5 Things I have learned in 5 years of trading!

1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with.

2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!

3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money, A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.

4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.

5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.

What else have you all learned in your time trading?

i agree with you on this

Great points! I guess I’ll share my thoughts as well -
1.) I agree that things are usually more up to the trader as far as profits and things go (as long as the broker isn’t a complete scammer). Also, like the whole tree planting thing you mentioned. Never seen a broker that actually makes an effort for the environment before.
2 & 3.) I hate seeing gurus and strategy’s that advertise “guaranteed results”. It sucks that beginners get roped into these things and waste their hard earned money and I think that it gives the false idea that trading will be easy if you just follow others.
4.) One of the biggest reasons that people quit (IMO) is probably because they expect things to be easy/effortless and they don’t realize that it does take hard work to become a successful trader. If it was super easy everyone would do it!
5.) People wanna quit when they don’t make as much money as they expected, yet they overlook the fact that there’s still money to be made. Even if it starts as a little extra pocket money here and there, you can grow the amount over time. It’s worth it in the long run. This is why people need to have reachable goals from the start.
Thanks for posting, all of your points are worth consideration.

I have learned attempting to 'predict' market moves is a fools game. Don't predict, follow the larger trend on whatever time frame you're trading.

As regards opening trades, I almost always use entry stop orders. If the market moves in the opposite direction, your order won't get filled.

Great article, I think it will be very useful for those who are only on their initial stages in trading. Speaking about your first point I suppose that brokers matter a lot in case we speak about rookies. They have to learn lots of things before starting trading activity, that's why novices are also seeking for a support. Brokers here play major role. Brokers are this support which novices expect. I guess that brokers always should help thei traders to find out something new for them. That's why I prefer such brokers where is a quick customer support which can help to sort out things very quickly. I really appreciate that fact.

sebking1986 posted:
1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with.

2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!

3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money, A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.

4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.

5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.

What else have you all learned in your time trading?

Very informative post for the newbies.

sebking1986 posted:
1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with.

2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!

3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money, A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.

4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.

5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.

What else have you all learned in your time trading?

Best top 5 list. I wish I had seen this when I first started

Exactly, a lot of knowledge can be gained from this post. As a trader, you need to know these things well.

@Walton_Charles I too don’t agree with the first point. Brokers are indeed important for profitable trading. If the choice of your broker doesn’t align with your goals, you would only get disappointment from your trade. To get most from the trade a new trader needs to be very careful while choosing a broker.

good and wise statement

sebking1986 posted:
1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with.

2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!

3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money, A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.

4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.

5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.

What else have you all learned in your time trading?

I agree with the first point.. because there is no such a 'good broker', so yeah!! it doesnt matter which broker u trade with, what important is u feel comfortable with what they offer!
I have try every broker in my country, none of big broker ever give me profit. i didnt blame them, I loss because I am not profitable trader! i dont even know how to read chart.. for this I already loss 800usd and enough is enough.
so I love to gamble on my trade using bonus offer because it is free. one day i found this small broker! very bad reputation on wikiforex rating, i joined the broker because they offer 30 bonus without deposit. i open MT5, and found that the function of 'deep of the market' really easy to use.. I just set my TP to 50 point, and my SL to 100 point, trade with 0.01 then I open 10 long and 10 short deal.. next day i found that both long and short deal give me profit. so i do this again and again and i'm happy...my balance become 92 usd in 2 weeks. so the broker took back their 30 usd bonus because i withdraw 50 usd. well left 12 usd. slowly i do what i did, now i already withdraw 3 times of 50 usd with this broker but i never deposit any usd for them!! i found that not all broker offer the 'deep of market' function on their metatrade. so u see thats why i agree with the first point.

2. agree too but what worst is they give opposite signal to save their loss. i found that if a lot people deal with the pair, later the pair will loss. so if you deal long with eurusd, and you loss but dont want to close the deal, ask other trader to deal short. then u will see that long deal you made will slowly give you profit. thats why do not trade with signal.

3. yes! agree...finding strategik is like finding your lover, sometimes it happened in a way that u never expect.. i found mine, and i hope it can give me profit in long time. for this... i wont tell you the broker name.. because broker still a broker! may be they not notice about how i trade, so i can profit this way...but what if they knew how i trade? they will off the function.
That is...I learn a lot in trade too.
but looks like i am typing too much already..hahaha...

sebking1986 posted:
1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with.

2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!

3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money, A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.

4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.

5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.

What else have you all learned in your time trading?

You have made good 5 points here. I agree with all the points. A broker does not help us make a profit, our strategy does; so called social gurus do not exist as many as they look; we have to find our own strategies. Look forward to getting more more trading tips from you.

croisssan posted:
I learned a lot, but the most important thing is not to forget about having a demo account. Sometimes a strategy can be worked out on a demo account so that later you do not get losses on a real one.

A demo is the best place to learn forex properly.

@skihav Yes you are right. Every trader has his own understanding. Every person is different both physically and mentally. Nothing is applicable for everyone.

UweMoench posted:
@skihav Yes you are right. Every trader has his own understanding. Every person is different both physically and mentally. Nothing is applicable for everyone.

I also think that first you have to prepare yourself for trading. You can gain trading knowledge but it will be much easier for you to make a profit.

One thing which i have totally kept in my mind all these years is that you need to take the emotions out of your trading.

Gabriel99 posted:
One thing which i have totally kept in my mind all these years is that you need to take the emotions out of your trading.

I think it's more about controlling emotions than removing them but I get your point completely. There is no room for knee jerk reactions and extreme emotional states in trading.

UweMoench posted:
@skihav Yes you are right. Every trader has his own understanding. Every person is different both physically and mentally. Nothing is applicable for everyone.

I have a problem, sometimes I like to trade and sometimes I don't like to trade. What is the reason for this?

When you first start, breaking even at the end of the month might be a good target for you. Protecting your capital is your number one priority. Don't compare your 1000 hours of practice to someone else's 10,000 hours. Focus on improving from where you were 6 months ago.