Mickey's Journal

[kiravon]

Hello Arjan

I've got a live account with XM

They are a market maker but they are very big.

Again a lot of mixed reviews. They do cancel some profitable trades but I think this is when clients have tried to use platform blips against them, in other word playing the broker at his own game

They don't stop hunt which most market makers do. I think i, like me you trade in a normal way, not five second scalping et, you should be alright with them.

I think their spreads on majors are ok but some pairs you might need to be careful.

[arjanbg]

Hey Michael,

I trade in a normal way so this should be fine. I selected the major pairs and don t trade pairs with a spread of 2,8 pips and higher. Thanks for the reply seems like you did quite some research.

[immy]

.
I've made over 1,500 pips on USDJPY on demo since September and that convinced me that the less I have to do the more I will probably earn

This is Golden Read again...

[kiravon]

It truly is Golden!

So many times I've had demo accounts that fell into disuse, and only by chance I've looked in weeks or months later to find an open trade has clocked up thousands of dollars without me knowing or doing anything at all.

I thought it was amazing to do so well without even doing anything -

but that waas precisely why I did well - I kept out of my own way!

On September 29th I thought I would try to do this deliberately and opened a well reasoned trade on USDJPY. I anticipated a deep retracement that never happened and its been on a bull run ever since. Its now up almost 1,800 pips and much more is expected. Thats an average of 600 pips per month on just one currency, not counting add ons.

There is indeed such a lesson here

Similarly, I remember in the old days there could be a measure of hasty panic in the Skype room with enthusiastic newbies calling imaginary setups on the M1 and you had to get in fast! On more than one occasion I carelessly misread the post as eminating from Grant or Immy which it didn't.

I remember whinging about losing a few quid and Immy just reminding me of something that should be obvious -

'Why not concentrate on doubling your demo account first before trading a live account?'

One thing I've found for absolute sure - if you can't be profitable on demo you are going to be in deep trouble trading real money!

but one very modest demo account of around $250 has now almost doubled with just two trades since December 1st-

470 pips on USDJPY and308 pips on CHFJPY in three weeks

Not exactly overtrading!

One idea is to look for a really good filter for possible trades and then only trade the very best of the best setups before even thinking about AIMS setups.

You can't simply trade every break of AIMS indiscriminately.

It could be something like Immy's weekly preview if thats still available in the new year. As a filter

Something I've found is a pattern recognition program on the Thinktrader platform for Thinkmarkets

Setups are given Quality scores

I wouldn't even look at anything less than 90% AND only on D1 timeframe and only Majors

Now if you find it agreeing with break of AIMS confluent with Gator you should really have an edge

I'm currently looking at a break of AIMS ON H4 on GBPUSD

I think 90% signals might be very rare and few would have the patience to wait for them.

Whatever system you use to filter out weak trades you do need to be selective and not 'ever hopeful'

'Guessing is gambling'

[acceleratum]

In my experience, IF I wait for the great signals I make decent profit, then Im bored and want to trade and take "lesser good" signals and some will rent and other will profit a bit and such.. So If I took only the perfect ones I would only take 1 trade per week maybe 2 or 3 when they all setup at same time.. but definitely have better results than taking lots of trades, the allure of making lots of quick profits and compounding is great, but it doesnt really work that way and its easy to fail, you cant predict market so the lower timeframe and the more trades you take the bigger your chance to fail, and its not even your fault, even if your the best greatest analyst market will still behave randomly, so the ideal is to go for higher timeframes and select the very few best of the best trades. Do something else when your bored XD

[immy]

@Kiravon

What you explained in your post above is a very good way to explain what exactly is Trend Following. Trend following on the longer term is THE way to make money.

Glad we agree on something

[kiravon]

Just one open position since 20.12 Short GBPUSD doing well despite PMI news earlier.

POs on USDJPY and EURUSD, both waiting for break of AIMS and/or prior AIMS

On the longterm these are the three currency pairs I feel most confident about, initially because of key levels, my own analysis, and the consensus of other resources I use such as the many analysts on FXStreet, ForexLive, DailyFX, FXML Market updates, ActionForex, Second Skies, FPA Shoulders of Giants, Winners Edge Forex Power page, Instaforex News Channel.

