Anyone with any FOREX trade experience?

mattyfez · 19 Aug 2010 at 22:33

As the title suggests, anyone had a go at this? I find it very interesting, so I got some tutorials off the internet and had a quick play with a metatrader demo account, and was wondering if anyone here has any tales to tell?

I discussed it with some friends who came out with the usual 'its a scam' 'may as well play poker' etc, but Im quite liking the statistcal analysis side of things, I think I've picked up some of the main points about time frames, trending and candlestick analysis, etc.

Im certainly not looking to invest properly, but I thought if I can start out with say £250, make £10 a month, skim £5 off and re-invest £5 of that it would be quite a cool hobby.

Anyone had a go at this?

Spit · 19 Aug 2010 at 22:42

Trading is one of the hardest things you can do. It's all about your own emotions. Take a profit and cut your losses quickly, sounds easy....

mattyfez · 19 Aug 2010 at 23:00

Spit said:
Trading is one of the hardest things you can do. It's all about your own emotions. Take a profit and cut your losses quickly, sounds easy....

Absolutley, I understand that, prime example on my demo account, I put a 'stop' on a trade as a safety net, the value dropped below the stopper (good) and my losses were cut... but then a few seconds later it rose to like 4x the buy-in. :eek:

Im talking very small amounts here with very small time frames, 1m, 10m, 30m, so its very volitile and would make any analysis very hard.. I was thinking maybe play it slower, with slightly larger time frames, but with cut throat stops and cutting potential profit as soon as there is
A)an indicator of a slow down or
B) I make 'x' % cut off.

Im fairly good at poker (only for like £5 a time with friends at the weekend), so I thought I could apply a similar hard minded psychology to this... have you had any expreience of forex?

silversurfer · 19 Aug 2010 at 23:15

This is the best guy I know, maybe spend some of that money on his book

http://www.ashraflaidi.com/

Forex is about politics and trade as well as statistics, its about one of the most risky things you could consider spending money on.
A 1 unit bet involves them lending you $10,000 dollars I believe, 250 wont last long unless you are godlike

muon · 19 Aug 2010 at 23:36

Your friends are right. Go play poker.

tankskun · 19 Aug 2010 at 23:43

I want to try out FOREX too, but im scared! trading hmm sounds like fun though.

Spit · 19 Aug 2010 at 23:57

Forex is the easiest way to go bust. In trading you need an edge. I follow Timothy Sykes, google him. A great strategy.

britboy4321 · 20 Aug 2010 at 00:06

I went for a contract recently testing forex online trading platforms for the everyday punter. It's going to be the next big offering from the investment banks, they want it to potentially take over from shares for the every day John..

Did you know every four days as much money is traded on the forex as is trading on all the world's stock markets in a YEAR!!

You can trade on borrowed money -- normally you need to put down at least 5% as a deposit on the loan for the trade. This is a risky business though as real world events (like Volcanoes!) can massively affect currency, and before you know it, you're £314,000 in debt because some damn tsunami hit Thailand

mattyfez · 20 Aug 2010 at 01:07

It depends on the amount of leverage you want I guess, I would be looking at a micro account with very low leverage ratio, and for example with a $250 account I would be playing with $2-$3 at at time, and if i finish a few quid up at the end of a month (inter day trade) then thats cool.

I havent even got a good feel for the software yet, so theres no way Ill be messing around if Im not comfortable

!

Im not thinking it's a get rich quick scheme, but I figured if I can make few quid it could be fun, plus the statistics side of it is an interesting thing to learn...

fxtrader66 · 24 Aug 2010 at 09:29

Trading FX is the hardest thing I ever did

Hi, I stumbled across this thread and forum whilst googling for something forex related.

I am a fulltime fx trader with 6 years learning and 2 years fulltime trading under my belt. I still have loads to learn and have made every mistake in the book and blown many , many thousands of pounds on my journey to becoming profitable.

You will have to learn by your own mistakes, but try to keep those mistakes as low cost as possible.

The old cliches are the best, try to let winners run, and ALWAYS cut losers fast. Never ever believe one method or system is better than another, I wasted years like that. Keep an open mind always. Try not to rely on indicators, learn how price action works. Remember you are at war with the Forex dealers, IMHO news and fundamentals mean nothing to them between Frankfurt and London market opens, they just want to reverse each others positions so they can earn their bonuses and be done before the stock markets and hedgefunds join the fray later in the day.

The only way I managed to overcome the psychological demons was to limit my risk to 1% of my capital and close my trades the minute they hit first support or resistance. Normally after reaching 1-2% profit and generally within 15 minutes of entering the trade, I can do this 2 or 3 times every morning now. Short term traders like myself regularly make 2 - 10% profit per day, 40% per month can be done regularly (work that out on a £100,000 account) , it is a great life, I start at 5am and am done by 9am latest.

I am not what they call a scalper, I trade price action reversals, picking tops and bottoms, buying when others are selling and vice versa.

Google Islander and Medici, Vantage HL/LH trading and Strats stress free trading. There is a wealth of information out their and most can be found for free. Use it.

I don't want to violate any rules by putting links on here.

Those guys mentioned above are all professional home traders that trade forex for a living and do amazingly well.

Good luck and give it 3-5 years, the info I have given you here may reduce that to 2 or 3 years, never give up!!

Don't repeat don't use real money, learn to trade on freely available free demo accounts until you can do it with your eyes shut and you can trade like a machine.

I decided to add a chart from the 23rd, the green horizontal lines are levels I expect the price to goto and bounce off of, they can be used to enter trades and exit trades with a profit.

Notice I exited the long trade and made a note that the London traders will possibly reverse the gbp/jpy pair at 133.25,

I have added an updated chart to show that they did just that, I also made that short trade, I have learned to trade like the dealers.