Okay, you guys I’m sorry this is so long and the formatting is messed up, this is my first time writing on Reddit, but PLEASE strap on with ya girl through this rollercoaster of my SO’s family, I just need an ear to vent to for a while.
So I’m a 22yo Black American and my SO is a 27yo Nigerian who’s been in America for a going on 6 years now. We’ve been knowing each other maybe 4 years but we’ve only been together for 2, because I moved away for college to California (my home state) from Houston (my mom is a traveling nurse so I use to move around all the time as a kid.) But throughout this time, we always talked, even argued a bit but he was always “the one that got away” for me. So during this time we both got into shitty relationships that caused us to both look at ourselves, take accountability where it was needed and grow from the situation. Maybe 6 months after my relationship with my ex, my SO calls me and we get back talking and he flies my out to meet him, and the rest has been history. I left school on my third year and became a housewife for my SO (he’s a traveling wind turbine technician, so yeah I’m still everywhere.)
So here’s where shit gets real. So keep in mind how I told you he was Nigerian and I was Black American (apparently 2 different races) Yeah so, his mom met me for the first time, this lady was exceptionally nice, I felt like we even bonded over the fact that we freaking look alike. I mean if we were to go to outside of her house together people would just believe that she was my mom, not the other way around. So we meet this first time (this was like 2 years ago so strap in baby, I’m about to give you the full jist) and I personally believed things went great until maybe a few weeks after that, her and my SO have an argument and she tells him that I’m going to trap him into being a baby father because I’m an Akata (Akata = Africans slur towards black Americans) (SN: If this heifer would have even TRIED to get to know me she would know I don’t even want no damn kids, UGH) But she says all this and my SO takes up for me then hangs up on her, not even a week later this horrible retched human being calls and just acts like nothing happened. My SO was just like whatever cause at this point every time they would get on the phone they would argue so he didn’t want to feel like the person constantly bringing the static.
So we were paying their rent ($1890) while his mom was going to school to be a nurse, (she’s 64) under the stipulation that this would stop as soon as she got a job. So she got a job, told us we didn’t have to worry about paying the rent anymore, then called us 2 freaking days before their rent was do to tell us she couldn’t afford it. So we paid it again, and this went on for 5 months after. Until my SO just told her no more. After we paid her rent for the last time, we told her it was the last time and she would need to figure herself out. I mean she has a husband that doesn’t work, he takes her money and spends it on stocks and forex, he will win a little but the will loose everything EVERY FREAKING TIME and this lady still gives him her money.
Okay so the second time I went over was after being called a baby mama but before we stopped paying the rent, and I am just like it’s my SO family I’m going to try and show them me, and let them see who I am. But literally on our way to his house his older sister, who I hadn’t met before this, calls and tells him that we shouldn’t stay at his house because we’re not married. So we say whatever to that even though we were paying rent, and we bought a hotel. So once we get to Houston we go to the hotel and then his mom calls and asks where we are and my SO tells her we came to a hotel because of what his sister said. Then his mom tells his is sister doesn’t run nothing so come there, he tries to be like no it’s fine we’ll stay here to keep the peace, this lady literally breaks down crying so my SO is like okay okay we’ll go, so the next day we went, and went we fucking did. Literally as soon as we walked in and got the pleasantries over and then sit down to eat lunch, they began talking shit about this other family that moved from Nigeria to California but couldn’t stay there because it was too expensive and they had to move to Houston. They were saying things like the other family is stupid, they should be able to stay anywhere “I mean it’s America”, how could they not afford their rent (while me and my SO are paying their rent), things like that. So being from California myself I took it upon myself to take up for this other family and explain to his family that staying in California is ALOT different from staying in Houston, from gas prices to rent prices to even cleanliness, it’s a whole different space. So from me saying that his sister began to straight up argue