What helped you the most to be profitable?

Very well done!
I am learning!
Thanks

Speed entering the market and speed exiting the market was my biggest hurdle. Metatrader is a great program but not if you're fumble fingered. This tiny little interface has enable my trading to turn the corner and become consistently profitable. I just point and click and follow the market. It really is that easy. Of course hundreds and hundreds of hours of chart time prior to this has also assisted me to not only follow the market but also when to expect a turn.

......what is the system based on?was looking at free trial this morn but they want credit info.Thanks

Risking too much is was probably just one part of the problem people have. The other is using those crazy high leverages. 100:1 and 250:1 are double edge swords, if your broker does not offer lower leverages for starters, I'd find someone else. Mine is set at 50:1 . Notice how the top ten in the forex factory trades keep changing, thats why...sure you can make $250 in one day and get 300% profit, but the next day you can make a loss of $500 and be back where you were 0% profit or worse. Slow and consistent is best in my view. You made a similar mistake I and I'm sure many traders done, when you loosing, you enter another trade to make up for it and loose again...the best remedy is take a step back and stop all together, because thats emotional trading, not business trading.

I cannot explain how to use fib lines. I know they help determine support and resistance levels, but i rather make my own trendlines and look for channels up and channels down. Also Bollinger bands is what I use. They are based on basic math. the middle line is the mean/average and the outer lines are standard deviation. As the price goes further away from the mean and surpass the standard dev. it tends to signal a reversal, unless of course its trending to new high or new lows and also retrace back towards its the mean price. Its basic statistics that anything outside of standard dev in math a false/error value,before I enter I also look for a consecutive double high of double low on the hourly that offers support, high the time the stronger the support.using this method my demo started at $188 and is up to $408 in 2 months.Could have made more, but my profit levels are fixed. get in and get out..then wait and wait for the next trade.I just started experimenting with trailing stops, but only when the price is in a profit zone....finally got my live account out of the red after only a few trades and sticking to my guns like i did with my demo. Study charts and find a method that works for you.

Small live account. Practice. Patience. Reading

One thing? Stopping moving stops to BE early in the trade developement.

My most important lesson was learned once I'd understood all the classic signals, figured out they were mostly useless, removing everything from my chart and focusing on price action at the London and New York open. As well as learning not to be greedy.
What I mean is, there's no way someone like me are going to beat the big players, so be happy with small winning trades.

One more thing; Money management. PIPS means nothing without money management.

Couldn't agree more. Money management is probably the most important. Practicing good money management changed everything for me.

What helped you the most to be profitable?
Reading, watching educational movies, getting practice, etc))

Making a lot of mistakes, then analysing the reasons for the mistakes.

I've learnt that my trades fall into one of three categories:

Smart trades- planned based on PA, conservative TP/SL

Bad call- trade that was a smart trade, but I made a mistake in judging the market. These trades I close out with a minimum of loss.

Stupid trades- trades made out of boredom, ignoring the fact that it isn't a good entry. Impulsive trades, usually a different currency pair than I normally trade. Often I make the problem worse by ignoring my SL rules and losing way more than necessary before closing out.

This past week I've focused on making only smart trades, and though I had a few bad calls, I only made one stupid trade.

Think independent dont let the others think for you do your own analysis own trades build confidence. Don't listen to the so called experts most just work for a broker etc. Also make devolop your own method fundamental technical doesn't matter what works for you find 1 behaviour in the market 1 kinda pattern whatever then repeat that 1 time after time till ya master it.

Then expand or stick to just that 1.

Think really the most important is to think independent go away for some time from forums and only you and the charts and news etc. No outside noise that will work the best most who stick on forums and look keep on looking and eventually give up in trading. Jump from method to method etc. Taking calls from people who look good but most are fighting the orderflow.

Another thing let the market come to you be patience expirement when you have a job with pending orders for example.
Also dont listen to people who say price action is everything etc. Most people who write books making courses about it make tons of money on education not trading it just the reality in retail. But most will see them as gurus etc. They call support ressistance different names and become hypes etc. Not that those methods ar bad but without a plan discipline etc.
Find your own way indicators can help people who say not maybe not for them but remember the failure rate is 95% in this bussines for the long run.
If you type price action you will find 1000 threads so why is everybody not profitable then ask yourself that it is not only about the method but more about yourself . Make sure you are stabile disciplined focused.

