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Learn Pros & Cons of Trading on Demo Account Hey traders, In this article, we will discuss demo account trading. We will discuss its importance for newbie traders and its flaws. ➕Pros: Demo account is the best tool to get familiar with the financial markets. It gives you instant access to hundreds of different financial instruments. With a demo account, you can learn how the trading terminal works. You can execute the trading orders freely and get familiar with its types. You can get acquainted with leverage, spreads and volatility. Trading on paper money, you do not incur any risks, while you can see the real impact of your actions on your account balance. Demo account is the best instrument for developing and testing a trading strategy, not risking any penny. The absence of risk makes demo trading absolutely stress-free. ➖Cons: The incurred losses have no real impact, not causing real emotions and pressure, which you always experience trading on a real account. Your performance (positive or negative) does not influence your future decisions. Real market conditions are tougher. Demo accounts execute the orders a bit differently than the real ones. That is clearly felt during the moments of high volatility, with the order slippage occurring less often and trade execution being longer. Trading with paper money allows you to trade with the sums being unaffordable in a real life, misrepresenting your real potential gains and providing a false confidence in success. Even though we spotted multiple negative elements of demo trading, I want you to realize that it still remains the essential part of your trading journey and one of the main training tools. You should spend as much time on demo trading as you need to build confidence in your actions, only then you can gradually switch to real account trading. ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by VasilyTrader
3
4 Signs that Say You’re Ready for Full-Time Trading For forex traders, nothing embodies freedom more than those who trade full-time. After all, full-time traders enjoy freedom from their box-type offices, freedom of time, and freedom to choose which trading opportunities to take. Unfortunately, this brand of independence isn’t for everyone. Just like too much freedom can do more harm than good for some economies, not all traders are ready to trade full-time. So how do you know when you’re ready for full-time trading? From what we’ve seen from online forex communities, we can narrow it down to four signs: 1. You have enough capital Trading full time means that you’ll be quitting your job, your primary source of income. And, because you’re realistic, you know that you probably won’t be making any serious trading money in your first few months. 2. You have tried and tested other methods and strategies Not only do you need to have a strategy that has proven to be profitable for you, but you also have to have other equally qualified methods that would work for other trading conditions. After all, you never know when and for how long the market trends will shift! 3. You have spent a considerable amount of time trading LIVE Trading a live account brings forth trading psychology hurdles that you wouldn’t get from trading demo accounts. In addition, you have to have a fairly good grasp of your trading strengths and weaknesses, and, more importantly, you should know how to stick to a trading plan before you make trading your full-time job. 4. Trading is your passion Trading currencies is what motivates you to get up and get busy every morning. Remember that while full-time trading would provide you more opportunities to catch market movements, you don’t need to be a full-time trader to be consistently profitable. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
8
The 5 Outcomes Of a Trade | How not to blow your account Successful traders know there are 5 outcomes that can come out of a trading position. When managed well these outcomes can lead to great success. However, when manage badly can cause disaster to a trader’s account. Below I’ll highlight and discuss the possible 5 outcomes of a trade and how you can manage them. 1. Small Profit This is when a position ends in a very small profit, for trend traders, this is usually the case. However, in this situation, there is no loss. 2. Small Loss This is when you lose a small amount at the close of your position. This is part of normal and good trading. In fact, you should cut your losses early. Taking small losses or cutting your losses early will help you stay in this business long term. 3. Breakeven This is a position where you really didn’t make or lose any money. They’ll come too, they are not necessarily bad trades. These types of trades may just mean you should find re-entry to the position or may just be a quick exit without a loss or profit. 4. Big Profit This is when a position ends in a very big profit. This type of trade does not come too often but when they do come they are the trades that move your general account return for the period to the next level. As a trader, these are the type of trades you should look forward to. 5. Big Loss This is when a position ends up closing at a very big loss. This type of trade should never happen on your trading account as a pro-trader. This is the type of trade that can blow your trading account. It’s why you should know how to cut your losses quickly and take a small loss. I’m glad I’ve been able to share with you the possible outcomes of a trade and how you can manage them properly. A simple knowledge like this can suddenly turn your trading account to become profitable. Please, like this post and subscribe to our tradingview page!👍
Education
by EliteTradingSignals
7
SK Chart OverlaySK Chart Overlay by Stephen Kalayjian and TradeEZ is advertised as a "cutting edge proprietary chart overlay, with built-in predictive analytics for trading" . The same set of indicators and similar chart setups were used by Stephen Kalayjian in his previous failed projects KnowVera and Ticker Tocker . A closer look into these projects reveals that these indicators are just rebranded well known indicators with a little bit of lipstick. Trade EZ MA - Welles MA (10) / EMA (19) Trade EZ 1 - MACD(12, 26, 9) Trade EZ 2 - DMI (14, 14) Trade EZ 3 - Stochastic (5, 3, 3) Trade EZ 4 - ATR Supertrend (52, 2.5) + Welles MA (5) / EMA (9) - previously known as KnowVera Trend Channel and later Ticker Tocker Trend Channel Chart setup is available at www.tradingview.com
CME_MINI:ES1!Education
by fktrdr
8
