Reposting because I didn't get input last time.
Demographics: Indian. Male. From ProspeFrisco Texas. Middle/Upper class area. I would say my high school is very competitive.
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
ACT/SAT/SAT II: SAT: Have not taken a real test. I have taken three practice test all resulted 1440+. Prepping for 1500+, but consider my score to be a flat 1400 for now.
UW GPA and Rank: UW: 3.981 Rank: 12/979
Coursework: Freshmen Year:
- Honors French 1 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- HonoGT Geometry (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Computer Science 1
- Honors Biology (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Human (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- Honors English 1 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Outdoor Education (Required)
- Digital Art and Animation (Required)
Sophomore Year:
- Honors English 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors French 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Computer Science A (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- AP Computer Science Principles (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- AP World History (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Biology (Highest Level that year available to me ) (3) <-- Not sending this score
- Honors Chemistry (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Algebra 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Academic Level Architecture (Highest Level that year available to me )
Junior Year:
- AP English 3 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Independent Studies in Video Games (AP Level but not AP) (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors UIL Math Prep
- Ap Physics 1 (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- Academic Level US History
- AP Chemistry (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- AP Environmental (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- Honors Pre-Cal (Highest Level that year available to me )
Senior Year (will take upcoming year):
- Honors Computer Science 3 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Computer Science 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP English 4 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Gov/Econ (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Physics C (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Calc BC (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Stats (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Still Deciding but not AP for sure.
Awards: - Adobe Certified Associate - Visual Design using Adobe Photoshop CC2015
- Aloha Math Competition Certificate.
- UIL Math Competition Certificate.
- Multiple Student of the month award
Extracurriculars: - I am an intern at Visual Technologies LLC. I have helped in 4 projects regarding computer science for outside companies. This is one of my biggest achievements as a real company was willing to work with me and we ended up doing 4 projects together helping me grow every second of me working with them. After two successful projects with them, I was given some responsibilities such as following up with clients and other things. This gave me a sense of accomplishment because this would mean that they saw qualities in me that they would look for in a “normal aged” programmeconsultant.
- 2020 - I have worked for Cutco for about 3 months in which I have learned many skills for marketing. I have been promoted and over $3000 in sales. Other details mentioned earlier.
- 2019-2020- For UIL math we program our calculators to make tests easier for us. Last year I was one of the top coders for UIL math right after my seniors. I made programs that were complex. Although I didn't create many programs, I made programs that other programs were not able to create the year before because they were termed as “too hard”. Me being able to code those programs gave me the stance as a well-known programmer for UIL Math - an achievement in itself.
- 2016 - 2021 has offered free tutoring to many students who strive to be better but cannot afford fees. I have given at least 80 hours of free tutoring (not for school)
- 2020 - I have also worked for Ambit and have managed a successful team of over 50 members as I am a regional consultant for the company. I am in the top 10% of the company according to my boss, but I don't know whether this is true or not. I can certainly say that more than half of the people working do not make it to the level I am at. This company is an electricity company, and I have capitalized on selling our service to apartment complexes. I have also helped many high schoolers needing a job to find success in this business.
- 2020- I volunteered to make a system for the school called “Corona Tutors”. This is a platform where students can anonymously ask questions and receive answers from other students who want service hours. This fixes many problems: this eases the extreme dependence of teachers being online 24/7, this makes sure that students are getting their questions answered, this also allows students who want to help society. This is an official Prosper resource on their webpage which students can use at their will.
- 2017-2020- I have been a volunteer at ICNA Relief committed about 2 hours each week, and puts me right over 300 hours of community service. We as a group have made a rationing system where we try to fairly distribute goods and other goods as per people's needs. We help with anything from getting food to getting families a laptop for their kid's education.
- My love for business goes very far. In 7th grade, fidget spinners were very popular and amazon took 3 months to ship them. This was perfect for a mini business, so I bought a fidget spinner directly through the supplier (AliExpress) and got my shipment. Not only did I retail them I also wholesale them in the mall to any store that was allowed to sell them. I came profitable from this business, but it was not the money that made this great, it was the contact I got through this business. - 2016
- 2020 - I resold brand new bikes with a high markup. One day scrolling through Facebook marketplace I realized that some bikes were being sold for almost 2x their price at Walmart. (During COVID) I simply contacted my contacts and was able to get about 200-250 brand new bikes. Since this was a very big investment I had five partners with me, and we marked them up according to market price a month later (150% return on investment)
- 2020 - When school ended, I started to get a lot of Forex trading ads, so I chose to take a look into what it was. Forex trading is a currency exchange and is highly risky. When I started to learn about it I started to see that there were groups called “signal groups”. These groups told you when to trade what and claimed that they have a 99% accuracy on their trades being profitable. Instead of trading, I chose to get in contact with famous traders and offer them a lucrative cut for simply sending a message in a group chat about what they are trading. For one month I tested the service and then put it into action for the public. The program kept working until all traders were able to work and then it was shut off making sure that more one was a loss.
