Successful strategy?

[Guest davidbrister]

Interesting reading, interesting thoughts, Trend and Casey interesting banter.

Great work @TrendFollower on keeping your word and staying clear of @Caseynotes who seems to love to Troll you.

I been in this group for a couple of weeks and already worked out Casey was hot air blowing about every post before i read this post, but nice to see my thoughts were correct.

I was hoping to find like minded people who worked together in this group and would be happy to share ideas and stories both good and bad so others may learn and every body gains a benefit . The constant pointing to information from Casey seems to prove they have a lot of Bookmarked sites but maybe they dont understand the information? 

@dmedin I found i could make so much more profit in a Demo account than Live trading due to the Demo always letting you buy the trade at the Price on screen, compared to slippage in the Live market, the spread points on buying and selling seem less forgiving in the Demo than Live trading, on that fact alone my proven demo strategy's when i 1st started out have fallen over not allowing for the points difference and costing me in the long run. So i dont agree on that its rigged, its a false sense of security maybe as it plays a little nicer than the real market. I know i tended to play the demo far more risky as it wasnt real money, it wasnt my money, so the emotional thoughts arent as strong and you can be far more flippant in the Demo, making you feel more empowered before the Live system eats u up and spits u out.    

[Caseynotes]

Haha, @davidbrister, I've been full time trading with IG since 2012 and full time posting on this forum more or less since it started early 2016. I try to point the way but if you prefer the ramblings of amateurs lifted straight from books that's fine.  

[Guest davidbrister]

18 hours ago, Caseynotes said:

This is not true, demo platforms aren't designed for clients at all, they are designed to be a test bed for trialing new products for the brokers live platform, what would be the point of doing that on a 'rigged' platform copy. Anne Couling should stick to writing books on volume indicators without adding fake sensationalism to er, help sell her books on volume indicators.

well after your 7 years of trading i find your opinion above bolded no different to amateur ramblings, if there not for clients why do so many offer up Demo programs to their customers?, that doesnt make sense, But i only have 5 years under my belt so i guess u know best.

[dmedin]

17 hours ago, PandaFace said:

Rigged? Such paranoia! Maybe with unregulated bucket shops but not the main players...

Anna Couling has multiple books published and a trading programme website, again, if you can get that kind of income from selling books and courses then it would imply trading isn't your main source of income.  Or ... maybe it just means you are obsessed with trading and have no life outside of it

Another one is 'How to day trade for a living', where the author tells you to go to his website Bearbulltraders.com and of course, you see that he is has a business which sells training, access to paid chat rooms and such.

Edited May 27, 2019 by dmedin

[Caseynotes]

2 hours ago, davidbrister said:

well after your 7 years of trading i find your opinion above bolded no different to amateur ramblings, if there not for clients why do so many offer up Demo programs to their customers?, that doesnt make sense, But i only have 5 years under my belt so i guess u know best.

All platform providers also have a demo platform because they need to test updates and upgrades before release onto the live platform, that is the primary function of the demo. They also allow clients to use it to practice on.

I thought you said you were only trading part time previously, apologies if I got that wrong.

[Caseynotes]

1 hour ago, dmedin said:

Another one is 'How to day trade for a living', where the author tells you to go to his website Bearbulltraders.com and of course, you see that he is has a business which sells training, access to paid chat rooms and such.

Not seen them before, I used to contribute on Bullbearings and thought that was the same til I just looked it up, only to find they closed down, shame, that was a good trading game and forum.

But yes, they only exist because there is a massive market for it, same reason the scammers exist on insta. Once people realise how hard this really is and how much money they have left they become desperate for shortcuts. I've never recommended any but will reproduce any free educational material they might put out as a taster if it looks to have any value. By the way do you have Anna Coulling's A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis

https://www.fx-arabia.com/vb/uploaded/3212_11399310873.pdf

[Caseynotes]

A while back I found a book called 'Heart Surgery for Dummies' and thought great, I'll gave that a go. So I studied intently all weekend and found some old people to practice on but it didn't go well, then I found a forum with people discussing heart surgery so I asked them to tell me how to do it. They said it wasn't as simple as that and that there was a learning process that took time. They were clearly prevaricating so I started conjoling and casting aspersions on their proficiency and honesty to get them to open up but blow me if they didn't just get the hump and start returning insults. They didn't realise I was getting desperate as I was down to just two old people a month and getting worried about my state of mind, not only that but I was running out of space to hide the bodies. And all because others are too mean to tell me what to do. Sad.

