5 things I wish someone had told me…
Looking back, what could have saved me money?

When I look back at when I started in Forex, it was during the financial crisis, I remember that I was working a full time job and trading almost all of the time.
I was committed to trading, and had sponged up just about everything I could about it — I concentrated mainly on technical analysis and had a good look at news trading.
The biggest mistake I think that I made was listening to other people’s opinions on trades, especially when their trades needed a lot of management — I lost a ton of money from one or two bad trades when the signal provider disappeared. Not only that but I spent so much time looking for the holy grail of systems.
So, what do I wish 2017 me could tell 2008 me? Well, more than 5 things but….

- It’s the economy, stupid. The easiest money to make is from news events, and you can’t predict them better than professional economists with access to ten times the information you have. You have to wait for it to come out, and just ride the reaction after the initial spike. Either that, or you can ride the sentiment up until the news event, such as in things like NFP and big political events, as the “pre-news sentiment” is bought or sold into the market.
- Don’t frequent forums too much, it’ll confuse you. Trading gurus are usually newbie traders with a system that works in their parameters for a brief time. They post in order to become money managers, and generally know less than anyone who’s studied trading for a while.
- The most important things in trading are discipline and patience. Discipline not to over-trade, and to keep your finger on the trigger WITHOUT pulling it; patience to wait for the trade to develop. They both produce the same thing, the ability to wait for the right moment to open and close our trade.
- Start small and make consistent profits with amounts you can afford to lose, it’s much harder when you go live than you think. Your whole psychology is challenged when there is money (possibly not even your own) on the table. Most people have a losing streak, and are unable to control themselves and lose confidence. If you aren’t a proven trader yet, it’ll be able to beat that if you aren’t trading massive amounts of money.

5. Price flow is important, stop trying to guess what a good price is, there isn’t one. I don’t even really notice the price in dollars anymore, just how price reacts at different levels. All we want to do is get on the right side of it, if this means we miss the first few waves, so be it.
There is so much more…I wish I had hours to talk to 2008 me!
Andrew “Davies” Nifield
Head of Education at GSI Markets
www.gsimarkets.com
