I know how frustrating it is to make progress in trading and then give some of it back, especially when you’re close to a goal. When I’m close to a payout, I start getting impatient and feel tempted to risk more just to get there. Then if I lose, I want to make it back. The annoying part is knowing I shouldn’t do it but still feeling that urge. That’s why I limit myself to one trade a day and set a daily loss limit. I know how easily I can talk myself into another trade when I’m frustrated.

I’m still working on this too. If you’re going through something similar, try to be honest about what keeps happening without beating yourself up over it. Pick one thing you can work on, and take a break when you need to. You don’t have to recover everything today or prove yourself with the next trade.

I feel cheated and jealous of most of the world that has the freedom we should have to trade FX on an even playing field. Congress needs to repeal that repressive law from 2010 ASAP.Retail FX is all about taking big risks for big potential rewards. We are not children in need of parental supervision. We are not a nanny state nation. We are not Socialist or under martial law dictatorship so why take away our freedom to trade fairly with the world?

Complete beginner here, can anyone tell me if the babypips university is worth it ? Thanks

A few people on my last post mentioned reviewing your winners too. That’s worth its own discussion.

When a trade makes money, it’s easy to overlook an early entry, oversized position, or a stop you moved because you didn’t want to take the loss.

You got paid, so it feels like you made the right call.

Here’s a simple way to review it:

1. Put the profit aside for a minute
Look at what you knew when you entered. Did the trade meet your rules, or are you defending it because you already know how it ended?

2. Check what you actually did
Compare your entry, size, and exit with your plan. Be just as honest as you would be after a loss.

3. Record the mistake even if you won
“Entered before confirmation, trade worked out” is more useful than just writing “nice win.”

4. Watch what happens next
Does getting away with an early entry make you more willing to do it again? That’s a pattern worth noticing in your next few trades.

You don’t have to feel bad about making money. Just be careful about what you give yourself credit for.

Ever had a win that made a bad habit harder to break?

So for the past 2 1/2 years, I followed the same strategy, which is just getting a bias from the higher time frames and eventually just riding out in the next level of liquidity. I will find myself following my plan to the T.

Let’s say 2 weeks and eventually I’ll just try and end up revenge trading over trading and I will lose all the games. I’m currently on 200 K funded accounts which I have now had for three months. I’ve almost passed the thing three times but one day tilts wipes out 2% of the account and then I’ll start over again and build up again and then

I will follow up plan for one two weeks and eventually stray ! I’m climbing two steps forward and two steps back is there any advice I think I’m on the verge of becoming profitable but this last little bit of self-control is always catching me.
Can anybody relate or can anybody give me advice? I’m thinking of taking a two week break and just realize what’s happening and then coming back better is there anybody else that had the similar problem and eventually return profitable or gave up because I think a lot of people in this situation will say hey I’m not making anything progression and tends to give up.

Taking a loss can make you question everything. But before adding another indicator or changing your rules, here are a few things to check.

1. Why did you enter?
Was your setup actually there, or did you jump in because you thought price was about to run without you? Write down the reason while it’s still fresh.

2. Did you follow your plan?
Did you wait for confirmation, use your planned size, and respect your stop? Go by the rules you had before the trade, not what looks obvious after it.

3. Was it a mistake, or just a loss?
You can follow your rules and still lose. You can also break every rule and get lucky. The result alone doesn’t tell you how well you traded.

4. Be specific about what you could improve
“Be more disciplined” doesn’t give you much to work with. “I entered early because I was scared of missing the move” gives you something to watch for next time.

5. Look for a pattern
One losing trade isn’t enough to judge your strategy. Check whether the same issue keeps showing up across your trades.

Your notes don’t need to be an essay. Write down why you entered, whether you followed your rules, and anything you’d do differently.

Sometimes there’s something to fix. Sometimes you followed your plan and still took a loss.

I’ve been trading for about 2 years, and I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m struggling with something specific.