[nit2wynit]

erm... Strategy is Over Rated IMO.

Knowledge is the key defining point.  Of course, Knowledge is the foundation fo strategy, but to focus on the strategy, means to miss out on the knowledge that is required first.  Strategy is secondary to knowledge.  no point having a strategy, if you've no idea what you're doing.!

Do you understand the Instrument, the Platform, your profit Loss, Volatility etc.?  Can you afford to lose?

Psychology is behind all of this.  It's not magic; it's science.  The understanding of what goes on behind the Candle sticks.

I may not be a successful trader; yet.  but I'm not concerned about the supposed time needed to learn, acquire knowledge, fine tune discipline.  It's charts going up and down.  It's News or a catalyst that will help you pre-empt the direction to go in.

I'm astonished by the sheer amount of debate, and argument over something so simple.

Will it go up or down?  Apply your knowledge.  Place your bets.

[Caseynotes]

6 hours ago, nit2wynit said:

erm... Strategy is Over Rated IMO.

Knowledge is the key defining point.  Of course, Knowledge is the foundation fo strategy, but to focus on the strategy, means to miss out on the knowledge that is required first.  Strategy is secondary to knowledge.  no point having a strategy, if you've no idea what you're doing.!

Do you understand the Instrument, the Platform, your profit Loss, Volatility etc.?  Can you afford to lose?

Psychology is behind all of this.  It's not magic; it's science.  The understanding of what goes on behind the Candle sticks.

I may not be a successful trader; yet.  but I'm not concerned about the supposed time needed to learn, acquire knowledge, fine tune discipline.  It's charts going up and down.  It's News or a catalyst that will help you pre-empt the direction to go in.

I'm astonished by the sheer amount of debate, and argument over something so simple.

Will it go up or down?  Apply your knowledge.  Place your bets.

Yes, that moment when you start to see all the things not previously known is an important step forward. But you are wrong to dismiss strategy because all will come back to that. You might also be wondering as to the wisdom of a lot of the advice being thrown at you, you would be right there.

A lot of peeps talk about strategy without understanding what it really is and so don't really actually have one themselves. A strategy is a cast iron simple set of rules you will always obey for every trade no matter what.

Find a strategy that works, validate it, do it.

When A then B then C happen I will always enter, when D or E happen I will always exit. You know this will not work for every trade but you have validated it so you know it works with enough percentage and risk/reward to be profitable over many trades. When you know this it takes all the excitement out of trading, which is a good thing.

Finding a strategy that suits your style then testing it to prove it works for you takes time. Think simple, for example, in a trending market an MA crossover after a pullback signalling trend continuation using a bracket order (entry, stop loss and take profit) that gives a 1:2 risk reward. Really - that simple, you can get fancy when later but not to begin with.

Until you have a working strategy you have nothing.  

 

 

[nit2wynit]

@Caseynotes I think my point was missed.

Yes i agree with everything you've posted above, but a Strategy is Secondary to Sound Knowledge.  

Only AFTER you have Sound Knowledge can you form a Strategy.  My point being, if you try to form a Strategy BEFORE you understand the machine, it will likely fail.  Therefore the importance of a Strategy can only be referred to as the Final Stage AFTER you understand your own question and knowledge.

To make my point more clear moving forward, the question of Strategy might better be served if it was like this:

'Don't form a strategy until your knowledge is sound.'  
Your greatest asset is your understanding of what you want to achieve and how to achieve it.  This relates to anything and everything in life.   A strategy will be formed afterwards.  It could simply be realised as saying: 
'Right, I've learned what it is i want to achieve, now I will create an action plan of how to achieve it.  Although this appears to be 2 questions, it's actually only one Plan.  It just has 2 parts.