Forex Market: Who Trades Currencies & Why The foreign exchange or forex market is the largest financial market in the world – larger even than the stock market, with a daily volume of $6.6 trillion. The forex market not only has many players but many types of players. Here we go through some of the major types of institutions and traders in forex markets: Commercial & Investment Banks The greatest volume of currency is traded in the interbank market. This is where banks of all sizes trade currency with each other and through electronic networks. Big banks account for a large percentage of total currency volume trades. Central Banks Central banks, which represent their nation's government, are extremely important players in the forex market. Open market operations and interest rate policies of central banks influence currency rates to a very large extent. A central bank is responsible for fixing the price of its native currency on forex. This is the exchange rate regime by which its currency will trade in the open market. Exchange rate regimes are divided into floating, fixed and pegged types. Investment Managers and Hedge Funds Portfolio managers, pooled funds and hedge funds make up the second-biggest collection of players in the forex market next to banks and central banks. Investment managers trade currencies for large accounts such as pension funds and foundations. Multinational Corporations Firms engaged in importing and exporting conduct forex transactions to pay for goods and services. Individual Investors The volume of forex trades made by retail investors is extremely low compared to financial institutions and companies. However, it is growing rapidly in popularity. There is a reason why forex is the largest market in the world: It empowers everyone from central banks to retail investors to potentially see profits from currency fluctuations related to the global economy. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
7
Learn How to Apply a Position Size Calculator Hey traders, In this educational article, I will teach you how to apply a position size calculator and calculate a lot size for your trades depending on a desired risk. First of all, let's briefly discuss why do you need a position size calculator. Even though, most of the newbie traders trade with the fixed lot, the truth is that fixed lot trading is considered to be very risky. Depending on the trading instrument, time frame and a desired stop loss, the risks from one trade to another are constantly floating. With the constant fluctuations of losses per trade, it is very complicated to control your risks and drawdowns. A lot size calculation, however, allows you to risk the desired percentage of your capital per trade, limiting the maximum you can potentially lose. A lot size is calculated with a position size calculator. It is integrated in some trading platforms like cTrader. If it is absent in yours, there are a lot of free ones available on the internet. Step 1: Measure a pip value of your stop loss. It is the distance from your entry level to your stop loss level. In the example on the picture, the stop loss is 290 pips. Step 2: Open a position size calculator Step 3: Fill the form. Inputs: Account currency, account balance, desired risk %, stop loss in pips, currency pair. In the example, we are trading with USD account. Its value is $20000. Trading instrument is EURUSD. Step 4: Calculate a lot size The system will calculate a lot size for your trade. 0.069 standard lot in our example. Taking a trade on EURUSD with $20000 deposit and 290 pips stop loss, you will need 0.069 lot size to risk 1% of your trading account. Learn to apply a position size calculator. That is the must-use tool for a proper risk management. ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
Education
by VasilyTrader
5
7 Stages to Financial Freedom and How You Can Get There Today we will discuss the stages you go through to reach freedom and how you can achieve it with awesome thinking models. The journey to financial freedom includes seven stages. 1. Clarity This is the stage where you are clear about your current financial position and where you want to be. 2. Self-sufficiency This is the stage where you can bear all your expenses by yourself. You are not dependent on anyone for your survival. This also means you earn enough to sustain your expenses. 3. Breathing room This is the stage where you have saved enough to sustain yourself for a couple of months, even if you lose your source of income right now. 4. Stability This is the stage where you have paid off all your debts and you also have a saving to sustain you for at least 6 months in advance. 5. Flexibility This is the stage where you have saved enough money to sustain yourself for two years in advance. 6. Financial independence This is the stage where your money earns more for you. It’s when you have enough investments and savings that the return you get is enough to sustain your expenses without working. At this point, you work on something because it’s your hobby, and not to earn money. 7. Abundant wealth This is the stage where you have accumulated so much money that you would not be able to spend all in your lifetime. But how do you progress through these stages and achieve financial freedom? Here are some awesome thinking models you can use to head towards financial freedom. 1. Time is more valuable than money. 2. Compounding can help you achieve it earlier 3. Make money with a side business 4. Learn to sell stuff As it should be your ultimate financial goal, it is never enough to talk about achieving financial freedom. I wish you luck, dear traders. Hey traders, let me know what subject do you want to dive in in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by TopTradingSignals
7
The Iceberg Illusion: The hidden logic of success We often get mesmerized by someone’s above the surface success and don’t factor in all the below the surface opportunity-costs they paid to achieve that success. This is the ‘iceberg illusion’. It’s been a fav analogy of mine for years. And yet, this just might be a better visual for sport than the ‘iceberg illusion’. You see… the hyper focus on outcomes is one of the biggest failings (or façades) that comes from social media. It creates a false impression of what leads to success. We see the success, but not the work that went into it… The unseen hours, necessary failures, setbacks, crises of confidence, the not-now’s (to the countless asks), the loneliness, the late nights and early mornings; and, all the wobbling that comes before the walking—much less running. There are no shortcuts. There are no overnight successes. The iceberg doesn’t move quickly. It’s not sped up. It just moves consistently; at often a barely discernible speed. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
4
What Every Trader Should Know About Margin Margin can be a powerful tool to leverage your investment returns or to finance purchases apart from your portfolio. Margin is an extension of credit from a brokerage firm using your own eligible securities as collateral. Most traders typically use margin as a means to purchase additional securities, but there are other uses too. Interest is charged on the borrowed funds for the period of time that the loan is outstanding. Benefits of a Margin Trading Account: Use the cash or securities in your account as leverage to increase your buying power. Get the lowest market margin loan interest rates of any broker. Diversify trading strategies with short selling, options and futures contracts, or currency trading. Borrow against a margin account at any time and repay the loan on your own schedule. Margin borrowing is only for experienced investors with high risk tolerance. You may lose more than your initial investment. Before trading on margin, understand the following risks: Trading losses may be greater than the value of the initial investment Leveraged investments create a greater potential risk of loss Additional costs from margin interest charges Potential margin calls or liquidation of securities Hey traders, let me know what subject do you want to dive in in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by TopTradingSignals
