15 ways to avoid losing money

painofhell

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1. Wrong Broker : A lot of forex brokers are horrible; get a good one. Read forums and chats in several different places to get an unbiased opinion.

2. Trading During Off Hours Bank FX traders, option traders, and hedge funds have a huge advantage during off hours; they can push the currencies around when no volume is going through and the end game is new traders get fleeced trying to trade signals. There is only one signal during off hours it is better to stay out.

3. Trading Against Prevailing Trend There is a huge difference between buying cheaply on the way down and buying cheaply. What was a low price quickly becomes a high price when you 're trading against the trend.

4. Picking Tops and Bottoms - Looking for bargains works well at the supermarket but not trading foreign exchange; try to trade in the direction the price is going and your results will improve.

5. Not Trading Around s Time : Most of the big moves occur around news time. The volume is high and the moves are real; there is no better time to trade fundamentally or technically than when news is released; this is when the real money adjusts their positions and as a result the prices changes reflect serious currency flow (compared to quiet times when bank traders rule the market with their customer order flow).

6. Ignore Technical Conditions : Determining whether the market is over-extended long or over-extended short is a key determinant of near-time price action. Spike moves often occur when the market is all one way.

7. Lack of Confidence Confidence only comes from successful trading. If you lose money early in your trading career it's very difficult to gain true confidence; the trick is don't go off half-cocked; learn the business before you trade.

8. Being Too Smart : The most successful traders I know are high school ****uates. They keep it simple and dont look beyond the obvious; their results are excellent.

9. Stop Losses : Putting tight stop losses with retail brokers is a recipe for disaster. When you put on a trade, commit to a reasonable stop loss limit that allows your trade a fair chance to develop.

10. Relying on Others : Real traders play a lone hand; they make their own decisions and dont rely on others to make their trading decisions for them; there is no halfway; either trade for yourself or have someone else trade for you.

11. Too Many Charity Trades : When you make money on a well thought-out trade, dont give back half on a whim; invest your profits from good trades on the next good trade

12. Too Much Detail : If you are trading more than 2 indicators, then you need to clean house. Having many indicators stifles trading and finds reasons not to trade. A setup and a trigger is all you need.

13.Overconfidence : Trading is not easy; statistics show a 95% failure rate. If your doing well dont take your success for granted; always be on the lookout for ways to improve what you 're doing.

14. Knowledge Deficiency: Most new forex traders do not take the time to learn what drives currency rates (primarily fundamentals). When some news or a statement is due out, they close out their positions and sit out the best trading opportunities; they are taught to only trade after the market calms down. So essentially they miss the whole move and then trade the random noise that follows a fundamental price move. Just think for a moment about technically trading the aftermath of a price move; there is no potential.


15. Rumors : Rumors are rumors almost 100% of the time; think about where in the motion you heard the rumor. If EUR/USD is up 50 points in last 15 minutes and the rumor is dollar negative, well then you missed it. Whenever you trade, determine where in the motion you are entering.

Hope its will help all of you..
 
I cud of managed that in one bruv

1: Don't play on da xxxx (forex, xxxx, 4 x's) as you will loose.

And I didn't nead to spam the trade2winz 4rum eva.
 
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I cud of managed that in one bruv

1: Don't play on da xxxx (forex, xxxx, 4 x's) as you will loose.

And I didn't nead to spam the trade2winz 4rum eva.

Hey, welcome back pondy, Try not to put all ya wedge on teh cable this time and stick around for a bit eh, teh lulz is but a distant memory, gone but not forgotten..
 
I thought these weren't a bad stab at some of the more common/obvious issues.
 
How about the most important mistakes ?!
1- Over leveraging .
2-Over trading .
3-Trading short time frames - for non professionals - .
 
Also good point tar.

I'll add:-

1. moving your stop away from the price in the hope it'll behave itself sooner or later. I've lost shed-loads doing that.

2. staying in a trade after it's gone so bad it actually meets all your criteria for entering in the other direction.

3. Similar to painofhell's Charity Trade, but it's when you've had a loser - you hit it again in the same direction and to really teach it a lesson and get back your losses, and then some, you take a much larger position. And then you do 2 above. And then 1...
 
3-Trading short time frames - for non professionals - .

This myth needs to be addressed. For beginners maybe, but retailers can make money off the lower time frames. It all depends on your style and personality.

I couldn't make money on the higher time frames
 
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This myth needs to be addressed. For beginners maybe, but retailers can make money off the lower time frames. It all depends on your style and personality.

I couldn't make money on the higher time frames

Not a myth , everything is possible yes but whats the odds , if one couldn't make it on longer time frames it would be much worse on short time frames most likely .

"In other words, 87% of day traders in a given year lose money after fees are taken into account. About .28%--one in 360--is able to make money after fees year over year."

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-proportion-of-daytraders-actually.html
 
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I don't care about the odds, I care about what style suits me best. That combined with perseverance can lead to success. Don't let some random blogger you don't know tell you otherwise!
 
As for stats that 95% fail, or 87% fail or what ever... Where do these stats come from???

Probably mostly from traders who give up after 6 months once they blow their accounts.

I'd like to see the stats of how many who persevere for 5+ year or more actually succeed.
 
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As for stats that 95% fail, or 87% fail or what ever... Where do these stats come from???

Probably mostly from traders who give up after 6 months once they blow their accounts.

I'd like to see the stats of how many who persevere for 5+ year or more actually succeed.
I think that's exactly where the stats come from. There was a thread somewhere on here where one of the brokers provided a breakdown of successful traders and, from memory, after two years, the number of traders showing a profit on their starting capital was less than 2%. New traders come on board all the time and enjoy varying degrees of success. So for any given quarter the brokers/SBs can show relatively high success rates with just under 50% (again from memory) of traders profitable for that quarter. Those profitable the next quarter may well be a similar percentage, but will not have as many of those that were profitable the previous quarter- the numbers being made up by new arrivals.

Traders arriving and dropping out all the time, but those that make it through to year 3 with profits are just 2% of those they started out with at the same time.
 
Sorry just posted the correct link - it contains an interesting study - .
 
That blog should be a stickie. Priceless.

It provides an empirical basis for that which we all inherently suspected was the reality all along. So my 2 in 100 was well off the mark. Just 1 in 360 will make consistent profits from trading. Is this a degree course?

Not sure , anyway it was done on day traders . Here is another one on FX from a member here :

http://theessentialsoftrading.com/B.../starting-to-detail-forex-profitability-data/

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex/164594-forex-trader-success-rates-some-real-data.html

"You're right that only 30 were able to be profitable more than 4 straight quarters."

The research was done on 8500 FX accounts 2009-2012 .
 
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I think I have discovered an edge then.

I get 359 people to join me in a trading co-operative. Each of us has a 1/360 chance of consistent success when we all start out. I kill all of them. Now is that an edge or is that an edge?
 
I think I have discovered an edge then.

I get 359 people to join me in a trading co-operative. Each of us has a 1/360 chance of consistent success when we all start out. I kill all of them. Now is that an edge or is that an edge?

the probability of your chance of success stays the same regardless how many you kill ie it remains 1 in 360 (assuming this is correct).........(unless you get rid of almost all mkt participants & thus < 360 participants remain, & they are of <= trading ability to you).

not sure how i can explain better........maybe: where did the 1/360 stat come from? you & your group or thousands of failed + handful of successful traders prior?
 
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t
not sure how i can explain better........maybe: where did the 1/360 stat come from? you & your group or thousands of failed + handful of successful traders prior?
Maybe if you clicked the links posted earlier you would understand better. Explaining better seems a way off yet.

Start small.

Keep plugging.
 
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