A Strategy is the very last thing to do.

In direct relation to the Question itself, I find it a Moot Point.  It's kind of like saying:  I've decided what I want to eat, now I must eat it.  It's all part of the same pie;  What do i want to achieve?  How do I achieve it?.

 

[nit2wynit]

@davidbrister re. the Demo, I've actually read it a few times that the Demo account is a Testing Platform to be used for improvements, so @Caseynotes may be correct on this point.  

You're correct about the psychology of Demo Trading.  I failed too when I went live, but i failed for a simple reason;  I didn't adjust my Stake and Stop Losses for a smaller account.  However i didn't find any other difference from Demo to Live.  In fact i went Live simply to see if there was a difference.  It's possible it was so slight I didn't notice.

[Caseynotes]

25 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@Caseynotes I think my point was missed.

Yes i agree with everything you've posted above, but a Strategy is Secondary to Sound Knowledge.  

Only AFTER you have Sound Knowledge can you form a Strategy.  My point being, if you try to form a Strategy BEFORE you understand the machine, it will likely fail.  Therefore the importance of a Strategy can only be referred to as the Final Stage AFTER you understand your own question and knowledge.

To make my point more clear moving forward, the question of Strategy might better be served if it was like this:

'Don't form a strategy until your knowledge is sound.'  
Your greatest asset is your understanding of what you want to achieve and how to achieve it.  This relates to anything and everything in life.   A strategy will be formed afterwards.  It could simply be realised as saying: 
'Right, I've learned what it is i want to achieve, now I will create an action plan of how to achieve it.  Although this appears to be 2 questions, it's actually only one Plan.  It just has 2 parts.

A Strategy is the very last thing to do.

In direct relation to the Question itself, I find it a Moot Point.  It's kind of like saying:  I've decided what I want to eat, now I must eat it.  It's all part of the same pie;  What do i want to achieve?  How do I achieve it?.

 

Nope, you can choose a strategy off the shelf to test, there are lots of them. If you wait to know everything first you'll be waiting forever. The strategy itself should be very simple. The plan is simply to indicate when to apply the strategy. So looking at the chart I see we are in a range but my strategy depends on a trend so my plan is to wait for the market to start trending and then to look for an opportunity to apply my strategy.

Yes there is lots of stuff to learn that will help fine tune your trading but stick the basic stuff first;

So the other stuff includes;

what does the chart structure look like, are there good S&R levels, where is a good place for the stop, where would opposing pressure come in, is the price action clean or choppy, is volatility and volume increasing or decreasing, where might traders get trapped, what are sidelined traders thinking, where might they enter, where will losers cut their losses.

Yes all this stuff will help refine your trading but it will not in the end decide whether your strategy will basically work for you or not.

Find a selection of strategies that fit the time frame charts you want to use and start testing.

Find a strategy that works (one that others have made work will do fine), validate it (prove it will work for you if you stick to the rules), do it.

 

[nit2wynit]

@Caseynotes you're agreeing with me..........I'm not sure why the Back and Forth   This below is Prior Knowledge.  You need this before you apply a Strategy, OR Buy Off the Shelf.

'what does the chart structure look like, are there good S&R levels, where is a good place for the stop, where would opposing pressure come in, is the price action clean or choppy, is volatility and volume increasing or decreasing, where might traders get trapped, what are sidelined traders thinking, where might they enter, where will losers cut their losses.'

Sure you can pick a Strategy Off the Shelf without prior knowledge.  But will you even understand it? You simply must have knowledge of the process first.

The ability to Buy a working Strategy is not what the post is about.

The context of the question is 'Share with me your winning strategy?' 