14
If You're Thinking About Giving Up On TradingHello to you TradingView traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. If you're thinking of giving up on trading read this 👇 A long time before becoming profitable Trading is one of the most difficult tasks in the world It sucks you in and takes your money within minutes But if you're seriously trying to change your life around, here's why you should stick with it: I've been trading for 10 years now For the first 2 years I lost money The first account I funded with $10,000 I lost in 6 days The trading journey is mentally tough. Not only did I lose a lot of money, but I lost a lot of confidence I had devoted 2 years of my life to trading and still could not get consistent profits. It was mentally draining. The light at the end of the tunnel But sticking with it was the best decision I have EVER made I get to wake up every day now feeling fulfilled. Feeling like all those years of hard work and sacrifice were worth it Trading turned me into the person I am today. Before I had ZERO: - Confidence - Sense of accomplishment - Happiness And now I have all of those things AND... I also learned a lot about myself. I learned what it takes for me to become disciplined I learned that in some scenarios I'm not very patient, in others I am I learned about how I learn and the best way for me to educate myself Yes the trading journey was financially and mentally tough but it was also fun. The process was fun. At the end of the day, that's what makes people happy: Setting a goal, working towards it, and achieving it There is no better feeling than that in my opinion But here's the kicker: If you don't give up, you can't lose It's LITERALLY a waiting game It's impossible to spend 10,000 hours on something and NOT be successful at it Don't compare your journey to someone else It took me 3.5 years to become profitable, and one more year to trade full-time For some, it took 6 months For others, it took 7 years But I can say for every successful trader out there that it was totally worth it So if you're considering giving up, take a step back Think. Are you a quitter? How bad do you want this? Sleep on it and see what happens tomorrow :) I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) I want to teach you guys every aspects of what makes a great trader and how to get there. This is the most challenging and the most rewarding job at the same time Thank you for reading Dave
Education
by Daveatt
17
Why Your Backtest Results May Not Give Realistic ResultsHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Timeframes A lot of models work on high timeframes on the charts. They work visually at least and that's why many are only sharing with high timeframes charts greater than 4H. We all built a backtest based on a moving average cross and got a shooting 95%+ win-rate when running the backtest engine for the very first time. We all thought we were geniuses right :) "Way too easy" we all thought There is a caveat though... For derivatives trading (CFDs, options, futures, ..) backtests always account for real trading fees. Let me explain... We all heard/saw those rollover fees that we need to pay overnight. This is basically how the brokers are forcing the overnight/over weekend traders to pay more fees. While the explanation longs to pay for the shorts, and shorts to pay for the longs is poetic - those fees could eat out your position capital way before the price action has even moved. Imagine a range during days/weeks. You'll end up paying a lot of fees and might end up with a very negative position size way before anything interesting (from a trading perspective) ever happened. I saw many trades being minus double digits percent PnL only because of fees. Then, imagine trading contracts with an expiration date - this adds another challenge - and most of backtests don't even account for that either. Leverage Leverage increases disproportionally the risk compared to the opportunity. Leverage 2 does increase the risk by 2 but the opportunity won't be multiplied by 2. Well.... it would be in case the analysis is good in the first place. (assuming the risk/entry/exit plan is correctly calculated). Assuming those analyses are made by experienced traders, then using leverage makes sense - otherwise I'd stay away from it. I surely sound like a broken record with this... But, I know what you're thinking You calculated already how many trades and pips you need to earn $1M and you concluded it won't be possible without leverage. This statement is true if you want to get rich quick which anyway always lead to get poor quick. "Past performance doesn't guarantee future performance" Probably the quote we hear the most in trading guys... Generally in trading, what worked before has a probability to not work anymore the more time has been elapsed. I don't mean it won't work anymore. This only means we should be cautious when trading setups valid from a while ago on a specific market. A way to not get that burden on our psychology is to indeed reduce the position sizing. Until we are comfortable and not stressed anymore. That's the sweet spot you guys have to find. For some, it might be a few hundreds per trade, for others a few thousands. There IS NOT a well-formulated generic universal valid answer for what's the best position sizing. Apart of course from starting with tiny baby positions and scaling up from there But for sure, once we get comfortable with one position size range level, we should go to the upper level direct above. Direct above means, if we trade 100 USD position sizes, the next one could be in the 110-150 USD range. (and not 1K right off the bat...) We wouldn't lift 100 kg after getting used to only 10 kg. Trading isn't different than any skill requiring training and dedication The challenge is to not change our goals midway after a few wins or a few losses. And to stick with them for a few months at least. Literally takes me weeks of training to add a few kg to my chest press barbell or biceps curls. That's how much it took me also to increase the average position sizing by 10% or so. Thus the more I increase it, the more time I need to get comfortable with it. And it gets increasingly difficult from a psychological perspective the bigger the position size gets Applies in a lot of areas in life, sport, career also. It takes time! The worst thing for new traders is getting early very lucky and rewarding trades. That's what happened with many crypto traders in 2017 and 2021 They got too cocky and made that money too quickly and too easily. Then, when the market turned bearish... they gave all it back because their experience/backtest/psychology/beliefs weren't ready for a market shift. We're at a time where markets change constantly. And perhaps that's why the patterns used by our predecessors 20 years ago aren't relevant anymore. My father told me that trading 40 years ago was as "easy" stealing a candy from a baby.

