Hey Guys, just wanted to say a massive well done to everyone in this community whether you're on Day 0 or Day 365+. Being here and reading this post at this very moment means that you have taken a decision to improve your life. If nobody else has said this to you, I'm proud of you, well done.
One thing I've failed to see in the midst of all the posts about relapses, porn, urges, trannies, NoFap, monk mode, Gary Wilson and the list goes on, is actual self development. Which is exactly what NoFap and porn addiction recovery is. Maybe if you're here for casual use it doesn't apply to you but I'm yet to see a guy in this community who was looking for 'big booty Brazilian' and ended up in NoFap.
I wanted to make a post about resources for truly recovering from this severe issue we are all struggling with. Unfortunately, most of the resources are internet based and I know this is something a lot of people are trying to avoid, but, that doesn't mean you cant go to a library, workspace or coffee shop to enjoy them. Below this I will list some things you can use to develop yourself. It may be a bit long so feel free to skim through the headings to see if anything catches your eye.
Self Development & Self Actualization | Actualized.org :
Great Youtuber called Leo, owns a website called Actualized.org. Completely based around Self Development and becoming the highest version of yourself. I recommend starting with this video then exploring his page for others you may like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGw8IoqBt-c
Home Learning Courses (Free & Paid) | http://www.oxfordhomestudy.com :
Oxford Home Study College has began to develop a variety of short and long courses for people looking to develop their skills in a variety of areas, FROM HOME! Their courses range from Fashion Design to Business Studies to Nutrition To Internet Marketing. So you can study so much things there. If you want to go through some of the free courses to find out what you want to do if PMO made you lost in life like a lot of us. Go to the website http://www.oxfordhomestudy.com and in the search bar type in 'short course'. You will then see a list of different, free courses that they offer. No excuse of being bored or under skilled now. I understand motivation may lack during NoFap due to flatline etc but at least read through something that interests you. It's better than binge watching on Netflix and eating unhealthily.
Exercise, Fitness, Health & Nutrition | https://www.youtube.com/usesixpackshortcuts :
If you want to improve your health drastically, get in great shape, improve confidence and be overall healthy then NoFap provides you with the energy to do that. I understand that a lot of guys may have never entered a gym in their life's due to preferring to stay home and fap. Getting a gym membership and testing out a few machines is easy but I recommend doing further research into nutrition, muscle groups, effective workouts and the full run down on what it will take to build that God like body that you can imagine for yourself. In that case I recommend visiting: https://www.youtube.com/usesixpackshortcuts I use this channel quite a bit myself for workout advice, the best workouts for certain muscles, the best foods to eat, workout and dietary timing and so on. They even focus heavily on intermittent and normal fasting which have been said to have a great impact on rebooting the brain quicker in the NoFap process. Check them out.
Baby Pips (Forex Trading) https://www.babypips.com :
This one is slightly more complex and I've only just started it myself to be honest. However, theres no harm in gaining additional skills. The greatest benefit of this one is the fact that you will be learning how to make money, FROM YOUR PHONE. Trading the financial markets is something regular guys only dream of doing even though they realise the great potential for wealth in doing it. BabyPips makes it possible to learn FOR FREE, FROM HOME and IN YOUR OWN TIME! If you've got no money, this could be a great way to start making some, once you know what you're doing of course. If you've actually got a bit of money to spare and willing to learn a new way of making money then this will be a great start. You never know, this could be that kick in the direction of financial independence you've been looking for.
Self Development Books:
If you're like me and prefer the physical version of things and not looking at a screen for hours on end every day then you will probably prefer reading real life books. My recommendations which I know will be beneficial for guys on NoFap especially include:
Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill Outwitting The Devil - Napoleon Hill Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki Talk To The Hand - Lynne Truss How To Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie The 4 Hour Work Week Millionaire Fast Lane 48 Laws Of Power Emotional Intelligence The Power Of Broke
Some of these are more interesting than others but I assure you each of these books will push you forward as a person on your journey of self development. Go check them out.
Photography, Videography & Cinematography https://www.youtube.com/usepetermckinnon24 :
This one is more specialist for someone who doesn't know what they want to do, I'm just throwing this idea in for you. This channel is run by a guy names Peter McKinnon who has proved to be a successful photographer and videographer, having his own exhibitions and almost 2 Million followers on his youtube channel. Why not try picking up a completely new skill, learning something that will make you a better person and then maybe earning some good money doing this one day?
If you think this may be for you, check out his youtube channel, maybe watch a couple of videos see if theres anything you like the sound of or anything that interests you. He does video editing as well and does tutorials of different effects you can learn. I think he even has a video of how to learn an editing software in 15-20 minutes so theres a wealth of knowledge that can be found on his youtube.
Guys it took me wayyyy longer to make this post than I had originally wanted. I had just never seen a post like this on this community or any other one. People will always say recovery is not about abstinence but instead, changing your life but then only give you life changing tips related to avoiding porn. I've tried to give you life changing tips that directly change your life.
Quick visualisation. Imagine the kind of person you'd be if you did everything on this list. Self actualised, worked out, learned to trade, read books, picked up a new creative skill, ate healthy and gained new qualifications. Now thats what I call a 180 turn in the right direction. Okay we fucked up watching porn and set ourselves back but the thing with life is that its not how you start, its how you finish. How will we finish? How will we finish this year, this month, this week? If relapsing is not in the cards for you then please pick up at least one of these, it will ease the pain and make you a better version of yourself. I do honestly wish you all the best guys and I recommend sharing this post with someone who may be struggling with lack of direction in their NoFap journey because there is a void we must face in our recovery. I'm currently taking a course in fashion design and absolutely loving it for the record. Love you all. Good luck!

