A day traders comments: He is a consistent trader his accuracy was good but would have
a blow up one day a month and lose a lot of what he had made. When he realized that
being right is not the key to making profitable trades. Sticking to your pre determined
plan and making high probability trades and not being emotionally attached to being right.
Stick to stop losses religiously. When he corrected his thinking he has quadrupled his
profits in just a few weeks.

Another trader makes a few comments. Traders look for the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail
could be within you. Get rid of the bad habits you have. Harnessing your emotions gets
rid of bad habits that keep you from being a winning trader. People over look their i
nner trader. Traders need to get rid of the bad habits and reinforce the good skills
they have by being disciplined.

This trader felt that there was an advantage of strong mentor ship. Trading is 85% mental
and 15% know how. If you are a disciplined trader you are following the rules of your
trading strategy. Step back look at the trading strategy, document the rules and make
sure that you are truly following the rules. Successful traders document their trading
activities they learn over time where they have improved. You need to be a disciplined
and focused trader. Being more patient and waiting for the high probability trades you
will notice the percentage of your winning trades will go up. Being disciplined will
help you to have more confidence and be calmer in your trading.

When you learn the basics of trading you do not have to learn about your emotions.
BUT when you start trading live you quickly learn about your emotions. Control the
emotions of fear and greed. You will not be able to eliminate it but you have to
control them. Writing the journal helps you know where you need to improve you do
not have to tweak your trading system. How you feel when you lost and when you won.
Take less trade avoiding the bad trades so the account grows. People will spend a
lot of time learning the technical side of trading but never do the record keeping
or checking their emotions.

See if any of this information could help you become a more disciplined trader.

You might say I am looking at charts, the indicators, price movement… what else should
I be observing? Let’s make a list of the things you need to look at.

How am I feeling?
What is my emotional state?
What is my self-talk before, and after the trade?
What is my thinking?
What patterns did I observe?
Did I follow my rules?
Did I hesitate or just take the trade when I saw the signals.

Once you get use to different things you need to keep track it will come automatic
and you will not have to think about it. Your goal is to become a mechanical trader
see the signals enter the trade, manage the trade, and exit the trade. Look for the
next trade and repeat the process.

Be aware of your environment and what is going on inside and out side of you.

Trade Good,

Personally,I think discipline is the first thing we should learn before doing anything,not just forex.But it is very hard
to get discipline for yourself.

If we are not disciplined in our daily living and as a human being.  Than we will never be a disciplined trader.  We need to
put everything into perspective.  It is a life long effort.  Take the time to take stock of your life.  Do what ever it takes
to put things in order.
-Organize your dwellings and work spaces
-Get your finances in order
-Keep yourself physically fit and neat
-Make peace with those around you
-Have a routine build around productivity
-But have a fair balance of play too
-Set reachable goals and track your progress

Happy Trading

Just remember you get paid to wait.  Let the trade come to you.  Try this exercise: take a look at the indicators
on a 15 minute time frame.  See where the market does a break out.  Then look at a larger time frame, say the 1
hour.  You will see that when the larger time frame makes a good break and you entered on the larger time frame
you would have bypassed the noise that a smaller time frame creates before it gives the signal for the big move.
 

It comes down to becoming a mechanical trader.  You see an entry signal you enter a trade, you manage the trade,
you see an exit signal and you close the trade. You start the process all over again.  When you become a
mechanical trader you will see the market for what it is.  You will not be fighting it.  You will go with the
flow.  Controlling your losses and managing your wins for maximum profit, with no emotions, just execution.
 

I really see this a lot when traders are trading the news.  They see the market move by leaps and
bounds, they jump in the market then the market reverse on them.  They get out at a loss enter a
trade going the other direction to find the market is now going in the original direction.  They
get out at a loss once again. They once again get back into the market going the other direction to
see the market move against them again.  When this happens they have experienced ‘being whip sawed’.

If you have your trading plan in effect before you trade then you will save money and have little
or no stress.  Use signals to enter the market and be able to explain in your trading journal why
you entered the trade.

We have been asked what kind of results will we get with your trading system, what percentages
of success will I get?  

Lets look at two traders.  They have the same capital, open account with the same brokerage,were
taught by using the same trading system, have the same entry and exit signals.  Now give
them some time to trade and check back.  One trader is up by 25% and the other is down by 30%. 
It is interesting that with the same information two different traders get such different results. 

We feel that each of us creates our own trading success by how we feel toward the market, the
reason we trade, and how we feel about making money, along with many other reasons. The same
reasons may be why it takes traders different length of time to learn the market, why some
traders start to trade live sooner than others, and many more reasons why we are different
when it comes to trading.

Some of this information is common sense.   Some of this information will be new to you, and
the rest you already know.  We hope this is of some use to you and that you enjoy it. 
 

If your trade does not produce a profit for you, then you should close it.
Here is what you do. These are not hard and fast rules, but you will be able to mold them
to your use easily enough.