Now it’s a lot more complicated due to the noise, trading bots, etc.. Often orders aren't filled In paper trading or with a backtest, when a Take Profit is hit... well we make profit and that's cool. But those LIVE trading know that sometimes... the limit orders aren't filled and no one can give us a logical explanation why the F... they weren't filled. Even though the charts clearly show we should have been filled... Your broker will say slippage. Your guru will say "I got a nice 1000% profit - Hope you all exited when I told you so" You will say "But my backtest claimed that an order should always be filled..." I'm saying blaming the casino isn't useful and won't bring you anywhere And that's why trades need to be managed because we're playing against the house (exchange) & competition (i.e. SMART-MONEY - understand bankers/funds with real advanced financial education) that want us liquidated. I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) I want to teach you guys every aspects of what makes a great trader and how to get there. This is the most challenging and the most rewarding job at the same time Thank you for reading Dave
Education
by Daveatt
5
Cognitive Biases in Forex Trading This article explores the cognitive biases in forex trading. The biases discussed in this article can play a significant role in any form of speculative trading and investing, not just forex trading. A cognitive bias is a systematic flaw in how we think. Cognitive biases are present in every decision we face. Anchoring Bias. People rely too much on reference points from the past when making a decision for the future - they are "anchored" to the past. Loss Aversion. This is when people go to great lengths to avoid losses because the pain of loss is twice as impactful as the pleasure received from a win. Confirmation Bias. The confirmation trap is when traders seek out information that validates their opinions and ignore any theories that invalidate them. Superiority Trap. Many traders in the past have lost large sums of money simply because they have fallen prey to the mentality of overconfidence. Herding. Many traders in the past have lost large sums of money simply because they have fallen prey to the mentality of overconfidence. Pay close attention to your decision making to spot the fallacies. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
12
Why my indicators are open-source, and why yours should be tooThis post explains my mindset of why i publish only indicators and only under open-source. A common opinion is that if an indicator or strategy is publicly known, then it cannot be profitable. In economics theory, this is known as the efficient market hypothesis(1), which states that once a strategy is widely adopted, it is integrated in prices and hence cannot be profitable anymore. Hence, it is a legitimate question to ask: are any of the open-source indicators useful for professional trading? I do not believe in magic bullet indicators, those that are claimed to indicate when to buy or when to sell. I don't think any indicator, or even any set of indicator, can reliably do that over the long term in any market without human intervention to decide at some point when the signals are true or false positives. Likewise, i do not believe automated strategies can reliably be profitable. Hence, my focus is to design indicators that can help reveal hiddee structures or simply help in visualizing faster and more easily market's data. As profitable traders know, the raw price action still rules above all, with volume and order flow being the next best metrics, but we can design indicators to give us an edge in terms of time spent analyzing the market, and this is what all my work is focused on: to save me time and reduce interpretation errors. And maybe it can be useful to you too. Indicators are merely a tool, and no two people will use them exactly the same. Just like giving a fishing rod doesn't make the recipient a fisher, i don't believe that just because indicators are free or open-source they lose their utility. The whole world is fishing, yet any competent fisher can still catch fishes, because they know where, when and how, it's not just because they have a fishing rod, and arguably, the fishing rod is only a necessary tool, but not the most important thing that makes them competent fishers: what makes them competent fishers are skills. In summary, i am trying to help in understanding the market, not in predicting it. Assessing likelihoods and probabilities of future events and knowing what you can do are your job and depend on your skills solely. If you don't know how, there are free online tutorials(2) to get started, but nothing replaces experience acquired through hard work. For example, one of my favorite ways to visualize is to encode sentiment related infos as a coloret bar at the bottom, or by highlighting the background. These representations may be simplistic, and that's the goal, anybody can understand them intuitively without even looking at the description, yet they can encode very complex and heterogenous information. The human brain remains the best informational system when it comes to integrating huge volumes of heterogenous data, as the financial markets generate. So my indicators are meant to boost brains, not replace them. Even artificial intelligence bots have a hard time being profitable (i know, this is my original field of expertise, they require near constant monitoring to avoid potentially catastrophical errors and tweakings to adapt to the market). There is simply no shortcut to hard training when it comes to becoming a good, profitable trader. Hence, even if my indicators are, I believe, vezy helpful to understand the market and can gice an edge, and ecen though I use several all the time, to be honest, you likely won't get any benefits if you don't know what you are doing, if you are inexperienced with trading. The above explains why i think publicly available indicators can still be useful, but not why i publish under open-source, which is anither step beyond free but clised-source publication. Truth is, I am marvelled by the open-source spirit in the TradingView community, which is the biggest database of open-source financial indicators ever. As I strted above, these indicators are unlikely to be profitable on their own, but that's not the point: sharing indicators is sharing an idea, a concept, a blueprint, that can then be developed further, or be food for thoughts for a whole new indicator, or just broaden your horizons of how you view the markets. Therefore, I decided to stay in this spirit and publish all my indicators under open-source. I am very grateful for the giants on which shoulders I stay, and I am eager to hear feedbacks on my work, so we all further our collective understanding of markets! Enjoy, and be safe! Tartigradia (1) Timmermann, A., & Granger, C. W. (2004). Efficient market hypothesis and forecasting. International Journal of Forecasting, 20, 15-27. (2) cobie.substack.com
INDEX:BTCUSDEducation
by tartigradia
28
