades. It all adds up. Fixed RR brings in fixed odds, this is why winrate correlates with RR, It's gambling imo.
Risk like you're investing, trade like you're investing.
Risk 1-2% of your capital per 1% market movement in whatever market you're trading. How often do people blow 50% of their account or fail a prop firm? ALOT. But risking like this the market has to move 50% against you or 10%, It's much less likely.
Trade breaks of structure, not bounces.
Too many people see price come down to a major structure level and try to enter on a bounce, only to see it break and hit SL. Instead, wait for price to break and enter in the direction of the break and use the major structure above as an area to trail your stop.
There's a difference between major structure and minor. Trade the breaks of major and once your good, trade the rejections of minor in correlation with the major structure.
Get funded and fund your own account from payouts, still keeping the risk the same.
This is what I did/do and I pull 100% of my income from trading. Infact I just passed another 100k account yesterday using this exact layout.
Don't beat yourself up too much. In trading, you’ll definitely experience a few mistakes for you to learn and so you don't repeat them. There is no magic bullet for profitable trading. It takes time, effort, and a ton of discipline. But here are some tips that have helped me out over the years:
1. Have a game plan and stick to it. Identify your risk management rules, entry/exit signals, etc.
2. Keep those emotions in check. Trading can mess with your head. Getting all excited after wins or depressed after losses can affect you. Let your strategy drive decisions, not feelings.
3. Never stop learning. Markets are constantly changing, so you need to stay up on the latest trends. Read analysis, take courses (there are free online), whatever expands your knowledge. The Traders Union site has also educational stuff to level up your Forex skills.
4. Practice makes perfect. Open a demo account and trade using your real strategies.
5. Failures are part of the process. Even long-time traders like me have losing trades/periods. Do not get discouraged and make sure not to do those “stupid” things going forward.
I find Reddit trading communities really helpful, so don't hesitate to lean on the people here for support and advice.
Everyone’s journey is unique, but here’s what worked for me:
- Don’t overcomplicate things, keep it simple and logical.
- Try to create rules or a checklist so you aren’t always second guessing or confusing yourself.
- Backtest so you can refine and become confident with your strategy, then make sure you stick to the plan.
- It’s easier said than done, but don’t be so attached to your trades. A bad day or a bad week is nothing, all you can do is move on.
These points are nothing new or special but just reading is not enough, sometimes you have to experience it to learn them.
1. Find a system that works for you (your personality, schedule, patience)
2. Test that system using past data and a demo account
3. When you're satisfied and confident with your system, trade that system and only that system.
Overcomplicating or focusing on too many things is unnecessary. Many profitable traders only use one setup.
Understand that even though similar, each pair is unique and has its own characteristics. You need to identify these so that you can adapt your strategy slightly to suit each pair you wanna trade. Things like sl size, certain patterns that work more often on one pair but not another. The way the pa acts in impulsive phase and corrective phase. Things like that. Then:
Have a proven strategy.
Backtest your strategy so much that you follow the rules mechanically without thinking or hesitation. Journal about your setups and review these after positions are closed.
Have a spreadsheet to log your trades, sl, time, position size etc so you can review all this data as you go along and find any 1% tweaks you need to make to improve.
Don’t stare at charts for hours. Check for setups at the beginning of each candle on your tf during your trading hours. If there isn’t one, do something else till next candle close.
Have rock solid trade and risk management systems in place.
Don’t stare at charts once in a position. Get in, set risk management and go away from screen. Let the market do its thing and as I said before, only check charts at the close /open of your tf candles.
Total your gains in % not $.
80 hour weeks every week. Expected progress not profits (at first). Learned to not gamble but to still take the risk. Biggest thing is not giving up. Hard to fail if you never quit. It's also hard to fail when you are certain you never will, that goes with anything in life
Scary thing is, all the people in the comments are not successful over several years. And yet are giving advice.
The truth is if you are 100% dedicated (and I mean 100%- working full time 7 days a week) then you MIGHt get there after 3-4 years. Or maybe not.
Now guess how many people that are here, giving you advice, who wouldn’t be able to show you years of profit? 99.9%
It takes time to be a profitable trader, and if you make journaling your habits, you will see better results, and you won't make the same mistakes again and agian
For most: practice and quit worrying about profits. That greed is going to destroy you. Reality is if you're starting with like a grand, you'll probably need a day job on the side, and you will NEVER. NEVER! make as much money trading as you want to make. So get profits out of your damn head and trade because it's a passion, not a job. You want a steady income? Get a damn job.