- 2020 I have written a book/report that I have published it on Amazon. This report took me 200+ hours to make. As we learn in school, there is a rise in global warming, and it is our job to find alternative ways of fuel and stop the rise in global warming. I took an already done research - well in parts in college language- and made it into a more understandable report considering almost every aspect of the situation. I covered everything from the experimental design to how we can use the waste product in everyday life to how we can scale this project to how even a high schooler can make a difference by simply taking initiative and presenting this idea to their school. This report allowed me to take complex language and make it into an everyday language report. I showed my report to many people in the community and it was very satisfying to hear from their parents when they said “my son is going to present this idea to his school because they mostly have a lot of oil”. The report is about converting waste cooking oil to biodiesel.
- 2015 - 2020 - I have helped my mom in her business called “BLANK (don't want to say) Designs Collection”. Simply by watching her sell and trying it myself I acquired skills that I use to this day not only for business but simply for communicating. Currently, I am a social media and online sales handler for the company.
- 2018 - 2020 - I have been a part of Mu Alpha Theta for two year tutoring students for Math. Last year I was one of the top tutors for Mrs.Wood for algebra 2. I went there every time I did have an eagle time activity.
- 2020 - I recently joined the Science Honor society; we have helped the science fair in their activities.
Essays/LORs: Essays, I have not started.
Letter of Rec: I have three incoming from my teachers. English/CounseloComputer Science/ Math (waiting for response)
Schools: - MIT,
- Brown University
- Caltech
- Carnegie Mellon
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Duke University
- Georgia Institute
- Hamilton
- Harvard University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Princeton University
- Purdue University
- Rice University
- Stanford
- UMich
- UT Austin
- UT Dallas
- Texas A&M
- UC Berkley
Demographics: Indian. Male. From ProspeFrisco Texas. Middle/Upper class area. I would say my high school is very competitive.
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
ACT/SAT/SAT II: SAT: Have not taken a real test. I have taken three practice test all resulted 1440+. Prepping for 1500+, but consider my score to be a flat 1400 for now.
UW GPA and Rank: UW: 3.981 Rank: 12/979
Coursework: Freshmen Year:
- Honors French 1 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- HonoGT Geometry (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Computer Science 1
- Honors Biology (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Human (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- Honors English 1 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Outdoor Education (Required)
- Digital Art and Animation (Required)
Sophomore Year:
- Honors English 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors French 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Computer Science A (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- AP Computer Science Principles (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- AP World History (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Biology (Highest Level that year available to me ) (3) <-- Not sending this score
- Honors Chemistry (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Algebra 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Academic Level Architecture (Highest Level that year available to me )
Junior Year:
- AP English 3 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Independent Studies in Video Games (AP Level but not AP) (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors UIL Math Prep
- Ap Physics 1 (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- Academic Level US History
- AP Chemistry (Highest Level that year available to me ) (4)
- AP Environmental (Highest Level that year available to me ) (5)
- Honors Pre-Cal (Highest Level that year available to me )
Senior Year (will take upcoming year):
- Honors Computer Science 3 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Honors Computer Science 2 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP English 4 (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Gov/Econ (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Physics C (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Calc BC (Highest Level that year available to me )
- AP Stats (Highest Level that year available to me )
- Still Deciding but not AP for sure.
Awards: - Adobe Certified Associate - Visual Design using Adobe Photoshop CC2015
- Aloha Math Competition Certificate.
- UIL Math Competition Certificate.
- Multiple Student of the month award
Extracurriculars: - I am an intern at Visual Technologies LLC. I have helped in 4 projects regarding computer science for outside companies. This is one of my biggest achievements as a real company was willing to work with me and we ended up doing 4 projects together helping me grow every second of me working with them. After two successful projects with them, I was given some responsibilities such as following up with clients and other things. This gave me a sense of accomplishment because this would mean that they saw qualities in me that they would look for in a “normal aged” programmeconsultant.
- 2020 - I have worked for Cutco for about 3 months in which I have learned many skills for marketing. I have been promoted and over $3000 in sales. Other details mentioned earlier.
- 2019-2020- For UIL math we program our calculators to make tests easier for us. Last year I was one of the top coders for UIL math right after my seniors. I made programs that were complex. Although I didn't create many programs, I made programs that other programs were not able to create the year before because they were termed as “too hard”. Me being able to code those programs gave me the stance as a well-known programmer for UIL Math - an achievement in itself.
- 2016 - 2021 has offered free tutoring to many students who strive to be better but cannot afford fees. I have given at least 80 hours of free tutoring (not for school)
- 2020 - I have also worked for Ambit and have managed a successful team of over 50 members as I am a regional consultant for the company. I am in the top 10% of the company according to my boss, but I don't know whether this is true or not. I can certainly say that more than half of the people working do not make it to the level I am at. This company is an electricity company, and I have capitalized on selling our service to apartment complexes. I have also helped many high schoolers needing a job to find success in this business.