Do That BEFORE You Start REAL ACCOUNT Trading Here is the list of thing that you should learn in advance before you start trading on a real account. 1) Open a demo (practice) account and learn to execute trades without making errors 2) Study the methods of great traders and financial minds throughout history - Jesse Livermore, W D Gann, Charles Dow/Dow theory, Paul Tudor Jones,Richard Wyckoff. Learn their methods and employ them. Learn their mistakes and avoid them. 3) Focus on learning, not winning. Forget about money and profits. Think about developing a winning strategy and a winning trading mindset. Always be open-minded. Observe. Be flexible. 4) I recommend reading the following books. These books will help you to start to think like a trader and realize what you are getting yourself into: a) "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" by Edwin Lefevre b) "Art of War" by Sun Tzu (Not a trading book but an old book on rules of war and how to protect yourself from being outsmarted and defeated by your enemies) c) "The Trading Methodologies of W.D. Gann" by Hima Reddy d) "Time Compression Trading: Exploiting Multiple Time Frames in Zero Sum Markets" by Jason Alan Jankovsky e) "Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude" by Mark Douglas 5) Watch YouTube videos. Absorb all the info you can as the more you know, the more the pieces of the puzzle fit together later on. You can learn the basics of trading on your own and then when you are ready to take your trading to the next level. To win the game, you need to develop your thinking and how you participate in the game. You are in a market trading against professional traders. The beginning traders in the market are not your competition-they are incidental. You need to trade with the professional traders who run the market. I wish you luck on a battle field! Please, like this post and subscribe to our tradingview page!👍
OANDA:BTCUSDEducation
by EliteTradingSignals
12
What is really up with the Funded Programs?Before we go any further, I want to state that 1) This post is NOT PROMOTING ANY prop firms/funded trader programs, 2) I do not hate or have anything against any prop firms/funded trader programs, I am just sharing my understanding from what I have read and experienced, and 3) Info here is not complete. If you choose to embark on any programs, please make sure you do your own due diligence. Traditional Prop Firm Typically refers to a group of traders that focus on buying and selling financial assets with the firm’s capital. The trader uses that firm's money to trade and in exchange receives a small wage and a large percentage of the profits. In practice, proprietary trading firms provide the capital, proprietary technology, training, coaching, and mentoring for you to become an elite trader. Funded Programs There has been an ever-increasing number of funded trader programs, marketing to retail traders about the huge profit-sharing potential (75-90%) when they become "a funded trader." And all that is required is paying for and passing an evaluation/testing period. You would pay anywhere from $84 to $184 for a $10,000 account and it could go as high as you want (almost) A trader in the evaluation/testing period would have - Profit target of 8-10% in phase 1 (typically 30 days) - Profit target of 5% in phase 2 (typically 60 days) - Daily drawdown of no more than 5% - Overall drawdown of no more than 10-12% From my experience coaching retail traders, newbie or average trader has an account size of no more than $10,000. This makes the idea of being funded to trade become really attractive, limiting the downside while almost maximizing the potential. However, there has also been a lot of negativity about these funded programs; - the evaluation and actual trading accounts are demo accounts - the company makes more money from traders failing than from profitable traders - some traders claim to have never received their payouts Are funded programs scams? Again, I have not evaluated ALL funded programs to say this, but probably not. (Do your own due diligence!) Companies running funded programs are likely just deploying a good business model, addressing a pain that most retail traders have (funding their account) and filling that gap. Should you jump into a funded program? There is a lot more information (more than discussed above) that needs to be considered before you jump in. A brief checklist: 1) Do you have a profitable trading strategy to deploy? ( if you don't have a profitable strategy, keep reading, learning & testing ) 2) Have you used it for at least a year? ( avoid using funded programs as a testing ground, it can get costly! do it on a demo or even a $1,000 account first ) 3) Does the strategy meet the max drawdown conditions? ( 5% a day, 10% total? For example, a martingale strategy is not likely to work ) 4) How likely are you to bend your trading rules? ( rules set by the programs are set in stone, a breach even by the slightest and you would have failed ) 5) Is it the right time to start? ( are markets in consolidation, on a holiday period, or super volatile with no clear trend ) Remember that the average annualized return of the S&P500 is 11.88% (1957 to 2021). Trying to make 8-10% in 30 days and then 5% in 60 days just to pass, tends to put the trader under a lot of stress. How do you perform under significant pressure? What are your views of the funded programs? Share it with me in the comments I have never thought much about the funded programs. But recently have been considering giving it a shot and live-streaming the trading process daily. Would you join me on the stream? Stay tuned, it might just happen.
SP:SPXEducation
by JinDao_Tai
2
How to pick the best Cryptos ??? 😎JS-TechTrading Masterclass How to pick the Best Cryptos?? The trend is your friend. This is a very old but true quote. Why is that? • The vast majority of big winning cryptos and other securities made the largest portion of their gain in a Stage 2 uptrend • Evidence that institutions are buying • Increase probability of success • Know what to expect under specific conditions – point of reference Your goal is not to buy at the lowest price – It’s to buy at the right price! Every crypto and other security go through the same maturation cycle - it starts at stage 1 and ends at stage 4 as shown in the chart. Stage One – Neglect Phase – Consolidation Stage Two – Advancing Phase – Accumulation Stage Three – Topping Phase – Distribution Stage Four – Declining Phase – Capitulation Our JS-TechTrading strategy focuses on identifying cryptos and other securities in stage 2 uptrends for our LONG-strategies, and stage 4 downtrends for our SHORT-strategies. By doing that, we create an edge over long-term investors and less proficient traders. By focusing on cryptos and other securities in a stage 2 uptrend (LONG-strategies), and focusing on cryptos and other securities in a stage 4 downtrend (SHORT-strategies) we avoid losing money or breaking even over a long period of time and we are fully invested when cryptos and other securities are in a confirmed up-/downtrend so that we can accumulate money within the shortest period of time. Example Bitcoin: But how can we use technical chart analysis can be used to identify cryptos and other securities in a stage 2 uptrend, and in a stage 4 downtrend? 