An ordinary journal by an ordinary non-high-impact member.
Last couple of months I got really pissed off by some people at FF, pretending to be so experienced , so good at trading, that they can tell the "truth" to others and they will lead them on the path of the force. People that form their thinking from the tvs,ads, articles and paid websites etc, people that probably never made it for themselve so they have some need to be honored and valued on an anonymous forum.. I have been affected in a very negative way from such people during my 7 years of trading experience, so I thought a lot about about it and decide that I have to give something back to this community. That is why I am openning this thread, as a journal , because it will contain personal views, some advice to people that are inexperienced with forex, I really hope that there will be some lines here on this thread that are going to change others, help them to recognize what is the garbage and what is valuable and perhaps make them better traders. I dont consider myself as a professional trader, nothing extraordinary, however I may have learned something during those years that majority of struggling newcomers will find valuable and I could save lots of time for someone. I wont be selling anything, I wont be giving any indicators or templates or whatever, I wont be introducing a system or methodology and I wont get into arguing with anyone who doesnt share my opinion. Trading is about opinions. Every winner and loser has one. But I dont start this thread for arguing and discussing. I will lay down some thoughts, if someone benefits my goal will be reached. This thread is just about giving back something. I wont be aiming at saying/revealing anything specific as I posses no secrets, no superpowers for trading or whatever, there are many people with more skills than mine. But perhaps I can stimulate less experienced traders to think in a different way and change their style for the best. My posts may be infrequent, but I doubt that there will be many readers missing my presence anyways. So lets start. I will reserve few posts below so I can make some structure and get back with a content for the thread.
22.09.2015 Post #1:
I am really not sure where to begin. My intention is to make posts that will benefit complete beginners but also people with some experience that are still struggling to find their way. So maybe I should start with a general post regarding trading endeavour.
I started trading back in 2009. Don’t know where I heard it from, it was all over the internet and tv even back then. I downloaded my first mt4 platform from a scam broker and immediately got into some 10k demo. Metatrader seemed to me like a space-shuttle control board, I didn’t have a clue about anything. I understood only that there was some price rates of currencies. Long story short- I found the first forum that came before my eyes, it was not ff, made a registration and started exploring the amazing world of indicators and already made eas, blinking lights etc, I learned fast what they were, then the giant mistake, I came upon a martingale ea (a very popular one) and immediately started backtesting and optimizing to find the best .set file and conquer the markets. I got some good backtest results and decided that in one or two years I would probably be a millionaire ! And put 5k live. Huge mistake.. got the mfirst to a bout 7-8 and then lost all on a strong trend without retracements. That is the usual martingale fate. The good thing for that first year was that I learned a lot about indicators, how to put them in the right folders, I learned to operate the platform in a basic way, I understood lots, tp and sl levels, for swap I had no idea what it was. So the conclusion from my first year is the following – any new trader must avoid bringing live money to this game at all costs. Before you don’t have solid experience, just play a demo, or stay aside and read, learn. There is no way to start with real money and be good, when you haven’t seen such thing. Trading is not very complicated but it is hard and needs lot of scars and punches before you start getting it. So be prepared to face lots of challenges and invest lots of time, It wont happen in months and in a year or two, even if you are a fast learner I don’t think it is possible. There is extreme information overload this days, mostly bullsh*t on the internet so you will be facing a lot of misleading always and especially in the beginning, as you are not able to make difference between what information is useful and what is not and what information is intentionanlly spread to disinform you. The best favour that a totally inexperienced trader can do for himself for the first 6-12-maybe 18 months of his experience is the following: Learn how the platform operates, what are the different platforms, why are there different platforms and what is the difference between them. Learn what are the common indicators, how are they calculated, what do they show, why could they work and why they do not work, but don’t rush to use them on live accounts and don’t expect them to bring you profits. Concentrate on trading discussion forums and not too much on trading systems. Trading discussions include lots of bulls* , but still you will get some foundation, and most importantly you will be challenged to think ! If some conversation is not understandable, you most probably haven’t reached the level to understand what is being discussed, but it will come with time, slowly. There is no need to rush. Market is not going to run away from you if you don’t chase it. Just remember - the trading systems section on any forum wont bring you any good. Do not use EA’s that you ahvent created and you don’t know how they operate or you don’t know the reason why they should make profit and when they don’t make profit, those are EAs that you don’t understand, money losing is guaranteed. Never put live money with manual or any system that is freely provided in the internet – money losing guaranteed. But reading about those things will get you experience. You can experiment as long as it is on a demo. A very important point here – ALWAYS open your demo accounts with smaller ammounts. The default offers of 10k or 100k or whatever are intentionanly created so they induce the dream of making big bucks so you can jump soon and with as much money as possible. Trading has a serious psychological aspect, so you must learn and practice on account that is going to be as big as what you will someday get started with. And even if you already have money , there is no reason to start with a big account initially. It is close to 100% you will lose your money. So doesn’t matter the arguments – you must always prepare to start small !
