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I should also mention I hold myself accountable. I do not blame the market, supercomputers, brokers, or anyone else but myself when I make a mistake.

I can correct my mistakes, and prevent future mistakes under similar circumstances.

But if it is not my fault, then that means there is nothing I can do about it. So, I always look for my own mistake that was preventable, and find a way that it can be prevented in the future...
 
Forexmospherian - I should also add that I admit my mistakes, and I know I will make more of them. I'm still learning and will never stop learning. I will never be comfortable. It's my lack of comfort, I think, that is an advantage. I'm not saying I'll never have a losing streak, but I tend not to have them. Because, when I do make a mistake, I identify it and learn from it and try not to make it again. So, for me to make 7 bad trades in a row, would mean I really was not paying attention to what I was doing, and I hope I never fall asleep like that…

I also have checks and balances on what the root causes are of my trading mistakes. If I see myself headed in that direction, I pull myself back before I start down the path of a losing streak. And I think you also alluded to it as well - The cause of losing streaks is not really related directly to strategy, but is connected to emotion. What does one do after one loses 1 trade? After 2 trades? 3? 4? etc.?

How one handles emotions after a loss will determine how many more losses will directly follow that. Just my 2 cents...

I actually agree with a lot you are saying - and whilst you have the correct attitude to get there - it will be a real test of your resilience on whether you really make it

Going back to the time analogies with learning to become a Doctor or Lawyer or even scientist - success come with time and at 2- 3 yrs you are just a third or half way through the journey

What is interesting - i used to think just like you - and though I would crack this game in 18 months to 2 yrs. At 3 and 4 yrs - I really did think of just giving up as I had other businesses and it was another 2 yrs before I was satisfied I had got there - so was really disappointed.

This last 3 years as well been worth the pain and the hrs of emotional stress etc - its been like getting to finally juggle with 10 balls - and I thought if I can juggle 4 then the do a few more would be easy - ;-))

I am not a person to say - told you so - so will gladly assist if needed - but meanwhile let you get on with it and no way want you to fail

Good Luck

Regards

F
 
I actually agree with a lot you are saying - and whilst you have the correct attitude to get there - it will be a real test of your resilience on whether you really make it

Going back to the time analogies with learning to become a Doctor or Lawyer or even scientist - success come with time and at 2- 3 yrs you are just a third or half way through the journey

What is interesting - i used to think just like you - and though I would crack this game in 18 months to 2 yrs. At 3 and 4 yrs - I really did think of just giving up as I had other businesses and it was another 2 yrs before I was satisfied I had got there - so was really disappointed.

This last 3 years as well been worth the pain and the hrs of emotional stress etc - its been like getting to finally juggle with 10 balls - and I thought if I can juggle 4 then the do a few more would be easy - ;-))

I am not a person to say - told you so - so will gladly assist if needed - but meanwhile let you get on with it and no way want you to fail

Good Luck

Regards

F

Thanks again for your responses. Come back any time.
 
Aliasentric

you make the right noises and you sound as if you have started well .............just do your time and you will become a sucessful trader .....

good luck to you
N
 
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Goals will either limit you or push you beyond your limitation

My goal is to never lose a trade. Obviously I lose trades. But why accept losses? Why not continue to learn from your mistakes, and continue to correct them, and improve. What is the ceiling on how successful you can be? I have not placed a ceiling on the success of my trading.

I've heard so many "mentors" say you only need to have a 20-30% winning percentage, as long as your risk/reward ratio is appropriate. For example, if you have a 3:1 win/loss, then you don't even have to win half your trades to be profitable.

Now, I thought about this for a while. This seems to me like one would be settling for less, when they could strive for more. Why not focus on winning more trades, and then you are not so anxious about managing each trade, worrying if you are going to let it ride long enough to overcome your losses. If you have less losses to overcome, it takes a lot of pressure off of you.

If you set your goal high enough, and you are realistic enough to realize that you can still be successful, even if you don't make that goal, you will achieve more than if set it too low and just settle for it once you've hit it. If I have 100% winning percentage as the goal for the week, and I lose a trade, do I quit? No. I have the same goal moving forward. Always look ahead and don't lose site of your target. Settling for less, means you lose your focus, and don't try to hit the bullseye anymore. You'll never hit it if you don't keep trying to hit it. What is your bullseye for the week?

Mine is 100% winning percentage. How close can I get? I guess we'll find out…
 
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Stopped out in EURNZD due to not giving S/L enough room...

So, there goes my 100% winning average for the week.

Actually, I don't feel bad about this… yet. Because I'm still in profits for the week. Plus, I see what I think was the mistake in terms of why I was stopped out and will try to correct that in future trades...

video: TradeManagement20131218 2

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U
 
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Stopped out in EURNZD due to not giving S/L enough room...

So, there goes my 100% winning average for the week.

Actually, I don't feel bad about this… yet. Because I'm still in profits for the week. Plus, I see what I think was the mistake in terms of why I was stopped out and will try to correct that in future trades...

video: TradeManagement20131218 2

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U

Hi Aliasentric

When you took your 5th or 6th trade -and they were all live at the same time - how much in percentage terms was your Capital exposed to ?