It seems like it’s got a learning curve to it. I have a friend that does forex trading and I told him I found baby pips. He basically told me I’m better off buying a program and have him and his group teach me. I’m just wondering what underlying intentions he may have, if he makes money or something for me signing up for the program. How many of you are self taught?

I’ve searched this forum but haven’t really found the info I’m looking for so I’ll just ask. I’m learning right now in baby pips and wanted a demo account to use concurrently . I’ve been a Mac user for years now (graphic designer) and I need to buy another computer for the household for other reasons so I wanted to know if I should bite the bullet and get a pc because it seems a lot of people say you have more access to platforms on there or stick with Mac because that’s what I know and utilize more.
If I get a Mac will it be to my own detriment as a newbie? Is a PC to forex what Mac is to creative work? What’s the consensus?!
Edit: thanks for the replies, I’m going to go with a pc since it’s much cheaper and I’d only really utilize it for trading. I’ve also noticed everyone mostly mentions MT4 so I guess I’ll start there with a demo.

Hey yall, I've been trading stocks since I was 16 on paper trading, am in school for finance and discovered FOREX while talking to an old Sergeant of mine (he tried to get me to buy into a group lmao). Anyways I didn't buy into the group for obvious reasons but started researching on my own and took the baby pips course. A lot of this seems like common sense to me but from reading the post it looks like it isn't that common at all. I have always been good at math, I'm patient, I am responsible, and I am really feeling like I am finding my calling after consistent double digit pip wins and only 1 double digit pip loss since I have started trading real money. I am curious to see when, for those of you who have turned this into a career, realized that you had a knack for trading. I am skeptical if I can turn profit long term because of the probability of becoming a profitable trader but... if my competition is anything like the average poster in this subreddit I am starting to be more optimistic. I have been following the general consensus advice so far and have turned 20% profit this week. I understand that this level of profit is not sustainable for the long run but am curious to hear from the people who felt the way I do now early on and, discovered their hunch was correct? I had about 2500 start up capital and am just north of 3k currently. At what point did you realize that this is something you want to do for the rest of your life? What are some words of caution you can offer so I don't get swept up by a solid win streak and get cocky?
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Edit: 24 years old, just payed my car off and have about 1600 in risk capital per month as well if that helps any

I'm very interested in learning to trade with forex really. I was introduced to it by my co worker. So I looked it up on here, read a couple of posts about where to start. A good majority recommended baby pips and demo fake money trading. So I'm writing down notes making sure I'm taking down the essentials ig. But my problem right now is really my co worker telling about this academy. It's called IM academy and to me it sounds so damn much like a pyramid scheme I was even on face time with this dude that was her mentor who showed her this academy. Im so unsure whether or not this is real. So I guess what my question is are any of these academy legit and/or can I really actually do this on my own ? Because they really put that idea of when you join you have people to bounce ideas off of. Saying stuff like we are a family. I'm just fuckem confused. Idk

