I've been trying to learn to trade for around 10 years! Im 26.
Some of them years have been fulltime, early morning until Midnight staring at screens until my eyes bleed, and some of them periods have been more part-time, getting home from work and SIM trading, studying etc etc.
My story in brief:
demo traded for a few months after a relative who had made lots of money trading got me interested in it.
Opened an Account with a spreadbetting company in the UK with £1000 which was my life savings. Turned it into about £2000 in a few months, and then lost the lot. Wasn't using stops. Was always gonna happen.
Carried on DEMO trading/trying to learn and saving more money.
Opened a new account with just £300
Turned that account into about £3000
Thought I was a genius, and then lost the lot.
I had been using stops more this time around, although on the trade that wiped me out, I was in heavier and was sure it was a good one, and was too proud/stupid to take the smaller loss, and let it take everything in the end, instead.
At this point, I was certain that CHARTS/TA were not the answer.
Lots of other people had told me this, although, NOBODY ever really told me what the answer was.
I went off and delved more into reading the order book and studies this for a while.
I SIM traded using what I thought I had learnt from my hours watching the DOM. My results weren't even encouraging enough to open a live account.
Same thing with Fundamentals.
There were still 'experts' who told me that NONE of that stuff was the answer. charts/DOM/orderbook/fundamentals/statistical analysis etc etc.
I didn't (and still don't) know what they were referring too. They never told me. I'm not sure what's left after all those things have been disregarded.
I was ready to give up, although, despite what everyone who apparently makes money at this told me, I was convinced that there WAS something in the charts.
I started over again with lots more studying/charting and came up with an idea.
I DEMO traded it live and had the results were quite encouraging.
I then took it live, and have been using the same ideas for about 9 months now. I've not set the world on fire, but I've never had such consistent/profitable results before.
Quite a few trades meaning statistical significance. Usually around 10 trades per day, so a few thousand trades? Tight stops. Quite encouraging.
I work full time and I should note that all of my 'trading' has always been with UK 'spreadbet' firms (very popular in Europe) as opposed to Direct Market access.
I have also always traded very small size. (I guess that's obvious from the numbers I posted previously).
I don't intend to ever go in big (and risk lots of life changing money) until I am convinced that I'm not kidding myself.
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Now, that brings me to a couple of questions that have been niggling at me for a few days:
1/
I often hear people talk about how the market is always changing and how nothing lasts forever in the markets. Well, how long?
Lets say it's taken me 10 years to find a method that is possibly profitable, am I only gonna get a few months out of it? Years? decades? Surely people can't afford to keep having huge periods of not earning whilst they find their next 'edge'?
2/
Are there any profitable/chart based traders here who have used the same concepts in their trading for years, and who DON'T believe they'll ever likely have to adapt or come up with something new?
3/
Should I be concerned that, in my studies of my own method, there are lots of instruments that it doesn't seem to work on very well? Someone told me that a true charting edge would work on any instrumuent. I notice that mine seems to work well on certain indicies but not on, for example, most FX pairs.
Some of them years have been fulltime, early morning until Midnight staring at screens until my eyes bleed, and some of them periods have been more part-time, getting home from work and SIM trading, studying etc etc.
My story in brief:
demo traded for a few months after a relative who had made lots of money trading got me interested in it.
Opened an Account with a spreadbetting company in the UK with £1000 which was my life savings. Turned it into about £2000 in a few months, and then lost the lot. Wasn't using stops. Was always gonna happen.
Carried on DEMO trading/trying to learn and saving more money.
Opened a new account with just £300
Turned that account into about £3000
Thought I was a genius, and then lost the lot.
I had been using stops more this time around, although on the trade that wiped me out, I was in heavier and was sure it was a good one, and was too proud/stupid to take the smaller loss, and let it take everything in the end, instead.
At this point, I was certain that CHARTS/TA were not the answer.
Lots of other people had told me this, although, NOBODY ever really told me what the answer was.
I went off and delved more into reading the order book and studies this for a while.
I SIM traded using what I thought I had learnt from my hours watching the DOM. My results weren't even encouraging enough to open a live account.
Same thing with Fundamentals.
There were still 'experts' who told me that NONE of that stuff was the answer. charts/DOM/orderbook/fundamentals/statistical analysis etc etc.
I didn't (and still don't) know what they were referring too. They never told me. I'm not sure what's left after all those things have been disregarded.
I was ready to give up, although, despite what everyone who apparently makes money at this told me, I was convinced that there WAS something in the charts.
I started over again with lots more studying/charting and came up with an idea.
I DEMO traded it live and had the results were quite encouraging.
I then took it live, and have been using the same ideas for about 9 months now. I've not set the world on fire, but I've never had such consistent/profitable results before.
Quite a few trades meaning statistical significance. Usually around 10 trades per day, so a few thousand trades? Tight stops. Quite encouraging.
I work full time and I should note that all of my 'trading' has always been with UK 'spreadbet' firms (very popular in Europe) as opposed to Direct Market access.
I have also always traded very small size. (I guess that's obvious from the numbers I posted previously).
I don't intend to ever go in big (and risk lots of life changing money) until I am convinced that I'm not kidding myself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, that brings me to a couple of questions that have been niggling at me for a few days:
1/
I often hear people talk about how the market is always changing and how nothing lasts forever in the markets. Well, how long?
Lets say it's taken me 10 years to find a method that is possibly profitable, am I only gonna get a few months out of it? Years? decades? Surely people can't afford to keep having huge periods of not earning whilst they find their next 'edge'?
2/
Are there any profitable/chart based traders here who have used the same concepts in their trading for years, and who DON'T believe they'll ever likely have to adapt or come up with something new?
3/
Should I be concerned that, in my studies of my own method, there are lots of instruments that it doesn't seem to work on very well? Someone told me that a true charting edge would work on any instrumuent. I notice that mine seems to work well on certain indicies but not on, for example, most FX pairs.
)