Forex discussion

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D-3C0

Hello there guys,

Id like to get some discussion on some various points of forex :

-Profitabilty , terms of actual edge, spread/commisions , who you are up against.

-How to tell if you have an edge, and do things such as Trend following, Price action, Key levels actually give you an edge.

-Two conflicting types of Strategies

1. Automated / Objective :
- I've read it aims to remove subjectivity/emotions from your trade
- Eg. Use of back testing etc. To find a statistical edge.
- Setups and whatnot.
2. Use of instinct or feel :
- Argues, that trying to find a system is over simplifying trading for what it is, and hence those who search for the perfect system with out proper understanding end up in loss.

Note: Two above are not mutually exclusive.

-Market hours

-Spot or futures

-Comparison to other instruments

-Hedging or outright

Catalyst for this post is that it seems, most 'professional' and heavy hitters are in the futures market. Is FX no good, is retail trading a scam?
 
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D-3C0 said:
Catalyst for this post is that it seems, most 'professional' and heavy hitters are in the futures market. Is FX no good, is retail trading a scam?
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Thats actually a good question. I dont believe that its true but Im hoping someone with a deeper understanding can clarify why people get this impression.

It might be similar to the US military where you have the tier two navy SEALs publicising their operations but the tier one Devgru, Delta and special airborne dont say nuffink, they just get on doing what they do. My opinion is that you will always find people flapping about how great they are and telling the world about it and then you get those that are just doing it. My advice...find what works for you and just do it :D
 
Grantx said:
I dont believe that its true but Im hoping someone with a deeper understanding can clarify why people get this impression.
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I make no claim at all to any "deeper understanding", but I think I can offer an explanation of why some people get that impression.

I think it's largely because of a combination of circumstances and practicalities about the retail forex trading markets.

This is the part of "trading" that tends to attract the most gambling-oriented, least educated, least sophisticated, and especially the most undercapitalised trading aspirants.

They're commonly attracted specifically by the high leverage which is available to them because it's in their counterparties' interests to offer it.

These are often traders who don't really understand that the party they perceive as their "broker" is actually their counterparty and is incentivised for the "traders" to lose their money.

The industry regulation is also - overall - typically far worse than that involved in any other kind of trading.

There are huge numbers of counterparty "brokers" all over the world, often in lightly regulated jurisdictions (and some totally unregulated ones, too), and they know exactly how to attract the players whose accounts they'll most easily be able to empty: plenty of advertising, deposit bonuses, no-deposit bonuses, huge leverage, competitions designed to reward those who concentrate on profit maximization at the expense of risk management, and a number of other traps for the unwary.

And another factor: there are also specialist forums online (two, in particular, spring to mind) just for retail forex trading, and they're full of comparatively clueless beginners and some long-term strugglers who have never become profitable, all "advising" each other, and reinforcing each others' deeply flawed belief-systems and attitudes. (I suspect that the people trying to learn, at these forums, typically don't appreciate quite how unreliable online "information" is, where anyone can publish anything, when compared with the peer-reviewed output of mainstream, orthodox, professionally edited textbooks published by mainstream, orthodox publishers.)

Because of the existence of all this kind of thing in the retail forex market set-up, it's perhaps comparatively easy for people to imagine that "the whole industry's a scam".

It isn't quite true, of course, but that would probably be many objective, independent, intelligent observers' perfectly reasonable guess, from what they see going on.
 
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I trade via fxcm forex, but forex itself is very slow, not enough range to justify spread and comms think 1.5-2.0 for both, I've had to stop and move to Dax and Nas100 better movement for your cost.

Haven't checked recently to see if still slow, when Dax goes slow and trades tight, forex will likely improve so back there again, and repeat.
 
FX with a good broker is fine, futures are better if you have the 10k min deposit, I will likely switches when I've got 10k+ available, but not desperate to.

Most none Americans are poor and trading FX broker, I dont think the land of the free can trade FX these days, only internal American Brokers if so, like there gambling sites, keep the losses in country.

Trump is supposed to reverse this, Russians where 1 of the main people to profit from drunk american gamblers, Trump owes Russia billions as be can't borrow from USA credit rating is aweful, so Russia helped get him in but got busted stopping Trumpy for reversing this as his part of the deal. ( current theory )
 
Turveyd said:
FX with a good broker is fine, futures are better if you have the 10k min deposit, I will likely switches when I've got 10k+ available, but not desperate to.

Most none Americans are poor and trading FX broker, I dont think the land of the free can trade FX these days, only internal American Brokers if so, like there gambling sites, keep the losses in country.

Trump is supposed to reverse this, Russians where 1 of the main people to profit from drunk american gamblers, Trump owes Russia billions as be can't borrow from USA credit rating is aweful, so Russia helped get him in but got busted stopping Trumpy for reversing this as his part of the deal. ( current theory )
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There is always the option for americans to trade micro currency futures contracts. I am not sure what the account minimums are to open but that should be easy to find out.
 
Traderjohnsblog said:
That has not improved with the demise of FXCM in the USA?
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Good question. I don't know. My guess (and that's all it is) is "not" or "not significantly", because FXCM's US-resident former customers will mostly - perhaps almost all - have gone to places like Oanda, not switched to futures(?).
 
Traderjohnsblog said:
There is always the option for americans to trade micro currency futures contracts. I am not sure what the account minimums are to open but that should be easy to find out.
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Micro is practically illiquid on the CME.
 
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