You are correct about that, it is great news for those of us that are serious about it. I trade semi-fulltime, meaning I have a job that pays a decent amount of money and doesn't take much time or effort, so I continue to accept their paycheck. I have about 20 guys that report to me and they will always bitch when there are problems. I always tell them the problems are great. Thats why the company continues to pay us for this easy job. Its very similar to trading, if it was easy and anyone could do it, they wouldn't need me.
Why take responsibility when you can blame your mistakes on others? People will not accept the blame and then get mad when they don't succeed. Its crazy.
Ivanovich, if you put half as much effort into answering a post as you do avoiding answering we may get a debate going, that's what forums are for last time I checked. Don't worry, if you can't support your point of view with logical and reasoned argument, then you can't. Cheers ps Are we done now or do you want to carry on this pointless exchange
Exactly. That is probably one of the biggest differences between forex and the other markets. Since your positions are always involving a pair, you are always long one, and short the other. The currency futures and options are all USD based, so they are all reversed, as in your example with JPY/USD. For anyone accustomed to the usual forex pairs, it is different. It also makes it much more challenging to take a non-USD position, such as GBP/JPY, with futures or options! Until last week, I did not know how it could be done, but after finding out how, it is an interesting new twist, to say the least.
Nice edit. LOL. My rationale for saying that is this. I have entered more trades based on simpl indicators and proceeded to grab 40-50p pips then the issues slow down and the price action (especially in Forex) lulls you to sleep, next thing you know you're back to zero. It wasn't until I started keeping a DETAILED journal, to see what I let slip through for each currency, that I developed modifications to my system and rules. Like certain pairs I have to profit target else I'll just be a commission payer. Other pairs I dont hold overnight and yet others... You get the idea... Each pair has it's own personality. So grabbing 10 pips is easy.. (To Me.) Keeping it was the problem.
When you originally posted %5 risk on each trade, you didn't specify whether that meant each trade was no more than 5% of your equity, or whether you allowed the trade to go 5% into the negative, etc. You merely said "5% risk". Which is why I made the assumption that you did not use stops. I still find it difficult to believe (putting it lightly) that you had a 97% success rate with over 100 trades and you never went more than 5% down on any of your trades. I think there are many, many traders on this site who would agree. As for the "win/loss" comment, I agree it's semantics. But most gamblers tend to refer to them as win/lose, where as most traders refer to it as "profit/loss". Additionally, I brought up Coinz to illustrate a comparison as he would go long or short without stops, and his trades would go hundreds, sometimes thousands of pips into the negative, but he'd hold out waiting for them to come back. Eventually (sometimes a year or so later) they would, and he would call that a winning trade, not paying attention to the opportunity lost during that time or the risk associated with it. What you claimed sounded amazingly similar to that philosophy. Again, with your limited explanation (at that point) of your 5% risk. Lastly, conversations like this are best done with explaining and debate, not insult. You reverted to insult, and then you did again with your last snide remark (which was an attempt to divert the conversation back again). This might be considered good form on forums such as Moneytech, old chap, but this is a pretty decent forex forum. I'd like to think we can refrain from such wastes of space among people who call themselves traders.
Not to get in your fight, but this is a key phrase you used which I think offends. I personally would rather have all the facts before assuming. I, however am not perfect at this so I am more than willing to admit my blunder and apologize. I am certain it is appreciated that you acknowledged this. Perfection is reserved for the dead, for they an make no mistakes. Finally debate is debate, forum doesn't matter. Gentlemanly debate gets heated and mellows out. Thuggish/Cowboy debate ends with a gun fired. I am certain we are all gentlemen. So the gun of our tongues do need to be muted a bit. I know I need help in that area. I think we all need to tone the insults down a bit... Though, they are FUN to read. LOL. Now back to our regular programming.
% risk is usually accepted as meaning % of account equity at risk and not a % adverse move in price against a position, I automatically assumed a trader would know that, my mistake. I should have explained it better for people who aren't familiar with trading and the terminology used. If you find it difficult to believe that not one of the 113 trades went beyond a 5% equity drawdown (risk) then please feel free to check each and every trade, you can then satisfy yourself that was in fact the case. Win:lose and profit & loss (P/L) are two totally different things. Win:lose is the ratio of winning trades to losing trades, whereas P/L is the profit or loss on positions. I lost track and interest of what Coinz (and his other aliases!) was and wasn't doing strategy-wise so I can't comment, but again if you look at each trade you will see that the strategy used had no similarity, amazing or otherwise. Lastly, conversations like this are best done with explaining and debate, I agree, but that's not achieved by jumping to incorrect conclusions. No-one minds someone not knowing or understanding something, we all started out that way I expect, but if a reader doesn't understand something then it's always better to ask rather than assume and post irrelevant and inaccurate comments.