LUCKY Results in Trading

One thing I have learnt the hard way is that there is hardly any chance of having LUCKY results when trading Forex.  For many people, as soon as they enter a trade then the market reverses in the opposite direction.  To be ‘LUCKY’ and get great results one may consider the following methodology:

• Firstly you have to Learn as much as you can about Forex trading

• Then you need to Understand the methods and strategies you intend to use and how and why the markets move and then you have to be able to implement your chosen strategies and methods as if they were second nature.

• Next you must Check your results and adjust and tweak everything to what suits you and to get the desired outcome.

• Once you have done all the above, then you might begin to Know what you and the markets are doing.

• This repetitive cycle of Learning, Understanding and implementing, Checking and Knowing will begin to pay dividends and Yield tangible and positive results.

So remember:   Learn/Understand & implement/Check/Know/Yields

The best way of doing all this with the aim of becoming a consistently profitable Forex Trader is to:

• Start off by trading in a Demo Account and get familiar with all the tools etc.
• Learn how to, and then Back Test all your strategies over and over again, tweaking your system, especially risk and money management, as you go.
• When you have tangible results in your chosen currency pairs and timeframes then and only then should you start trading live, and then only in a Micro-Account.
• Once you have a consistently profitable track record of trading live in a Micro-Account then you can consider upgrading your account to a Mini-Account and if you do well in that then you might consider scaling up to a Standard Account.
• I would consider a reasonable track record time for any type of account to be anything from 6 months to a year and would encourage a year because the market changes in nature throughout a trading year and thus your results may reflect that.

·         So to achieve consistently profitable Forex Trading results you need to make your own ‘luck’ by doing the above and then you should get LUCKY.

Top Trading Tip:  Make your own luck and learn how to Back Test your chosen trading strategies and methodologies, analyse the results, tweak then retest and so on, this will pay dividends when you start to trade Live.

Quiet Times for Reflection and Development

As we develop as traders there are often many things that we think of that we would like to find out more about or need to develop or test.  It is a good idea just to note those things down as they occur to you, then when there is a natural lull in the markets then this can be the ideal moment to look back at those notes and maybe get on with one or two of the things you would like to take further and develop or understand better.

Today is a classic day for that if you are based in the UK or outside the USA.  Being ‘President’s Day‘ in the US means that the markets are extremely quiet, so it is an ideal day to either take off or to get on with other things, even, dare I say it, to Back Test some of your chosen strategies!

These quiet times can also be a great time to reflect on what has occurred and how things are going in your trading and maybe to tighten up your trading plan and look back at your trading record and particularly your failed trades, as these are the ones we can learn most from.  To do that though, we must have kept a record of previous trades and their outcome. 

However, if you trade in MetaTrader 4 (MT4), then you can easily generate a report from you Trade History, just select the ‘Account History’ tab at the bottom of your screen when your Terminal is showing and then right click on the historic list of trades and then select ‘Save as Detailed Report’.  This will generate a full report over the chosen time period and if you scroll down to the bottom of the report you will see your Equity Curve and associated trading statistics or Stats as we call them.  The key stat to look at is your Profit Factor, this must be greater than 1 if you are going to be able to build your account equity balance and preferably better than 1.5 or even 2.

Top Trading Tip:  When you take a trade in MT4 then take a screenshot of your setup and save it for future reference or sharing at the time of the trade.  Just select 'File/Save As Picture/Active Chart (as is) and give it an easily understandable title such as 'GBPUSD 1hr Regular Bearish Divergence - 11 Jan 2011' and save it in a logical folder such as ‘Past Trades’.  You can then go back and refer to them and compare them to how things worked out and learn from your mistakes.  They are also a great way to get feedback from your peers or Trading Mentor allowing you to show when and why you took a certain trade.