- 2020- I volunteered to make a system for the school called “Corona Tutors”. This is a platform where students can anonymously ask questions and receive answers from other students who want service hours. This fixes many problems: this eases the extreme dependence of teachers being online 24/7, this makes sure that students are getting their questions answered, this also allows students who want to help society. This is an official Prosper resource on their webpage which students can use at their will.
- 2017-2020- I have been a volunteer at ICNA Relief committed about 2 hours each week, and puts me right over 300 hours of community service. We as a group have made a rationing system where we try to fairly distribute goods and other goods as per people's needs. We help with anything from getting food to getting families a laptop for their kid's education.
- My love for business goes very far. In 7th grade, fidget spinners were very popular and amazon took 3 months to ship them. This was perfect for a mini business, so I bought a fidget spinner directly through the supplier (AliExpress) and got my shipment. Not only did I retail them I also wholesale them in the mall to any store that was allowed to sell them. I came profitable from this business, but it was not the money that made this great, it was the contact I got through this business. - 2016
- 2020 - I resold brand new bikes with a high markup. One day scrolling through Facebook marketplace I realized that some bikes were being sold for almost 2x their price at Walmart. (During COVID) I simply contacted my contacts and was able to get about 200-250 brand new bikes. Since this was a very big investment I had five partners with me, and we marked them up according to market price a month later (150% return on investment)
- 2020 - When school ended, I started to get a lot of Forex trading ads, so I chose to take a look into what it was. Forex trading is a currency exchange and is highly risky. When I started to learn about it I started to see that there were groups called “signal groups”. These groups told you when to trade what and claimed that they have a 99% accuracy on their trades being profitable. Instead of trading, I chose to get in contact with famous traders and offer them a lucrative cut for simply sending a message in a group chat about what they are trading. For one month I tested the service and then put it into action for the public. The program kept working until all traders were able to work and then it was shut off making sure that more one was a loss.
- 2020 I have written a book/report that I have published it on Amazon. This report took me 200+ hours to make. As we learn in school, there is a rise in global warming, and it is our job to find alternative ways of fuel and stop the rise in global warming. I took an already done research - well in parts in college language- and made it into a more understandable report considering almost every aspect of the situation. I covered everything from the experimental design to how we can use the waste product in everyday life to how we can scale this project to how even a high schooler can make a difference by simply taking initiative and presenting this idea to their school. This report allowed me to take complex language and make it into an everyday language report. I showed my report to many people in the community and it was very satisfying to hear from their parents when they said “my son is going to present this idea to his school because they mostly have a lot of oil”. The report is about converting waste cooking oil to biodiesel.
- 2015 - 2020 - I have helped my mom in her business called “BLANK (don't want to say) Designs Collection”. Simply by watching her sell and trying it myself I acquired skills that I use to this day not only for business but simply for communicating. Currently, I am a social media and online sales handler for the company.
- 2018 - 2020 - I have been a part of Mu Alpha Theta for two year tutoring students for Math. Last year I was one of the top tutors for Mrs.Wood for algebra 2. I went there every time I did have an eagle time activity.
- 2020 - I recently joined the Science Honor society; we have helped the science fair in their activities.
Essays/LORs: Essays, I have not started.
Letter of Rec: I have three incoming from my teachers. English/CounseloComputer Science/ Math (waiting for response)
Schools: - MIT,
- Brown University
- Caltech
- Carnegie Mellon
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Duke University
- Georgia Institute
- Hamilton
- Harvard University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Princeton University
- Purdue University
- Rice University
- Stanford
- UMich
- UT Austin
- UT Dallas
- Texas A&M
- UC Berkley
submitted by Forex Trading: a Beginner's Guide The forex market is the world's largest international currency trading market operating non-stop during the working week. Most forex trading is done by professionals such as bankers. Generally forex trading is done through a forex broker - but there is nothing to stop anyone trading currencies. Forex currency trading allows buyers and sellers to buy the currency they need for their business and sellers who have earned currency to exchange what they have for a more convenient currency. The world's largest banks dominate forex and according to a survey in The Wall Street Journal Europe, the ten most active traders who are engaged in forex trading account for almost 73% of trading volume.
However, a sizeable proportion of the remainder of forex trading is speculative with traders building up an investment which they wish to liquidate at some stage for profit. While a currency may increase or decrease in value relative to a wide range of currencies, all forex trading transactions are based upon currency pairs. So, although the Euro may be 'strong' against a basket of currencies, traders will be trading in just one currency pair and may simply concern themselves with the Euro/US Dollar ( EUUSD) ratio. Changes in relative values of currencies may be gradual or triggered by specific events such as are unfolding at the time of writing this - the toxic debt crisis.