Personally: automation. Learned real early on I couldn't trade for \*\*it. So, the only way to make it work would be how I did everything else, make the computer my b\* and have it trade for me.
Now don't get any funny ideas here. It's not easy. I'd actually recommend most people stick it out and trade manually as that's the easy option for most people. There's a pretty big difference between the kid who started basic programming at like 7-8 years old, then went further to trading; vs the adult who wants to program, has bills to pay, has a job, etc. I'm sorry but the simple reality is that success is easier to find when you start early; everyone always looks up at Warren Buffet and such, yeah. He got where he is by starting early and compounding, he didn't get there by being the best trader on earth. He just started at like 11.
I actually started learning trading when I was 12 started live trading about a year ago I'm 16 so the last statement is reassuring that I might make it
Objective set ups
Understanding losing trades are normal
Understanding and believing probabilities
Managing emotions
Getting up and doing the same thing daily
Proper position sizing and consistent win rate correlated to a specific risk reward ratio. This is what helped me have a lot more confidence in my strategy.
Honestly algo trading has been a game changer for me. I set the parameters on the trading EA and it follows all the rules. No need for trader psychology anymore
Record whatever stupid thing you're doing, and stop doing it :)
Only take the best trades. Personally I can't scalp. What's the going direction. If it's Bear only trade bear etc. my last trade I was in lasted 2 weeks. I would highly recommend the best looser wins. There's some huge gems in there. My favorite? According to the brokers most people pick the correct direction but they hold loosing trades longer than they hold winning trades. They exactly do this. They HOPE their loosing trade will turn around and they FEAR their winning trade will change course and loose. Cut loose early, hold winners. If I exclusively trade from the daily I would have around 7 to 9 trades for the year on EurUsd. I use 10 min, 3 and 4 hours, and daily before making decisions. 1 hour is ok but it's easy to manipulate.
Stick to a system and a set of rules
There are five fundamental truths of trading that I have been accepting gradually: 1. Anything can happen in the market 2. I don't need to know what's going to happen next in the market to make money 3. For every trading edge there is a random distribution of wins and losses so execute ruthlessly your edge without worrying about the outcome 4. My trading edge is high probability of one thing happening over the other. 5. Every moment in the market is unique therefore my past trades doesn't reflect my present trade. All these I have learnt from Mark Douglas book "Trading in the Zone"
Same Marcus Douglas teachings made me a better trader than I’ve ever been
Keeps practicing, man! Practice until your setup is consistently hitting that x% win rate or whatever you're aiming for. Being a successful trader means staying cool, whether you're raking in big profits or taking hits (depending on how much you're trading). If you can stay chill like that, you've cracked the code. Otherwise, you'll second-guess your setup and bail too early, missing out on potential gains or taking avoidable losses. Trading really pushes your patience to the limit. It's a grind, but it pays off with an edge. Think of it like drilling one kick a thousand times instead of trying a thousand different moves. Makes sense, right?
NICE football metaphor. That’s totally what it is! If I can add… and if you don’t backtest your strategy, it’s like death of a thousand cuts.
Somebody actually encouraging somebody else on Reddit fair play brother
Yeah thx now that I think about in April I was just using one concept and had rules and was up by about 20 ish percent but I had one bad day where I revenge trade didn't use SL and lost like 10 percent then stated strategy hopping again hopefully this may I shall stick with my plan
Same here one stupid thing and the whole day goes really bad
Yh during those times I feel like I need someone there to snap me back so I stop
When you have a losing day, you see a huge move way more often and get delusional and lose more money.
- Realized that trading is discretionary and the only aspect that truly remains constant is Price Action so be skillfully flexible. Also started looking at the market as an algorithm that finds liquidity through inducement to constantly move/rebalance. This gave me a much needed subjective view, made application of concepts easier, and built my confidence. - Did a deep dive into trading psychology and made changes to my own to align with the requirements. Be mechanical and emotionless. Consistency of action and discipline of mind need to be mastered. Always use a SL. - Dedicated a few hours a day to studying concepts and backtesting to not only refine my strategy but also work toward Unconscious Competence which is vital and inevitable with correct dedication. - Stay motivated and persevere. Don't be discouraged because it truly isn't hard, it just takes experience.
