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The Trading Journey & Understanding Your Own Personal Flaws

11/19/2020

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Every traders goal is to make money in the markets. We do countless hours of research, reading, and backtesting hoping to find that optimal point of knowledge that will make us a consistently profitable trader.
Unfortunately, most Retail Traders end up searching for the incorrect information that will actually lead them further away from the truth.
As stated in my previous blog, the trading industry is filled with lots of noise that may actually steer you off course without you even noticing, and perhaps finding out you were looking in the wrong places months or years later.
It is extremely difficult to avoid these common pitfalls as they are not intently meant to mislead you.
The truth is that most people are actually all searching for the correct insights on the markets and bloggers may be genuinely trying to help you, but do not know themselves that they are giving out the incorrect types of information. 
Now combine that inefficiency along with the noise that is on social media nowadays where there are legit scammers who are trying to lure you into their traps just to profit off of you.
It is like driving at night on a pitch black road in the middle of the wilderness with no street lights. Those of you that have driven through the desert highway corridors of Arizona know exactly what I am talking about.
So there are a couple of elements that I would like to touch base on in this blog that you should start to focus on more and hopefully it brings more clarity to mind and helps you along your journey.

Trading Flaw #1 Leverage

The top of the chain when it comes to appealing things that brings most retail traders into the industry is leverage.
Having a sufficient knowledge on leverage and how to properly use it is essential to your overall journey as a Retail Trader. 
Everyone knows a little about leverage from the amounts of advertisements that you see online through financial websites on the side banners of brokers offering high amounts of leverage for a small minimal deposit.
But what you really don't know is how deceiving these adverts actually are. 
Sure you can deposit as little as $100 USD and even less and trade with 500 times your trading capital or I've even seen some brokers that go as high as 3000:1!
But leverage is also considered a "double edge sword", in which you can use it to your advantage if you understand the proper risk to position size or it can also impale you and get you eliminated out of the trading profession very quickly.
When trading with such high risk, what the broker doesn't tell you is that it actually limits your flexibility in the markets and disables you to utilize certain long term strategies that will actually benefit you in the long run.
In short, the higher the leverage, the smaller your stop in the markets, which ultimately reduces your ability to see the bigger picture and forces you to use tighter stops, that ultimately forces you to have no choice but to trade in the smaller timeframes that makes you reluctant to even peeking at the larger timeframes where the big money actually moves the markets.
This allows over 90% of Retail Traders to lose their money within the first couple months of trading.

Trading Flaw #2 Self-Actualization

Finding out your own strengths and weaknesses is the toughest part of trading.
Really, think about it, in this life your greatest competition is yourself.
Most failures in life always find others to blame and external sources to their problems, it is hardwired from birth.
So, I can literally give you the L.I.F.E-G.R.I.D System for free along with many other profitable systems and you will still be unable to use it successfully.
Why do you think I don't go searching through all of my students to see if they've stolen it and tried to resell it? YOU CAN"T TEACH WHAT YOU HAVEN'T MASTERED!
It is as useful as a used tissue if you do not know its rules and how to properly execute it along with your own flaws.
A decade old saying goes, "the beastly entity known as The Market will expose you of all of your flaws; lust, discipline and panic.
In order to become a consistently profitable trader, you must defeat these trading sins.

That is all for now! 
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If you like what I blog and can relate I have a FREE FOREX EBOOK available here and also check out my FOREX Academy to learn my profitable L.I.F.E-G.R.I.D System which will help accelerate your journey.


BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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Why Moving Your Stop Loss Is A Bad Idea

11/15/2020

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There are 7 deadly trading sins every trader should avoid and moving your stop loss to break even is one of them, let me explain WHY.

Everyone wants to look like a profitable trader and want to eliminate risk as soon as possible.
The mistake is that once you do this, you not only eliminate the risk of losing more than you would like to, but you also eliminate any possibility of a potential winner.
When you are trading without a plan, you tend to trade very sloppy and lose discipline which is a main component to successful trading.

Losing is not fun and no one wants to admit that they have lost a trade when that money could have been used elsewhere.
No one wants to confront their friends or spouse that they have lost their bill or discretionary money on a single loss.
It is a very ugly reality that most traders face. This is WHY it is important to never risk any more than you are willing to lose.
So if you cannot afford to take the loss, reduce your position size to a feasible amount that you are willing to risk and may never get back.
This is one of the easiest rules to remember, but hardest to follow.

