For example, an MACD indicator may be nice to look at, but can anybody who uses it actually say with great certainty that they have stronger intellectual grasp of the market.
I imagine many people know the rules of how to trade the MACD, but how many can actually proclaim they know what it has to the underlying reason for the price movement? No too many.
While these kind of indicators may seem like a fast way to learn the markets, the truth is you're not really learning anything about the market. You're just using an indicator as a translator. The translator is the indicator interpreting the market and reading it back to you. This may seem like a great thing, but it is doing you a great disservice.
YOU should be the translator. The market shouldn't have to be translated for you. It's like going to live in a foreign country for a year. You could probably always find somebody who spoke English, but to really be able to live and enjoy the culture, you are going to have to learn to speak the language. It's the same case with trading forex. Except the language you have to learn is price action.
The first thing you need to do to learn this new language is get rid of all your indicators that you use to trade with. Don't leave a single one. You're only cheating yourself. Then, pick a currency and just watch it for the day.
Pessimists probably think that doing this will not lead to anything, but if you take the time to do this , you'll start to notice that price patterns can be repeated and forecasted. This is the real holy grail.
If you don't believe this is possible, just Google Jesse Livermore. He is a famous stock trader from the early 1900s who was able to become rich just by trading the price action on the market floor. If he could trade price action without even using a chart, you have no excuse.
All you have to do is look in any forex forum to know that's true. Think about what you normally see in these forums. It's always about some incredible system that's covered with indicators or they are talking about a magical forex expert advisor that's basically automating the process for them.
Can you tell what's wrong with all of this?
Off the top of their head they should realize that all these indicators like moving averages or stochastics are always lagging. They are great if you want to know what has already happened, but it provides no ability to forecast future prices.
The other thing that these traders need to understand is that 95% of all forex traders lose money. If that's the case why would you want to be doing the same exact thing that every other struggling trader is doing?
Think about this logically. Most of the forex traders you see in forums are usually struggling. If they weren't, then why would they be in a forum? The successful forex traders are usually to busy paying attention to the market that they don't have time to spend in a forum.
What's bigger than ever now are these forex expert advisors. If you don't know what a forex expert advisor is, they are basically automated trading robots. Developers are able to program a trading system using lagging indicators so that these robots trade for you while you're not there.
You can see why this would be right up the alley of a new trader. After all who wouldn't want the ability to come and go as you please. You can go anywhere you want and in the meantime this robot is going to make you rich, right? Actually that's not the way it works.
With Forex Expert Advisors, you're asking a computer to do something that 95% of forex traders can't even do. If you know anything about the forex markets, you know that news can really move the markets in a big way. Even more so than any other markets. How is a computer going to account for that.
For those that want to have a deeper understanding of the market then, I recommend you get rid of all your indicators and start trading the markets on a clean chart. Just follow the price action. See if you can start to notice patterns that are always happening. These are the kind of patterns you need to focus on, because this is how you forecast future prices.
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