A little guidance please…

S

sgsaxton

I’ve been trading every day, full time, for the last 8 months and I’m only just starting understand how the markets really work. As a result I’m gaining more confidence and really believe I will actually make it as a trader. I’m quite happy with my method but I have yet to fully master it.

I no longer panic when I lose money but it still takes me around an hour to get to terms with it. The majority of my losses have been due to the occasional meltdown, at which time I will ignore my rules and trade “on the fly”. This impulsiveness has been a real problem for me, accounting for a large percentage of my overall losses and I’m still trying to learn how to control over it. The most it’s been down is 16% and the highest it’s been was 97%. The only reason I’m still around is due to my risk management rules, which I do not violate.

I have a few questions for those of you who may have some insight:

·Do you know of any methods to help control impulsive trading?


·Do you guys think is would be wiser to focus on a single currency pair as opposed to trading several? (Up until now I’ve been trading as many as three). If so, is it practical to trade a single currency pair but using multiple time frames? In other words I may have a long position on derived from 2-hour chart, but trade in and around it using signals from a 10min chart in order to take advantage of opportunities in shorter time frames.

I appreciate your responses.
Thanks.
 
Quote from sgsaxton:

I’ve been trading every day, full time, for the last 8 months and I’m only just starting understand how the markets really work. As a result I’m gaining more confidence and really believe I will actually make it as a trader. I’m quite happy with my method but I have yet to fully master it.

I no longer panic when I lose money but it still takes me around an hour to get to terms with it. The majority of my losses have been due to the occasional meltdown, at which time I will ignore my rules and trade “on the fly”. This impulsiveness has been a real problem for me, accounting for a large percentage of my overall losses and I’m still trying to learn how to control over it. The most it’s been down is 16% and the highest it’s been was 97%. The only reason I’m still around is due to my risk management rules, which I do not violate.

I have a few questions for those of you who may have some insight:

·Do you know of any methods to help control impulsive trading?


·Do you guys think is would be wiser to focus on a single currency pair as opposed to trading several? (Up until now I’ve been trading as many as three). If so, is it practical to trade a single currency pair but using multiple time frames? In other words I may have a long position on derived from 2-hour chart, but trade in and around it using signals from a 10min chart in order to take advantage of opportunities in shorter time frames.

I appreciate your responses.
Thanks.
More...

1. Trade only one pair.
2. Trade only one time frame.
3. Losses are part of the game. Love them. They are no problem if you always take them - lets say 20 pips away from your entry no matter what.
4. Follow the news so you know what's going on and why the markets moves.
 
It's my opinion that the most important part of trading is to know the character of the market that your method needs to work.
Any one market will go through cycles. Waiting through the undesirable cycles for your signal to develop can be very counter productive in that the longer you're inactive the stronger the urge of saying “this is good enough”.
The choice you're faced with is being a master of all market characters, and having many methods, and determining which one is appropriate to take advantage of the current cycle.(when trading one market)

OR
Having just one or two specific methods, which works in a specific market environment.
In that case you have a list of markets which display the proper characteristics that gives your trading method a above average chance of succeeding .
 
Thanks for your replies.
From what I've seen currencies tend to move at similar times when you look shorter time frames ( 5, 10 mins). They all seem to be some what correlated. It appears to me that if one is using a momentum based method, it wouldn't really matter what you're trading. Am I right?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Quote from Wittgenstein:

1. Trade only one pair.
2. Trade only one time frame.
3. Losses are part of the game. Love them. They are no problem if you always take them - lets say 20 pips away from your entry no matter what.
4. Follow the news so you know what's going on and why the markets moves.
More...

I'll have to disagree.

Trading smaller but multiple non-correlated pairs gives diversity. If one is a loss, ideally, there will be others profitable.

Trading multiple time frames from the top down gives a better view of the markets and can help in determining better entries/exits and when/if to take a loss or wait out a retrace/consolidation.

Losses are part of the game.. that I will agree with. But I say hate them. Despise them. Choose your trades better so you don't have to take them.
 
It would seem to me that I may get more movement in the GBP/USD market. I pay a little more but I guess that's the trade off. What do you think?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Quote from JR97:

I'll have to disagree.

Trading smaller but multiple non-correlated pairs gives diversity. If one is a loss, ideally, there will be others profitable.

Trading multiple time frames from the top down gives a better view of the markets and can help in determining better entries/exits and when/if to take a loss or wait out a retrace/consolidation.

Losses are part of the game.. that I will agree with. But I say hate them. Despise them. Choose your trades better so you don't have to take them.
More...

But which pairs are truly non-correlated? The majors all seem to be and trading the others tends to be very expensive when you take into account the spreads involved.

-Steve
 
Quote from Wittgenstein:

1. Trade only one pair.
2. Trade only one time frame.
3. Losses are part of the game. Love them. They are no problem if you always take them - lets say 20 pips away from your entry no matter what.
4. Follow the news so you know what's going on and why the markets moves.
More...
I love trading against guys like Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein, are you an accountant or lawyer or something? PhD economist? Head currency strategist maybe? :D

Keep up the good work!

fx
 
Quote from sKaLpZ:

I love trading against guys like Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein, are you an accountant or lawyer or something? PhD economist? Head currency strategist maybe? :D

Keep up the good work!

fx
More...

No, I am only a professor. What's wrong with taking your losses before they get so big that they destroy you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top