Play The Long Game

If you have a solid trading plan with a proven long-term edge, you will notice that the edge normally plays out in your favor in thelonger term.
Most of the time when you enter a trade, no matter how accurate your entry may be, the market tends to swing back to your entry point before continuing in your desired direction. This is very common and difficult to avoid as the market is unpredictable most of the time.
Even if you have been in profit and all of your technical targets have lined up, you will still have moments when the market may swing back to your entry or even past your entry and bring you in a drawdown after 75% of your target is reached.
This is commonly called a stop-hunt, which is a term traders use to describe the phenomena of price redirecting itself to hit the highly predictable stops of nervous day traders and scalpers before continuing in the direction of the overall trend.
It takes a skilled seasoned trader with lots of failure and experience to be able to position yourself to avoid these stop-hunts.

The Average True Range (ATR)

Many of you that have been following me for some time have noticed that almost all of my charts for many years have had an indicator attached to it called the Average True Range (ATR for short).
This is one of the only 2 indicators that I religiously use and I teach my Forex Academy students how to properly use it to get the greatest edge over the retail crowd in the markets.
There are specific parameters that must be modified to meet my criteria of a "safe trading zone", which is discussed in my Private Training.
When combined with a couple other indicators, this can be the single most powerful tool I have ever used in trading, and I have had my trial and errors with many of the indicators you all have learned about.

Custom Indicators

Over the course of my 11 years of trading I have back tested hundreds of indicators available to the retail crowd and learned the development of them and the psychology behind each of them.
I understand WHY they were created and have done extensive research behind the creators of these indicators. 
I even have created my own in the past and continue to work on my own custom indicators that I am coding specifically for my personal advantage.
Indicators are supposed to be understood before used and most retail traders fail to understand WHY and how to use them the proper way.

Average Daily Range

Every currency pair has an average daily amount of pips that it move from open to close.
If your stop loss is within half of that average daily range, then you are setting yourself up for an automatic loss.
Literally, how often have you gotten stopped out of a trade because you tried to use the tightest stops (50 pips or lower), and the market almost "purposely" aimed for your stop?
And right before you can say WTF, it slows down and returns back into the direction of your original trading plan?
This is far too common and the only way to avoid it is to either use "time adjusted stops", which is waiting for a specific period of time before moving your stop to break even or, "calculated pip stops", which are similar to take profit targets in which you only move your stops to break even after a defined amount of pips have passed in your favor, but is also risky or my favorite, the "Average Daily Range", which is a specific amount of days range that have passed by and the reward to risk ratio of your current trade has surpassed a 3 to 1 in your favor.

Marketers, Scalpers, Day Traders

You may have seen on social media lots of traders posing as successful traders and even selling strategies or signals that have "tight stops".
It is everywhere like a plague so it can't be avoided.
They make it look easy by using small offshore brokers with high leverage and literally "flipping" accounts 100%+ in the matter of seconds to days.
RUN and DON'T LOOK BACK!
This is a gambling approach and they know that but compulsively lied to the world so much that they now believe their own misconceptions of the market and price movement. 
They do not show their failure and how often their stops got hit before winning and commonly use sub-accounts or re-deposit funds until they have a winner, like a casino.
The market has an edge over these participant just like a casino has an edge over the gamblers that come in without an edge and try to flip $1000 to $10,000 overnight. 
No matter how successful they may look on their post, these narcissist's have deep pockets and will continue to make their money out of the markets and go back to the arena and lose it all due to a lack of discipline and a defined trading system.

No More Blown Accounts

Can you believe it has been over 5 years since I have blown a trading account?
It is virtually impossible because I utilize a "Hard Stop".
A hard stop is used in case of a black swan event happens such as the recent 2020 presidential elections and 2020 corona virus pandemic where the markets went out of proportion. These events are rare, but do happen and must be protected from by all means so a stop is always necessary and anyone using a stop, just question WHY, the next time you see it somewhere as that person is not the market and cannot predict when another one of these events will happen.

That is all for now, follow me on social media or favorite my website and check back weekly for more free posts and helpful tools I have for the public. If you like this post and my way of thinking, then register for my Forex Academy where I teach you my exact mechanical approach that has taught me to become a consistently profitable trader in todays markets.