Because the markets for currencies are global, the volumes traded every day are vast. For the large corporate investors, the great benefits of trading on Forex are:
- Enormous liquidity - over $4 trillion per day, that's $4,000,000,000. This means that there's always someone ready to trade with you
- Every one of the world's free currencies are traded - this means that you may trade the currency you want at any time
- Twenty four - hour trading during the 5-day working week
- Operations are global which mean that you can trade with any part of the world at any time
From the point of view of the smaller trader there's lots of benefits too, such as:
- A rapidly-changing market - that's one which is always changing and offering the chance to make money
- Very well developed mechanisms for controlling risk
- Ability to go long or short - this means that you can make money either in rising or falling markets
- Leverage trading - meaning that you can benefit from large-volume trading while having a relatively-low capital base
- Lots of options for zero-commission trading
How the forex Market Works As forex is all about foreign exchange, all transactions are made up from a currency pair - say, for instance, the Euro and the US Dollar. The basic tool for trading forex is the exchange rate which is expressed as a ratio between the values of the two currencies such as EUUSD = 1.4086. This value, which is referred to as the 'forex rate' means that, at that particular time, one Euro would be worth 1.4086 US Dollars. This ratio is always expressed to 4 decimal places which means that you could see a forex rate of EUUSD = 1.4086 or EUUSD = 1.4087 but never EUUSD = 1.40865. The rightmost digit of this ratio is referred to as a 'pip'. So, a change from EUUSD = 1.4086 to EUUSD = 1.4088 would be referred to as a change of 2 pips. One pip, therefore is the smallest unit of trade.
With the forex rate at EUUSD = 1.4086, an investor purchasing 1000 Euros using dollars would pay $1,408.60. If the forex rate then changed to EUUSD = 1.5020, the investor could sell their 1000 Euros for $1,502.00 and bank the $93.40 as profit. If this doesn't seem to be large amount to you, you have to put the sum into context. With a rising or falling market, the forex rate does not simply change in a uniform way but oscillates and profits can be taken many times per day as a rate oscillates around a trend.
When you're expecting the value EUUSD to fall, you might trade the other way by selling Euros for dollars and buying then back when the forex rate has changed to your advantage.
Is forex Risky? When you trade on forex as in any form of currency trading, you're in the business of currency speculation and it is just that - speculation. This means that there is some risk involved in forex currency trading as in any business but you might and should, take steps to minimise this. You can always set a limit to the downside of any trade, that means to define the maximum loss that you are prepared to accept if the market goes against you - and it will on occasions.
The best insurance against losing your shirt on the forex market is to set out to understand what you're doing totally. Search the internet for a good forex trading tutorial and study it in detail- a bit of good forex education can go a long way!. When there's bits you don't understand, look for a good forex trading forum and ask lots and lots of questions. Many of the people who habitually answer your queries on this will have a good forex trading blog and this will probably not only give you answers to your questions but also provide lots of links to good sites. Be vigilant, however, watch out for forex trading scams. Don't be too quick to part with your money and investigate anything very well before you shell out any hard-earned!
The forex Trading Systems While you may be right in being cautious about any forex trading system that's advertised, there are some good ones around. Most of them either utilise forex charts and by means of these, identify forex trading signals which tell the trader when to buy or sell. These signals will be made up of a particular change in a forex rate or a trend and these will have been devised by a forex trader who has studied long-term trends in the market so as to identify valid signals when they occur. Many of the systems will use forex trading software which identifies such signals from data inputs which are gathered automatically from market information sources. Some utilise automated forex trading software which can trigger trades automatically when the signals tell it to do so. If these sound too good to be true to you, look around for online forex trading systems which will allow you undertake some dummy trading to test them out. by doing this you can get some forex trading training by giving them a spin before you put real money on the table.
How Much do you Need to Start off with? This is a bit of a 'How long is a piece of string?' question but there are ways for to be beginner to dip a toe into the water without needing a fortune to start with. The minimum trading size for most trades on forex is usually 100,000 units of any currency and this volume is referred to as a standard "lot". However, there are many firms which offer the facility to purchase in dramatically-smaller lots than this and a bit of internet searching will soon locate these. There's many adverts quoting only a couple of hundred dollars to get going! You will often see the term acciones trading forex and this is just a general term which covers the small guy trading forex. Small-scale trading facilities such as these are often called as forex mini trading.
Where do You Start? The single most obvious answer is of course - on the internet! Online forex trading gives you direct access to the forex market and there's lots and lots of companies out there who are in business just to deal with you online. Be vigilant, do spend the time to get some good forex trading education, again this can be provided online and set up your dummy account to trade before you attempt to go live. If you take care and take your time, there's no reason why you shouldn't be successful in forex trading so, have patience and stick at it!
submitted by Almost every day people come to this subreddit asking the same basic questions over and over again. I've put this guide together to point you in the right direction and help you get started on your forex journey.