🍾🍾 3x US investment champion Mark Minervini 🍾🍾 developed the so-called Trend-Template which can be used to screen for cryptos and other securities in confirmed up- and downtrends. TradingView provides all of the relevant tools to automate this screening process. ✌️✌️ The following section summarizes the technical characteristics which must be met so that a stage 2 uptrend for a stock can be confirmed: Trend-Template to confirm a STAGE 2 Uptrend 1. Stock price is above both the 150-day (30-week) and the 200-day (40-week) moving average price lines. 2. The 150-day moving average is above the 200-day moving average. 3. The 200-day moving average line is trending up for at least 1-month (preferably 4-5 months minimum). 4. The 50-day (10-week moving average) is above both the 150-day and the 200-day moving averages. 5. The current stock price is at least 25% above its 52-week low. (Many of the best selections will be 100%, 300% or even greater above their 52-week low before they emerge from a sound consolidation period and mount a large-scale advance). 6. The current stock price is within at least 25% of its 52-week high (the closer to a new high the better). 7. Current price is trading above the 50-day moving average (exception “Low Cheat” setups Trend-Template to confirm a STAGE 4 Downtrend The same logic applies here: 1. Stock price is below both the 150-day (30-week) and the 200-day (40-week) moving average price lines. 2. The 150-day moving average is below the 200-day moving average. 3. The 200-day moving average line is trending down for at least 1-month (preferably 4-5 months minimum). 4. The 50-day (10-week moving average) is below both the 150-day and the 200-day moving averages. 5. The current stock price is at least 25% below its 52-week high. 6. The current stock price is within at least 25% of its 52-week low (the closer to a new low the better). 7. Current price is trading below the 50-day moving average. We at JS-TechTrading only consider cryptos and other securities for our watchlists which are meeting all characteristics of Minervini's trend-template. This screening process in itself provides us with a significant competitive edge versus most other traders are doing. In the next tutorials, I will explain how automated trading robots can be applied to cryptos and other securities on our watchlists.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by JS_TechTrading
How To Master Your SleepHello traders and investors, This week, I'll talk about physiology, but I'd like to relate how I went from being an overly worried, under-slept, overfed, under-muscular person to the MAN I am today. Let's start with how I conquered my sleep to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night, including hours of REM and DEEP sleep. Trading after a bad night's sleep is extremely difficult, if not dangerous. Because we can't think clearly when we have brain fog. And trading necessitates that we be hyperaware. I've had trouble sleeping virtually my whole life....  Even if I went to bed early, I usually experienced insomnia, woke up at 2/3 a.m., and couldn't fall back asleep.  It made my life unpleasant by causing chronic mental fog and an inability to be motivated. I'm happy to report that I've mastered my sleep issues and discovered routines and tools to help me stay and fall asleep. The majority of what follows was taught to me by Andrew Huberman, a well-known physiologist with about 2 million subscribers on YouTube (at the time of writing). Protocol: Right after waking up I go to my patio and soak up 10/15 minutes of sunlight. I'm fortunate to reside in a sunny location. On cloudy days, you'll have to increase your time outside first thing in the morning to 30 minutes. This approach is for awaking your circadian cycle and signalling to your body that the day has begun. It's critical to start as early as possible in the morning. I conduct a 10 minute HIIT workout on my terrace. You don't necessary need to do this; going for a walk outside is also a great morning routine. I've read several times that this early workout is highly useful for letting our brain know that it's time to start waking up the "machine." Protocol: During the day - I don't drink coffee after noon. Some folks do and sleep well. I'm one of those guys who is hypersensitive to caffeine and can't fall asleep anytime I consume coffee in the afternoon.
 - I don't consume junk food nor just eat whole foods.  I eat a well-balanced diet consisting of 60% carbs, 30% protein, and 10% fat because I work out for 1 hour every day.  
I also always eat below or at my calories maintenance - studies show metabolism are the healthiest when we don’t overeat - I don’t want no hormones, health issues - I want to live healthy, rich and for a very long time. 
This contributes to the development of my body, charisma, testosterone, and courage. 
 Courage is essential while dealing with difficult circumstances, especially when our trades are underwater. - I don't consume alcohol or smoke.  I don't feel smoking is harmful to sleep; I simply don't do it for health reasons.  However, alcohol is known to have a bad impact on our brain and sleep. Protocol: 2 hours before going to bed I go to bed around 9:30 p.m. every night. Going to bed at the same time every day trains our brains to allow us to fall asleep around that time. The caveat is that anytime I go out at night and go to bed beyond that time, I tend to have poorer sleep quality. -  Beginning with the most important: I am closing ALL of my intraday trades I don't want my intraday trades to turn into swing trades or, worse, long-term investments. I don't want to wake up stressed every night to check my trades PnL. I want to go to bed stress-free. -  Blue light glasses I still work late at night, so I wear blue light-blocking glasses. Our brain associates blue colors with "hey, it's still day time." That is why protecting our eyes from bright lights (even those in our homes) is essential for a healthy night's sleep. Looking at your TV or computer at night without them guarantees that you won't sleep well, that you'll wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to fall back asleep. -  Self-massages I use a foam roller to roll my back and neck on, as well as a massage tool.  Eric Berg: shop.drberg.com I have no affiliation; that product improved my life by allowing me to remove nodes in my back and neck without visiting a chiropractor  -  Stretching   Shaolin Monks are famed for being highly flexible; they say flexibility is a sign of an extremely healthy physique, and I couldn't agree more.  Stretching my hamstrings and back on a daily basis greatly fixed my lower back/neck pain. Protocol: Back/Neck Pain 75% of the persons I spoke with were suffering from back/neck pain. Some people sleep on their stomach, which is bad for their neck, and they know they should sleep on their side, but they can't fall asleep that way. Some are extremely stressed and cringe. Cringing frequently causes neck pain. I needed a dental tray to prevent my cringing from causing nodes in my neck. Really a life-saving, or should I say sleep-saving, device. Protocol: What to Do If You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night - Self-massage using the foam roller and the Eric Berg’s massage tool. - Never check your phone or social media According to Andrew Huberman, checking your phone at night depletes your dopamine for the next 48 hours. 
Dopamine is the hormone giving us motivation

