Every day you are being lied to. These lies are listed on Ebay, on the internet and in forums. The lies are so prevalent, it's an epidemic that causes 95% of forex traders to fail.
I'm so sick and tired of all these forex lies, I have decided to do
something about it.
You are about to get some valuable information. This information is
vital to your financial well being. If you take this information seriously, it can save you a lot of heartache, pain and money. You can make money in Forex, but you better be armed with the right information. Knowledge is power, and I want to arm you with the power to succeed.
Who am I?
I'm a full time trader who works from my home office. I have the freedom I always dreamed of. In my early career, I was lucky enough to learn from a successful institutional trader. I eat, sleep, and drink trading. I love every minute of it.
I have bought every well known book. I have joined every well known trading service. I have seen all. I walk the walk, and talk the talk. I know what works, and I know what doesn't.
I'm not hiding behind an email address. Here is my home telephone number 403 668 5257. Call me anytime with Forex Questions. I'll be happy to help, if it stops another poor soul become a victim of the forex sharks. If I don't answer, leave me a message and I'll get back to you.
The Forex 'Red list' of Lies and Half Truths.
The following, is a collection of common lies in the Forex world.
Lie one: The pip obsessesion.
You have seen the headlines, 900 pips a week 1000 a month 20 a day! BIG DEAL! This is the biggest lie in forex. I call it the pips obsession or pipsession for short. The focus on pips is the first fatal flaw. Most marketers lead you to believe that pips are the only important thing. You see everyone talking about pips so you figure. Hey pips are important. An ad that says 400 pips a week! Does this mean the service is any good?
Sadly, honest sellers like myself, have to advertise pips because everyone is so obsessed with them. The only thing that should be advertised is Return on Investemt. That actually means something. Search for any professional money managers website and you'll notice that they do not advertise pips. They advertise Profit returns in percentages (%).
The truth is this; Imagine I told you that I made $10,000 a week. Would you be impressed? Of course, that's a nice income. But what I'm not telling you is my expenses, and the risk I had to take to earn that money. Maybe I now have an ulcer. The business minded will already be familiar with the word turnover. If you are not, it simply means the sum total of expenses and profit flowing through a business. If a business says they have 1 million turnover, should
you be impressed? Not if they spent 500 thousand and made 500 thousand. Their profit would be zero and so would their return on investment. I once heard a saying; Turnover is vanity, and profit is sanity.
Even though it's a little more complicated, the same logic should be applied to pips. Maybe we could start a new saying; Pips is vanity and return on investemnt is sanity. To fully understand this conundrum, you need a little more understanding of position sizing and how pips relate. For the total beginner, a pip is just a measurement of currency price movement. a pip is usually 1/100th of a cent. so if a currency rises by 100 pips, it went up by 1 cent. Now the important
factor is that the amount that you earn, or risk on a pip movement. This figure is variable. You can trade different financial sizes on a pip. I may trade $1 per pip. If a pip goes up by 50, I just made $50. Another trader with more risk money, may trade $10 per pip. If the currency goes up by 50 pips they made $500.
When you start trading forex, you will open a trading account. You may deposit $10,000 in that account. You never risk the full amount in 1 trade. You trade a percentage of the account size. Trading this way ensure you can absorb losses along the way without blowing your account and becomeing one of the 95%.
A sensible risk is two percent. 2% of $10,000 is $200. How you limit the risk to $200, is by closing the trade once the market has gone in the wrong direction. So we decide, if the market goes the wrong way by 50 pips, we will close the trade. Because we are trading a $ amount per pip we must trade $4 per pip. 50 pips x $4 = $200. If the trade is successful and goes up 100 pips we just made 100 pips x $4 = $400. This trade would be called a 2:1 ratio, we risked $200 to make $400.
Because the values are variable, changing any one of them, will alter the outcome. Let's get back to our advertiser, who say; "400 pips a month!" Just like turnover, so what? Without knowing what stop level they are using, and their average target size, it is meaningles. They could be running 100 pip stops. If we want to use the correct risk level for our $10,000 account, this equates to $2 per pip. Now we know that 400 pips a month means $800 a month profit.