A quick background on me before you ask: My name is Bob, I'm based out of western Canada. I started my forex journey back in January 2018 and am still learning. However I am trading live, not on demo accounts. I also code my own EA's. I not certified, licensed, insured, or even remotely qualified as a professional in the finance industry.
Nothing I say constitutes financial advice. Take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, but everything I've outlined below is a synopsis of some tough lessons I've learned over the last year of being in this business.
LET'S GET SOME UNPLEASANTNESS OUT OF THE WAY
I'm going to call you stupid. I'm also going to call you dumb. I'm going to call you many other things. I do this because odds are, you are stupid, foolish,and just asking to have your money taken away. Welcome to the 95% of retail traders. Perhaps uneducated or uninformed are better phrases, but I've never been a big proponent of being politically correct.
Want to get out of the 95% and join the 5% of us who actually make money doing this? Put your grown up pants on, buck up, and don't give me any of this pc "This is hurting my feelings so I'm not going to listen to you" bullshit that the world has been moving towards.
Let's rip the bandage off quickly on this point -
the world does not give a fuck about you. At one point maybe it did, it was this amazing vision nicknamed the American Dream. It died an agonizing, horrible death at the hand of capitalists and entrepreneurs. The world today revolves around money. Your money, my money, everybody's money. People want to take your money to add it to theirs. They don't give a fuck if it forces you out on the street and your family has to live in cardboard box. The world just stopped caring in general. It sucks, but it's the way the world works now. Welcome to the new world order. It's called Capitalism.
And here comes the next hard truth that you will need to accept -
Forex is a cruel bitch of a mistress. She will hurt you. She will torment you. She will give you nightmares. She will keep you awake at night. And then she will tease you with a glimmer of hope to lure you into a false sense of security before she then guts you like a fish and shows you what your insides look like. This statement applies to all trading markets - they are cruel, ruthless, and not for the weak minded.
The sooner you accept these truths, the sooner you will become profitable. Don't accept it? That's fine. Don't bother reading any further. If I've offended you I don't give a fuck. You can run back home and hide under your bed. The world doesn't care and neither do I.
For what it's worth - I am not normally an major condescending asshole like the above paragraphs would suggest. In fact, if you look through my posts on this subreddit you will see I am actually quite helpful most of the time to many people who come here. But I need you to really understand that
Forex is not for most people.
It will make you cry. And if the markets themselves don't do it, the people in the markets will.
LESSON 1 - LEARN THE BASICS
Save yourself and everybody here a bunch of time - learn the basics of forex. You can learn the basics for free - BabyPips has one of the best free courses online which explains what exactly forex is, how it works, different strategies and methods of how to approach trading, and many other amazing topics.
You can access the BabyPips course by clicking this link:
https://www.babypips.com/learn/forex
Do EVERY course in the School of Pipsology. It's free, it's comprehensive, and it will save you from a lot of trouble. It also has the added benefit of preventing you from looking foolish and uneducated when you come here asking for help if you already know this stuff.
If you still have questions about how forex works, please see the FREE RESOURCES links on the
/Forex FAQ which can be found here:
https://www.reddit.com/Forex/wiki/index
Quiz Time Answer these questions truthfully to yourself:
-What is the difference between a market order, a stop order, and a limit order?
-How do you draw a support/resistance line? (Demonstrate it to yourself)
-What is the difference between MACD, RSI, and Stochastic indicators?
-What is fundamental analysis and how does it differ from technical analysis and price action trading?
-True or False: It's better to have a broker who gives you 500:1 margin instead of 50:1 margin. Be able to justify your reasoning.
If you don't know to answer to any of these questions, then you aren't ready to move on. Go back to the School of Pipsology linked above and do it all again.
If you can answer these questions without having to refer to any kind of reference then congratulations, you are ready to move past being a forex newbie and are ready to dive into the wonderful world of currency trading! Move onto Lesson 2 below.
LESSON 2 - RANDOM STRANGERS ARE NOT GOING TO HELP YOU GET RICH IN FOREX
This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but that random stranger on instagram who is posting about how he is killing it on forex is not trying to insprire you to greatness. He's also not trying to help you. He's also not trying to teach you how to attain financial freedom.
99.99999% of people posting about wanting to help you become rich in forex are
LYING TO YOU.
Why would such nice, polite people do such a thing? Because
THEY ARE TRYING TO PROFIT FROM YOUR STUPIDITY.
Plain and simple. Here's just a few ways these "experts" and "gurus" profit from you:
- Referral Links - If they require you to click a specific link to signup for something, it means they are an affiliate. They get a commission from whatever the third party is that they are sending you to. I don't care if it's a brokerage, training program, hell even an Amazon link to a book - if they insist you have to click their super exclusive, can't-get-this-deal-any-other-way-but-clicking-my-link type bullshit, it's an affiliate link. There is nothing inherently wrong with affiliate programs, but you are literally generating money for some stranger because they convinced you to buy something. Some brokers such as ICMarkets have affiliate programs that payout a percentage of the commission you generate - this is a really clever system - whether you profit or blow your entire account, the person who referred you to the broker makes a profit off you. Clever eh?