with me about this, she was speaking over me, not letting me finish, everything I hate in an argument and the whole time I sat their and tried to get my point across as best I could without being the loud ghetto black girl, and I applaud myself for this because MY OWN FAMILY don’t even speak to me the way his family has. (I’m literally shaking as I’m writing this OMG I HATE THESE PEOPLE) His sister was saying things like, she can’t stay in a place in CALIFORNIA where people in her apartment building are sagging, she would go to the mid level worker, IN FUCKING CALIFORNIA, and figure out what they do to make it and she would still be there chugging on along. Even after I tried to explain to this girl over and over again that’s not how life works, especially not in California, she still didn’t get it, so my SO just calmed the situation and we went up to his room. After a couple of minutes I left outta his room to go to the restroom and this same bitch that I just met for the first time and got yelled at by over shit she didn’t even know about, who also told my SO that I shouldn’t go to their family house because we’re not married, she asks me if I’m comfortable there. In order to hold myself from cussing her the fuck out. I literally just look at her and kept walking to the bathroom. So on the same trip, one of his mother’s older friends came over (to get FOR FREE NOW my SO old fucked up car because she didn’t have one) and we were cleaning the kitchen because we had a little pressure cooker mishap, so my SO was doing something and this lady was talking to her sons in their language and then says Akata to her sons, I didn’t think anything of it I’m just like whatever she not be talking about me. But as she was leaving this lady gave me the deadliest look, so hard my SO was like okay bye now to get her attention off of me, cause I just smiled at her, (old bitter bitches can’t break my happiness.) So after they leave my SO is like WTF was that and I told him how I also heard her say Akata and he’s pretty pissed I didn’t say anything while she was there, but was like whatever I will tell my mom. We tell his mom, and she is just like, no I don’t believe she would do that, and just left it at that. Yeah so that was my last time going there for a long while.
During me not going my SO didn’t go either because this man would legit loose his head if I didn’t always keep it in purse. This is when we stopped paying the rent and the arguments started as well. (SN: We smoke marijuana and that’s a problem for his family as well (he smoked weed before we even met), his family LITERALLY have called us druggies on multiple occasions, while still asking us for money. What kind of druggies would you ask for money?) So yeah now I have caught up to year 20 fucking 20. During our hiatus from Houston, my SO was keeping in small contact with his family and I have always kept in contact with his little sister, she would call me and we would literally be on the phone for hours but that slowed up a lot and and so did his family from telling us their hardships, so in our minds everything was chill, they were learning we have our own minds and way of living and they were becoming okay with it. THE FUCKING LIES I THOUGHT. Nope the whole time they were just talking shit about us behind our backs and then come and ask us for shit. CRAY.
So my SO has stuff that we just left at her house because he is a traveling wind turbine technician and we literally just didn’t have anywhere to put them, he had another car in her garage and we had like clothes and just things from other apartments and places we’ve been and we just couldn’t keep taking it around with us. So his mom said something about them moving houses and us having to come and get our stuff. Totally fine so we make plans and literally the next weekend we’re there grabbing our stuff. When we get there his mom then tells him there not gonna move so he can keep stuff there, so we’re like whatever because we were already having problems with the storages, so we just took his little sister driving and then I went shopping while they stayed back in the hotel to play VR and talk. I wasn’t there for this talk but from what my SO told me, his little sister was mad about the way he speaks to his mom, she was telling him her health is bad so he shouldn’t be yelling at her and all of this other stuff and he replied with something to the effect of if she’s doing fucked up things in front of y’all, why is no one else yelling. (I haven’t said what they have been arguing about because it’s a lot of different BS but it always has something to do with his mom chasing money and forgetting logic.) But they have a whole conversation about it or whatever and he tells me that his little sister was agreeing with what he was saying and everything.