How could you manage difficult trades without being motivated?
 Well….it’s harder…. Tool I use an OURA ring to track my REM and DEEP sleep. It's Bluetooth-enabled and linked to my phone. Every morning, the OURA app gave me a score; the greater the score, the better my sleep was. It also distinguishes between REM, DEEP, and STANDARD sleep. Supplements Supplements I consider myself to be in a deep level of calm. I follow the dosing guidelines on each product label. - Magnesium L-Theanone  - Zinc  - Argenin  - Tart Cherry  - I used to take Ashwaganda, but I discovered it reduced my overall happiness/excitement during the day, so I stopped taking it. How long should you do these protocols before seeing some effects 

 Talking from experience, it’s a matter of days. 

 Yeah really, it’s amazing how quick our body and brain adapts to weather great or terrible inputs. 

Feeding your body with mostly great inputs leads to a great mind, mood and is the first step at getting shot at being profitable with your trading. 

The second step is mastering your anxiety and stress. 
Article coming up on that topic on Monday :) Have a good weekend everyone Dave
Education
by Daveatt
9
10 Important Tips & Tricks To Improve Trading Skills In this article, we will discuss ten important tips and tricks that can enable you to improve your trading skills. A trading plan is a must Once you have tested the plan developed and it shows good results, that is the time to go full throttle investing in the stock market. Do not lose confidence Be a learner Be a learner and practice trading as a new entrant, even if it has been decades of trading for you. Look at trading as a classroom with much to offer and to be taken one thing at a time. Don't fall for rumours Treat it like a Business It is serious business here and requires precision, patience, commitment, in-depth analysis and cold-blooded research. A stop-loss is essential Have technology at your side Trader must be up-to-date on the happenings in the trading world and use technology to know about stock movements, new products, new trading schemes and pre-empt market movements. Defend your trading capital Take risks that you can afford It enables you to plan well and not overexpose yourself to the risks in share market trading. Be open to new strategies Never in trading should there be a time that you follow a trading plan that is outdated or rigid to change. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
8
What Kind of Person You Need to Become to Be ProfitableHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Why have I been sharing so many articles so far? I’ve shared one educational post a day because being a trader is a job.
And a job is the sum of many skills to acquire.
 Each skill taken individually won’t make you a profitable trader.
 Talking about me and the guys from my trading community, only all those skills applied altogether give us a shot at making money. Trading is one of the most challenging and one of the most monetary rewarding activity. Work on yourself first 