- Signal Services, Education & Training Programs, Courses - If somebody is telling you they are making a killing with a signal service and are trying to convince you to join it, I guarantee they are getting a piece of your monthly fee. And better still, these signal services often work...for about a week. Just long enough to suck a bunch of poor fools into it. You see people making money, you want in so you agree to pay the $200+/month subscription fee. You follow the signals and it looks like it's making money for a few days or weeks. Then it turns sideways, you start losing money hand over fist. Pretty soon you have lost most of your trading account because you blindly followed a signal service. And better still - when you go screaming at the person running the signal service they will be very quick to point you to their No Refunds policy. To add insult to injury, the buttfucker that referred you to the signal service in the past will likely listen to you getting mad, and then come back with something like "Sorry it didn't work out, but I just joined this other amazing service and it's working great, you should come join it to earn your money back. Here's my link..." You get the point here right?
- Multi-Level Marketing (MLMs) - These people are scum. They are going to offer you training and education, signals, access to forex experts and gurus, and all kinds of other shit with the promise that you will live the dream and become financially free. They are also loading you into a pyrmaid scheme where you will be hounded to recruit other people and make money off them just like you got roped into it. A really prime example here is iMarkets Live (or IML for short). Don't touch this shit with a 10 foot pole. I don't care what they are claiming, you will lose everything using them.
- Fund Managers - These people make my skin crawl. It's a classic scam and it works like this - somebody will post online about how much money they are making trading forex/commodities/stocks/whatever. Most of the time they won't explicitly post they are offering a trading service, rather they just put the message out there and wait for the ignorant masses (that's you) to contact them. They will charm you. They will lie to you. They will promise you the moon if you simply wire them some money or give them API access to your trading account. Care to guess what happens next? If you send a wire transfer (or Western Union...hell any kind of payment to them) they will vanish. Happens usually after they take a bunch of suckers for the ride. You sent them $2,000 and so do 9 other suckers. They just made $20,000 and are gone. With API access to your account, you will find your account gets blown super fast or worse - possibly leaving you open to persecution by the broker you are using.
These are just a few examples. The reality is that very few people make it big in forex or any kind of trading. If somebody is trying to sell you the dream, they are essentially a magician - making you look the other way while they snatch your wallet and clean you out.
Additionally, on the topic of fund managers -
legitimate fund managers will be certified, licensed, and insured. Ask them for proof of those 3 things. What they typically look like are:
- Certified - This varies from country to country, in the US it's FINRA (http://www.finra.org). They need to have their Series 7 certification minimum. You can make the case that other FINRA certifications are acceptable in lieu of Series 7, but the 7 is the gold standard.
- Licensed - They need to have a valid business license issued by the government. It must clearly state they are an investment company, preferrably a hedge fund because they have some super strict requirements to operate (and often require $25,000+ in fees just to get their business license, so you know they at least have some skin in the game).
- Insured - They need to be backed by an insurance company. I'm not talking general insurance for shit like their office burning down. I'm talking about a government-implemented protection insurance program - in the US I believe that is issued by the Securities Investment Protection Corporation (https://www.sipc.org/).
If you are talking to a fund manager and they are insisting they have all of these,
get a copy of their verification documents and lookup their licenses on the directories of the issuers to verify they are valid. If they are, then at least you are talking to somebody who seems to have their shit together and is doing investment management and trading as a professional and you are at least partially protected when the shit hits the fan.
LESSON 3 - UNDERSTAND YOUR RISK
Many people jump into Forex, drop $2000 into a broker account and start trading 1 lot orders because they signed up with a broker thinking they will get rich because they were given 500:1 margin and can risk it all on each trade. Worst-case scenario you lose your account, best case scenario you become a millionaire very quickly. Seems like a pretty good gamble right? You are dead wrong.
As a new trader, you should never risk more than 1% of your account balance on a trade. If you have some experience and are confident and doing well, then it's perfectly natural to risk 2-3% of your account per trade.
Anybody who risks more than 4-5% of their account on a single trade deserves to blow their account. At that point you aren't trading, you are gambling. Don't pretend you are a trader when really you are just putting everything on red and hoping the roulette ball lands in the right spot. It's stupid and reckless and going to screw you very quickly.
Let's do some math here:
You put $2,000 into your trading account.
Risking 1% means you are willing to lose $20 per trade. That means you are going to be trading micro lots, or 0.01 lots most likely ($0.10/pip). At that level you can have a trade stop loss at -200 pips and only lose $20. It's the best starting point for anybody. Additionally, if you SL 20 trades in a row you are only down $200 (or 10% of your account) which isn't that difficult to recover from.