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BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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Shooting In The Gym

11/6/2020

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The Outcome & The Procedure

It is quite common that the majority wants to be on the winning side.
Most people want to eat a solid meal, but do not want to go through the tedious task of cooking the food, not to mention preparing it.
People have a desire to replicate a dish that they see online or television, but do not want to go out to the grocery store to gather the ingredients and instead orders delivery nearby.
The need to have instant gratification is so common in our everyday lives that it has become embedded in our minds.


Being A Champion Is Highly Desirable

Being a champion is usually related to some sort of tangible award such as a trophy or cash.
In 1987 Paul Tudor Jones betted on a crash in the United States stock market that rewarded him and his company an astounding 125.9 percent return after fees, earning an estimated 100 million dollars.
What comes to thought when you think of situations like this? You might be thinking that was a pretty sweet win right?
It is enjoyable to be a champion and it increases our dopamine levels in our brains.

Championships Are The Visual Outcomes Of A Long And Difficult Process

The 2020 NBA champions are the Los Angeles Lakers.
When we see them on television we see the greatest basketball team in the world.
From the three pointers, to the assists, to the dunks and blocks, and the 21+ point leads they have over their competition, we see an elite team of skilled athletes'.
What we miss however, is the countless hours of practice that they put in daily in order to become such great players that dominate the sport today.
Take the late Kobe Bryant for example, he is my favorite basketball player and in my opinion the greatest player of all time.
He makes the sport look easy.
He can sink three pointers with absolute precision and dunk on anyone that gets in his way, even Goliath sized players, it doesn't matter, do not get in his way or you might end up getting a spot on ESPN Sports Centers' highlight reel the next morning.
What makes him so dominant is not genetics, although that could be used to his advantage.
It is his countless hours of practice and training.
He trains while other players are asleep.
He trains through his injuries, seeing him bounce back after so many torn ACLs' and knee injuries is incredible.
He is practicing while other team members are celebrating.
He is physically and mentally improving his performance daily.
His presence is so intimidating on the court that he earned the nickname "The Black Mamba".
A couple extra hours daily became a dozen extra hours weekly, which quickly added up to a couple hundred extra hours monthly and so on.
Now over 2 decades later he outlasted the superstars of yesterday and was still better that 99% of the industry at his age.
He is undoubtedly a champion and one of the greatest athletes' that has ever lived.

The Journey Isn't Attractive, But Is Essential For An Appealing Victory

Lets' face it, the journey isn't quite what you had expected it to be.
No one wants to hear the truth about being a consistently profitable trader, I get it.
It is not what you might have thought out it to be.
There is so much noise and facades in the trading world it becomes extremely distracting and frustrating to learn to proper way.
Lots of deceitful characters on social media that will give you the wrong impression of the industry.
It is not the quick profits and large gambling mentality that will get you there, but the journey and appreciation of small incremental gains over time that will get you that championship ring someday. 
How bad do you want it? How many times are you willing to fail before breaking your threshold and trading intuitively?

​Baja Pips

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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Trading Signals

8/23/2020

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Most adults around the world have heard of investing by the time they reach the age of 25.

It may have been introduced through a friend or advertisement somewhere on the internet.

Many Retail Traders are eager to flip their money or look for a quick solution to their financial struggles, so they turn to trading or investing in the financial markets.

There will be many experts from all regions of the globe trading in various different markets.

They come together in the marketplace to test out their creative ideas on how to profit from this $5.1 trillion dollar a day business.

Everyone believes in a strategy but no ones knows for certain where price will actually go.

Some have trading systems, while others have signal providers to tell them where to get in and get out.

The problem is this, in order to buy someone has to sell vice versa.

Someone is losing money while another person is gaining profits. That is how an exchange works.

Very rarely does the same two people in the market agree on an exact rate to exchange their shares.
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This is where things get a little complicated.

"My Signal Isn't Working, My Mentor Is Scamming Me", "The Signal Provider Is Copying Signals From Another Professional"

Let me clear a few things up.

Your trading account is 100 percent your responsibility to maintain.

Therefore, the misconception of piggybacking on another successful trader and having them carry you to the holy grail of profits or blaming others for giving you a bad signal has to be dismissed and unlearned.

The market has an unlimited amount of ways to profit. Simple.


A League Of Different Players

Everyday there are groups of people following a specific signal provider and most have no clue what they are doing.

