pipbanker

Absolutely correct, you learn proper labeling of axes in high school. However, if you are a little above that level and not absolute beginner using MT4 then you know how reports are generated in mt4 and what those numbers mean. Moreover, you know that you cannot edit the numbers, the curve and cannot label anything unlike putting numbers in excel and creating your own curve And when you know these basics the rest is self explanatory. If you want to learn basic of mt4 come and join me, I will be more then happy to help you. cheers

I agree, those factors are among the most important to pay attention. There are also psychological factors that cant be measured as easily.

thanks for your reply. However, that was exactly what I meant A learning curve similar to profitable curve on this graph is the key here. Alexandr Elder said in his book, "if a therapy does not bring any results you have to change the therapist". I am not fan of his trading style and I would disagree with his technical trading, but here I can't find any better words. If your trading approach is not giving you results in a sustainable period you have to change your approach. If you keep doing same thing how can result be different? Would not you like to learn and make some pips at the same time? I think that is the best combination of learning trading and getting closer to where you want to be. may all pips fall on you

Hey mate, in back testing they work fine, dont they? But there is a problem, my broker does not let me trade in the middle of the chart. And that's where all problems begin. MA fail in forward testing or in real trading. Otherwise all those traders out there would be rich by just trading MA cross. But we know what the truth is... they are not making money.

Do you want your learning curve to look like this? What do you think you need to change in your trading to make your curve go up? And another question: if you know what you need to change can you do it?

well mate if you think that you want to trade live instead of demo then you need to find conservative method for position sizing and study it. This blowing real account will take longer. But if you only discovering world of trading you need to trade demo until you can double it. Euro USD would be a recommended pair for any beginners.

What a great statement, can't say it better. If you rush to success without a direction that's a way to hell. What direction should you pick..? That's a tough question. Most important point here is this: as long as you trade demo you are safe. Don't think about live trading until you double you demo acc. There is an article that could help you find direction, but I think I can't post links here. PM me if you are interested.