I’ve been learning about forex for about 1-2 months now(baby pips, books, YouTube, Reddit, etc) and I still don’t understand trading strategy/plan. I don’t get how I’m supposed to develop one when I don’t know what I’m doing or what a plan/strategy involves. It also confuses me how I see so many YouTube videos on strategy’s and there I sooooo many. It’s very overwhelming. Someone please help me to give me peace of mind.

Hi everyone,
Seeing the recent volatility in the markets has inspired me to brush off my trading cap and try my hand again after taking a year and a half hiatus. I’m currently in college studying International Economics and I’m hoping trading will be a good way to put my some of my schooling to work.
I am trying to estimate the feasibility of starting up a small account (~10k) with a few of my classmates who are top students studying Computer Science/Finance/Econ. What sort of returns are to be expected for relative beginners in current FOREX volatility?
Our current plan is to swing trade, taking intraweek positions to capture the back and forth in the EUUSD. I have completed the BabyPips course and have read some other books (namely Kathy Lien’s best selling FOREX manual). From googling around in forums, it has been hard to filter the bullshit returns that lots of folks claim to have. How realistic is a 5% monthly target? Would I be better off putting my 10k in another asset class now and walking away?
Thanks for you help! Any advice is appreciated.
Edit: Hey folks thanks for the advice! So far there’s been a range of optimism, which has been inspiring and fun to read. I wrote this post on the fly, and I understand I made it seem as if I were going to dump a whole 10k all at once for 3 trades. Not the plan for now..

Has anyone heard of Baby Pips to learn how to forex trade? And if so, is it any good? I’m looking for something that will teach me to the point where I can make this a full time job. I want something that is well known and I don’t care what the price is, I will dedicate my time to it. So if baby pips is the way to go, then let me know. Or, if there is anything better out there, then let me hear it! Any recommendations will be helpful! Hope you all are staying safe!

nagsimula ako mag trade ng forex ngayon buwan dahil hindi po ako nag enroll ng online class. meron lang akong maliit na capital na pang trade para pag practice na rin sa real time trading. kasalukuyan ko pong binabasa yung trading price action trends by al brooks. nabasa ko na rin yung baby pips hanggang elementary level pero kapag nag ttrade na sa tingin ko sa psychology talaga ako natatalo. cinucut ko losses ko before it actually hit stop loss at nag ttake profit ako ng maaga. hindi ko rin talaga maintindihan mg indicators. gumagamit ako ng moving average para makita lang yung trend.

Hi there. so first off a little background information, I am currently 16 years old and I got into forex trading about 6 to 7 months ago. I've spent the past few months doing the babypips course as well as taking online lessons to learn things such as harmonic patterns, support & resistance, using fibs and stuff like that. Along with this, I've been trading on a demo account with pepperstone to see what kinds of strategies work for me, which is mostly scalping as well as trading on the 15m tf. But here lies my problem. I want to move on to a live account, which, as recommended, obviously means I'm going to need a strategy. I've experimented and tried to find what works for me and I've understood very well what environment and timeframe I like to trade on, but I'm unsure how to form a strategy which I can follow and play by. I've tried multiple strategies such as the 3EMA(8,13,21) strategy on the 15m tf as well as strategies based on indicators, but nothing seems to work. Everything I try works for about 2 to 3 days, but eventually turns around really really fast. I was wondering if anyone could help me or give me tips on how to, or rather, the steps to building my own strategy. I decided to come here as I browse this subreddit a-lot and I've met and seen some of the nicest and most humble people here, hence coming here and not going to some baby pips forum. Any help is appreciated, thanks so much if anyone replies!!!
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EDIT : Hey guys so I have in fact gotten the advice I was seeking for, and like I mentioned below, I was practicing S/R over the weekend and tried planning ahead for this once, these are my profits for today with only half the knowledge as well as half the time due to school as well as no strategy. So I'd say pretty good returns on a 200$ demo account with 1:500 leverage who gets barely any time to trade....and is testing a strategy. Anyways, thank you so much to those who responded and helped out!!!!