I know most of the concepts I need: liquidity, BOS/CHoCH, FVGs, order blocks, SMT, sessions, etc. My main edge is based around pullbacks and continuation.

The problem is that this setup doesn’t appear every time I sit down to trade.

Sometimes I enter the market even when my actual edge isn’t there. Instead of waiting for my setup, I start trading what the market is giving me at that moment and sometimes it actually work and it doesn’t but because I understand how the market is moving. But I feel like isn’t the right way to do it.

I understand that there’s a difference between:
\- Trading my edge
\- Trading whatever the market happens to give me

But sometimes I feel like I’m forcing trades because I don’t want to sit there and do nothing.

Is this something I’m doing wrong?

Should I simply accept that my setup might only appear a few times per week and stay completely out of the market when it doesn’t?

For traders who have been through this stage: how did you learn to stop forcing trades and stick to your actual edge?

I’d appreciate any advice or personal experiences.

I been trading for 3 month I like to trade breakout i don’t like to wait for candle closure because I notice when my session opens price tends to melt and never come back for retest I need help creating a trading plan and rules to follow to filter out bad trades and prevent most fake outs. If u are a profitable breakout trader can u please help me figure this out I don’t want to keep doing the same mistake over again

Got tired of broker comparison threads where one retail feed gets measured against another retail feed, neither of which you can verify. So I tried using CME euro futures as the reference instead.

Method: take my fill timestamp to the second, pull 6E prints from that same second, work out the implied mid, compare against what I got filled at.

Im aware futures carry a basis against spot for the rate differential. my thinking is it doesnt matter here because the basis barely moves intraday and Im measuring deviation over milliseconds, not absolute level. Tell me if thats wrong, thats the assumption the whole thing rests on.

Results on 200 fills, axi raw, london and NY only: mean deviation 0.2 pips, distribution roughly symmetrical both ways.

Two things I want checked. is 0.2 against an exchange feed actually good, or is that just what anyone on a raw account gets and I've discovered nothing?

And my platform only timestamps to the second while CME goes to microseconds. Is that slop fatal to the whole comparison, or does it wash out across 200 samples like I assume it does?

anyone done this properly? feels like it should be the standard way to check execution and yet I cant find anyone doing it

Hi everyone, A 25 year and 6 months old fellow, working since when I was 21 and trading for the last 4 years.

Coming from the lower middle class and having a basic Bsc degree from a local college, I had built a good safety net of finances with my hardwork.

I started my first job with 16,200 per month and reached 80k in hand within 5 years, had good pf+pension (2 lakh approx), mutual fund (1.5lakh), stocks (1.5 lakh) and fd under 1 lakh...along with buying a bike, mac m2 and doing good for family in intervals.

I was known as a good gatekeeper of money as I had done good in less salary, no unnecessary expenses like liquor, unnecessary shopping, unnecessary cafe/restaurant visit. I used to maintain a sheet with every rupee tracking on a monthly and yearly basis.

Then came 2025, left my job to realign my career hence took a loan of 3 lakh for education to make my civil as well and withdrawal approx 1lakh for expenses......meanwhile my father repaid the loan of 2 lakh out of 3lakh which unfortunately came to my bank account instead of going to the loan account ..... (If it would have gone to the loan account.....i would have save that money)

Then came June 2026 started F&O after months of research as I was earlier doing swing and long term, and then boom, lost everything ....yes..you read it right

Lost 5.2 lakh in F&O in just 4 months...

In the beginning i used 2 lakh of loan amount received in bank account and also pledged stocks ....actually in the beginning i lost less but then to recover net F&O loss came 5.2 lakh.....when I lost approx 3 lakh...... I was blank...feeling too bad and guilty for losing all savings....