To clear this point even further, Imagine we took 2 trades in a row and we had lost 20 pips in total. Oh no, Disaster! What if I told you, that in that same week, you actually made $600 profit? To repeat; after 2 trades, you lost 20 pips and made $600 profit. Let me explain how this can be.
We already know that we wish to risk $200 on each trade. On our first trade we have a 100 pip stop. Meaning that if the market goes the wrong way by 100 pips we get out of the trade. To make sure a negative 100 pips only costs us $200 we need to trade $2 per pip. 100 negative pips x $2 = negative $200. Unfortunately the market does go the wrong way. We loose $200, and loose 100 pips. On our next trade we still only want to risk $200, but this time we only require a 20 pip stop. Meaning that if the market goes the wrong way by 20 pips, we will
get out of the trade. To make sure a negative 20 pips only costs us $200 we need to trade $10 per pip. 20 negative pips x $10 = negative $200. However, this trade goes in the right direction, and we close it after 80 pips. We just made $800 and made 80 pips.
This table should make the idea clearer.
| Trades | Won or Lost | Accumalated pips | Accumalted Cash |
| Trade 1 | Lost | -100 | -$200 |
| Trade 2 | Won | +80 | +$800 |
| Totals: | -20 | +$600 |
the moral of this story is, don't get blinded by pips. If you think a system/service is good, then make sure they have a risk reward ratio. Contact them, and ask. their answer will be very revealing. See if they even understand how to calculate the correct position size. If you want to catch them out, ask the following question; " If the stop size changes, should I change my trade size"? If they say no, that is a major red flag. If they don't seem to understand the question, that is a major red flag. The answer to that question should be an instant "YES!"
Lie two: Mechanical systems, EA's, red lights, green
lights and non discretionary trading.
These systems all fall under the same idea of push button trading. No thinking, no discretion. when all the lights turn green buy. Let me start by saying that it is possible to make money from these types of systems. Possible, but extremely hard. An experienced trader could make it work. Which nobody tells you, is the level of psychological stress. The stress comes from a total lack of control over your money. You are being asked to risk your hard earned cash, on a push button system.
Non discretionary systems rely on percentages. They usually have a much lower win to loss ratios. However, if you do have the mental discipline to do exactly what you are told , chances are you will be in profit. However, how many beginners could take trade after losing trade. keeping positive while trading a market they don't understand. Watching their account shrink. Telling themselves, "oh well, by the end of the month I will be in profit" - If you think you can do that, I'll take my hat off to you. You have my deepest respect. For you will be the ultimate cool person. A person that is not emotional.
This form of trading robs you of your learning experience. It robs you of gaining a life skill, that could allow you to trade any market. The market changes all the time. Those who have taken the time to understand it, do not have a problem. Those who just press buy when they see green lights are completely lost when the market changes or goes through a difficult period like the sub prime meltdown.
Lie Three: "Learning to trade is quick!"
Learning to lose money is quick. Learning to be profitable takes time.
Lie Four: "Trading the Forex Market is Easy!"
This one makes my blood boil. Anyone who suggests that forex is easy, does not trade for a living. I have worked hard to get here. I am long past my fears. I have good system, and I can change with the market. I can see that my biggest hurdle, was over complicating things. I have been through a lot to get here. I have paid my dues. I have the right to say it's easy for me. But to suggest it is easy for a beginner, is a out and out lie. If it were easy, the failure rate would not be 95%.
Lie Five: "Trading the Forex Market is Hard!"
Before you think I'm contradicting myself, let me explain. While I say that trading is not easy, with dedication it's not hard either. It becomes hard because most marketers don't tell you that the best systems are based on simple, and free indicators. They don't tell you, that the hardest part is not trading, but dealing with your emotions. By selling you a system and never really telling you the truth, it begins to feel very hard. The actual function of trading is not hard, and once you finally get past all your fears, you will find that trading itself is not hard. But it takes some time to get there.