3 PILLARS OF PROFITABLE TRADING Lately I have been getting asked many similar questions regarding trading success. I don’t really like to repeat myself if there is no need, so I decided to write a short article to explain is a solid base for success in trading Forex and Futures. In order to achieve trading success, there are 3 main areas of focus. They are all of equal importance and must not be separated from each other. I will cover these in more detail below. These areas are: 1. Trading strategy or method 2. Discipline 3. Psychology Contrary to what is being taught about psychology importance in trading up to 90%, the other 2 concepts are as equally important. If a trader has got only 2 out of 3, then the results are either consequent losses or a break even. Let me explain why. If a trader uses a method that doesn’t really work, or works with only temporary success, no matter how hard he tries the results will remain the same. It’s said that you have to stay with a method for a certain period of time to make it yours. I strongly recommend not to switch methods or trading strategy more often then once in 6 months if you want to be a successful trader. However, this option also has its disadvantages. If you stick with the wrong trading strategy, you could spend years with no results. What I mean by “the wrong strategy” is the one that is too subjective and almost no one can trade it successfully. Let’s put it in to plain English, ‘the wrong strategy’ is the one that fails 60-90% of the time. While considering a trading strategy to learn, you need to understand that all successful traders are very mechanical in their trading approach. They do the same thing every day. It can get boring sometimes. Therefore, when you choose a strategy to learn, you need to answer this question: “Is there any chance you can become mechanical with this particular strategy?” This means the fewer variables to consider while making a decision, the easier it is to understand and apply. I want to add few more words about picking the wrong trading method. There are too many mentors selling strategies that they never trade. They are called ‘scam artists’. They sound very professional when they talk about trading and their systems, but that’s because they are good salesmen. In reality, there would be no difference between them selling you their strategy for day trading, or a pack of fantastic knives. I need to mention a pitfall for those who have just discovered the world of trading. Most forex beginners fall into the trap of listening to advisors or financial experts and make their decision accordingly. But here is the sad truth. The Brightest analysts cannot trade their own analysis. There is a huge difference in being a good analyst and being a profitable trader. Why is that??? It’s because profitable/professional traders posses a set of skills that are crucial for being profitable in forex. Among these would be a successful trader mindset, a proven method, absolute discipline and hours of screen time. Analysts don’t have that. They are paid for talking. If they knew how to trade their own analysis they would trade it and make more money then they are making now. So when choosing a trading strategy or a forex coach, you need to be concerned about real evidence of his knowledge and skills. The best option would be to see him in action. Rarely would you see any scam artist trade live with his automated software nor trading his method in front of a live audience. Professional traders have nothing to hide; they have winners and losers. Other important questions to ask yourself when choosing a trading method would be is it applicable to different market conditions, does it work in real time or only hindsight and are the stop losses offered by the method realistic? If someone tells you that your stop should be 100 pips in day trading then that should alert you that something’s not right. Trading discipline is as equally important as trading psychology. When you have a flaw in discipline you are guaranteed to fail. But what do I mean by that? Trading discipline covers these questions: - Can you take trades every time your method tells you to do so? - Do you skip trades because deep inside you have a fear of losing another trade? - If you have your daily profit target, are you able to turn off your screen and walk away when you’ve reached it? If you don’t have a daily profit target how do you know when to leave the screen? - Do you have any revenge trading habits? - And last but not least, are you able to trade with full accordance with your trading method or is your current method a combination of gut feel and some knowledge from classes you attended? Now when you have answered all these questions, you know what you need to work on to get better in your trading discipline. Write the answers down, highlight them and then stick them on your monitor. This will be a reminder for you every time you fail in following your rules. You can only grade yourself 100% on discipline if you have automated trading habits to the extent when you don’t think about it anymore and you are ok to consciously skip trades that don’t meet your entry criteria. It takes time to get absolutely disciplined, but takes much less time compared to getting your trading psychology right. Talking of trading psychology I don’t want to repeat what you know from other sources. However, I need to mention that proper psychological attitude can’t be formed if the other two aspects I talked about haven’t been mastered. You can’t develop a winning mind set if you fail in having a successful trading strategy or being somewhat disciplined. Successful trading psychology consists of a successful mind set, the ability to resist stress, the ability to withstand tough periods in your trading and taking full responsibility for your trading results. Building a successful trader takes time, for some it takes years. Some never get to that point. One of the main reasons why traders fail in becoming successful is an improper expectation of the industry as a whole and the inability to withstand financial and domestic pressure in the long run. This influences the process of forming a winner’s attitude and leads to the desire of wanting results here and now. There is no magic in trading and no trading systems that are 90% accurate. Miracles don’t happen here. The path to success is long and hard, but when you get there it is totally different compared to where you are now in trading. You will enjoy it and even get bored with making money. You can take a short cut by finding a good mentor, but you can also do it on your own. The only difference is the time that you will spend on your journey to success. After reading this article you should be able to see and evaluate your current trading against the 3 pillars of profitable trading that I have mentioned. It should be easy for you to identify what part you need to work on. If you score only 2 out of 3 it still won’t work. You need to score 3 out 3 to get different results from what you are getting now. Remember, the Forex market is the only place where everyone has an equal chance for success disregarding your background, education, social status and your past achievements. pipbanker

We are getting interesting results on the vote, but it is still open. If you have an opinion on this subject put your vote in at http://www.pipbanker.com The poll is in the right top corner. We will put the total count here after we close the poll. And by the way, Friday 13th had fantastic moves, congrats too everyone who was able to catch that drop in markets. good weekend to everyone

Since we have people happy with MAs, I think it would be interesting to know how many people are trading with MAs and if they are happy about performance. Would you agree that having a poll would be the right thing here? I've created a poll here Take a look at this screen to see where exactly the poll is. http://screencast.com/t/HWzDs4dLlon 2 weeks to vote should be enough to get some valid info. I will post results in 2 weeks here.

Ok, I see you are a little upset with people who are able to make money trading, but this is not your fault. Let me comment on few things you said. 1.There is no IPO in forex and futures, probably you know that, but I need to say that for any newbies who could be reading this post. 2. Yes, you can make money without having insiders in forex and futures. It would be hard to imagine that many people have access let's say to numbers prior to NFP. 3. Not all traders are willing to join the market without proper education. It might sound unbelievable to you but there are traders who want to be educated properly. I am not talking about education quality here, cause that would take us in to long debate.People can make their choice if they want to learn or not. We only give the opportunity to learn profitable trading, please don't get so angry about it. I don't think you get angry at people who teach English or other stuff. 4. Turning a struggling trader into a profitable one is not about watching videos and reading manuals. If you give me a valid reason why I should spend my personal time educating a trader for free then I will enroll you at no cost. You will like to be on the other side. There are many things to be discussed on this matter, but I will stop here. Yes, people can join our trading room for free.