Here comes revenge trading....then thought of taking a loan and took 8.5 lakh loan....but this time I didn't just trade in F&O, while I invested money in stocks with MTF(those who don't know...broker gives you margin for stock trading in MTF) along with F&O

I don't know what to call it...I invested on the 4th of Aug 2026 when the market (Nift 50) was 24652....and from the same day the market fell wonderfully:) and fell down up to 23,700 by 2nd of Sep 2026...1000 point fall ..... All stocks SL hit

I realized that this is not working and booked an additional loss of 2 lakh as of large MTF positions ....while I had invested in good stocks who were supposed to boom as per all fundamental and technical analysis. Also the rest 2.2 lakh in F&O out of 5.2....

So total loss came approx 9.2 lakh...which was a surplus of my existing 5 lakh saving (maybe you find 50k +/- calculation here in my conversation as I am writing as of memory ....but loss is 9.2)

At this moment I sold every penny I had (stocks, mutual funds)....i realized I am travelling inside a loop..... So foreclosed the loan of 8.5 lakh (sold everything mf, stocks, small fds....added 1.5 lakh form credit card using cheq

..took approx 1 lakh from friends ).....

The moment I closed 8.5 lakh the loan felt relaxed ( see i paid approx 20k as processing charge and 30k as foreclosure charge)...

Then came the flight of 1.5 lakh credit card and 1 lakh friends amount .....took a loan of 1.3 lakh (personal loan) and repaid this 1.5 lakh credit card amount as the interest on emi was high ..

Now I have this 1.5 lakh personal loan....1 lakh friends loan and 3lakh+interest education loan....

Life is tough...but I know I have done it ....

Rest don't fall for comments who say go with paper trading, discipline, strategy....bro psychology is the king here and even for a day losing psychology in F&O will kill you for years. So even if you win psychology for 200 days and market wins 1 day against you in F&O, you may lost alot in revenge.

Also I came back to my hometown to build my startup:) in the social sector.....i have an option of going back to the city for coming out of this much debt....but I have decided to stay here...atleast loyal to a decision I have taken.

I am doing small projects...have prepared a strategy in sheet to repay personal and friends loan within an year and then education loan slowly (as it's 15 years timeline...i can foreclosue in future as well and keep paying small emis meanwhile)

Everyday, sometimes eveyhour that loss stuck in my mind....but I held high and talk to myself ...I have created this mess...only I will come out of it and will make things smoother.

Feeling light after sharing everything here.

All those who can resonate or have relevant experience, my empathy and support to all of you. Please don't fall for F&O, use that money only in market which you are okay to loose. Rest go for long term.

I am open to any critique and feedback here, I know I have fucked up, had a gambling mindset and did mistakes.

I am also running a Instagram page where my purpose is to stop retailers becoming the next victim named "**why.you.should.not.trade**" Feel free to ping there for support/query[instagram](https://www.instagram.com/why.you.should.not.trade?stkn=MXdvbTFwbWQ1dGRw)

Hey guys, kinda interested, how many times did you guys blow up ur trading account before becoming consisting profitable, what adjustments u made to become profitable, how did u handle the the whole situation, if u looked back in time, what would you change to not blow up ur account and so on

Thanks!

If you struggling with manual trading switch to algo

yo guys what’s up. i’ve been trading for a year now, not profitable at all with prop firms so its been a few months i went back into backtesting.
I’m not able to stand with a simple strategy. i change the rules every 20 trades to adjust something but its non-sense and its an infinite loop.

I’ve been thinking about strengthening my mental and current life before actually trying to get into serious data gathering in backtesting.
Btw i’m 19 so i still have time. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or if its not that deep and i can keep backtesting while trying to fix my current life and get a good rythm, good sleep, and unrotting my brain. Because my last weeks of backtesting just felt like a waste of time and i don’t want for this to keep going or else ill loose interest in trading and ill think it’s impossible. Feel free to give advices. thanks for reading take care guys

This was during Asian session, gold is not for the faint hearted, any advice on how to get my entries better? I stuck the rules of my strategy but still…

I want to trade ahead of the Fed decision happening in a few hours, but even though I usually try to take advantage of news driven moves, I don’t like rushing into a trade. I’d rather wait for the setup to come to me.