But the next day when we went to his house to grab our stuff, we realize it’s the complete opposite. I didn’t go in with him first off because I went shopping the day before and I had HELLA bags and shit the back of our truck so I had to move stuff around and make it neat so we could add the stuff from the house. During this time, unbeknownst to me, his little sister and mom are in the back arguing to my SO about who? ME! Saying things like I’m low class, dirty, I didn’t know how to pronounce the name of my university (?????), and that I have no ambition because I don’t have a job. They also talk about us smoking weed and then his little sister (16f) asked my SO what are your 10 year goals. Like WHAT?!?!?!? So after I finish moving all of this stuff I go into the house and the “daddy” then tells me to go to the back room cause that’s where everyone is. I had no idea what was going on and as soon as I walked inside of the room everyone stopped and looked at me. I could tell me SO was pissed but I thought their conversation was about what him and his little sister were talking about the night prior. So when I walk in his mom begins saying her greeting and then complimenting me on my clothes and I then told her how I sewed them myself because I learned how to sew recently, (this whole no ambition thing really fucks me up because I literally know so many skills, I don’t have to pay anyone to do anything for me, from my hair to my fucking acrylics to building furniture, it’s really fucking asinine to me.) So after all of the pleasantries are done, my SO begins helping his dad move stuff around and his mom begins to talk to me about smoking weed. At this point, I was still on the let me respect this old bitch level not knowing what was said about me seconds before. So I let her go on and on, with just a few things where I was like wait but that’s not right and then she would then go on and on on how it was right, when all of her explanations were stupid, and to just keep the peace I just kept saying yes ma’am, okay, all of that. When I say dumb shit I mean dumb shit she was telling me how we shouldn’t be eating out all of the time, when the only time we eat out is when we’re in Houston because knowing that I’m vegetarian they still cook everything with meat so I have to go buy food,which is fine, but don’t then hold it against me you insane crazy crazy bitch. She was even talking shit about my SO about how he is like the bad child, when his brother literally smokes weed too but he’s just too much of a pussy to say anything. So finally we leave, and then my SO tells me about all of this, it’s a 7 hour drive back to where he is stationed and the WHOLE drive I was yelling, I literally lost my voice.
So at this point, I am just like fuck it, I need to state my peace. Again I will tell y’all MY OWN FAMILY knows better!!! I can’t allow somebody else’s family to treat me nor my man no type of way. Not at all. So two weeks later (literally last weekend) we go back to Houston once and for all to get all of our shit, move his car and cuss them the fuck out. So when we get to his house we just get busy getting out shit cause him mom wasn’t getting off work until the next day.
So we get the stuff and come back the next day and here is again where shit gets the mostest realest OMG!!!! OMG!!! So we get there right before they’re leaving for church, give them little pleasantries or whatever and then we get down to business, my SO started then tossed the mic to me, so I begin VERY VERY calm and started to tell her how my SO told me what they have been saying and I don’t believe it’s right for them to just make assumptions about me without knowing me. This insane crazy bitch, tells me she doesn’t care about me because I’m not her child or her concern. And I say well why have you been talking about me. This woman says she doesn’t remember saying anything and for ME to tell her what she has said. So I was like well for starters you said I was going to make my SO into a baby father. She says, I don’t remember that, and after both my SO and I say YES YOU DID. She says Well it’s true.... (WTFFFFFFF I DONT HAVE CHILDREN I SWEAR I DO NOT HAVE A CHIL) At this point all calm is out, I’m yelling BITCH I DONT HAVE NO KIDS CRAZY, and I also begin walking toward her, now I’m not gonna hit this old ass bitch I just wanna yell in her face a little. And she starts saying oh are you gonna hit me and all of this and by this time I feel like I blacked out because I honestly have no idea what I was saying but I know I called her an old dumb bitch multiple times. But my SO comes in as I’m walking up to her and calms me down so I shut my lips and just let him go in. She was talking shit about me not having a job, he started talking about her husband, his dad, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, calling him a deadbeat because he doesn’t have a job and literally doesn’t do shit and he wastes her money while I save my SO money. His dad literally didn’t do shit. His mom said she was gonna call the police my SO said he will call immigration (his daddy have literally been in this country illegally for over 10 years and she mad that we smoking weed, the fucking nerve.) So through all of my SO yelling and stuff we moved locations into the entryway and she’s telling us to get out but my SO is getting out everything that he’s been feeling. In the fucking mist of them arguing, she’s yelling as well, she begins to pull down her fucking panties (I am just a bystander at this point and I’m listening to the argument and once the panties began coming off, I swear to GOD it was was like a fucking car crash, I couldn’t look away. My brain was trying it’s fucking damnedest to make sense out of fucking nonsense.) This woman strips out of her fucking panties, lays flat backed on the fucking ground and spread fucking eagle shows me and my SO her puss. She literally starts smacking her puss while yelling to my SO that he came out of there. YAAAALLLLLL!!!! In all of this my SO is still yelling, he just turns his head to the side to where he can’t see her and just keeps going. After about 5 more minutes of her standing up then laying back down to show puss, I just told my SO let’s go and we walked out, with her yelling at ME, not to come back to her house. The next day his sister calls him and says their mom said he took me over their house to fight her, she even tells his sister that she showed us her puss, and his sister calls him asks him what happened and he starts telling her and she says well you are a druggie, nothing about the old bitch pussy popping for her son and his girlfriend. He hangs up in her face once she made the druggie comment cause honestly you’re insane if you’re mad at your brother for smoking a little weed but not your mom for popping pussy.