Risking 3% means you are willing to lose $60 per trade. You could do mini lots at this point, which is 0.1 lots (or $1/pip). Let's say you SL on 20 trades in a row. You've just lost $1,200 or 60% of your account. Even veteran traders will go through periods of repeat SL'ing, you are not a special snowflake and are not immune to periods of major drawdown.
Risking 5% means you are willing to lose $100 per trade. SL 20 trades in a row, your account is blown. As Red Foreman would call it - Good job dumbass.
Never risk more than 1% of your account on any trade until you can show that you are either consistently breaking even or making a profit. By consistently, I mean 200 trades minimum. You do 200 trades over a period of time and either break-even or make a profit, then you should be alright to increase your risk.
Unfortunately, this is where many retail traders get greedy and blow it. They will do 10 trades and hit their profit target on 9 of them. They will start seeing huge piles of money in their future and get greedy. They will start taking more risk on their trades than their account can handle.
200 trades of break-even or profitable performance risking 1% per trade. Don't even think about increasing your risk tolerance until you do it. When you get to this point, increase you risk to 2%. Do 1,000 trades at this level and show break-even or profit. If you blow your account, go back down to 1% until you can figure out what the hell you did differently or wrong, fix your strategy, and try again.
Once you clear 1,000 trades at 2%, it's really up to you if you want to increase your risk. I don't recommend it. Even 2% is bordering on gambling to be honest.
LESSON 4 - THE 500 PIP DRAWDOWN RULE
This is a rule I created for myself and it's a great way to help protect your account from blowing.
Sometimes the market goes insane. Like really insane. Insane to the point that your broker can't keep up and they can't hold your orders to the SL and TP levels you specified. They will try, but during a flash crash like we had at the start of January 2019 the rules can sometimes go flying out the window on account of the trading servers being unable to keep up with all the shit that's hitting the fan.
Because of this I live by a rule I call the 500 Pip Drawdown Rule and it's really quite simple -
Have enough funds in your account to cover a 500 pip drawdown on your largest open trade. I don't care if you set a SL of -50 pips. During a flash crash that shit sometimes just breaks.
So let's use an example - you open a 0.1 lot short order on USDCAD and set the SL to 50 pips (so you'd only lose $50 if you hit stoploss). An hour later Trump makes some absurd announcement which causes a massive fundamental event on the market. A flash crash happens and over the course of the next few minutes USDCAD spikes up 500 pips, your broker is struggling to keep shit under control and your order slips through the cracks. By the time your broker is able to clear the backlog of orders and activity, your order closes out at 500 pips in the red. You just lost $500 when you intended initially to only risk $50.
It gets kinda scary if you are dealing with whole lot orders. A single order with a 500 pip drawdown is $5,000 gone in an instant. That will decimate many trader accounts.
Remember my statements above about Forex being a cruel bitch of a mistress? I wasn't kidding.
Granted - the above scenario is very rare to actually happen. But glitches to happen from time to time. Broker servers go offline. Weird shit happens which sets off a fundamental shift. Lots of stuff can break your account very quickly if you aren't using proper risk management.
LESSON 5 - UNDERSTAND DIFFERENT TRADING METHODOLOGIES
Generally speaking, there are 3 trading methodologies that traders employ. It's important to figure out what method you intend to use before asking for help. Each has their pros and cons, and you can combine them in a somewhat hybrid methodology but that introduces challenges as well.
In a nutshell:
- Price Action Trading (Sometimes called Naked Trading) is very effective at identifying when trends will start and finish. This gives you the advantage of staying ahead of the market and predicting when a change in trend direction will occur. It has the disadvantage of being really easy to screw it up if you don't plot your support and resistance lines properly and interpret the chart wrong. Because you can identify a change in trend direction, you'll generally make more profit on a new trend than a technical strategy will.
- Technical Analytics (or TA) uses math and statistics to try and identify where the market is headed or confirm/reject whether a trend is happening. It has the advantage of being very math and stat driven which is hard to refute the numbers, but it has the disadvantage of being late to the party when it comes to identifying trends (hence why people call TA a lagging strategy). When people fail using TA, it's not because of the math - it's because you misinterpreted what the math is telling you.
- Fundamental Analysis (or FA) uses news and macro scale events to predict what is going on. A really good example right now is Brexit, what a clusterfuck that is. Every time some major brexit news breaks it causes all sorts of choas in almost every currency pair. Fundamental trading has the highest potential profitability per trade but it also has the highest potential drawdown per trade.
Now you may be thinking that you want to be a a price action trader - you should still learn the principles and concepts behind TA and FA. Same if you are planning to be a technical trader - you should learn about price action and fundamental analysis. More knowledge is better, always.
With regards to technical analysis, you need to really understand what the different indicators are tell you. It's very easy to misinterpret what an indicator is telling you, which causes you to make a bad trade and lose money. It's also important to understand that every indicator can be tuned to your personal preferences.