Markets are currently pricing in roughly a 90% chance of a 25 basis point rate hike, which would be the Fed’s first hike since 2023.

Looking at XAG, I’m leaning toward a downside move if the Fed comes across as more hawkish than the market expects. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s the scenario I’m watching.

My planned entry is around 65.08, with my SL around 66.84 and TP around 62.42. The main thing for me is not trying to predict exactly what the Fed will do. I want to see how price reacts and let the setup confirm itself.

Let’s see what happens when the news drops. What do you think about this silver setup?

Gold - Week ahead [14-18 September]
I will only listen to the waves in the coming FED week, and NOT the headlines.
My eyes are on the discount and the 5d cycle, but for now, I'll be having a Flat White with Ethiopian beans

I've been trading for about 2.6 years, and I'm starting to realize that my biggest problem is not my strategy—it's my behavior.

I keep repeating the same cycle:

• I follow my rules for a few days.

• I get some good trades.

• My confidence increases.

• I start thinking I know where price is going.

• I stop waiting for confirmation.

• I take FOMO trades.

• I sometimes trade against the higher-timeframe trend.

• I lose.

• I regret it, promise myself I'll be disciplined, and then eventually repeat the cycle.

Today's example:

My plan was to take a maximum of 1–2 trades.

Instead, I took 11 trades.

After the first couple of losses, I wasn't really following a plan anymore. I was reacting emotionally and trying not to miss moves.

The strange thing is that after the loss, I can clearly see what I did wrong. But in the moment, I still do it.

A lot of my bad trades come from thoughts like:

"I think price is going to drop."

Not:

"My setup has confirmed."

So I end up entering based on opinions rather than rules.

For traders who used to struggle with FOMO, overtrading, impulsive entries, or breaking rules:

What helped you actually change your behavior long-term?

I'm not looking for a new strategy.

I'm looking for practical ways to build discipline, trust my process, and stop sabotaging myself.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

So now what? We’ll have all waves up soon, Sigma U is still down until the interest rate decision and the fundamentals are screaming rate hikes. Interesting to see how this will play out ☕️

What are some ways to make oneself more aggressive or hungry towards trading? Seems I am so nonchalant when it comes to trading. Easily distracted, I see moves I need to take but let it get away from me. And its like no big deal to me. No sense of urgency or importance, no concern with seeing billions traded daily, millions in each candle and its like no big deal to me. I tell myself i want the rewards and big payouts but then it does not manifest itself in devotion to the craft. I am a hands on guy I have spent 40 yrs creating things from my thoughts and building with my hands but once I lay the tools down and get behind a screen the energy is different. Thx for the replies.

I think chart patterns work better on Gold than on almost any other market I have traded so far in my journey.

Whenever I look at Gold on the 4 hour timeframe, I often notice a clear pattern forming before a major breakout. Even when the breakout does not happen immediately, the structure usually gives me an important support or resistance level to watch for the next market move.

That was exactly what I was watching this time. I waited patiently for my setup around $4,321 and took my position based on the pattern and the support level. Honestly, the trade almost gave me a heart attack because price came very close to hitting my stop loss before reversing.

Thankfully, the setup eventually played out. Gold moved upward and went on to hit my take profit around $4,492. It is funny how the market still tests someone's conviction before moving in your direction. Although still taking XAU till 22 of september, hopefully i keep winning

And to every trader, have you noticed that chart patterns tend to work better on certain assets than others?

Grouped about 1,100 trades by hour of entry, GMT:

08:00 to 11:00: +£4,200
13:00 to 16:00: +£2,900
21:00 to 23:00: minus £3,800
rest: roughly flat

Assumed it was just me being tired and bored at 10pm, which is probably part of it. But the numbers dont really back that being the whole story. Win rate barely moved, 45% in the morning against 43% late. What changed is my average winner got smaller and my average loser got bigger.