Also was every trade based on the same logic or TA - or was there any element of hedging ?

i wish you luck with a method like this - as if you get them correct - you do really well - if you get more than 3 wrong - you could be suffering - and if all go wrong - then its a psych kick - that can set you back

Regards

F
 
Forexmospherian - One thing about my strategy is it's not for the faint of heart. It might seem to be very high risk. I have no problem exposing my capital to a margin closeout risk. So, I do risk up to 50% of my capital on a regular basis. But, I don't worry too much about this, since i know I can triple my capital pretty easily. I could lose 50% on one set of trades, then turn around and triple it and end up with a 50% increase. So, even if it takes a couple weeks to triple it, it would still average out to 25% a week, which ain't bad.

But as I mentioned before, it's rare that I lose that many trades. In fact, the only thing I worry about in terms of limiting risk, is what I am risking for each trade. My biggest losses have been on single trades, not multiple trades. If I have multiple trades open, I don't worry about the total risk. So, I try really hard to not put too much risk on a single trade. Each trade, I try to limit risk to no more than 10-20%.

I guess, my thought on this is, if you are confident enough in your trading ability to win more trades than you lose, plus you have an acceptable win/loss ratio, why wait to enter them subsequently? If you enter them concurrently, you have automatically hedged yourself with your win/loss ratio, i.e. 1:2, 1:3 etc, and your percentage of trades won. For example, if I know I can win more than half my trades, and I know that I can at least average a 1:3 win:loss ratio, then what would be the problem in entering as many trades as you can all at once? Quicker way to profit :cool:

But, I wouldn't have brought up this part of my strategy unless someone asked about it, as you have, since I know it's not something that most people would be comfortable with. Plus, when I build up my capital, I may not be so aggressive, as it won't be necessary. But again, I don't really look at it as any more risk, than if I entered one trade at a time...
 
Forexmospherian - Also, in case I didn't mention clearly, I use price action and patterns only. I don't look at any currency correlation as hedging. I found that it was not consistently reliable. I just look at what the price is telling me to enter and manage trades...
 
I want to thank everyone who has continued to post on my thread, in spite of how strong I came on here at the beginning. As I read some of what I had posted at the outset, it makes me wonder, who did I think I was?

I'm sure there are many experienced traders who have trading success on this forum. I'm sure if I just went away, it would be no great loss and everyone was doing just fine before I showed up. So, thanks again for all who put up with me.
 
I want to thank everyone who has continued to post on my thread, in spite of how strong I came on here at the beginning. As I read some of what I had posted at the outset, it makes me wonder, who did I think I was?

I'm sure there are many experienced traders who have trading success on this forum. I'm sure if I just went away, it would be no great loss and everyone was doing just fine before I showed up. So, thanks again for all who put up with me.

Please keep on posting A - you will get there if you are that determined and have the time and the heart to study - and study....... and study - and the resilience to stay with it.

I think you have to go though the pain and the hell of losing to become successful in trading - but it's all helped by having great money management and of course some trading edges - that you might already have - or if not will develop

Have a good last 2 days of the week

Regards

F
 
Please keep on posting A - you will get there if you are that determined and have the time and the heart to study - and study....... and study - and the resilience to stay with it.

I think you have to go though the pain and the hell of losing to become successful in trading - but it's all helped by having great money management and of course some trading edges - that you might already have - or if not will develop

Have a good last 2 days of the week

Regards

F

Thanks for your words of encouragement.
 
Some thoughts on what has helped me to learn to read price action.

Some never progress past learning the alphabet in price action. But learning the alphabet is only the first step. Learning to read AND understand is the key...

Some people even after learning to read price action, never learn to understand it. Very similar to learning a new language, I've seen many people who learn to read, but don't know what they are reading. Price action is very similar, in that reading and understanding is key.

Next step is actually acting on what the price action is telling you, which is a whole other topic...

video:Learning to Read Price Action

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmn5UWtVQolz1L4OxAMQzzw
 
The learning process goes something like this (from my experience)…

price action language - PA

Learning to recognize some "letters" of PA results in thinking you actually know something about PA, and get false hopes with a little success, then don't understand why it suddenly all starts to look like a confusing mess, and you lose one trade after another.

Then after persevering with more learning, you can now learn "words" and and start to have a little more success, but your failures still far outweigh your winning trades, and it is still discouraging to say the least, as you still feel like most of the time you are not sure of what the price is really telling you.

Then you keep learning, and understanding more. You can sometimes see sentences and paragraphs. But you really still don't know the chapters and theme of the book. So, it seems like you should be able to get there, and becomes more frustrating as you feel like you know everything you need know in order to read PA, but just can't do it.

Finally, once you start seeing the chapters, the theme of the book starts to become evident, and it all starts coming together. And you start having more success, but still struggle at times, since each new trading decision is a new story to understand.

Everytime you enter a trade, it is like reading a book or story. What direction is the story taking you? Is it clear? Or is the story incomplete and you should wait for more information? How long is the story? i.e. how long do you anticipate the trade should last, not in terms of time, but in terms of seeing an end to the trade in terms of where you expect it to reverse.
 
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