Secrets of Successful Forex Traders by Nial Fuller

[Nial Fuller 10]

Secrets of Successful Forex Traders - by Nial Fuller

 

Below Expert Forex Trader Nial Fuller Talks About Secrets Of Successful Forex Traders.

 

 

The “secrets” of most successful Forex traders are perhaps not so secret. What I mean is that you probably already know most of the things you need to do to be a profitable trader, but you don’t do them because you think you will find a “short-cut” or you think you just “feel” the market better than most people so you will be able to cut the corners you know you should probably be taking.

 

Most struggling traders think in a similar manner to what I just discussed above; they think they are always just one trade away from hitting a big winner and then they will start to be disciplined and create a trading plan and trading journal. Unfortunately, it’s usually too late for traders who think like this, meaning because they think like this they are reinforcing trading habits that are inhibiting them from making money in the markets. Don’t be like the masses of losing traders, be different, be realistic, do what you know you should do to excel in the markets, stop cutting corners and start trading in an organized and responsible manner. Here are a few things that ALL consistently profitable Forex traders do, and that you probably are not doing:

Trading frequency

 

Most traders seem to have a natural tendency to want to trade a lot. Rather, traders who are undisciplined, have no trading plan and who don’t view their success as being defined over a long series of trades want to trade a lot. Most very successful traders do not trade as much as you probably are. In fact, there are studies that PROVE that investors and traders that trade less frequently than day-traders or scalpers make more money over the long-run.

 

If you think about it, isn’t the “long-run” really what matters anyways? Why does it matter if you make 50% one month only to give it back the next month? Isn’t it better to just make 50% a year and keep that 50%? Of course, everyone would answer yes, but most traders’ actions do not reflect this. If you boiled down the reasons behind most traders’ actions, you would see that they are primarily concerned with the ‘here and now’ and not so much on their end-of-year trading results. Of course, when the end of the year comes and they look back over their trading performance, they realize that they traded way too much and that had they just traded less frequently, they probably would have made a lot more money…or in most cases made some money.

 

What is the point? Well, the point is that one of the biggest ‘secrets’ of successful traders is that they don’t trade very much. If you take a look at your own trading performance you’ve probably entered 5 or more trades in the past week, in my opinion, that’s too many. I focus on the daily chart time frame, and I only enter very obvious price action setups that I consider the ‘low-hanging fruit’; I don’t like to put my hard-earned money at risk in the markets unless my trading edge is present. This is how a professional trader thinks, whereas an amateur / losing trader just manifests trading signal after trading signal, mutating their trading edge to meet their desire to trade, or altogether ignoring the fact that their trading edge is not present.

Discipline

 

Another ‘secret’ of successful Forex traders is that they are disciplined. If you are not consistently successful in the markets yet, it’s a fair bet that it’s because you are not disciplined enough to consistently manage your risk or to consistently stick to your trading plan, i.e. not over-trading. Almost every trader who struggles to make money in the markets does so because they risk more than they should per trade…rather more than they know they should, and also because they trade too often. Both of these problems are a result of not being disciplined enough to stick to what you know you should do and what you need to do. Successful traders are successful because they are disciplined enough to wait for the most obvious trade setups and also because they are disciplined enough to never risk more than they are totally comfortable with losing per trade.

Simplicity

 

Finally, perhaps one of the biggest ‘secrets’ of successful Forex traders is that they do not use complicated trading methods. Whilst every trader is different and trades in a slightly different way, by and large, pro traders are using simple price action-derived methods. You are going to be hard-pressed to find a pro trader with 10 different indicators on their charts. Most successful traders have long since realized that the only thing overly-complicated indicator and software-based methods do, is cover-up the high-probability price action setups that occur on the price chart beneath them.

 

Most beginning and struggling traders seem to have the idea that they by putting more ‘crap’ on their charts they are somehow going to gain some inside information or understanding of price movement. All they’re really doing is masking the price action of the chart and making it more difficult and complicated to interpret and trade from. Most traders who make it out of the woods of beginning trading and searching for the “Holy-Grail” trading system, eventually end up gravitating towards natural and raw price action trading because they ultimately realize that a market’s raw price movement is the best and most accurate tool for analyzing it and making trading decisions. Unfortunately, Forex trading is a very easy industry for people to develop trading systems and ‘magic-bullet’ indicators that sound and look great, and are very easy to market and sell.