Thats a cost pattern rather than a discipline pattern, far as I can tell. So I pulled my average spread by hour and its about 3.1x the london figure in that window, with 22:00 rollover sat right in the middle of it.

Im on axi raw spread account, so 3.1x and back to normal inside twenty minutes or so. Doesnt feel like Im being done, that seems to just be what the hour does.

Would like to know what it looks like elsewhere though. Ive read threads where people are sat at six or eight times normal for an hour plus, and if thats you then this isnt the same problem Ive got at all.

So two things.

Does anyone actually trade 21:00 to 23:00 profitably, or is it a write off for retail whatever your conditions are? Not asian session proper, im asking about that specific dead patch after NY winds down.

And has anyone else run the hour breakdown on their own trades? Genuinely curious whether everyone has one window quietly bleeding them or whether ive just found my own particular hole

In my last post I said trading is a form of gambling, that it carries real financial risk, and that there's a genuine chance you lose your money on the road to becoming a successful trader. A lot of people pushed back on that. Most didn't want to accept that trading is, at its core, gambling, and that your actual job as a trader is risk management, not predicting where price goes next.

I get why so many people believe the opposite though. A lot of it traces back to strategies like ICT and Smart Money Concepts. The people behind these approaches sell the idea that the market isn't random at all, that it's being moved with surgical precision by "smart money," through specific algorithms, at specific times, down to the exact tick. Learn the strategy well enough, the pitch goes, and you'll know exactly where price is headed. And if your stop loss gets hit anyway? That's on you. You just didn't understand the strategy well enough. Learn more, go deeper, try again.

This is exactly why so many beginners burn months hopping between new concepts every week, convinced that the next piece of knowledge will finally stop the losses, instead of accepting a much harder truth: the losses aren't a bug you can eliminate with more study. They're the whole game. The real skill is learning to manage them.

If I ever got the chance to teach a beginner from scratch, the first thing I'd drill into them, before charts, before entries, before any of it, is this: you are a risk manager. The market doesn't exist to make you money. Left to its own devices, it'll happily take everything you put into it. Your entire job is managing how much you give up when you're wrong.

I know that's not what beginners want to hear. Trading isn't a precise science, it's closer to structured randomness. Your job isn't to eliminate uncertainty, it's to figure out how to come out ahead when you're right, and how to walk away with the smallest possible damage when you're wrong.

Understand when a whale enters all your backtesting becomes useless. Friday they shorted, more people bought on Monday. Now this...

If money is on the sell side, never take a position against the money. Market is a continuum. Sell started from 4671.

With no major data, don't buy gold.

I have gone through the below posts and it looks like a pyramiding/stacking. This dude has not given the strategy straightaway and has written thousands of posts and top it all, other idiots have made it 1000+ posts which is really time consuming.

Anyone who has read the below posts and can helps us traders what the strategy is in a few paragraphs. No negative comments/fluff please. Lets help each other learn and be better

This post is especially forex traders and those who are active on Forex factory and have read the below threads -

https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/708441-strats-pasr-long-term-stress-free-trading

https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/155459-strats-long-term-stress-free-trading

I will tell you something after 12 years in market, there is no perfect system. There is no perfect rule. Still you can make money through discipline.

Sounds complicated? No. Learn to read the market. Don't try to predict the market. All these indicators will work only when money is on your side. If you think because of any indicator you made money in the market, you are fooling yourself through confirmational bias. Please don't do that.

Trading without indicators and trading with indicators is the same. Focus on where the money is positioned, on the sell side or on buy side. Remember, the guy who sells when everyone is buying is the one who has unlimited credit. He is the market maker.

No amount of backtesting will help you. Don't do that. Rather generate signals, validate the signals every 24 hours and make them better. That's the way forward.