So a few months ago, someone I had met in the first few weeks of my first semester at college, had been posting pictures of his MT4 account with his profits, and I was pretty intrigued. I asked him what it was, and he said it was the Forex market, so I wanted to learn more and asked to meet up with him. When we met he was explaining it a little more and told me that he was in this networking trade group called IMarketsLive and went on to offer for me to sign up, upon which I said I wanna do a little research before I sign up for anything. And so I did, and saw a lot of different opinions about IML and the things they do, and I wasn't really attracted to the networking aspect and also did not want to start paying $275 a month just to be in the group. It seemed to me like it was kind of a pyramid scheme, so I turned down the offer but decided to try to learn about the Forex market for free on my own.
I started doing more research about it in my free time, and eventually I discovered the BabyPips website where you can go through around a 330 lesson course, which goes through a lot of the basics and foundations of Forex trading. I made it through that in about a month and a half or so, and then opened up a demo account with IG. I watch a lot of youtube so more and more videos about forex started popping up in my recommended and have definitely helped along the road.
One thing I saw is not to have a demo account for too long, so after around a month of having the demo and getting a little profit, I opened a live account with $300 on Oanda. I use their online trading platform and it's alright, there are some things I liked better with IG but that's besides the point.
I've been trading with lots of 500 units or less so I'm only down about $6, but I feel like I'm kind of stuck. After all the stuff I've read and watched so far, I've come to understand that there are some key things every trader needs to do. From what I've seen, it's

• develop and backtest a trading plan and follow it strictly
• always use stop losses
• have good risk management
• have balance of technical and fundamental analysis (which I recently realized as I hadn't studied any fundamentals)
• keep a trading journal
• don't over leverage
• have a good trading psychology
• keep it simple
• be patient

Among a few other things I might be forgetting, I understand these are crucial points to follow to become a successful trader. The only thing is I feel like I've flooded myself with so much information and I really don't know where to go from here. I don't have a trading plan mainly because the best thing I've heard to do is make one that fits my trading style, but simply put I don't know what my trading style is and don't know how to actually construct a usable plan.
I know many people join the market because of the dream of turning $25 into a million dollars, however I don't have that mindset. Also I know I should focus first on preserving my capital and being consistent rather than focus on getting a lot of money, I just don't know how to do this. I am ready to put more effort into the market, I just don't know where to put it.
Another thing to note is that for when I am ready and have developed a proper strategy and everything, I have sufficient capital (around $3k) to actually start making some serious profit. (for a 19 y/o!)
Anyways, if you would like to give any advice, tips, things to avoid, stories, anything - that would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading👍
EDIT: This is my first time using reddit so I can't reply to anything because I don't have enough karma whatever that means. But thanks for your responses, they will definitely help me to start building my own strategy.

Just recently been looking into forex. Learned on baby pips and went on to try my hand at trading gold starting with 100$ using a 1:100 leverage. Is it honestly possible to produce a gnarly income doing this? And if so any advice or strategy info. Day trading is something I’ve always wanted to do and since my campus is closed due to the virus and I’m stuck with my parents again I’ve been trying to develop some standing group without the use of a “Instagram forex guru” charging large amounts for advice you never really know is real. 23y/o.