You might find, for example, that using Bollinger Bands with the normal 20 period SMA close, 2 standard deviation is not effective for how you look at the chart, but changing that to say a 20 period EMA average price, 1 standard deviation bollinger band indicator could give you significantly more insight.
LESSON 6 - TIMEFRAMES MATTER
Understanding the differences in which timeframes you trade on will make or break your chosen strategy. Some strategies work really well on Daily timeframes (i.e. Ichimoku) but they fall flat on their face if you use them on 1H timeframes, for example.
There is no right or wrong answer on what timeframe is best to trade on. Generally speaking however, there are 2 things to consider:
- Speed - If you are scalping (trading on the really fast candles like 1M, 5M, 15M, etc) odds are your trades are very short lived. Maybe 10 minutes to an hour tops. For the most part, scalping strategies will produce little profit per trade but make up for it in the sheer volume of trades. Whereas swing trading may only make a few trades but each one could be worth a significant amount of money.
- Spread (the fee you pay to the broker when you trade) - If you are a scalper, the spread is your worst enemy because you have to overcome it very fast to make a profit on your order. Whereas swing trading the spread hardly impacts you at all.
If you are a total newbie to forex,
I suggest you don't trade on anything shorter than the 1H timeframe when you are first learning. Trading on higher timeframes tends to be much more forgiving and profitable per trade. Scalping is a delicate art and requires finesse and can be very challenging when you are first starting out.
LESSON 7 - AUTOBOTS...ROLL OUT!
Yeah...I'm a geek and grew up with the Transformers franchise decades before Michael Bay came along. Deal with it.
Forex bots are called EA's (Expert Advisors). They can be wonderous and devastating at the same time.
/Forex is not really the best place to get help with them. That is what
/algotrading is useful for. However some of us that lurk on
/Forex code EA's and will try to assist when we can.
Anybody can learn to code an EA. But just like how 95% of retail traders fail, I would estimate the same is true for forex bots. Either the strategy doesn't work, the code is buggy, or many other reasons can cause EA's to fail. Because
EA's can often times run up hundreds of orders in a very quick period of time, it's critical that you test them repeatedly before letting them lose on a live trading account so they don't blow your account to pieces. You have been warned.
If you want to learn how to code an EA, I suggest you start with MQL. It's a programming language which can be directly interpretted by Meta Trader. The Meta Trader terminal client even gives you a built in IDE for coding EA's in MQL. The downside is it can be buggy and glitchy and caused many frustrating hours of work to figure out what is wrong.
If you don't want to learn MQL, you can code an EA up in just about any programming language. Python is really popular for forex bots for some reason. But that doesn't mean you couldn't do it in something like C++ or Java or hell even something more unusual like JQuery if you really wanted.
I'm not going to get into the finer details of how to code EA's, there are some amazing guides out there. Just be careful with them. They can be your best friend and at the same time also your worst enemy when it comes to forex.
One final note on EA's - don't buy them. Ever. Let me put this into perspective - I create an EA which is literally producing money for me automatically 24/5. If it really is a good EA which is profitable, there is no way in hell I'm selling it. I'm keeping it to myself to make a fortune off of. EA's that are for sale will not work, will blow your account, and the developer who coded it will tell you that's too darn bad but no refunds. Don't ever buy an EA from anybody.
LESSON 8 - BRING ON THE HATERS
You are going to find that this subreddit is frequented by trolls. Some of them will get really nasty. Some of them will threaten you. Some of them will just make you miserable. It's the price you pay for admission to the
/Forex club.
If you can't handle it, then I suggest you don't post here. Find a more newbie-friendly site. It sucks, but it's reality.
We often refer to trolls on this subreddit as shitcunts. That's your word of the day. Learn it, love it. Shitcunts.
YOU MADE IT, WELCOME TO FOREX!
If you've made it through all of the above and aren't cringing or getting scared, then welcome aboard the forex train! You will fit in nicely here. Ask your questions and the non-shitcunts of our little corner of reddit will try to help you.
Assuming this post doesn't get nuked and I don't get banned for it, I'll add more lessons to this post over time. Lessons I intend to add in the future:
- Demo Trading
- Why you will blow your first account and what to do when it happens
- Trading Psychology (this will be a beefy one and will take a while to put together)
- Exotics vs Majors and which you should focus on as a newbie (aka how to blow your account in a single trade with exotics)
- Which Broker Should You Use? (This is covered in pretty good detail on the FAQ already - https://www.reddit.com/Forex/wiki/index - so I may not bother)
- Hedging (there isn't really a good guide written on this anywhere)
- Doubling Your Risk to Save Your Ass or Lose a Shit Ton (aka Martingale & Anti-Martingale)
- Risk On/Off
- Forex Calendars
- Currency Strength / Heat Maps
- Swap
- Margin Calls (What are they and why are you getting them?)
If there is something else you feel should be included please drop a comment and I'll add it to the above list of pending topics.
Cheers,
Bob
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