Some groups are predominantly filled with short term scalpers and day traders while other groups are filled with swing traders whom hold trades at an average duration of a few days and medium term holders up to several weeks. 

When price fluctuates, it moves in sequences, completing certain patterns at specific times and invalidating others, this causes volatility. 

Many traders are not aware of their signal providers trading style nor are they managing theirrisk per trade, what happens next is common.

The market opens and price moves in its sequence wiping out players whom had broken rules and failed to follow the narrative meanwhile the signal provider who was already in the trade have already locked in profits.
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You See, It Boils Down To Experience

There are many things a signal provider is not telling you and it is not necessarily their fault for not informing you of all potential pitfalls that may arise along the path to the signals target. It is just too complex a topic for many to discuss.

This is why it is important to pick a signal provider in which you have done your research into their trading style and have developed your own bias and risk control towards the signals.

After all, who doesn't want to share ideas with someone who is consistently profitable in trading?

Fishing Pips

You must have been searching to the ends of the internet trying to find that one "holy grail" or professional that will tell you the right calls for the rest of your life. That time is over

You must learn to read the markets on your own terms and use signals as a tool to sharpen your trading plan.

Check out my L.I.F.E-G.R.I.D system to learn how to fish for pips, that way you never have to blame another signal provider for a "bad call" again.
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BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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Trading Fundamentals VS. Trading Plan

8/16/2020

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"Make a six figure income from home in as little as 3 months with my accelerated money making system with over 90% accuracy!" 
"I am the top trader/teacher in the entire world!" 
"Some of my best students are making fousands!"
"They've turned $15k to $14million in a week!"
"Look at these MT4 screenshots from our signals Telegram/Whatsapp/Discord channel!"
"I want you to close your eyes and visualize your dream 3 months from now."
"I am convinced that you are going to be my next star student!"
"Combined value of $5000!"
"Join now to get my DVD's for absolutely free!"
"We're going to hit capacity soon so don't delay!" 
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You see it all of the time and just cannot seem to avoid the constant advertisements in your face.
Many of these so called "trading gurus" or "trading mentors" are actually marketers. 
They swindle you with their hopes to get you to the promise land and uncover some sort of Holy Grail.
You are convinced and fall prey to their schemes and purchase their program.
After about 3 months of confusion you give up and look for another program.
Another guru appears in the near future with similar promises.
The cycle repeats, the pattern is redundant.
​Eventually, the aspiring amateur becomes confused and has an overload of information with absolutely no direction.

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What went wrong?

Most people like to play offense without even considering their defenses.
The majority wants to shoot for the stars without a parachute nor landing equipment.
If you play Chess and only think about your plays and completely ignore your opponents moves then you will not last long against someone with a 0.01% edge over you.
Many people like to look at the surface and not pay close attention to the details of the system.
Most trading systems can work and do have an edge. 
The problem lies within the distribution of information from the teacher to the student.
The people pushing these programs have no clue how to actually work the system they are selling because it is not their own, therefore will discombobulate the original information being presented.
The student then receives the content with the wrong instructions and never actually learns the intuitive approach which is a major component to profitable trading systems and eventually gives up after a long battle with understanding the salesmans scheme.
I have posted a blog relating to the specific topic of imbalance of information here.
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A Trading Plan?

You followed their system rules exactly as instructed and still seem to consistently fail.
You try over and over repeating the same mistakes every single time.
You become an insane trader.

The problem is that you missed a critical component to successful systems, a trading plan.
So what is a trading plan? Check out this link to view the definition.
In short, a trading plan is pretty simple, it is your very own unique way to view price action and determine where to go next, whether to buy or sell, and how much money will be risked per trade.
If every amateur was taught to create a proper trading plan along with the system being sold, then there would probably many more profitable traders in the World today.
All trading systems has its own unique blueprint of how it is to be traded and must be taught directly from the creator, same with trading bots.

Create a Trading Plan today.

If you have found yourself at the end of this blog post, then you must be looking for deep answers to why you are constantly failing and struggling to understand the information you've learned to date.
No worries, my Forex Academy will teach you to combine the systematic approach with the intuitive side to finally begin to put the pieces of your puzzling journey together.

Once you start to see the bigger picture, then you will never want to buy another course again because you will be creating your very own trading plan that you will follow and optimize over a lifetime.

BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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My Daily Scalping And Day Trading Routine

8/14/2020

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Waking up to the echos of wild parrots chirping in the courtyard and droplets of water flowing out of a spurting fish shaped fountain, I brush my teeth, shower and get my regime started. The smell of fresh dark roast Ethiopian brew fills the air as I prepare my breakfast, get a nice workout in and turn on my MetaTrader 4 trading terminal. From that point on I begin to get into my "Zone". 


I start off with a blank canvas. 
The only thing visible on my screen is a fresh MT4 chart.
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From this point I clear all of the noise off of the chart and begin to measure every corner of the chart from x-axis to y-axis, trying to find the value areas and highs/lows of the sessions and trading day. 
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My eyes become attuned to the individual ticks of the minute charts as I begin to map out my trading plan which consists of: entries, exits, risk:reward ratios, profit factors, Z-score probabilities, market sentiment and technical/fundamental analysis.
As my eyes scan the charts I begin to make calculations in my head at intense speeds. I have executed my first trade of the day within 5 minutes of opening a chart. 
I am scalping for 20 minutes and set up my day trading and intraday trading positions then I turn my terminal off. 
I close my laptop and grab some brunch and go about my daily errands.

I make trading look easy.
​The truth is trading is one of the most complex skills to learn.
I put over 10,000 hours of study time during my first 2 years of trading the FOREX market. After that I hit a wall and decided to simplify my approach.
Everything changed once I started creating my L.I.F.E.-G.R.I.D long-term trading system several years ago. 
I have transitioned from 20 hour days behind the charts to 20 minutes per day on days that I want to trade.
My positions went from risking at some moments, 50% per trade to reducing my risk to 1% per trade to now .10% per trade. 

Ask me how!

Ever wanted to trade short term? Check out my 2020 pre-launch of "Perseverance" short term trading system intro for you active short term traders with a great appetite for risk! 



BAJA PIPS

​​I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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We Are Living In The Most Opportunistic Time In History!

7/2/2020

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On January 24, 1848 in Coloma California, James W. Marshall founded the California Gold Rush. When he found the first kilogram of gold in the United States History at Stutters Mill, he had created a historical movement that will forever be remembered.
The California Gold Rush was a time where people had found a moment of great opportunity where it was previously not suspected to be.
During the time there were over 300,000 people who came to excavate the land in search of more gold, they were called the "Forty Niners" (San Francisco 49ers).
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What Does Gold Have To Do With Disease?
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There is a correlation between the two, exponential profit growth. That's correct, the same type of who people were hopping on the bandwagon and seeking opportunities from gold in 1984 are the same kind of people seeking to exploit the opportunities presented during a global pandemic. 

Supply and Demand play a principle role in gold and can easily be tracked throughout history using analytical tools and software we call charts and trading platforms or terminals. The Law of Supply and Demand states that at higher prices, buyers will demand less of an economic good, and at higher prices, sellers will supply more of an economic good. These two laws interact to determine the actual market prices and volume of goods that are traded on a market.

Now lets look at gold and its relation to the Law of Supply and Demand. Gold is a physical object, it is tangible property. What allots its demand value is its lack of supply. We don't know how much gold there is on this planet, but we do know that it is extremely difficult to mine.

It's time to compare disease in relation to the Law of Supply and Demand. 
Covid-19:
There is a global pandemic. Borders are closed. Cities and provinces across the globe are on lock-down. People are dying. Families/spouses/friends are separated. Businesses are closed and shutting down. Giants are crumbling and smaller opportunist are rising out of the midst of it all. 
With a shortage of medical supplies and the monopoly created around the limited supply of vaccines that are still awaiting approval, along with the numerous new ways that we live our daily lives via transportation and global trade, only a matter of time will tell what opportunities this year may create.
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Intrinsic Value

Both Gold and Covid-19 were discovered, one in a lab and the other in a mine. The two are physical objects with tangible properties. People find opportunities to profit from the lack of resources and solutions.
You create a problem and then charge for a cure or solution.
You make the solution, which could also be tangible and real but may also just be an idea.
Put some regulations and restrictions behind the product for sale and a market surrounding it.
You now have a product with Intrinsic Value.
You use intrinsic value to create the price of any tradable instrument (stocks, currencies, futures, options, bonds, cryptocurrency, etc.).
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Stocks rise while virus surge. Pay close attention to the news. They will convince you with their large misleading headlines to buy something that is about to fall. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/stocks-have-more-room-to-run-after-best-quarter-in-over-20-years



I will not get too into Covid-19 and the potential multi-trillion dollar market surrounding it, nor will I get too into gold and the historically parallel ebb and flow movements in comparison to a history of greed and fear over global epidemics throughout mankind.
I just wanted to implant an idea into your mind and allow your actions powered by your open-mindedness and willingness to dig deeper, flow into its own pursuit to create your own opinions and bias that'll influence your future research.
I will be writing future blogs on the topic as this global pandemic continues to evolve. 
Stay informed and keep an eye on the markets as one day soon the economies will recover and new fields in science/medication/pharmaceuticals/religion/government emerge.