These are just tips of the iceberg moments, not even everything I have went through in these SMALL 2 years. I don’t know how to finish this up other than, just pray for me and my SO.

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So suppose I enter a buy trade on a currency with a 3:1 RR. Over the week The price constantly fluctuates between the tp and sl but never hits either. What are the disadvantages of holding that position. Baby pips glossed over swap fees but I couldn’t quite get a good grasp of how they work. I’m assuming they are broker specific but still a general explanation would be much appreciated. Also if a trade does this to you...how long will you hold on the trade, do u pull out with a little profit or stick to your strategy. I mean if u are trading a respectable lot size using leverage it’s not technically ur money so how do u figure out if it’s worth holding the trade regarding the fees to hold the trade.
Also they talked about earning interest if the currency u hold has a higher monetary rate or something . Is that a portion of forex where people profit off too or am I overthinking all this. Thank you for reading this newbie shitpost.

Good day!
Would like to seek advice. I have invested in a certain group of forex traders which gives you a certain percentage of your investment every month. In the end of contract you should have received all the promised returns + the original capital, more or less doubling your money.
My experience so far has been positive and didn't experienced any delays and fully received all agreed returns + initial investment.
I would love to invest again because it is passive income. My only concern is it has been flagged by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) as illegal and any person involved might be at risked to be investigated by BIR or worse, imprisonment.
The forex group's explanation is that 1) their name was used by a third party and they were wrongfully accused and 2) PH does not recognize forex trading yet and they are legit in the other country they are operating in.
​
I trust a lot of people involved with them that is why I was not hesitant in investing the first time. Just want to hear some thoughts from a separate entity. Especially how the PH government recognizes forex trading in general. And help me clear my doubts in investing again.
​
Thank you!

I want to tell you quickly the nightmare I'm going through.
First, the client service is... Non existent. Let me repeat, no one will help you. I sent approximately 10 emails in a week, I had two automatic replies spewing the same nonsensical pre programed gibberish. The chat doesn't work. I waited hours, no one ever responded to my request. They did once when I had an issue with currencies, and they actually made me open a forex position, while there was a conversion tool...
Now with regards to the phone service. You have to wait approximately one hour before someone picks up. They are arrogant, useless and impersonal. Yesterday for example I bounced back and forth between three different people, each having no idea what was my request. The past weeks, after hours and hours on the line, no one could help me or even listen to me without interrupting me.
I have been waiting for ten days now to have the options '' granted ''. This broker feels like they are your university teachers that take your money but won't help you even if their lives depended on it. I still cannot use options, bonds, futures. Just stocks.
Also, very often I don't receive the text or phone call to log in to the platform. I waited 2h the other day before I could log in.
You have to update the page constantly because nothing is loading. Your balance or other information won't appear.
The orders appear and disappear without explanation, sometimes I have to place an order 2 or 3 times before it's there.
The interface looks like a software from the 90's, unusable and frankly it hurts my eyes. It needs a serious update.
In ten days I haven't been able to trade one day. I made a couple thousands with my paper account, and I wish I could have done that with my real money account.