Lie Six: The magical Indicator.
The bottom line is the market does 3 simple things: It goes up, it goes down, and it goes sideways. That's it! Indicators are designed to help illustrate what price is doing. Every indicator takes its data from the price movement. In other words, the indicator reacts to what price is doing. Indicators are reacting to price, and therefore we call them lagging indicators. Leading indicators are a myth.
I think it would be a good idea to understand what price is doing before I run an indicator that is lagging. How about you? If you are wise you will study price itself. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying indicators are not useful, they are. Some of the best systems I've seen, are based on Moving averages. In fact, I would take a pair of moving averages, over any magical indicator.
My point is, don't get blinded by indicators. More indicators does not mean more clarity. It usually means, more analasys and confusion. You may find yourself victim to a well know condition called; 'paralysis through analysis'. There are no magical indicators. Let me give you a tip right here and now. If you're learning to trade. First learn support and resistance, trend lines, and candle/bar patterns. That is all I use to trade with.
Lie Seven: Scalping.
Scalping is a loose term that refers to quick trades. The idea is to take short target trades for 10 or 20 pips on lower timeframe's like 5 and 1 minute charts. So if you see any systems advertising 20 pips a day, that is usually scalping. Scalping is not for the feint hearted. Not for the beginner. Scalping is difficult because you are trading in such a volatile environment. Go try it with a demo account, and see how much money you can make, and how long you can keep it up. Once again I'm not saying that you cannot make money scalping. I scalp myself sometimes. but on a very specific price movement that I have observed for many years. I doubt that I could ever teach my method. In short scalping is an advanced method.
Half Truth Eight: "Trade my system and you will
make money"
I'm not going to call this one an out and out lie. There are a few system sellers out there who have good systems. But I will tell you this. I could give the same profitable system to 10 beginners and I bet that 7 out of 10 would lose money. Why? Because most good systems require discretionary thinking. Most system sellers do not tell you this. They tell you, they have the answer to your dreams.
The experienced trader is used to the market. They are blissfully unaware of how much their own experience, and discretionary thinking is influencing their trading decisions. Many of them add in a section about psychology, but lets face it. "don't trade emotionally" is nice advice, but it's like asking somebody to put chocolate in their mouth, and telling them "dont taste
it". The taste is real, just like the fear in trading is real. The confusion fear brings is real. The turmoil a losing trade brings is real. It is only through time served, that you can get comfortable with this.
A system may say "when the market retraces to the 50% fibbonacci, sell". The experienced trader is more aware of the overall market, than they ever can explain in a course/ebook/system. It's a silent knowing that comes with time. They feel confident.
The truth is I make many trades based on fib numbers. If I were to write a book on what is going through my mind as I approach each trade, I would have to explain every minor detail. What I'm thinking, why I'm thinking it, what news I just read etc etc. To make it even harder, the justification for this trade can be completely different from the justifications for another trade. Its almost impossible to expect to be an instantly profitable trader. Just like it's impossible to expect be an instantly good doctor. Both take time and experience. Trading has a much shorter learning curve. You can and will be profitable if you are willing to put in the time and effort.
Half Truth Nine: "Follow trading signals to make
money "
There are many different types of forex signal trading services. Very often, this is a last resort for a struggling trader. It's very important to understand what you are getting into. If you find a bad signal service, it may end up being the last straw.
How do you find a good service?
It's important to realize that being sent trades by email (or any other way), without any contact with the trader, will mostly lead to disaster. Putting aside the lack of accountability, you simply cannot ask why a trade is being taken". If you join a service like that, you will find it very hard to follow the recommendations. Especially if your trading woes are due to a lack of confidence. Even a good service will shatter your nerves, if you join them during a loosing period. This is why I make my self fully accessible to my members. I'm right there in the chat room when I send the trades. They know I'm trading what I send, and I'm trading my own money too. In short, it creates confidence.