I had took a break from trading full time in mid March after the first move of the pandemic hit and signaled my system to pause further trading related activities. I do believe that between the time I am typing this blog post (July 5th, 2020) and the last 2 quarters of this year that the global economy will see an improvement and most smaller countries especially third world countries, will have a surge in GDP. Feel free to share in the comments section below what your thoughts on the current global events and the future of our history.

"Life, and it's like, you know, you can look a gift horse in the face and not know what you lookin' at
And I feel like, you know, I'm lookin' at the gift horse
I'm just one of the ones that notice what I'm lookin' at
You know what I mean? It's actually an incredible time
It's like a gold rush, it's never been a time like this in our generation
It's our equivalent of the Gold Rush with everybody movin' to California
This technology has empowered everybody
And it's giving people, you know, it's as big as you wanna make it and, you know, it's as far as you take it
And we can quote a gang of things going on in the world right now
Or just, you know, accept it as being true
But, you know, it's like, man, giants gon' crumble
Big-big companies gon' crumble
New companies gon' pop up outta nowhere and it's-it's gon' be dramatic
And I believe that" - Nipsey Hussle


BAJA PIPS

​I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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Sitting On Your Hands Is The Best Move You Can Make

6/3/2020

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Trading Misconceptions
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In Forex trading there is a huge misconception. Many people believe that you must buy or sell in order to profit and if you are not constantly clicking then you may end up missing an opportunity, also called the"fear of missing out" or (FOMO) for short. 
Most believe that trading is like a video game where you gain more points (PIPS) for opening and closing trades on a consistent basis. This habit gets so embedded into the minds of some traders that they eventually become addicts of the concept and become what we call a "day trader" or "intraday trader".

Most games are played in a fixed environment, meaning that the rules and outcomes are already predetermined. Take Blackjack for example, you know that there are a certain number of cards in a deck and you don't have to worry about the color just the combination. There are usually 2 players, you and the dealer. There are only 2 moves you can make which are hitting, meaning you can ask for another card from the deck, or standing, which means you want to keep your current cards you are holding. The winner is whomever gets 21, closest to 21, or the highest hand by the end of the match without going over 21 which is called a bust. Seems simple enough right? 
Trading does not work like that, in fact it is played in a variable (non-fixed) environment.

In the markets you aren't so certain who is on the other side of your order and how many other people are trading with you or against you nor are you so sure which direction the market may move next (up, down, or sideways). There are an unlimited amount of possibilities that can occur in the market from the moment you place an order. These day-traders do not understand that the market functions completely different from any other game in the world.

The Design Of Trading

Here is a valuable tip, you cannot make money for randomly clicking or taking wild guesses in the market.
You cannot make money if you are taken out of the game.
As long as you have significant capital then you can live to trade another day, the markets aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Staying net positive and having enough funds in your account to take another trade when the opportunity is right is  the single most important concept in trading. 

Certainty VS. Uncertainty

Trading systems are built off of certainty. The only way a system can tell you what to do next is if it is certain of a specific setup occurring that it has already backtested over a lengthy period of time and have statistical proof that there is a higher probability of that move in the past successfully happening again. There are no guarantees in the market though so there always has to be room for uncertainty, this is why it is important to always trade with a stop loss. 


Compare this with Blackjack where there is a guarantee that you will win if you hit 21 and
the other opponent doesn't or busts and you don't. Most games operate in the same way. 

The only certainty we have as traders besides our systems predicting a probable move is how much we are risking and if we want to buy, sell, or sit on our hands and do nothing.
If you are buying or selling you are indicating that your system has given you a signal to do so, otherwise why would you be taking a trade? It better not be off of emotion or impulse because I will tell you straight up that you will not last long in this industry.
Doing nothing is powerful because the market trends less than 30% of the time and moves within a range for the most part. That means if you take a trade today and have a stop loss and profit target in place then you have done everything you can and just have to be patient and wait it out. This is the single hardest thing for most retail traders to do.