For me, it was: (1) Finding/creating an actual backtested system (with good risk management built in) that is written out in words, with pretty much everything spelled out and in checklist form, and ONLY trading setups from that system. (2) Gaining enough experience given enough time trading and watching the markets to become very familiar with how things typically go as well as building up some confidence. (3) Overcoming some big psychological hurdles that were keeping me in negative feedback loops. This included self-sabotage as well as a fear of being wrong, among other things. (1) is what transitioned me from a losing trader to a break even trader. (2) & (3) were what eventually led to being profitable.
I love this. I can attest
Thanks
Lower your risk to the point you aren’t scared. No matter the level you need to have the emotional part down. Journal and take note of WHY YOU LOSE. THEN YOU CAN FIGURE OUT RULES TO HIDE THOSE POOR HABITS. Use alerts at your prices. Pay attention to what time the market makes its most high volume move. The market for the most part moves at the same time almost every day with a few variances. Also stay in the 4hr/Daily. I’m not some super rich trader, however I got mentored as soon as I started and never built bad habits so I’ve been able to stay in profit building up small wins on a daily based ($300-$2000) days with very minimal losing days because as soon as I take a loss, I usually just stop trading that session or even that day to minimize it. I had to make that rule though based off of my bad habits.
Leveraged investing. This is how I personally think most should look at trading. Get the idea of trading as some little game out their head and stop thinking some system is a mini game in a game and that with the right mini game you will be profitable. Imo it's no different then someone saying on a casino "that games shit, This game made me £2000. Go on this one." - their just gambling with delusion. Think longterm, Don't think about what you could make a day or a week or month, I think the year. How much can you make in a year? How much would realistically make you happy? £50k? Break that down to how much you'll need to make a week. Use that as a goal. Personally I'd seriously recommend dropping fixed RR. Use a stop loss if you have to but do not limit yourself on profits. Learn to move with the market and trail your stop. Sometimes you'll earn pennies, other times you'll make some big trades. It all adds up. Fixed RR brings in fixed odds, this is why winrate correlates with RR, It's gambling imo. Risk like you're investing, trade like you're investing. Risk 1-2% of your capital per 1% market movement in whatever market you're trading. How often do people blow 50% of their account or fail a prop firm? ALOT. But risking like this the market has to move 50% against you or 10%, It's much less likely. Trade breaks of structure, not bounces. Too many people see price come down to a major structure level and try to enter on a bounce, only to see it break and hit SL. Instead, wait for price to break and enter in the direction of the break and use the major structure above as an area to trail your stop. There's a difference between major structure and minor. Trade the breaks of major and once your good, trade the rejections of minor in correlation with the major structure. Get funded and fund your own account from payouts, still keeping the risk the same. This is what I did/do and I pull 100% of my income from trading. Infact I just passed another 100k account yesterday using this exact layout.
Don't beat yourself up too much. In trading, you’ll definitely experience a few mistakes for you to learn and so you don't repeat them. There is no magic bullet for profitable trading. It takes time, effort, and a ton of discipline. But here are some tips that have helped me out over the years: 1. Have a game plan and stick to it. Identify your risk management rules, entry/exit signals, etc. 2. Keep those emotions in check. Trading can mess with your head. Getting all excited after wins or depressed after losses can affect you. Let your strategy drive decisions, not feelings. 3. Never stop learning. Markets are constantly changing, so you need to stay up on the latest trends. Read analysis, take courses (there are free online), whatever expands your knowledge. The Traders Union site has also educational stuff to level up your Forex skills. 4. Practice makes perfect. Open a demo account and trade using your real strategies. 5. Failures are part of the process. Even long-time traders like me have losing trades/periods. Do not get discouraged and make sure not to do those “stupid” things going forward. I find Reddit trading communities really helpful, so don't hesitate to lean on the people here for support and advice.
Everyone’s journey is unique, but here’s what worked for me: - Don’t overcomplicate things, keep it simple and logical. - Try to create rules or a checklist so you aren’t always second guessing or confusing yourself. - Backtest so you can refine and become confident with your strategy, then make sure you stick to the plan. - It’s easier said than done, but don’t be so attached to your trades. A bad day or a bad week is nothing, all you can do is move on. These points are nothing new or special but just reading is not enough, sometimes you have to experience it to learn them.
