INDICADORES

to get up to speed and get all of your tools up. As a skilled and experienced trader, you are looking for something very specific. It is either there or it is not. If there is the potential of a setup, you set alerts to call your phone and let you know. You could mull around for an hour, and really, you could spend only 10 minutes a day (on average).

I have known some great traders, and some who spend 8 or more hours at the charts. In the end, almost all of them changed. I only know of two who consistently sit at charts waiting for a short term setup for a few hours.

So you CAN do it. But you probably won’t end up doing it. If you NEED action, take up free online poker. Or do what I did, and start playing Destiny (currently level 32 Warlock, PS4) or something that feeds that need. Just so you know, I have never been a gamer. I started playing Destiny in February of this year, and just fell in love with it. But the point is that you have to know yourself and you have to know your market. And then, of course you must manage your life. There are not endless trading opportunities. The guy who tells you that you can scalp (pick off 1-5 PIPs at a time) is probably making money from your activity in some way. Or he is a true believer that isn’t actually making much money.

In a later section, I’ll explain the range of “noise.” Because of this range, you can’t manage your risk well at all targeting under 8 PIPs or so.

I referred to being able to tell a lot from how people speak. When you are really, really good at Forex trading, it should be boring – not exciting at all. How do we know this? It’s basic psychology.

Excitement is generated by a central conflict. You have the “thing hoped for,” and the “struggle to get it.” As you draw closer it becomes more exciting. As you move farther away, you become disappointed. When you get the thing you wanted, it is no longer

exciting. There is no central conflict to create the emotion. Therefore, when you get good,

there will be nothing exciting about it at all.

When new traders asked how much time should they set aside for this work, I always suggest the same thing: 2 hours per day, four days per week. Much more than that, and your mind is just going to be on overload. Naturally you can put in a little more time taking initial classes and even watching older ones. But my suggestion is to be careful not to overdo it. It’s just not necessary, and you run the risk of creating an imbalance with family or work if you spend too much time at the charts.

Let me put it to you this way: There are only so many high probability trading opportunities. You don’t create them with your skill. Each element of your setup is based on some piece of logic. If the logic is not there, you cannot MAKE the logic be present with more

skill.

Yes, with more of the RIGHT EXPERIENCE, you will have more opportunity. But it is not knowledge or observation that will make this possible. Only experience trading good setups. This also involves mistakes, which is our greatest source of insight.

I also want to caution you not to make a mistake that so many make. Most traders think “if I just know enough about the market, I will be successful.” This is not true at all.

There is only the logic that affects your probability of winning, and then the bigger task, which is execution. That said, if there is a subject that you are truly interested in, by all means, study away! I think that Steve Jobs illustrated this best in his talk about “connecting the dots.” Follow your interests, but do not imagine that knowledge is the key. It is not. But follow your interests, you never know where they may lead.

What if you can’t be around at any point in time for the London session? That’s okay. You can only do what you can do. At other times of the day, you will have less opportunities, and the opportunities you do have (especially if the pairs are not EU or GU) will yield less consistent results. But if you don’t think about winning or losing, and focus only on the application of logic and the feedback you get, you will do just fine.

Later, one of two things can happen. 1. You free yourself up to trade at different hours. 2. You specialize in a currency like the AUD/USD and learn the unique nuances and

correlating factors that move that currency pair, driving your winning percentage back up into an acceptable range.

As you trade in level 3, you will notice that there is something different about the 2AM-3AM period. The European markets open one hour earlier. It is very common for price to make a move during that hour, and then when the big boys show up at 3AM, just go the other way. I wasn’t sure where to tell you that, so I just included here in the time of day section. There is a search function in this PDF file, but perhaps I’ll create an index of topics listed alphabetically, too.

So remember that timing is a factor, but “time” itself is relative. I think if you keep this idea in mind, it will help you to structure a framework that focuses more on the “orders” and not the symbols that represent them.