Forex Strategies Forum

[ivanlim]

Hi guys. When i first started trading forex,i lost some money. I then thought that it's quite common for newbies to lose money. A few months later,i managed to earn small profits,and that made me thought that i was out of the newbies club,of losing and blowing up accounts. However,recently,i started gaining back my old form of losing,and i'm at my all time low of $40,000 on my practice account. I started with the account of $50,0000,and 6 months later (now),i've lost $10,000. May i know if there is something wrong with me?

Sorry if i sound kinda funny. I'm just very confused

[Traveller]

I guess it would be simple to find out if you know the answer to this:

- did you have a system and traded only by its rules when you were winning?
- if yes, did you change anything recently?
- if no, then it is obvious: your trading style changes as you get more experience, but it is not necessarily going to lead to making right decisions, a system is still needed.

[ivanlim]

I do follow a system,but it is very inconsistent

[Rom]

The 80-20% rule - 80% of profit is made during 20% of time. Here is an example
http://www.forex-robot-world-cup.com/results.php?id=15&name=LMD-Multicurrency
Half the profit was made on 26th January. The rules were constant. Money management was unchanged. Still he did not make profit for a whole month.

kjell

[ivanlim]

So what do you guys suggest? Should i change my system,or should i try and improve it?

[Rom]

Change your system but don't improve it

[ivanlim]

Ok,probably i'll try out some other systems. Thanks

[Rom]

Probably a simple scalper that works on all currencies (i don't know any names) can be put into use when

1. Robot is decompiled and SendOrders are substituted by Alert signals
2. Signals produced are used manually when direction is comfirmed by Twitter talk

If the scalper manages BE during backtesting it should be good enough for this kind of use.
You decide trading time. When scalper is alerting a trade in right direction trade at right time, trade. If alert is outside these conditions don't trade. When scalper alerts exit exit. You are in full control of money management. The robot becomes a monitoring secretary for saving precious time.

It is important to build a record of live performance. That record will tell you how much you can risk on each trade. What you can hope for is a performance record telling you to bet 10% on a 10 pips move and expecting 2 pips net per trade. A combination of MT4 demo and http://www.anyoption.com/ is a possibility. In that case there will be no SL/TP.

Even if above is simplistic it takes 2-3 months to build a performance record. There will 100 practical decisions to make on the way.

[ivanlim]

Thanks for all your help

[muddeman]

Hi, I think it is all down to poor money management. When you place a trade make sure you never stake more than 5% of your capital on any one trade, and only trade when there is the potential to win three times your potential loss. Better to wait for the right trade than to jump in at the wrong time.
Always, always place a stop loss, and let your profits run. If possible use a trailing stop.
Using a 3:1 profit:risk ratio you can be wrong 60% of the time but still be profitable long-term.
Hope this is of some help.
Good luck
Charles