I would rather start first with trading psychology then money management then the method for entries exits. Most do it the other way around and most come not further then the method and are still searching.


Focus in the start on 1 pair try to know that pair eventually you can maybe expand. For example pick a pair with decent spread what is liquid. No crap like extremely high volatilty like gbp/nzd for example yeah it moves a lot but crappy spikes no good clearing etc iliquid. Not sure why i always see people trade 100s of instruments when they just start those pairs without knowledge are acount killers.

Hope this helps a bit and by the way i am not a guru or whatever just behoniest from my own experience.
Another thing people who say they make enormous % a month are gamblers or complete bs when you see that ask for statements most are not willing to show live performance etc.


Regards,

Ingmar

(nothing will work untill you do)

Clearing my chart of EVERYTHING, including live/streaming pricing. Just a blank, static chart and an clear mind set.

Coming from equities, this is the way I started out investing. Clear chart and company information/news. Was very successful with this formula in equities.

Gave retail forex a try and somewhere down the line I trashed my charts with lines, graphs, indicators, streaming quotes, etc. After some wins and more losses I realized I needed to get back to my roots of investing and not intraday trading.

Cleared my charts, opted for 'End of Day' data only, filled my head with macroeconomics and daily market news. Took only trades with high probability of profitability. Stop listening to everyone's 'signal' advice and only went by my own judgement and the information I had in front of me.

Become an expert of my Indicators and my own settings anmd then stay focused and trust your Indis.
I mean not a Strategy where (i.e. ) buy if RSI is rising over 30 or something like that.The market isn't that easy.
Looking to my Charts hundreds and hundreds of hours and see what my Indis tells me gives me an edge.
That's it.
greeds Zackery

For me, following the trend and have a good money management.

What has helped me is to draw my own S/R/levels and trend lines in higher TF's then check for their relevance in smaller TF's to make sure they are placed correctly,and to not count on others to provide these levels for me.
Also setting up fib levels in higher t/f's and checking them in smaller.
I used the zig-zag indicator to help me define highs and lows to set up my fib, I know this sounds funny but it was what I had to do to see around all the small ups and downs and find a good point 1 and 2.
Still not a profitable trader, but working on rebuilding my account.

1) Perseverance ... Making a commitment from the beginning to be a successful trader no matter what lies ahead. Being doggedly determined and being prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed, and having confidence that you will get there, eventually.

2) Being passionate and enjoying trading - not for the sake of making huge money but because you love everything involved in trading.

3) Realising that you need to develop your own tailored system that suits your own style and do all the huge amount of work that goes into proving to yourself that you have a consistent edge - this will give you the confidence to persist.

4) Standing on the shoulder of other successful traders. It takes too long to start and learn from scratch - you need to slowly weed out the few successful traders and read everything they have written about trading and systems - and start to build on this.

5) Not depending on the money that I make trading to live from, having other means to support yourself especially during the learning stages.

6) Keeping a log of every trade placed, the thinking behind and reasoning but most important the emotions felt whilst placing the trade and then reviewing the log regularly and learning from the mistakes. Learning that by following a system it essentially saves you from acting on emotion and impulse and leads to more effective trading.

7) Having a diversified portfolio using multiple systems, markets and asset types to create wealth i.e. don't rely solely on forex trading.

8) Learn to be an investor in building and refining systems rather than currencies or stocks.


In regards to my own trading systems, of most help have been:

Using relative currency strengths to help in picking out pairs with the most potential and trading in the direction of longer term moves.

Taking lots of very small losses (relatively tight SL's) and trying to ride trends as long as possible.

Concepts around “Infinite yield”, DIBS (Joel Resnick/Peter Crowns) and “Building an equity millipede” approach have certainly made a big difference to my trading and also a lot of posts from Hanover have helped incredibly too.

Excuse my ignorance, someone mentioned BE, what is it?

BE is "breakeven", i.e. the entry point of the trade. If a trader advances his stoploss to the entry point of a profitable trade, then the worst possible outcome is that he will "break even" (there is no longer any possibility of loss on that trade).

I see, thank you.