I just started a demo account with CMC Markets, and I was wondering if every single asset listed is traded as a CFD? When learning about forex from BabyPips I had the mentality as if I'm literally trading the currency; as in if it were in person, I'd be giving some coins in one currency and receiving another. I guess since CFDs are linear derivatives it doesn't matter as much, but I still feel like there are some additional considerations when trading CFDs vs "actual currency"? Also, what are the maturities on these? Are there even maturities? All the quotes just say "USD/CAD", "EUJPY" etc, but from my understanding of a CFD, you agree to pay the difference from actual and agreed, much like a future, so why are there no maturities?
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Question 2: For CFDs on things like equity indices, they seem to trade the whole day unlike their underlying. Does this mean say at 9pm EST the S&P500 CFD is just people essentially betting on tomorrow's open? And again with the futures thing, does after-market hours trading in these CFDs affect the real opening price the next day? (If markets are efficient and we assume there are people watching CFD prices like future prices, and then tomorrow's early trades become based on what the futures markets seem to say about the S&P, holding news and other things constant).
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Question 3: For CFDs with maturity dates like commodities on this platform, how does that work? Again, I'm mostly confused at how CFDs operate without maturities and how they different from futures. On the CMC markets platform, many agricultural commodities come with the suffixes like either "cash" or a maturity date, but currencies and equity indices do not. What does this mean? Those commodities I'm clicking trade on...am I trading a corn CFD? Or a CFD on corn futures? What exactly is the underlying mechanic?
Question 4: yet another example. For the bond indices...what am I looking at on the platform? I just want to get a chart of US treasury yields but I don't think that is available on CMC. What am I looking at when I click UK Gilt Cash or US T-Bond Cash or US T-Bond Jun 2020?
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Tl;dr Don't understand the mechanics of CFDs and thus I'm not sure what EXACTLY I'm actually trading when I trade things like currency, equity indices, commodities. Surely I'm not actually trading a physical commodity or actual shares. Please note this is specific to CMC markets.
Thanks :)

Hi guys I’m new to Forex Trading and I was wondering if anybody could recommend me any sources to expand my knowledge. I’m currently using BabyPips.com to learn about all about the basics. Thanks!

This is a recurring theme that's come up in people reaching out to me via DM. I'm getting asked a LOT about my 'strategy' and getting requests to review your strategies / trading plans, so I thought I'd bang out a post here as a sort of catch-all. It got to the point where I was copy / pasting the same reply to a number of people.
Strategy is really important. You definitely need a cohesive strategy or set of strategies that help determine what gets you in and out of trades. I personally run a mechanical trend-following system in addition to my discretionary style of trading. Even my discretionary style of trading however, is viewed through a framework that gives me consistent structure to follow on trade after trade.
Now that I've gotten that point out of the way, here is my next statement:* Strategy is COMPLETELY USELESS without having a thorough and expert understanding of the markets in the first place*
Here's my analogy: let's say you really want to get into the fast food business. Now let's say you're fairly smart and you realize that your best chances for success are to buy into an established franchise (McDonald's, Taco Bell, KFC, whatever). Now here's the kicker, who do you think is more likely to succeed at running this franchise? Someone who has worked within the industry their entire lives and knows it inside and out, versus someone with no industry experience. Okay, okay, that question is completely rhetorical; it's obvious who has the edge here.
Trading is no different, and it's why buying a course or finding a guru has let so many of you down so many times before. You're trying to follow an established plan (one that has in fact quite possibly brought success to whomever is selling you their wisdom), but without an expert understanding of the industry you are participating in.
If you reject my premise that knowing your shit when it comes to the macro side of things is important, that's fine. Let's take what seems to be the dominant retail route of pure technical analysis. If you don't know technical analysis inside and out, you are not setting yourself up for success when you buy a course (or even read through a free one like BabyPips). After doing a rough search for Forex courses, I haven't found any technical ones (maybe apart from Adam Grimes. I like Adam; don't know the guy personally, but know of him through colleagues) that actually teach you about technical analysis and not just are feeding you a strategy.
My entire point here is that if you don't engage with the nuts and bolts of the arena in which you're competing, you are at an inherent disadvantage. For example, I've talked to a trader that had Stochastics, RSI, AND MACD on their chart. What is the point of having 3 momentum indicators apart from enjoying a gratuitous circle jerk of redundant 'confirmation'? But this trader didn't know the math behind the indicators, what makes them similar and different, how they can be applied. If they did, then maybe they could have explained in greater detail how having those 3 gives them a defined edge.
My favourite example of a trader who 'knows their shit' is Thomas Bulkwoski. I don't like his style, but you can't deny he has done his homework. He has dived so deep into chart patterns that from memory he can quote you various failure points and success rates for individual patterns. He has meticulously studied what works and what doesn't, and can explain the WHY behind all of that.
If you don't know your shit, you will eat shit. So know your shit! Once you know your shit, then it becomes far easier to strategize.
End of rant :)

We recommend that you have at least have $100,000 of trading capital before opening a standard account, $10,000 for a mini account, or $1,000 for a micro account.
From BabyPips

I'm planning to open an account with $100 trading account only, just to test it out. How true this statement and did you follow this before you open an account?

