There was a post that was posted a couple of hours ago about someone talking about their trading journey and getting feedback, so I would like some as well.
Believe it or not, I started trading a little over 5 months ago. I took the smart route, making sure I knew what I was studying and why, and also diving into the psychology of the brain behind aspects of money emotions, like fear, greed, and jealousy. After studying every single day, for hours just on videos learning about what trading was, how to read the charts and how to build up your own strategy, I felt like I was ready after my first month. And seriously, I was— but only in knowledge. As you all know, trading is a 3-part game of probabilities: the knowledge aspect, knowing what you’re doing; the application aspect, being able to physically apply your knowledge onto the charts; and the psychology aspect, keeping control of your emotions, being disciplined, etc. I was ecstatic. It takes people a year or two to even get to the point of knowledge I’m at today. With this huge confidence boost, I took to the charts. After being profitable on demo for a month, I felt like I knew what I was doing and got a 5k funded account. The first week was insane. I made 50% of the target goal. Next few weeks, then months, not as good. I hit a plateau in my skills that translated to me not being able to pass this damn funded account. It’s been like 3 months now I’ve been trying to pass it, but I don’t know what to do. How do I get out of this grey area? My wins are more than enough to cover my losses, it’s just that I lose too much.
TL;DR: Really fast learner, got overconfident in my skills not realizing I didn’t have nearly as much market experience I needed to start being a funded trader, and hit a grey area I’ve been in for the past 3 months. Need advice on how to push forward.
Also, I’m in my gap year, that’s why I have so much time to just study every single day.
To those that do end up reading all this, thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
LOL, that’s one of those mmmmmm actuallyyyyy statements where they are technically correct but the answer is completely and utterly useless. Yeah, you can make the prediction but if all the predictions don’t matter then what’s the point.
Getting good can take a while. In the beginning, you don’t know what you don’t know. Early successes can be deceptive, especially as you haven’t suffered through too many losses; it will feel like things can be potentially easy. Active trading is not easy and it can take a long time to get all the components working together. Just need patience with it. My advice would be to not care about $ targets or how long it takes to pass challenges, etc. Just be process-oriented and keep evolving your game, and the results will eventually follow as long as you don’t give up. The goal is not to make X amount of money or pass a challenge; those are all side effects of being able to carry out good processes effectively. So better to focus on process instead, i.e., first you need a technical edge in the market, then you can work on psychology later. Collect data on yourself and your strategies and apply strict risk management, and you will do better than 99% of other traders that are just in their first year.
@Ari
Thanks for this insight. It does seem inevitable that the money comes as part of perfecting the process, but I guess that was my fault for having the money in mind rather than the job. Would you argue that psychology has less of an impact in trading than a technical edge? I’ve seen a lot on the internet about how it’s actually vice versa; psychology is more important than strategy, as long as you have a solid, consistent strategy.
@Kelsey
Trading is very much performance-based, so psychology/habits, etc., are important; but most traders starting out haven’t found their technical edge yet and they will be tempted to think that their ‘mindset’ or psychology is what is causing a lack of success. Some people find this appealing because then they think the ‘fix’ is only one mindset shift/altered belief/habit change away. And after failing to pass a challenge or after losing deposits they will just think ‘Next time I will come at this with a better mental approach and everything will go way better’. This is a more positive scenario; other times the trader will think they got unlucky because the market did unreasonable things and next time things will go more smoothly.
But if a trader has no technical edge in the market, no amount of good psychology/habits is going to make a difference. A trader starting out is simply not going to have much technical edge as that comes from experience. The tricky thing is if a new trader gets wins early, the brain can be fooled into thinking it’s due to some innate talent they have for their markets and very few people have that from day one; or worse, they think the markets are pretty easy as they’ve seen some green numbers appear already, etc. It’s very easy to develop unearned confidence; everybody does it. It all primes the mind to have false expectations and that can be very counterproductive.
@Ari
Majority of what you said actually applies to me. Having a deadline, mastering psychology over the technicals first, and being progress-oriented rather than process. I’d also like to think that ego plays a big part in my trading. Simply because I know that once I put my mind to something, I can achieve it (just like everyone else in the world if they actually try, of course).
I think compared to the way you described it, my situation is very different. You mention how having no technical edge results in bad psychology, but vice versa, having a good edge can lead to a stronger psyche. I can confidently say I’m smarter than 99% of newer traders when it comes to psychology, but I wouldn’t say that negatively affects my trading edge. Do you think it’s possible that with my level of knowledge, I’m actually able to hone my edge faster because I know all the factors of a winning edge, and those of a losing as well?
However, I do agree on everything you said. Technicalities should come first and maybe if I mastered that rather than psychology, I wouldn’t have even entered this plateau.
First off, man, don’t stop trying to improve. My question would be, what did you do in that first week that allowed you to do so well? And then what have you been doing that has made you stall? The answer to your problems is in your pre-trading routine and all of your closed trades.
@Bell
Well, after reassessing it, my first week was actually like luck? In a sense? Or luck played a really big part. I knew a lot less about my strategy back then compared to now, and I guess I wasn’t as careful when I took trades, and the majority of them ended up being winners. OR, the flip side is now I know too much and I’m over-complicating it. I’m not sure.
Trading is about trial and error and finding the right strategy. Backtest and find a strategy that gives you an edge. And like others said, focus on one session and pair. Journaling is super important as well. Do not over-trade/revenge trade.
Don’t overload yourself with information or various strategies. I’m in a fairly similar position and just passed a 10k account and verification after multiple attempts. I only started 6 months ago and have had multiple times getting within 5% of my target or even to verification and blew it.
I trade gold and ONLY trade major support and resistance for 30-50 pips. The success rate on support and resistance seems to be higher than most things for me. If you have a major impact level, it will almost always bounce off for a good few pips or even more. I stay at around 30-50 with a higher risk (0.50 lots) and this seems to work for me. I trade XAUUSD which can be crazy but will mostly always respect major support/resistance areas.
Keep going, it’ll come. I’m no expert but I guess we’re at similar stages and just sharing what works for me.
Use the data behind price movements to understand when to expect high vs low volume. One requires a breakout strategy while the other a range market strategy.
Data includes tape/order flow, market depth, and the most important financial news that affects the instruments you trade throughout the year.
Just a simple reminder like that really helps. Sometimes my ego gets in the way and I think I can win every trade.