 

As a struggling or beginning trader, the best thing you can do is to be skeptical; if something sounds too good to be true…it probably is. There are no short-cuts to success in Forex, and the ‘secrets’ that I’ve discussed in this article really are just common sense things that you probably already know you should be doing but most likely aren’t. So, make the change today and start doing what you know needs to be done to succeed as a currency trader.

 

You Can Visit Nial Fuller's Price Action Trading Community Here - Forex Trading

[4EverMaAT 10]

Perhaps the biggest secret in trading is that there is no secret.

 

There is a difference between opinion and fact, but the human ego can sometimes have a hard time discerning this. Especially when we are attached to our own preferences. For example, you hinted that there is a correlation between Trading frequency and profitability: The higher the trading frequency, the lower the profitability or ability to keep the profits. But there is no real proof of this.

 

If person X drives from point A to point B at 20mph, and then person Y drives from the same point A to point B at 60 mph, do they both reach their destination? Yes. The only difference is that person Y reaches their destination 3 times faster. This isn't good or bad, but simple arithmetic. One could argue that traveling at a faster speed is "riskier" than a slower speed of getting into a collision. So you would have to test and see which speed would give the maximum speed, but lowest chance for acceptable collision. After all, you could just go at a speed of 0 mph, but then you wouldn't go anywhere.

 

Without any specific advice or concrete examples, it is very difficult for people to objectively determine whether or not the advice can be incorporated into their trading strategy.

[Nial Fuller 10]

Hi 4EverMaat - the words 'secret' is just a catchy headline I used. In reality, the article is designed to point out the key habits of great traders. I believe the main points I made are very relevant to successful trading and I hope they help people. Cheers.

[jhp2025 10]

The Secret of No-Secret is "Just Do It!"

Everything is back to Knowledge, without it, we lost!

[alwaysastudent 10]

For example, you hinted that there is a correlation between Trading frequency and profitability: The higher the trading frequency, the lower the profitability or ability to keep the profits. But there is no real proof of this.

 

And one counter example would be scalping. It is the high trading frequency which makes scalping a few pips here and there work.

 

A buddy of mine is a 20+ vet at Forex trading and has a successful model. He automated the model and we have been using it successfully, 2 months for me, over a year for him.

 

This autotrader addresses the two (Trade Frequency and Simplicity) of the three points listed above.

 

Sorry, autotraders don't address Discipline as much as we liked it to. We still meddle and those usually result in our largest losses........

 

The other side benefits of automation were easier backtesting, a better statistical understanding of the model and clarifying assumptions in the model.

 

IMHO automating, or at least drafting something that could be automated, should be part and parcel of backtesting.

 

In summary: The success of any trader is related to risk mitigation and understand what and how their trading model works.

[henryduncan12 10]

Thanks Nial to share some important points about forex trading. These are helpful for me and other traders as well.

[JMB 10]

Knowing "where" NOT to trade is a rule that will keep you out of bad trades.

Most "Trading educators" out there "teach" you a trading strategy that looks good, yet most traders still lose money.

Having that said , only context can tell you where you should enter a short or a long trade.

This is something that i have not seen many "if any" teacher teach.

You can take a startegy that sucks but if you enter that strategy in the right context it can still make you money.

 

Talking about scalping,...well, its Ok to do , just not in the spot market. Way too many comissions or high spreads to pay and that is if your broker is working in your favor :haha::rofl:

Futures would be better for that.

 

Another thing. This thread just started but it will likely grow out of proportions due to the catchy word "secret". Everybody wants that secret to make money in FX. Whats the secret?? Think the Logic. If you buy bananas at the store , buy the most green ones (they last longer) If you sell bananas sell the most yellow ones (they do not serve you anymore) get the point. BUY LOW , SELL HIGH.

 

My

[binarymaster 10]

I agree with most of the post that the 'secret'/ key to being a successful trader is knowledge! Going in prepared with useful information of what to do and especially what not to do! One can also learn the 'art' of signals... learning how things actually work and past trends which allow you to predict future outcomes and create intelligent strategies rather than 'gambling' on outcomes.