They are dazzled by the desirable social media lures of people posting quick profits and over-leveraging large lot sizes to make it look like they hit a home run type trade. Trade like them and you will continue to feed the market more money like a slot machine in the casino, giving most of your earnings to the sharks of the game and the brokers who profit off of your commission. There's a very good reason why many off shore brokers have intriguing ads rewarding traders with bonuses for being active and trading a certain amount within a short time but I will cover that in a future blog post. 

So to sum up this post, sitting on our hands and being patient is the best move we can make as traders because the longer we stay in the game, the better probability we have of our trading systems and edges working in our favor. 



BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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The Imbalance Of Information

5/29/2020

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Let Me Get A #9 With Extra BullSxit
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We live in an age where garbage information is at an all time high. The amounts of misinformation spread across the internet is absurd. It took medical researchers almost two centuries to finally realize that vaccines cause autism and numerous other mental and health disorders. Now people are just beginning to "wake up" and realize this themselves.
Take the news as another example, it is extreamly easy to produce attention getting headlines that draws on the crowds emotions and create a buzz on that specific story for the next several months, which then proves to be false information just to produce an audience and revenue for the media outlets, compared to simply telling the truth from the beginning and avoiding mass hysteria and misconception.

Forex Trading Is Becoming More Imbalanced As Time Goes On

Online marketers do this all the time. They produce BS articles on trading information and nothing on the actual application of trading. You see, there is a significant difference between knowing and understanding. 
You can know as much of a subject as possible but still not understand what you are reading/learning. That's pretty much how modern day education systems teach students.
If you go online and do a simple GOOGLE search for " How to trade" or "FOREX education", you will find millions of articles pretty much repeating the same information, it becomes pretty redundant after searching through the first 100,000 pages on a search engine.
So why does this happen? 
Forex marketers and false trading coaches/gurus find it easier to produce articles on complicated information and theoretical concepts to raise their audience because they know that these search engine algorithms will make them more of an authority on the subject if they can produce as much BS information on the topic as possible and gain as many "likes" and "subscriber counts". You see it on social media (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) and the inconvenient truth is that it has been going on since the birth of this industry when trading gurus didn't have an online platform to market their theoretical concepts so they wrote "books" and mass distributed them to the general public on Amazon, Ebay, and the most notorious of them all, book stores such as Barnes & Noble.  Don't believe me, click on the hyperlinks on one of the names in this article and you'll go down the rabbit hole into a world of nonsense and redundancy. Online Marketers have plagued Instagram by posting rented luxury cars and buying likes using third party software. The next time you are on Instagram and come across a post with someone covering license plates wearing a club outfit and posting luxury quotes at the bottom of the image, just take a second and think to yourself "what are they trying to sell me?". I used to have hundreds of photos on my personal Instagram showing my real life and the realities of being a day-trader, but took them down due to the ever growing environment of internet marketers and entrepreneurs. Now you will only see one post that I haven't updated in years. I may start posting again as the economy crashes and people become more desperate for attention with less and less props. As I once said in one of my past blogs and also on the home page of this website, "The marketers of today will not be around in the next 5-10 years, so don't rush to the finish line as trading is a marathon not a sprint".

Well, What Can A Prospective Trader Do To Learn How To Trade The Right Way?


Just like the media outlets and celebrities, trading gurus/educators have found a method to attract the masses and spread misinformation without any validity to the topic they are talking about. They do not have any track record from a verifiable source nor any financial proof that they have earned a living solely from trading. It's ironic that many traders you see on social media only show the right side of their screens or blatantly show only screenshots of winning trades with none or very little amount of losses.
​My advice is to either keep trading on your own, learning from your mistakes, stop trading all together, or find a reliable resourceful trader that has years of real live trading under their belt. I suggest you check out my FOREX Academy to get help from me if you have found my blogs and other free content on this site helpful. And when you do become a consistently successful trader, please do something great for the community and pay it forward.

BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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The Epitome Of Losing

5/21/2020

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Have you ever lost a trade and became so upset that you felt like a complete idiot afterwards?
Did that one loss affect how your future trading activity would play out?
Well, if you did you're not alone. In fact most people come across the same instinct, it is human nature to want to always be a winner. No one enjoys losing.
We were brought up always seeing the winner being rewarded and the loser being mocked or eliminated from a competition so we bring that same thought into the trading world believing that if you take one loss you may as well stop trading. A series of losses may traumatize a trader forever. 
This is where proper money and risk management come into play. 

Taking Losses

Trading is a business. Your trading account is your physical business. You are exchanging wins and losses for gains and forfeiture. 
The goal is to build your account to the largest amount overtime so you must think long term.
The problem is you're afraid of taking a loss. Most retail traders are afraid of closing out a loss because they do not understand why they took the trade in the first place, they just focused on the positive outcome of winning that they ignored their defense.
"The single most important thing in trading is becoming a master of losing. Don't focus on making money, focus on protecting what you have." - Baja Pips
You must lose and become extremely good at it. The more you lose the less afraid you'll be of taking a loss in the future. When you build the habit of taking losses on the regular, that's when you'll start to see winning opportunities more frequently.
Your mind will become configured to accepting the loss and moving on, that's when great trades will start to appear.
Holding losses also eats up your available margin which will be a restriction on you when the time comes to open a potential winner.

Money Management 

I'd like to share with you a real example of improper money management and how i had screwed up on a single trade that cost me a huge portion of my account. I will then explain the importance of trading with a large enough amount of capital as opposed to a small trading account.
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As you can see in the photo above, this specific account has over -20% drawdown at the time of typing this blog. I run a few live accounts because I test out different strategies and compile what I've learned into one complete algorithm. Many of my trading accounts are actually "training accounts". I deposit a small amount into them and run them as if they were the same as my main account, this is called "forward testing". On this particular account I was winning and actually at a positive net gain a few days ago simply by closing out my losers and taking small winners over time. One day I saw a great trading opportunity and took it and forgot to assess my risk which ended up hitting my stop loss and wiping out all of my previous gains and more. Was I emotional? Nope! 

I did use proper money management, because that could have been my entire account on the line had I not used a stop loss. But I did adhere to my risk management. 

Risk management would have warned me that the trade I was taking was a more volatile pair, therefore I must reduce my lot size to be able to take a loss but only lose a smaller percentage of my trading account if a loss were to occur. Mistakes happen and this is the importance of making sure that a loss is of a substantial amount that would have little to no impact on you're total capital. I am grateful that this was just a training account and not my actual main account. I took the loss and instead of becoming emotional over it I simply took note and learned a valuable lesson that I will carry on into all of my future trades.

The Importance Of A Large Enough Trading Account

You may have heard that you can start trading with as little as a few hundred dollars. In fact, it is marketed on many offshore brokerage websites, some would even give you a deposit bonus or match! That sounds almost too good to be true! Don't you ever think it actually may be so?








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What these brokerages and even trading con-artist/con-groups are not telling you is that you have a high percentage chance of either blowing your small account or taking enough losses that you run out of margin to take another trade and must deposit more to stay in the game. 
You also cannot adhere to proper risk management neither. You may have every other rule down and completely ignore the risk management factor. Like my example above, if you are trading on a small trading account you may be forced to take a specific lot size and end up losing that trade forcing you to take a bigger overall hit. If you are trading with a few hundred like these dodgy brokerages promote for example, you may only be able to trade up to a few pennies before reaching your maximum margin, as a result you'll be forced to open trades on more volatile pairs resulting in a significant large portion of your trading capital.
When you have a large enough trading account ($50,000 USD minimum) you can avoid this outcome because you'll have enough margin to reduce your lot sizes small enough to take as many loss in pips and still only lose the same amount of overall capital as your other trades. Why do you think most DEMO accounts have the default standard at $50,000+?

Well I hope you learned something from this blog. That's all I have to write this week.
I try to write a blog a week to help the public out for free as I do believe in paying it forward for nothing in return.
I wish I could help everyone become a consistently profitable trader, unfortunately I do not have the time on my schedule to walk everyone through the process which is why I have created my FOREX Academy to help people on a more personal vantage point who are ready to take their trading to a higher level.


BAJA PIPS

I have been trading the financial markets for the past decade and have failed to the point where there were no other ways to fail. I trade for myself with my own financial resources and enjoy the freedom of being my own boss managing my independent business built from the ground up. Feel free to message me anytime with questions.

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