Ok I know a lot of you are using the most popular indicator in the Market (Moving Average). What you do not realize is that is that MA is the #1 loser in the market. Don't get me wrong, all indicators are losers, but MA is the leader. Here is the bottom line. Indicators are not really the problem. It is the instruction that comes with them and people that use them is the problem. Let's take for example MA. This is by far the most abused indicator in the world. It has lost so much money it should have been illegal to use it. Incidentally, no one seems to realize that. Most trading system in the market follows the wisdom of the MA crossing strategy. 90% of trading system has some type of MA crossing scheme in it. Most indicators (MACD, Stoch, ADX, CCI) are build around that concept. That is why all indicators or EA (automated trading system) in general are garbage. Yes, I said it. They are all garbage. What is the reason for MA cross failure? When looking at MA or any indicators based on MA one needs to understand that price does not care where your moving average is in relation to current price. Market does not care where moving average is pointing or if your indicator is overbought or oversold. MA cross happens too late for an entry and usually when you see the cross and ready to put on a trade the price will go the opposite direction. Tadah! Not again. And you will wander why? You did follow your trading plan as you were taught but there was another loss...Frustration? No, it is more than that... Having said all that, where do a wanna forex trader should turn for help? The truth is there no one that can help you because the answer would be too simple for you to accept and follow. No one can help you except for yourself. For example: I trade against everything that I have learned in forex trading classes. I trade against everything the books, the technical gurus, the TV, the market analysis, the news, even the TREND. Yes, I trade against the trend. So when I talk about trading most traders will stay away from what I am saying because it makes no sense to them. Others will hate me for making money trading against all the rules that market "gurus" preach. I am going to share what I do and get some stones and mud thrown at me in the process. It should be fun to watch and read the comments I will be getting. So sit back and relax as I am going to unleash my sac of garbage. Here is how I trade. I only Buy Low and Sell High using my naked eye and simple support and resistance levels. I DO NOT USE MA CROSSING. IT IS DUMB TO USE MA CROSSING. Bellow is a summary of what I do to prepare for a trade: (and yes, I do trade without indicators ) 1. I don't do any analysis on weekends or days before. When I open my chart I look at a Daily Time Frame. I am not too concern about all these technical analysis. They are too confusing and too boring for me to be wasting my time on. As you may already know, most of your trades are always ending up in the wrong side. So the forex market itself does not follow technical analysis when it comes to taking my money so why should I? 2. I determine the intermediate term trend with the H4 and H1 to see where the price is in relation to past price action. This is easy to do with your naked eye. No need for expensive indicator. If you are addicted to indicators then do like the others are doing. Drop a 200 EMA on your charts and say to yourself if the price is above the 200 EMA, the trend is up and if the price is below it the trend is down. 3. I look at where the price is located in relation the highest point in the chart and the lowest point. Or for new guy, this means the highest the price has been before returning back down and the lowest the price has been before returning back up. You can do all this with your naked eye. 4. I am waiting for the price to reach my levels to take the trade. 5. I do use 5M to spot and trade true support and true resistance. 6. I only risk less than 2% of my account on any trade. 7. I follow my stop loss rules and let life goes on. And yes, sometimes I do trade even without all this stuff described above. Just be there in the right time and with right order. Sometimes I am lucky to reach my day target in first 5-10 minutes of session opening. This does not happen everyday, but this happens pretty often to mention it. With no indicators at all. So if you want to learn trading you have to get rid off anything that clutters your chart. Now go ahead and crucify me. I might enjoy some of your comments.

Ok, I see now that you did not get my message. Let me fix it. All I am saying that you need to get rid off anything that clutters your chart and stop listening to others opinions if you want to change your trading. I dont think anyone will become gazillionaire with any method. However, that is a different topic which does not relate to DAX. Let me ask you a question? What is that that you expect people will post in the thread of FDAX trading? Would you expect some say: "Now buy here and then sell there"? Or unveil all secrets of trading here in few sentences? If you give a profitable method to 100 traders 90-95 of them will still fail. Have you thought why is that?

When I open my charts I look for support and resistance levels only, nothing else. I either trade bounce of that level or a break out. Sometimes I use trendlines for entries too. I like when S&R correspond to a trendline. Hope this helps.

I never prepare day before. I never prepare on weekends. I just come check the chart if the trade is there I will take it or wait for the price to get where I will take the trade. I never care about news and the content. I don't care what the media says. They all lie or talk crap. I also don't care what analysts say or think. They are analysts, they cannot trade. I only care about the news when they show up cause it adds volatility. You dont need to be a bright person to be successful in trading. Trading is very simple and boring profession. Just get rid off all junk (news, opinions, indicators) that surrounds you and you will see more on your chart.