I've won 3 trades on the demo for £47 in a few minutes.  I only placed 3 trades.  I went to make coffee.  I played for small profits on each. £20 £20 and £7

This was a strategy, but I could only apply it after I've acquired the knowledge to understand what I'm looking at.  This was knowledge in action.  My Strategy was based upon what I know and understand.  I couldn't apply any kind of strategy if i didn't even know what I wanted to achieve.  It's clear that most in here don't Day Trade.  To some it even appears counter productive or Alien.  To me, it's all I know.


It all comes under the umbrella of 'Trading'.  It's an accumulation of knowledge.  To split it in to parts and suppose each is separate is counter productive.

I'm no longer sure what the post is even about haha.

I've never suggested to Not have a Strategy.  I said it was based upon what you actually know first and that it was secondary to gained knowledge.  Therefore the importance of a Strategy is limited to your understanding and can fail because of ignorance.  Strategy is the last thing to form after prior learning.


My strategy is so simple and so quick, but it requires a certain mindset and knowledge that is not suited to all.

I could share my Strategy, I have no problem doing so, but unless the OP even understand what they want to achieve, it most likely won't make sense.

 

 

[Caseynotes]

 

27 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

@Caseynotes you're agreeing with me..........I'm not sure why the Back and Forth   This below is Prior Knowledge.  You need this before you apply a Strategy, OR Buy Off the Shelf.

'what does the chart structure look like, are there good S&R levels, where is a good place for the stop, where would opposing pressure come in, is the price action clean or choppy, is volatility and volume increasing or decreasing, where might traders get trapped, what are sidelined traders thinking, where might they enter, where will losers cut their losses.'

Sure you can pick a Strategy Off the Shelf without prior knowledge.  But will you even understand it? You simply must have knowledge of the process first.

The ability to Buy a working Strategy is not what the post is about.

The context of the question is 'Share with me your winning strategy?' 

I've won 3 trades on the demo for £47 in a few minutes.  I only placed 3 trades.  I went to make coffee.  I played for small profits on each. £20 £20 and £7

This was a strategy, but I could only apply it after I've acquired the knowledge to understand what I'm looking at.  This was knowledge in action.  My Strategy was based upon what I know and understand.  I couldn't apply any kind of strategy if i didn't even know what I wanted to achieve.  It's clear that most in here don't Day Trade.  To some it even appears counter productive or Alien.  To me, it's all I know.


It all comes under the umbrella of 'Trading'.  It's an accumulation of knowledge.  To split it in to parts and suppose each is separate is counter productive.

I'm no longer sure what the post is even about haha.

I've never suggested to Not have a Strategy.  I said it was based upon what you actually know first and that it was secondary to gained knowledge.  Therefore the importance of a Strategy is limited to your understanding and can fail because of ignorance.  Strategy is the last thing to form after prior learning.


My strategy is so simple and so quick, but it requires a certain mindset and knowledge that is not suited to all.

I could share my Strategy, I have no problem doing so, but unless the OP even understand what they want to achieve, it most likely won't make sense.

 

 

It's more of a case of being able to stick to the rules than having years of experience but people often need years of experience to learn to stick to the rules if you have a validated strategy 🙂

Below is a pic of a very simple MA cross strategy (the dots indicate a crossover), say only take shorts on red dots below the sma and only take longs on green dots above the sma, with a stop behind the most recent high/low just before the entry signal and a take profit at 1:2 risk:reward.

This is as simple as you can get and would have made money on today's dax M1 chart without knowing anything else.

Find a strategy that works, validate it, do it (stick to the rules).

[nit2wynit]

To the OP. @johnt4917

My strategy is Easy.  Though I'm on demo for now.

Regardless of account size, i work the equation of Stake vs Stop Loss vs Profit, based upon Points moved within a 5 minute time limit.  I often find or look for Consolidation points and place makers for Support and Resistance and play within those moves.

I'm happy to answer any other question if you want to try it out.  My plan is to Day Trade and make £200 per day.  I hope to achieve this by applying several trades throughout a 4 hour period and taking smaller profit from £10 upwards.  My stop loss is never more than £25 and I'll usually never allow it to go that far especially if I'm in front of the screen.   