If you practice strict money management rules, then you will become the casino. The house always wins because the casinos know how to control their losses.

Most people have to learn the hard way.. or don't learn from their losses at all due to emotions getting in the way. Don't be fooled by people who use big lot sizes and make big wins on social media. They suffer big losses too and if they don't control their risk management then they will not last long. The problem is that far too many people want to get rich quickly, but nobody wants to get rich slowly. Some of you, if not most, know what I'm talking about.

Take this scenario for perspective. Let's say we have a contest based on these two constants.

• You: Your entries are 2x better than mine.
• Me: My money management is 2x better than yours.

Who is going to come out on top? Undoubtedly, me. Why?
Because at the end of the day, money management is the only thing that will be in charge of making your account go up or down.

So how do you exactly make sure that you are using proper risk management? I would suggest either downloading a position sizing indicator and throwing that on your MT4. This will do all the math for you, saving you countless hours over time. You can find a good one on Google. If you are serious and thinking about becoming a professional forex trader for years to come then you can spend 30 minutes searching for an indicator.
The second part is to stick to your trading system. This will require some backtesting. Save your money and take the time to backtest your system. A system is needed to properly trade forex. Why? Because a system is quantifiable.

A system is basically a series of "if, then" statements.
Example: If price is below my moving average, then do not enter a long position.

You need a string of rules, or constants, to create your system. Again, if you take trading seriously, then you will take all the time you need to play with all sorts of indicators in order to find your own system until you find what works for you. This step is crucial. This is why you can never rely on another person's analysis because it is not consistent and is out of your control.

When it comes to me and my money, I want to eliminate as many things as possible that are out of my control.

With this being said, this should be a clear explanation on why price action trading is nearly impossible to consistently make profits and win in forex. There's way too much guess-work involved. Don't believe me? Have you ever found yourself asking any of these questions below? If you do, then welcome to the majority of traders who lose money.

• "How do I know which support or resistance line is going to hold?"
• "What trend is this pair in? ..because according to this timeframe it says up while this other timeframe says down..?"
• "How do I know which combinations of tools will work for this particular trade? (i.e. trend lines, fibs, pivot points)

With this said, ladies and gentlemen.. as much as you want to believe you are some kind of magician, we cannot predict the markets.. especially if you're trading with pure price action.. at least not consistently. Predicting the markets is basically the same thing as trading blindly and it's a sucker's game IMHO.

The purpose of a system is to give you an edge over the markets.

To sum up this lengthy post, here are three takeaways:

