In my world, if there is anything close to a magic bullet, that's it. After taking a steep loss in 2015, I pared down my portfolio from eighteen to, two (very liquid) instruments, and came back to profitability in 2016. 2017 is my fifth year full time, and is shaping up to be my most profitable yet.
Can't speak for others but for me these youtube videos would not help me much and motivate me.Learning methods to trade is a very personal thing,all stays inside me.Everyone has this feel they will succeed where logic would indicate they will fail in line with the percentages. Disclaimer did not watch the videos above and no disrespect to @wave. As i think about it maybe there is a need beforehand to have a seed,this crazy believe to succeed.Perhaps part of failure has to do with willpower. Nobody can tell you,you will not succeed and by same token great motivational speech can't have much of an effect.You need to have an answer to yourself where are you going before you actually ask that question.
And once you become consistent, first few years it is fun and sort of exciting, then boredom starts to creep in like any job, and ultimately it becomes the same flipping song over and over and over and over like the most played song which is surprisingly Disney's "It's a Small Small World", now can you imagine listening to this crap all day everyday? http://mentalfloss.com/article/73391/most-frequently-played-song-world-one-everyone-hates And why there is automation.
I was mulling over the topic and as pointed out, there are myriads of reasons for failure. Harking back again to my younger years, as a young guy then, my driving style then in a car was to always drive fast, continually breaking the law with excessive speed. So when I began the trading adventure I felt in order to win at this game you had to be like a person driving down a freeway, faster, more agile, smarter, more aggressive, continually overtaking 'drivers' who were not quick enough or smart enough. There's some truth to this and some falsehoods. If you are driving down a very busy freeway and decide to continually lane change, it can put you back. You chop from one lane to the next but due to congestions, each lane you chop to is slower than the one you were just in. Expanding on this analogy, trading while it does involve speed and judgment, if your trading entries are not done with experience, you can make blunders which set you back considerably. Experience takes time, if you drive down the same freeway numerous times, you'll begin to learn when to move or not move, but even that experience is no guarantee the lane you changed into will get you ahead. Drivers (traders) up ahead are also lane changing and all the experience in the world can still put you back. But over many years you will take many small wins which will put you ahead. That is, if you dont have an accident which sets you to the very back of the que. And accidents do happen.
Handle123, Thanks for question. I think of trading strategies, program the strategy, back test on all timeframes and try to make the strategy profitable to make about +$300 per month and/or positive expectation above $20. I would like to drawdown to be less then $6k over a 10 year back test.
I don't believe in best timeframe, I go into it with idea of which timeframe I want, cause testing over number of timeframes goes back to finding most money unless you have ten-fifteen years of tick data you are back testing and back test in three year increments and each side of "best" is making slightly less profits. Profits should look like a bell curve distribution regarding best parameters in indicators and timeframes, when it does not, you not going to have a smooth parameter and most likely will fail. Have lost tons on "making" strategy profitable, I have developed like "units" one unit is patterns that look over "content" of so much time like in day trading, so like in one minute bars, 90% of the unit is only concerned of last 120 bars of different patterns that would negate a good signal. This "unit" has increased through the years and is used in all systems and all timeframes, cause the look back is 120 bars regardless. So each area I use units, like risk unit, open trades unit, target unit, etc...I try to keep units as close as I can in percentages if possible to they can be used in other systems, where I can't cause the underlying system might have strange entries then those systems will have different units. If my sample size is not 3,000 or more, drawdowns and other expectations are useless and just a fantasy to me. 6k can be low or high depending on account size. Are you trading corn? Cause if it $300 min on what size account, sounds like if all this worth the effort, if $300 is on crude oil, it very low whereas $300 on Eurodollars is pretty good amount as margins in Eurodollars are very low overnight-usually like $350/400. Matter of fact, if what you doing is not working out, check Eurodollars as it is heaviest market on the planet for volume. For a number of years, always used to back test a system on Corn for day trading or long term, if it makes money in Corn, often times it make money in almost anything else for ME.
Every trader wants to be in the winning bracket and avoid losses in forex. But only a few traders take those firm steps towards the goal. They often skip the rules and end up failing. Traders don’t stick to their trading plan. Without a well thought strategy you will react to the market rather than anticipating the market. Over trading and not knowing when to exit the trade can also land the traders on the losing side.
Just think, if 90% of traders fail or lose when they place their bets, the 10% of traders must be making a lot of money. How does the calculation work? If on average 90% of traders lost 5% in a month, the 10% winning traders must be making on average 45% not including costs? Doesn't sound right does it? Where's the error?