I don’t think that I summarized and structured my thoughts very well in the first post , but more will come in the future. In next posts I will try to explain my next years of gaining experience , what was difficult, what was a mistake and what could be good.
02.10.2015 Post#2:
Ok. So after the initial drama with EAs created by others and lot of blinking indicators, I slowly started understanding that it just cant be that easy. I know it is stupid that it takes maybe 1-2 or even 3 years to start realizing that making money cant be as simple as downloading some indi (created by another person, and even not asking yourself why would anyone share something that is making money in a competitive game) and waiting for the red/green signs. After that another concept enters my head - PRICE ACTION. Most of the average degree traders are already past the blinking lights baby stage and are seriously convinced that price action is the way to go. I was one of those. Some people here and on other forums/sites convinced me that trading really IS simple, however the indicators that we use are just made by price represented in another way , so there would be no use of them and we can directly view price and just follow the patterns. Patterns is a key word here ! I got introduced to them. Candle formations/ different kind of candles, the pinbar,doji,hammer,engulf,whatever. And since I have promised to be honest and try to help people.. Just ask yourslef, how could formations and candles have any significance, when they look absolutely different depending on the timeframe and type of chart that you use ? The same price fluctuations can form opposing and different type of patterns, depending on the timeframe, on m2 timeframe you see through different lens the same price that you will see with an M18 timeframe (I suppose that majority traders at least know that you can have any timeframe you want and even you can have chart without a timeframe). And the result of all this - you have an absolutely subjective perception of the REAL price action, which has absolutely no statistical significance and the market really gives absolutely no shit about your imaginary pattern. Back in my first years, I also gone through stages with trendlines, s/r lines etc but they will be covered in some other post. Lesson that should be learned today -> patterns and candles are just some way of representing information so that we can assimilate it and make some decisions, however the form and way of price representation has ABSOLUTELY no influence on the price, where it will go and not go. It only has an influence on our own trading decisions, and majority of time, you will be making a WRONG decision if you think that the pinbar will reject a level or the engulfing bar will bring any desirable future prices for you. Especially if you dont have in depth knowledge of the markets, do not put your real money at risk, trying to predict what will happen by looking at the candles forming in some shape or way. Save yourself that trouble and understand that those charts are just our subjective point of view on something which is not subjective at all.
Last couple of months I got really pissed off by some people at FF, pretending to be so experienced , so good at trading, that they can tell the "truth" to others and they will lead them on the path of the force. People that form their thinking from the tvs,ads, articles and paid websites etc, people that probably never made it for themselve so they have some need to be honored and valued on an anonymous forum.. I have been affected in a very negative way from such people during my 7 years of trading experience, so I thought a lot about about it and decide that I have to give something back to this community. That is why I am openning this thread, as a journal , because it will contain personal views, some advice to people that are inexperienced with forex, I really hope that there will be some lines here on this thread that are going to change others, help them to recognize what is the garbage and what is valuable and perhaps make them better traders. I dont consider myself as a professional trader, nothing extraordinary, however I may have learned something during those years that majority of struggling newcomers will find valuable and I could save lots of time for someone. I wont be selling anything, I wont be giving any indicators or templates or whatever, I wont be introducing a system or methodology and I wont get into arguing with anyone who doesnt share my opinion. Trading is about opinions. Every winner and loser has one. But I dont start this thread for arguing and discussing. I will lay down some thoughts, if someone benefits my goal will be reached. This thread is just about giving back something. I wont be aiming at saying/revealing anything specific as I posses no secrets, no superpowers for trading or whatever, there are many people with more skills than mine. But perhaps I can stimulate less experienced traders to think in a different way and change their style for the best. My posts may be infrequent, but I doubt that there will be many readers missing my presence anyways. So lets start. I will reserve few posts below so I can make some structure and get back with a content for the thread.
22.09.2015 Post #1:
I am really not sure where to begin. My intention is to make posts that will benefit complete beginners but also people with some experience that are still struggling to find their way. So maybe I should start with a general post regarding trading endeavour.
