Getting good at trading currencies

Quote from alex.samant:

i honestly think that one has to find this out on his own...
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sigh, that's probably true.

But doesn't it just make you feel like telling someone who it seems has little or no chance to save their money instead of losing it in the markets, or at least spend it on something enjoyable.

I may be completely wrong and the guy could end up being a great trader, I really hope he does, but the odds don't seem to be in his favor somehow.
 
oh well...

who knows...

but 30-50 books is unheard of! and 700 hours may not be enough.

i mean... you don't learn to trade from books... that's for sure!
 
Quote from alex.samant:

oh well...

who knows...

but 30-50 books is unheard of! and 700 hours may not be enough.

i mean... you don't learn to trade from books... that's for sure!
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Yes I agree the books are no substitute for screen time.

And I agree also with your other point about technical analysis indicators. They are lagging and a complete waste of time. My core system and my other systems are and will be based on pure price action.

BUT the problem is, so many books have at least 100 pages or more about this indicators as if they are the holy grail of trading.

Though when you start, read a few general trading books such as Van Tharp or Alexander Elder which you must read.

And i dont even think there are 50-70 books out there on forex??
 
Elder for a general view on the business and Douglas for the rest.

Other than that... Forex books ? You don't need forex books. Go to any broker's site, click on education and read about the FX market as a whole. Go to investopedia also and read about the market and it's pairs and that's it. Price action on spot currencies works the same way it does with any other instrument so basic TA works with fx too.....

HOWEVER.... avoid timeframes below 15 minutes, because the market becomes much noisier than stocks on a 5 minute timeframe. And your eye and discipline have to be iron in order to sort out the wheat from the chaff on these timeframes and besides, most of the times, it's not worth it unless you have a spread lower than 1 pip... BUT, the smaller the spread, the more efficient the market is and the noisier it becomes...

Put in screen time and figure out which pairs are ranging and which ones are trending in order to know what type of strategy to apply to each one in particular.

Now you owe me 2 beers :)
 
Again, thanks for the tips =) They are much appreciated. I know that i owe you many beers now.

Well, i do however feel I'm being a bit misinterpreted. Books alone can't of course make you a good trader. My learning plan is as follows:

Read a lot. For instance about candlesticks, fundamentals, market psyhocoogy, money management, different scaling methods, technical trading and price action (etc). Then many various articles/pdf files about different trading styles and different strategies. In other words, try to cover about almost everything possible.
In this phase, I will also try to learn to create my own mechanical system with a sutiable program (MT4, or maybe Openquant/Neoticker?). As an answer to someone who said there aren't more than 50 books out there, I can tell you, I've about 70 books/articles saved on my harddrive. However, i will try to figure out which books that are worth reading.For example, asking experienced trader.

Then you have covered the theoretics, you have a bigger pool of data to work on. Now you start researching. As you have gathered a lot of inspiration during the reading phase, you will try out different methods and see how they fare on a demo account. Since I've learned how to program my own mechanical system, i will try out many different strategies, combinations and backtest and-forward test them.

During the test phase, you will learn what works and what not. You gain real trading experience and see how different systems, or trade plans fare in the real market. Keep on trading in the demo account.Get more real market experience and see how fundamental works. Only then you start being consistently profitable, you plunge for a real live account-applying the most suitable money management method as I've learned during the reading phase, as well as trying to apply the psychology advices that I've gathered.
However, there are no guarantees.I might end up in the test stage for ages, never accomplishing the feat of being consistently profitable =)

Alex.samant: i tried too google on douglas and elder, but didnt find anything relating to currency trading?
 
Quote from drasfs:

Is there a given formula for that?



Im currently a scalp trader(tp=5,st=5),but I would want to move on to longer time frames to get more spare time, as scalp trading require constant watching.

Any ideas on a good road to take?

Im thinking about investing 6 hours of book studying each day for four months, which amounts to about 700 hours. I thought i would focus on candlestic , i.e reading Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques - Steve Nison,and maybe 30-50 other books. Then summarizing the most relevant facts into an essay, and then analyze what could be useful, and in what manner and combination if they are applied to the market. After that i would try out the combinations of tools that I thought would be relevant on a demo account for 2 months, trying to find right combinations etc and see what works and doesnt through experience.

Does that sound like a good proper start?
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That's a decent plan and add to it 700 hours of just watching charts!!!

Start with these:

http://www.elitetrader.com/bo/index.cfm?action=showbooks&CatID=5
 
Quote from alex.samant:



MIND
METHOD
MONEY


And one advice that i personally think is useful: DO NOT RELY ON TECHNICAL INDICATORS. STUDY PRICE PATTERNS AND SUPPORT/RESISTANCE. If we are talking about strategy ...
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Thats good advice.
 
All this just to trade a currency pair, jeez!

How difficult are you expecting forex trading to be exactly!

You gotta love these academic types :)
 
Quote from Joab:

That's a decent plan and add to it 700 hours of just watching charts!!!

Start with these:

http://www.elitetrader.com/bo/index.cfm?action=showbooks&CatID=5
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Well I would guess that ive over 5000 hours of experience watching charts, as i've been intra day trading/scalping for over 3 years, approximately 6-16 hours a day. It's how I currently make a living.

I've only been intraday trading through the study of price action,support and resistance and getting a feeling of how the price on the currency behaves.
Well not everything have been scalping. Sometimes I stay in for a longer period of time, and sometimes i even trade the news.

Here is a typical day of how my trades can look like. 13 trades during a little more than one day:

http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ddhn9.jpg

However, ive been reading about all these tecnical indicators,,candelsticsk analysis, and being able to setup a mechanical system. I'm very curious about learning these things, and being able to trade on longer time frames, as ive only done the things I said before(support/resistance,price action et), in short time frames.

Cabletrader: Well i dont think it is easy. But I'm partly doing this because I'm interested.
 
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