This is my strategy based upon the cost to Share Deal vs SB.  I never want to risk much more than I would if I had simply bought shares and sold them.  The price to buy shares is around £10.  Therefore I SB and try to keep my losses to the cost of Share dealing.

[nit2wynit]

I probably won't be doing any more today as have a few things to take care of.  I can often trade like this.  But i can't afford to take my eyes off the screen.  I will do this every day.  Longer goals is to Trades Shares directly as the more I add to my account the great the cost to the stake and potential greater losses.  Buying shares directly and controlling my Stops will prove more advantageous dealing Shares I think.

[nit2wynit]

Right, for those interested this is a typical day of late.

You'll notice the Red boxes and the Blue.  The Red boxes are actually real Fails.  The Blue Boxes are me Proving Fails.  What I mean is I set up trades to prove the reasoning they can and will go the other way and that returning after a long day is not wise.   Ironically the £10 in between the 2 Red boxes was not a win but a Fail because i expected it to go Down instead of up.  So chalk the £10 win to a Fail.  You can see around 4pm that i got out of 2 trades that clearly showed me I may have read it all wrong but luckily managed 2 small profits.  Then I set out to prove the fails.  I would not normally allow them to reach -£20.  Having convinced myself I knew what i was reading after I corrected myself, i waited for the anticipated drop.  I was pretty sure in my thinking that the FTSE was going to drop by the end of the day.  It clearly did in the last few mins.  this was done using a simulated 2k account.  The margin was around £1800.

Adding up the figure below will give a Net Profit of £70.  However, if i add, or remove the Proof Fails it's around £170.

[Guest davidbrister]

@nit2wynit those 5 x $20 loss's at the end suck big time, they spoil what was shaping up to be a good day, you did well to claw some of it backup with the next 3 wins, but im sure you felt a tonne of pressure  in that 20 mins period

[nit2wynit]

David you've missed the details.  I did those on purpose.  I prove my wins as well as my fails.  

[nit2wynit]

I posted that as my strategy.  Maybe I wasn't clear in my post.  I was showing how I learn.  I knew each of those 20's was going to fail.  The Ups and Downs were about 4 or 5 points.  I was only using a 4pt stop loss.  I set them up to fail.  What I mean is I re-affirmed what i thought would happen by doing to the opposite.  I never left the screen in the last half hour.  I let them fail on purpose to confirm my learning.  I even set up the £10 win to fail but it actually went the right way, hence why I called it a fail.

It's good to make purposeful mistakes.  They also prove you know when you're making a mistake as well as making a Win.  Proving your Gut and your ego.

not been trading today.  Well, only 1 trade and up £20 so 100% win lol

[dmedin]

If you have a huge deposit (i.e., you're already quite wealthy) then you can easily make a few hundred pounds a day from trading quite conservatively.  (Only trading on really good setups and taking profits from a few points in your favour.)

If you have a smaller deposit and you're under pressure to trade in order to make a certain amount, you will lose.  99 times out of 100.  Guaranteed.

[Caseynotes]

2 hours ago, dmedin said:

If you have a huge deposit (i.e., you're already quite wealthy) then you can easily make a few hundred pounds a day from trading quite conservatively.  (Only trading on really good setups and taking profits from a few points in your favour.)

This is an important point,  trading only great setups is essential and the only way to grow a small account but if you are trying to live off a small account you will be chasing everything and that doesn't usually end well.

[SalemKring]

Simply put, the best way to be successful is to have a trading plan in which you know your win/loss ratio when you enter a trade, calculate your winnings and reduce your losses.

[SalemKring]

On 09/11/2022 at 23:02, SalemKring said:

Simply put, the best way to be successful is to have a trading plan in which you know your win/loss ratio when you enter a trade, calculate your winnings and reduce your losses. I often use this scheme when I gamble on joe fortune's new website.

Despite the elaborate system of the betting business, there are a great many strategies developed by each individual player on the market that helps you beat the bookmaker. If you approach it wisely and analyze events, you can get a good profit. Making money in the casino is real but not easy.