I really don't mind spending a lot of time on learning Forex, the only problem is going back to the tought of ''Am I only wasting my time reading useless stuff that doesn't work?''
Hello Tony,
I've read your post and I understand your question. I'm going to give you the secret answer to your question that few in the Retail Forex business know how to properly answer. The answer is this:
You will never be successful as an Independent Trader in Forex until you develop your own methods for consistently positive trading results. You will never develop those methods until you take personal responsibility for all the outcomes in your trading. This requires you to first understand that you are not in control of the market, you cannot exercise you will or dominance over the market and until you become serious player in the market, you cannot in anyway shape or form manipulate and/or move the market to any degree considered meaningful. You must come to the realization (the sooner the better) that the absolutely best you can ever do as a Trader, is to position your capital at a level within the market where it stands the highest potential for growing given what you knew at the time you put your capital to work. Lastly, you must learn that Money is not Capital. Money, is in the final analysis of all you do as a Trader. Capital, serves but one purpose in this business - it is the Fuel that grows more Capital. Ergo, Capital is the substance that when put to work grows more Capital. Capital exists for no other purpose than that. If you confuse Capital with Money, you can never be truly successful as a Trade long term.
Now, notice how absolutely none of this had anything whatsoever to do with Technical Analysis. The reason for this is because you were asking the wrong question without knowing it. Believe me when I tell you this, you must CHANGE your response to Right -vs- Wrong as a Trader. You've been programmed all your life to be Right, 100% of the time. In school, you were taught to be Right on all your exams, 100% of the time. You were taught that you were flawed if you did not earn an A+ grade. You were taught to always (100% of the time) have the absolute Right response to every single interview question when applying for that Dream Job out of College. You were taught to always say the absolute Right things (100% of the time) to any girl or women you might have desired for your girlfriend or wife. You were taught to always have the Right answer (100% of the time) when your children ask you questions as their parent. Your entire life has been spent trying to be Right, 100% of the time. You live in a World Paradigm where being Right, casts you as being someone with higher levels of intelligence. You live in a Be Right, Right Now world. You were born into this world. This is the only world you know.
Well, that's about the change - dramatically. THIS is one of the principle reasons WHY so many fail at this business.
In this business, you must learn to not only be Wrong, but enjoy being Wrong whenever and however it happens. You must learn to take when went Wrong, study it to the Nth degree and develop methods and protocols for Mitigating that Wrong to as high a degree as humanly possible. You must learn to take the Wrong, and use it as fuel to seek out solutions that hedge risk against any future development of that same Wrong. You must be open and secure with being Wrong. You must be happy with being Wrong. You must love being Wrong. Being Wrong should make you feel good on the inside. Being Wrong should place a smile on your face. Why? Because, being Dead Wrong is where you will spend YEARS getting up to speed on Risk Mitigation Methods that will be the primary reason WHY you graduate to the next level in your Trading Career.
We haven't even gotten to Technical Analysis, yet. We are a long way away from you being able to comprehend or understand what TA is and what it is not at this point. Still want to be a Trader? Precious few really have what it takes to become a long term, successful, independent, proprietary Trader. The road to success in this field is littered with wannabe hopefuls who never understood Personal Responsibility deep enough to ever make it as a successful Independent Trader. This is (by far) the hardest and most difficult profession you will ever engage in front of a computer. You can fake it, in a ton of different businesses, industries and business models. There is no faking it here in the World of Trading. It is exactly like Yoda says:
Either do, or do not. There is no try.
There is no middle ground in Trading. You are either consistently growing Capital, or you are not consistently growing Capital. Period. If you have difficult accepting the personal demands that failure is simply not an option, then you can never truly succeed as a Trader. You must have the heart of the Top 1% of all Entrepreneurs. That means you must be a total Self Starter. You must be completely open and honest with yourself. You must not tolerate dishonesty and laziness in yourself. You must be in full and total control of your own Mind and your own Thoughts. You MUST be prepared for YEARS of painstaking research and the development of Skill, Knowledge and Expertise. You MUST be prepared to earn a
Street Level PhD in Trading that no University on the face of the planet could ever give you.
Your Street PhD Thesis?
Maximum Risk Mitigation Management Protocols
If you think you are going to step into this business, start growing capital and pay no homage to Risk Mitigation, you are deluding yourself and setting yourself up for abject failure long term. EVERYTHING in this business BEGINS and ENDS with Risk Management. Consider this your first day Lecture, in your "Hello World" moment.
Indeed, you have Hell to pay in developing the Skill, Knowledge and Expertise necessary. No doubt, it will take years of hard work. But, at the end of the Hellish Years of sacrifice, you will have earned the right to sit in front of a computer and expect to see Capital Growth at rates unseen and considered abnormal by most highly successful Hedge Fund Managers around the world. At that time, you will be growing Capital at rates considered impossible by most "Professionals" in the Offshore Hedge Fund world.
Now, for TA. Does it work? Yes, but only if you WORK IT the way it was designed to be worked. Moreover, you would do yourself a huge favor by spending your earliest days in Research, learning how to produce your own Market Metadata for the purpose of designing and engineering your own Technical Analysis approach to the Markets. Then (and only then) will you be trading with something that nobody else on the planet has. You will have developed you own highly unique and highly bespoke Edge. We have not talked about "The Edge," because you are not ready for that discussion.
For the time being, you need to test yourself by testing your Mind. Do you have the Mind for this business model? This business model ain't what it looks like from the outside looking in. Trading can be easy. However, it is hard as hell making it easy.
- How do you handle adversity?
- How attached at you to Money?
- What do you think about Money?
- What is more important: Winning or Losing?
- How do you define failure?
- How do you feel about material possessions?
- Do you work out regularly?
- Are you married? (a super massive consideration)
A super intelligent person with a Masters in Economics and a PhD Mathematics from a very well known business college in the United States, is one day made Chief Trading Strategist & Chief Fund Manager. Put in charge of managing $400 million and in under 3 years that fund was down to below $200 million with every single remaining investor headed for the exit.
You sure you wanna be a Trader? Still? What makes you so special? Because, "Special" is exactly what you need to start getting used to BEING. Hell, yes. You can make it. I made it. But, you need to BECOME a Trader. They are not born. They are MADE from scratch.
Keep the fire lit. Hope this helps.