1. If your trade does not work out within 15 minutes, then close the trade. 15 minutes is
the number of minutes during which your trade just sits and does not move very much. You’re
at a loss, but not a large loss.

2. if your trade immediately starts to move against you, ask yourself: did you make the
right decision? If you did, then stay in until your stop loss is hit. If not, exit NOW,
regardless of your stop loss being further away. More on this later — but a few words now:

How do you know that you did not enter the trade for the right reason? If you traded on
emotion, if you entered the trade within 5 minutes of sitting down at your computer, if
you did not follow your trading plan, if you have a feeling deep inside
that you made a mistake — all of these are good signs that you have made a trade for
the wrong reasons.

Here’s the next way to avoid the Pip Auction Game:

You can’t lose what you don’t risk. Of course, if you have any desire to be rich at all,
you’re thinking that this is the dumbest advice you’ve ever received.

1. If you have lost more than 9% of your account value, within ANY period of time, stops
trading live NOW. No exceptions.

2. Trade on a demo account for 1 week for every 2% of your account that was lost (and maybe
even more). If this seems like too much of a burden, ask yourself: "How much of a burden

would it be to lose my entire account?"

This can be really hard to do. For instance, if you are trying to pay your bills and live
off your trading account, and you are asked to stop trading live, you are going to wonder
where you’re going to get the money to live from. The simple answer is that you have started
trading live too early, and it is better to have $2,000 (or any amount) that you cannot
trade live, than it is to have nothing left at all.

I once worked with a trader that refused to stop trading live and move to a demo account
because "demo trading will take away the excitement. I’m not sure I could stay interested
in trading if I’m only trading a demo account." He lost everything twice.

1. Every week, print your account history from your trading platform, and spend 2 hours
away from your computer (preferably outside your house, in the library, or a restaurant,
or someplace that you can think away from your trading area) looking over the report.

2. Look for your mistakes. They should be easy to identify. They are the trades that were losers.

3. Realize that every losing trade is a mistake. If you believe otherwise (the old, "Well,
it’s good because I’ve learned my lesson"), then you are going to at least enjoy losing your
entire account. Get with the program, man! Would you be happy to have set your hair on fire,
because now you can say, "Well, I’ll never do that again!"?

4. Get someone you trust to look over your statement for you. Ask them to be brutally honest
with you. If this person says, "You are going to lose everything," believe them. Just go ahead
and believe them. So many times, traders who have lost 50% of their account feel that "I’ve
finally turned the corner, and this is it. I’m not going to lose anymore." They don’t switch
to demo trading, and they lose everything. Don’t do this. It feels awful.

The last point here. I recently worked with a wise trader in Fiji, who realized that he wasn’t
following a system with proven results — that although he had intermittent (large) wins, he
also was having occasional losses that left him feeling uneasy about trading. So you know what
he did? He stopped trading.

Wisely, he kept his account balance intact while he worked out the details. How long did it
take him? It does not matter. My friend was willing to trade on a demo for as long as it took
him to get back to trading a proven system that he could trade with confidence.

You could learn from our friend from Fiji. When in doubt, don’t take more live trades.
Take NONE.

Trading is all about making money.  If you are doing it for any other reason then you are doomed
for failure.  You need to trade from good old mechanical thinking, which is a mark of a good
trader.  You get a signal you make a trade you get another signal you exit a trade.  Large profit,
small profit, or small loss it is all part of the process in becoming a good trader.

Now you need to meet people, get out and do things, find other interests.  Remember what you did
before you started trading.  Spend time with your family, friends, and anyone that does not deal
with trading.  When you have a life other than trading you will be a better trader. 

This will help you keep emotions, fear, and greed out of your trading.  You will have more fun
and be in a frame of mind to make more money by seeing and acting on the proper signals.

 How much starting capital do I need to trade with (can I start with a small amount and work my way up)?

Answer:

There are several schools of thought on this.  Some say you have to have at least $10,000 to start and it would be better if you have over $25,000.  You should trade with a certain number of lots or you will not make it. 

Not everyone has a large amount of investment capital to start with.  We take a different approach when someone first starts out.  The main objective when starting out is to learn how to trade and develope the skill set of a good trader.  So you can start out with only a dream and a desire, get a part time job earn the initial investment capital.  This will do at least two things. 1.  get you the money to start trading  2.  Help to develpe the discipline needed to be a good trader.  If you do have some investment capital, no matter the amount, you need to only trade a small percentage of that money.  We suggest not to trade with any more than 5% of your account on any one trade and not more than 10% at any one time.  Sometimes it is better to start out with 1% or 2% per trade and no more than 5% at any one time.  This way you can start trading, learning and developing the skills to become a good trader. 

Do not worry about making money in the beginning be concerned about not losing money.   Once you get the skills the money will come.  You can also find other ways to earn money and add to your account so you have enough in the account to make a living

Now how much starting capital do you need.  You can start out as small as you would like there are brokers that have no minimums on the amount you can start trading with.  Yes you can work your way up.  It does take time and discipline.