I started trading back in 2009. Don’t know where I heard it from, it was all over the internet and tv even back then. I downloaded my first mt4 platform from a scam broker and immediately got into some 10k demo. Metatrader seemed to me like a space-shuttle control board, I didn’t have a clue about anything. I understood only that there was some price rates of currencies. Long story short- I found the first forum that came before my eyes, it was not ff, made a registration and started exploring the amazing world of indicators and already made eas, blinking lights etc, I learned fast what they were, then the giant mistake, I came upon a martingale ea (a very popular one) and immediately started backtesting and optimizing to find the best .set file and conquer the markets. I got some good backtest results and decided that in one or two years I would probably be a millionaire ! And put 5k live. Huge mistake.. got the mfirst to a bout 7-8 and then lost all on a strong trend without retracements. That is the usual martingale fate. The good thing for that first year was that I learned a lot about indicators, how to put them in the right folders, I learned to operate the platform in a basic way, I understood lots, tp and sl levels, for swap I had no idea what it was. So the conclusion from my first year is the following – any new trader must avoid bringing live money to this game at all costs. Before you don’t have solid experience, just play a demo, or stay aside and read, learn. There is no way to start with real money and be good, when you haven’t seen such thing. Trading is not very complicated but it is hard and needs lot of scars and punches before you start getting it. So be prepared to face lots of challenges and invest lots of time, It wont happen in months and in a year or two, even if you are a fast learner I don’t think it is possible. There is extreme information overload this days, mostly bullsh*t on the internet so you will be facing a lot of misleading always and especially in the beginning, as you are not able to make difference between what information is useful and what is not and what information is intentionanlly spread to disinform you. The best favour that a totally inexperienced trader can do for himself for the first 6-12-maybe 18 months of his experience is the following: Learn how the platform operates, what are the different platforms, why are there different platforms and what is the difference between them. Learn what are the common indicators, how are they calculated, what do they show, why could they work and why they do not work, but don’t rush to use them on live accounts and don’t expect them to bring you profits. Concentrate on trading discussion forums and not too much on trading systems. Trading discussions include lots of bulls* , but still you will get some foundation, and most importantly you will be challenged to think ! If some conversation is not understandable, you most probably haven’t reached the level to understand what is being discussed, but it will come with time, slowly. There is no need to rush. Market is not going to run away from you if you don’t chase it. Just remember - the trading systems section on any forum wont bring you any good. Do not use EA’s that you ahvent created and you don’t know how they operate or you don’t know the reason why they should make profit and when they don’t make profit, those are EAs that you don’t understand, money losing is guaranteed. Never put live money with manual or any system that is freely provided in the internet – money losing guaranteed. But reading about those things will get you experience. You can experiment as long as it is on a demo. A very important point here – ALWAYS open your demo accounts with smaller ammounts. The default offers of 10k or 100k or whatever are intentionanly created so they induce the dream of making big bucks so you can jump soon and with as much money as possible. Trading has a serious psychological aspect, so you must learn and practice on account that is going to be as big as what you will someday get started with. And even if you already have money , there is no reason to start with a big account initially. It is close to 100% you will lose your money. So doesn’t matter the arguments – you must always prepare to start small !
I don’t think that I summarized and structured my thoughts very well in the first post , but more will come in the future. In next posts I will try to explain my next years of gaining experience , what was difficult, what was a mistake and what could be good.
02.10.2015 Post#2:
Ok. So after the initial drama with EAs created by others and lot of blinking indicators, I slowly started understanding that it just cant be that easy. I know it is stupid that it takes maybe 1-2 or even 3 years to start realizing that making money cant be as simple as downloading some indi (created by another person, and even not asking yourself why would anyone share something that is making money in a competitive game) and waiting for the red/green signs. After that another concept enters my head - PRICE ACTION. Most of the average degree traders are already past the blinking lights baby stage and are seriously convinced that price action is the way to go. I was one of those. Some people here and on other forums/sites convinced me that trading really IS simple, however the indicators that we use are just made by price represented in another way , so there would be no use of them and we can directly view price and just follow the patterns. Patterns is a key word here ! I got introduced to them. Candle formations/ different kind of candles, the pinbar,doji,hammer,engulf,whatever. And since I have promised to be honest and try to help people.. Just ask yourslef, how could formations and candles have any significance, when they look absolutely different depending on the timeframe and type of chart that you use ? The same price fluctuations can form opposing and different type of patterns, depending on the timeframe, on m2 timeframe you see through different lens the same price that you will see with an M18 timeframe (I suppose that majority traders at least know that you can have any timeframe you want and even you can have chart without a timeframe). And the result of all this - you have an absolutely subjective perception of the REAL price action, which has absolutely no statistical significance and the market really gives absolutely no shit about your imaginary pattern. Back in my first years, I also gone through stages with trendlines, s/r lines etc but they will be covered in some other post. Lesson that should be learned today -> patterns and candles are just some way of representing information so that we can assimilate it and make some decisions, however the form and way of price representation has ABSOLUTELY no influence on the price, where it will go and not go. It only has an influence on our own trading decisions, and majority of time, you will be making a WRONG decision if you think that the pinbar will reject a level or the engulfing bar will bring any desirable future prices for you. Especially if you dont have in depth knowledge of the markets, do not put your real money at risk, trying to predict what will happen by looking at the candles forming in some shape or way. Save yourself that trouble and understand that those charts are just our subjective point of view on something which is not subjective at all.