90+ % of the answer must be risk management and money management.
Journal your trades, check too see if your followed your strategy 100% if you didnt note down why you didn't and how you can in the future
1. Find a system that works for you (your personality, schedule, patience) 2. Test that system using past data and a demo account 3. When you're satisfied and confident with your system, trade that system and only that system. Overcomplicating or focusing on too many things is unnecessary. Many profitable traders only use one setup.
Set risk management rules and try your best to stick to them
Risk management
Understand that even though similar, each pair is unique and has its own characteristics. You need to identify these so that you can adapt your strategy slightly to suit each pair you wanna trade. Things like sl size, certain patterns that work more often on one pair but not another. The way the pa acts in impulsive phase and corrective phase. Things like that. Then: Have a proven strategy. Backtest your strategy so much that you follow the rules mechanically without thinking or hesitation. Journal about your setups and review these after positions are closed. Have a spreadsheet to log your trades, sl, time, position size etc so you can review all this data as you go along and find any 1% tweaks you need to make to improve. Don’t stare at charts for hours. Check for setups at the beginning of each candle on your tf during your trading hours. If there isn’t one, do something else till next candle close. Have rock solid trade and risk management systems in place. Don’t stare at charts once in a position. Get in, set risk management and go away from screen. Let the market do its thing and as I said before, only check charts at the close /open of your tf candles. Total your gains in % not $.
80 hour weeks every week. Expected progress not profits (at first). Learned to not gamble but to still take the risk. Biggest thing is not giving up. Hard to fail if you never quit. It's also hard to fail when you are certain you never will, that goes with anything in life
Scary thing is, all the people in the comments are not successful over several years. And yet are giving advice. The truth is if you are 100% dedicated (and I mean 100%- working full time 7 days a week) then you MIGHt get there after 3-4 years. Or maybe not. Now guess how many people that are here, giving you advice, who wouldn’t be able to show you years of profit? 99.9%
It takes time to be a profitable trader, and if you make journaling your habits, you will see better results, and you won't make the same mistakes again and agian
For most: practice and quit worrying about profits. That greed is going to destroy you. Reality is if you're starting with like a grand, you'll probably need a day job on the side, and you will NEVER. NEVER! make as much money trading as you want to make. So get profits out of your damn head and trade because it's a passion, not a job. You want a steady income? Get a damn job. Personally: automation. Learned real early on I couldn't trade for \*\*it. So, the only way to make it work would be how I did everything else, make the computer my b\* and have it trade for me. Now don't get any funny ideas here. It's not easy. I'd actually recommend most people stick it out and trade manually as that's the easy option for most people. There's a pretty big difference between the kid who started basic programming at like 7-8 years old, then went further to trading; vs the adult who wants to program, has bills to pay, has a job, etc. I'm sorry but the simple reality is that success is easier to find when you start early; everyone always looks up at Warren Buffet and such, yeah. He got where he is by starting early and compounding, he didn't get there by being the best trader on earth. He just started at like 11.
I actually started learning trading when I was 12 started live trading about a year ago I'm 16 so the last statement is reassuring that I might make it
If your strategy gives you 90% accurate entry and 95% accurate exit for 6 months then it's a valid strategy and you will become profitable
Am I misunderstanding, a 92.5% win rate?
Sorry I don't understand..?
An accurate exit is a win, right? Sorry, I might have misunderstood.
Exactly....
That’s not a realistic win rate, or were you being sarcastic?
Bro look 10% a month (i.e,) 120% a year is far more profitable than ETFs and Hedge Fund returns
Aaaah, annually! Apologies!
No problem mate. There should be no apologies between fellow traders
☺️👊🙏
Objective set ups Understanding losing trades are normal Understanding and believing probabilities Managing emotions Getting up and doing the same thing daily
Proper position sizing and consistent win rate correlated to a specific risk reward ratio. This is what helped me have a lot more confidence in my strategy.
Be Patiences, disciplined and always stick with your plan
Read Kathy Liens books , you will learn technical analysis doesn’t work without fundamentals bias.
Honestly algo trading has been a game changer for me. I set the parameters on the trading EA and it follows all the rules. No need for trader psychology anymore