If anyone knows of any other useful resources I'd be interested to add them to my list.

Personally, rather than waste a lot of unprofitable time on Intraday trading as commented upon by Pedro above, I find such resources educational and insightful. I tend to skim to a large extent, I'm not following anyone, just looking for consensus. but I'm picking things up along the way.

I particularly found the dollarexchange videos very helpful in grasping Fundamental Analysis. Actually you don't really need to understand it, if everyone is using words like 'Bearish' in their headline that's a pretty big clue.

but understanding what's actually happening and how news affects sentiment and currency pairs makes me feel more professional and so the major benefit may well just be psychological.

After a lot of twists and turns there are definite lessons I've learnt last year, by far my most productive year to date

Probably most important, trade very small position size - small enough to really not matter. yes profits will be smaller but it all builds up exponentially. For example my tiny trade last September now up over 1,800 pips has only made $146 in three months because of 0.01 lot size. but with patience that can build up to being $1,460 in future trades and much more.

If you trade too high it is psychologically self defeating - your psychology will definitely be your undoing. there will always be rents and if it hurts too much you will always be stressed out and eventually give up as just another one of the 98% brigade.

I lost two trades over Christmas, small lot sizes so I was just pleased to learn the lesson dont trade anywhere around Christmas - so I won't be doing that again!

and for me I've finally found my trading style thats longer term and a bit more ponderous - I actually enjoy doing all the analysis and checks and comparisons and as I write I see EU is just about poised to break support - looks like we're on the move!

btw an interesting tool I've found is easytrends, where you find trends on consecutive time frames it might be a useful filter. at the moment it isnt giving any! I like it's selective approach! I've found it to be infinitely more reliable than Forextrendy and free. Again, its not a system just a quick way of possibly finding the best looking trends.

dollar yen.PNG

[acceleratum]

Winners edge was the first system I bought including their signal service, and the first I ran away from when at second month it went up by 300$ and they just kept selling better improved versions of same system progressively more expensive.
Also you can get similar indies for free at steves webpage, the others I dont know, I take peaks on my broker news newsletter but they pretty much describe what already happened and their trade suggestions are not great, they even have one guy who analyses market based on elliot wave and aims system is far better explained than that, still cool they provide those services. One webpage I like is teletrader.com Its just a big web terminal, good to get an overall picture and some headlines. And the page I use frequently is investing.com, to see the calendar and major headlines, or watch bloomberg, its surprisingly interesting even without the trading news.

[kiravon]

Thanks, teletrader and investing.com are both useful. I don't know anything about winners edge apart from his free forex power webpage., he appears to be yet another marketeer with a must have special indicator. but you have well described the funnel marketing we often find with forex marketeers - eg one guy offers a very good value series of videos for $10 and once he has your confidence the bigger and better offers arrive in your mailbox, culminating in one to one tuition for a mere $50,000

You can't buy success in Forex, it doesn't matter how much you pay you have to learn to read the charts yourself. one of the resources above is a classic case in point. a fund manager voted by Barclays as Number 2 best trader 2008 - 2013. - thats the second most profitable trader in the world for five years running!

He will give you the identical tuition he now gives his traders for just $1 which is probably very good value but after two weeks you are automatically charged $300 per month to continue using his live news stream.

A live news stream is not going to make anyone rich, its all a marketing ploy on the back of what is probably an excellent training course for $1 - he gives away such amazing value - why? its the 'Sprat to catch a mackerel' - namely your hard earned cash.

[acceleratum]

I agree with everything, Aims was the best investment I made and mostly because of how we learn whats really necessary, not just add indies and follow signals like any beginner is lured in. Winners edge special indicators are not that special, its just s/r indicators and trend indicators and trendlines.. etc.. I have the basic pack lying around somewhere, all basic stuff with his brand on top. The expensive bits was the signal service, that power page was part of the deal to call ppl in but im sure the lure is having the signal service telling you when to buy or sell.