How many of us will succeed in Forex?

I traded 10.000 to 80.000 in 4 hours on a demo account a few days ago.

Quite exhilarating.

Now I´m worried I´ve used up all my statistical probability to repeat that performance live.

You know, lightning never strikes twice, lol.

good , i have been demo and live mix for 6 months, find that simple system is enough with the plan strictly followed, and then begin to testing this idea, so at least need one year....

This is a great site thank you Edward. I have been looking for something to help me find the right mind set to trade and the feedback is very helpful. I started trading about 2 years ago and only traded with a demo account for a week. I dont like wasting time with fake money so I went for it not knowing the risks. I won right away and was very excited so I increased my margins and then lost all that I had won and then some. Greed and frustration both lead to my downfall. Now I trade with with 10,000 lot sizes, so about 1 USD per pip, this allows me to learn without losing my entire investment. I think I will go back to my demo account for awhile until I get a successful strategy down. Good luck to everyone.

Tony

I appreciate your feedback and the story!
These live stories are the best proof and example of real Forex trading - a great value for beginner traders.

Best regards,
Edward

Hi Edward,

Thank you for this wonderful website. The amount of beneficial information is enorme.
I would have to agree that trading for a solid amount of time is necessary for any trader to get to understand the forex market, and how to apply different strategies with different market conditions. I myself have learnt this the hard way. I was introduced to the forex through my brother who started trading and made some intereting profits. I read few books and articles then jumped directly to live trading. I opened an account of 100,000yen, and lost most of it within days. I have done everything wrong, trading without stop loss, nor target limit in mind, always hoping that the market will reverse. I was shocked after I lost everything and stopped trading for about 8 months.
Now I am back again to trading but only on a demo account. Until I feel comfortable with the few strategies I am testing, and am sure I can manage my equity properly, I intend to continue demo trading.

Anyway, that's my story, and once again thank you for this website and this opportunity to share information between all.

When ever I see an EA for sale I get very angry... The question I want to ask the person marketing the product is "who really wins? Me or you?" not sure what proportion of the 95% have failed in this style but forex is a business not a fantasy.

Trendlines and fundamentals is all you need. Look at what the market is doing now, not what happened in the past.

This video should help
(there are also more similar videos on http://www.youtube.com/)

Regards,
Edward

hi edward.
i need to know more about EA...MT4
how to set it up & how to use it.
thanks

newbe at rini

Hi the Lion killer,

My advice would be to wait and study a bit longer before you go out to kill your first lion.
If you have settled with a trading system, give it a full test of 3-4 months at least. In the meantime use your free hours to continue studying.

Regards,
Edward

hi edward,
I have just demo traded for 2 months with a lot of intensive reading and
studying anything I can lay my hands on.
I was planing to enter the market when I got lucky
coming across your website---------Man--------trading is like
fighting with a lion-------empty handed--------could I kill
a lion with my bare hands after 2 months of intensive combat training.
A lion that is so hungry its waiting for me to make any move-----any move.

well I think the other traders here should have an answer for me.
should I go ahead or do I need more training.

the Lion killer

I have demo traded for for 18 months. My experience reveal that to succeed you have to pick a single currency pair. Study its movements for a period of at least one month. Monitor how they behave during the Asian trades overlaps and the western trade overlaps.

John

Thank you very much for taking time to share with everyone this very important aspect of live versus demo trading!
I'm so glad we now hear more and more from traders about their trading experience (in both good and not so good times). This information is invaluable to every Forex newcomer!
Thank you!

Hello Edward,
You really have a wonderful site! I came across this site searching for answers. I got interested in forex way back November 2008, after being fed up with tremendous lost in the stock market. I tried demo account from OANDA, and got the high after earning 20% from demo account. My initial demo deposit was $10,000 giving me around $2,000 profit within a month.

Immediately I thought, why should I waste my time in demo when I can earn that 20%? So I quickly opened a live account putting in $10,000. I had some technical and fundamental knowledge, with my background in economics and stock market. So I was in a hurry, thinking that I was losing the best opportunities if I didn't go live.

But boy, trading in a live forex market is a different kind of animal. Whenever I opened a trade, my heart would thump like a rabbit. I gained a little on the first few days, but after two weeks I lost $2,400. I was using a single technique without realizing when the market is trending or ranging. I did not consider also the time factor ie, when the market opens in different time zones.

I got mad that I lost $2,400 and I wanted revenge!. That foolish emotion that could kill anybody. I knew from fundamental point of view that the dollar was going down against the euro in December. But when I look at the 5 minute chart I saw that euro was "reversing" down. I did not think that it was a short term retracement. So I shorted the Euro. Because I was mad, I put the whole farm into bet and just left my account open hoping that it would reverse. And I left my account for holiday mode, as Christmas was approaching, still hoping that the trend will reverse, hence not putting any stop loss.

Yes, the trend reversed but only after I got a margin call, reducing my balance to less than $1,000. Now I am back to school of pips. I consider myself a student that should learn the basics of technical analysis. Only if I listen to you guys who always advocate the use of stop loss and risk management, etc. I would not suffer that stupid mistake.

Anyway, thanks for this website, I am learning a lot and willing to learn as my repentance.

Thank you, Greg for a wonderfully written comment! I'm sure some traders will find your story very similar to theirs. Thank you for your good advice on trading attitude and discipline!

All the best in your trading career!

Regards,
Edward

I started trading demo about 2 yrs ago trying to figure out this forex. The big problem While using the demo I did not treat it like it was my money 100% of the time. I would feel great when I made profit in demo, but get frustrated when I had losses. But then I would say hey its not my real money. So I would take positions carelessly just going off of gut feelings. Sad to say I was lazy and I was really not taking the time to study the market as far as the fundamental and technical analysis. I did not learn to properly use indicators, charts and time frames in making successful entry and exits. I did not have plan using stop losses. So what happened I got some lucky breaks in the demo and figure I would rely on my gut feeling.

Man did I take a hit I started with a $1000.00 lost $400 and quickly withdrew the rest from my live account and never touched the market again, until last year around August or so 2008 I was talking to a friend, who was learning to trade Forex. This sparked my interest again and I immediately started trading on one of my old demo account. This time I studied hard I learned the pattern of the candle sticks, learned the importance of which time frames works for my trading system. learned to use trend lines to spot trends learned to used indicators for trending and how to understand the sell and buy signals in them I learned what a support and resistance means. I learned to watch when the market is flat or consolidating etc. With this said I opened a live account with $280.00 and suffered a loss down to $69. I never gave up I kept studying and learned to keep my emotion in check. Its still not perfect but I added $1000.00 to the $69. This time I tweaked my plan use more logic and technical analysis along with fundamental analysis and not only recovered my lost but have profits of almost $400. I learned that you have to be patient in forex trading. sometimes it takes awhile to get a good signal of where the market in trending. I Yes don't be (GREEDY) Greed can cause you to over trade which causes the eventual losses. I am still learning and try to learn from my mistakes and turn the mistakes into successes, I still suffer losses sometimes, but I have a rule that out of ten trade try to be profitable 7 or 8 out of 10 trades which means you are maximizing the profits and minimizing your losses.

Patience is a virtue. take the time to always learn, I am still learning as we speak. I hope to be able to keep this a success take control of my destiny with Gods Help and some good knowledge.

Greg