Another overlooked factor to signal services, is the delivery medium, and the style of trading. A trader who takes short day trades, usually makes last minute decisions. They have to get that signal out to you in time for you to react, and place your own trade. The lag time often
causes the members of such services, to get in later than the trader sending them. The same happens on the exit. On a trade of 30 pips, getting in 1 minute later and getting out 1 minute later can cost half the gains. Of course the signal service still reports 30 pips, even though most of the traders could not actually duplicate it.
I trade higher timeframe's and nearly always use limit orders. These orders are set above or below price so that the market movement takes the trader into the trade. This also means that when the signal is sent, there is not usually a major rush, it also means that the members can duplicate my results easily.
Learn While you Earn
A standard signal service will say that they are not there to teach you how to trade. While this is partially true, why not create an environment where the trader can learn as well? By making myself available to my members, they can ask questions anytime. They can see my conversations with other traders, and get a feeling for why I'm taking the trade. This is more valuable than you can imagine.
This article is written by the owner of a signal service, and I'll admit that I think my service is the best. However it is important for you to understand the above points before choosing any service. Of course I want you to join my forex signal service but only if you see the sense in what I'm saying. Look around the web and compare, you will see the difference.
Conclusion
I hope this information has armed you with some understanding to help you not get taken by the forex sharks. I truly believe that if you are a dedicated individual, that you can learn to trade successfully.
My Service
I offer a unique signal service. I also mentor you on why I take my trades. I have a live trading room where you can ask questions. I will tell you the absolute truth about trading. I will not hold back. It is my aim to make you into a successful trader. I have literally taken struggling traders and turned them around overnight.
Testimonial: I don't want to blow air, but I can say that the conversation we had, along with the bad results that I have experienced in the past, have really turned things around for me. As you suggested at the time, I have only been trading 1 or 2 mini's, and my account has grown, rather than the spiral downward that was taking place. You just made total sense to me, and I would encourage any endeavor you have to train folks like me. Chris Girard, Texas
Chris is so happy with my service that he told me he would happily talk to anyone about my service. I can give anyone his email address. If you would like to talk with Chris, let me know.
room
I'm a conservative trader who averages 10% per month returns. I look for the best setups. I do not 'shot-gun' trades. If I don't see any good setups, I don't risk my money (or yours). Its all about profit. It's not about having to trade every day or gain a gazillion pips. Overtrading is one of the top reasons traders fail.
10% per month return is my average. I recognise that some of you will want to see my pips record. If you do, please contact me through this auction and I will send it. However I urge you to read my comments about pips above.
the following videos will give you a good idea of how I operate (opens in a new window).
| Videos about our service (opens in new windows) | |
 | Service Goals Explains the goals of the service. |
| Trading Methodology How we trade forex. |
- Access to a live trader.
- Learn how a professional trader really trades forex.
- A full professional system with proper money management.
- Trades sent to your cell Phone or online audio alerts
- Early warning of signals which means you don't have to be
glued to your PC 24/5. - Live online trade room.
- Real Time Trade log so you can keep track.
- Access to our Trade manager to take care of moving stops and
taking profit. - Access to fully automatic trading.
- Telephone Access! Unlike all services, you can call
me. I don't hide 403 668 5257 - Extensive library of video tutorials to help you get up and
running fast.
If you have any questions contact me through the auction or call me on 403 668 5257. Ill be happy to talk with you. Here is a conversation I had with a member recently.
I'm [Forex25_Mark] 01:17:44 [4xcdgChris] I 01:20:46 [Forex25_Mark] 01:23:10 [4xcdgChris] Mental, 01:24:16 [4xcdgChris] I 01:27:02 [Forex25_Mark] what 01:29:12 [4xcdgChris] all 01:30:38 [Forex25_Mark] 01:34:22 [4xcdgChris] I 01:34:45 [Forex25_Mark] Please note this was a random conversation. You can meet Chris in my |