 Your trading profitability is a direct reflection of who you are as an individual. 
It’s just is. If you’re not profitable, it’s because you made some mistakes.
 And if you made them, it’s because you didn’t work enough on yourself yet.

 Having great trading signals is indeed an essential tool among the stack of tools to have but… this is not enough. 
And I’m saying this as someone selling trading signals (and a trading course). 

In a past life, when I worked as a back office Quant, we were strongly encouraged to workout, meditate, eat healthy, sleep 7+ hours, having some social life, etc… Being a trader is first being a human with great habits leading him/her towards nothing else but excellence. How can someone expects to perform well at such a tough job while being fat and/or sleeping 4 hours a night and/or not controlling his mind/emotions,…

 YOU JUST CAN’T. Trading is hard enough already and the market knows damn well how to take the hard-earned money from people who didn’t work on themselves enough. Your skills stack As an entrepreneur owning online businesses, I had to learn about sales, marketing, negotiation, copywriting, accounting, taxes optimisation, coding, hiring, building a company culture, …

 Each skill taken separately isn’t enough to bootstrap a business. 

All of them used together gave me a shot at succeeding 
The same goes with trading. The reason any very profitable trader I know became profitable after some serious time is because the stack of skills to acquire is consequential. 
And I’m not talking about skills we can learn in a short timeframe. I had to learn how to: (non-exhaustive list) - Meditate - Refrain myself from trading when I’m tired or sick or frustrated - Put my ego side and time to time get back to trading with smaller position size - Take my profit for the day and get out of my place and go outside - Eat/sleep properly - Relax and breath and do some NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest) - Working out properly and building muscles -> I’m so sure there is a direct correlation for men between our Testosterone level and the courage to enter and manage difficult trades. - Not be greedy -> One needs to get slapped hard in the face a few times to understand that - Never anticipate -> many times I cut a trade before the stop-loss or I entered too early front-running some signal(s) - in retrospect, was really a stupid behaviour - Psychology and Game Theory - Code trading scripts and trading bots in multiple programming languages - Listen to the right mentors aka traders way ahead of me in term of net worth - … Those skills used altogether compound and made me a very disciplined person - those are my daily non-negotiable behaviours. If you’re not profitable yet, it isn’t necessarily because the signals you have are bad. And to figure out if they’re bad or not, you need some trading experience… which comes from….. taking a huge amount of trades for an extended period of time. Your lack of profitability, comes for most of you from some work you still need to do.

 And by the way, each trade you take works on you. Your trades work on you more than you work on them. 

 What I mean by that, the more trades you take, the more skilled you get as you keep learning about yourself. A virtuous feedback loop. Many traders who lost everything due to a big mistake knew how to make it all back and beyond because…. they already had the required skills. Conclusion 

 A red-pilled trader could decide to put his/her money into a 100% trading bot because… learning all those skills is time-consuming.

 My advice to that person is…. “Good luck with your endeavour, you’ll likely wreck yourself” If you don’t trust me… well… I worked as a back office Quant coding trading bots for about 5 years in NYC. I tested and built more bots than 99.99% of people. Retail trading bots sellers are selling a concept, a dream which by definition doesn’t reflect the reality. 
Regardless of the strategy, it’s unlikely a 100% automated bot performs well overtime as market conditions keep changing.

 We’re now in uncharted territory with a very high inflation rate, extreme tensions between countries, an extreme defiance of people of their governments, the WEF, WHO, … (and how could we not blame them seeing what they did to us those past 2 years) Anyway, what I’m strongly recommending as someone who built non-retail trading bots for a living: learn to trade manually first and then learn how to pilot a bot. Quotes of the day - “Never chase opportunities. Let it come to you by creating value and building rare skillsets.” ― Johannes Larsson - “The ability to make wise choices is the most valuable skill a person can develop.” ― Abhishek Ratna “Skills don’t die; only people do.” ― Anas Hamshari “A good trader converts his skills to cash.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
NYSE:TWTREducation
by Daveatt
13