1. Create a quantifiable trading system.
2. Practice proper risk management.
3. Find what works for you.

Edit: Things to study.
Baby Pips
Trading in the Zone
No Nonsense Forex

Brand new to forex, after messing around with stocks and ETFs for a year on robinhood.
In trying to learn about this strange new world, seemingly every article warns me that trading forex is the fastest route to poverty, that I'll lose every dime I have and that I'm better off buying lottery tickets, UNLESS I have a risk management plan.
That's all good and well, but it seems hard to find suggestions on how to actually manage my risk. So far what I have found is either unconvincing, or I just flat don't understand what is being explained. So I've landed here.
Reading the Forex FAQ, in this sub, the advice is to use a very small amount of capital when starting off, and practice live trading from there. If then recommends a formula to use in order to calculate risk, which seems like quite a bit of running calculations for every single trade that I make. Is it really the case that every Forex Trader that manages risk runs a series of calculations for each and every trade in order to figure out pip value and leverage amount, such matter and what have you?
Second problem, before even getting to the risk management section of this Subs FAQ, I'm told to read The Beginner's Guide on baby Pips. Babypips says that when you first start off trading you should not start small because then you will never be able to weather times of drawdown. They recommend something like an initial deposit of $20,000 or 50,000, and saying that if you don't have that much then build up your savings and come back the Forex when you have that to drop into the market. Are you kidding me?
My original plan before reading either of those guides was to deposit $300 and use something like a 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 Leverage.
The part that I'm hung up on which really baffles me and I need some help understanding is everywhere seems to say that I should only risk one or 2% of my account. I don't really understand what that means.
My trading app, OandA allows me to set default trade settings. One of them is trade size, which I can select an option "%Lev NAV" In all of my general Trading I have kept this number at 100, assuming that it is simply using 100% of my account for each trade.
I am also using a system in order to Define very specific entry points with a one-to-one risk reward ratio, setting a stop loss and take profit Target, usually between 9 and 60 Pips in size, depending on the instrument. Thus far, each trade that I have won usually amounts to a 3 to 8% change in the demo account value, which seems comprable to what I was experiencing with stocks and ETFs back on Robinhood. For the last 4 trades I've made, I'm up 15%.
Do I need to adjust this % Lev NAV down to 1% instead of 100? Or do I really need to download a pip value calculator app and make a determination after solving some arithmetic? I just can't seem to figure this out, and different sources use the same words interchangeably yet differently. When risking 1% of my account, does that include leverage, or not, in the trade? And if the most anyone recommends to risk in a trade is 1-2% then why use leverage at all? Won't the returns on 1% be so small as to be negligible? I don't seem to understand how it could possibly be Worth while to spend all that time trading... 1℅ of $300 is three bucks. As I understand it, that would allow me to buy 2 units of the EUUSD... there's no way that could be right, right?
Thanks for your patience and for reading this whole, chapter-length, question of a post.
I look forward to some clarity. I don't know how to switch to live trading, and the demo account does nothing to simulate leverage.

I've done Baby Pips and want to trade professionally, but it seems that there is a lack of training in how to practically trade. For instance, how do you monitor the market to know when to trade? There are numerous places that offer signals based on technical analysis, then there are Expert Advisors and copytrading, for instance, but these seem to have lower returns than what I think is possible with forex.
Does anyone know of a practical guide for how to actually set up your trading and handle the constant stream of news and find the really good trades to make? It seems like there is not much training to take you through all the practical steps of enacting your trading system.
Can anyone offer some guidance here?

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.
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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.
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LET'S GET SOME UNPLEASANTNESS OUT OF THE WAY
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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LESSON 1 - LEARN THE BASICS
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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.
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You can access the BabyPips course by clicking this link: https://www.babypips.com/learn/forex
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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.
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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
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Quiz Time
Answer these questions truthfully to yourself:
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-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.
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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.
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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.
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LESSON 2 - RANDOM STRANGERS ARE NOT GOING TO HELP YOU GET RICH IN FOREX
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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.
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99.99999% of people posting about wanting to help you become rich in forex are LYING TO YOU.
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Why would such nice, polite people do such a thing? Because THEY ARE TRYING TO PROFIT FROM YOUR STUPIDITY.
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Plain and simple. Here's just a few ways these "experts" and "gurus" profit from you:
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• 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.

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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.
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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/).

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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.
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LESSON 3 - UNDERSTAND YOUR RISK
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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.
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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.
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Let's do some math here:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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LESSON 4 - THE 500 PIP DRAWDOWN RULE
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This is a rule I created for myself and it's a great way to help protect your account from blowing.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Remember my statements above about Forex being a cruel bitch of a mistress? I wasn't kidding.
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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.
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LESSON 5 - UNDERSTAND DIFFERENT TRADING METHODOLOGIES
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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.
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LESSON 6 - TIMEFRAMES MATTER
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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.
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There is no right or wrong answer on what timeframe is best to trade on. Generally speaking however, there are 2 things to consider:
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• 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.

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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.
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LESSON 7 - AUTOBOTS...ROLL OUT!
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Yeah...I'm a geek and grew up with the Transformers franchise decades before Michael Bay came along. Deal with it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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LESSON 8 - BRING ON THE HATERS
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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.
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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.
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We often refer to trolls on this subreddit as shitcunts. That's your word of the day. Learn it, love it. Shitcunts.
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YOU MADE IT, WELCOME TO FOREX!
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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.
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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.
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Cheers,
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Bob
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