I'm switching to Degiro, waiting for the paperwork to be done.
You can find similar experiences all over the Internet.
Don't give them commissions, I dearly regret using this fraud of a broker.

Someone posted on here a few days ago asking about forex and forex trading in Kenya, I have gone through the responses and clearly, most people don’t have an idea. It is 3am in the morning and am in a good mood so let me make this post. This will be a comprehensive and lengthy post so grab a pen and paper and sit down. We’ll be here a while.
FIRST OF ALL, who am I..?
I am a forex trader, in Nairobi, Kenya..i have been actively involved in forex since I found out about it in Feb 2016 when I somehow ended up in a wealth creation seminar (lol) in pride inn Westlands, the one close to Mpaka Rd. Luckily for me, it was not one of those AIM global meetings or I’d be on Facebook selling God knows what those guys sell. I did not take it seriously till August of the same year and I have been active ever since.
I don’t teach, mentor or sell a course or signals, I trade my own money. I am also posting from a throwaway account because I don’t want KRA on my ass.
What the fuck is forex and forex trading.
In simple plain English, forex is like the stock market but for currencies. Stock Market = Shares, forex = currencies. If you want more in-depth explanation, google is your friend.
These currencies are pegged on specific countries, united states- dollar, UK- pound, euro zone- euro, Switzerland- Swiss franc, Kenya- Kenya shilling.. you get the point. Now, there are specific events and happenings between these economies that affect the movement and values of the currencies, driving their value (purchasing power up and down). Forex trading exploits these movements to make money. When the value is going up, we buy and vice versa (down –sell)
Is forex trading illegal in Kenya? Is it a scam?
Illegal, no. scam, no. All the banks in the world do it (KCB made about 4 billion from trading forex in 2019)
Have there been scams involving forex in Kenya?
Yes. Here is one that happened recently. This one is the most infamous one yet. Best believe that this is not the end of these type of scams because the stupidity, greed and gullibility of human beings is unfathomable.
However, by the end of this post, I hope you won’t fall for such silliness.
What next how do I make it work..?
Am glad you asked. Generally, there are two ways to go about it. One, you teach yourself. This is the equivalent of stealing our dad’s car and hoping that the pedal you hit is the brake and not the accelerator. It is the route I took, it is the most rewarding and a huge ego boost when you finally make it on your own. Typically, this involves scouring the internet for hours upon hours going down rabbit holes, thinking you have made it telling all your friends how you will be a millionaire then losing all your money. Some people do not have the stomach for that.
The second route is more practical, structured and smarter.
First Learn the basics. There is a free online forex course at www.babypips.com/learn/forex this is merely an introductory course. Basically it is learning the parts of a car before they let you inside the car.
Second, start building your strategy. By the time you are done with the babypips, you will have a feel of what the forex market is, what interests you, etc. Tip..Babypips has a lot of garbage. It is good for introductory purposes but not good for much else, pick whatever stick to you or jumps at you the first time. Nonsense like indicators should be ignored.
The next step is now the most important. Developing the skill and building your strategy. As a beginner, you want to exhaust your naivety before jumping into the more advanced stuff. Eg can you identify a trend, what is a pair, what is position sizing, what is metatrader 4 and how to operate it, what news is good for a currency, when can I trade, what are the different trading sessions, what is technical analysis, what is market sentiment, what are bullish conditions what is emotion management, how does my psychology affect my trading (more on this later) an I a swing, scalper or day trader etc
Mentors and forex courses.. you have probably seen people advertising how they can teach and mentor you on how to trade forex and charging so much money for it. Somehow it seems that these people are focused on the teaching than the trading. Weird, right..? Truth is trading is hard, teaching not quite. A common saying in the industry is “Those who can’t trade, teach” you want to avoid all these gurus on Facebook and Instagram, some are legit but most are not. Sifting the wheat from the chaff is hard but I did that for you. The info is available online on YouTube, telegram channels etc. am not saying not to spend money on a course, if you find a mentor whose style resonates with you and the course is reasonably priced, please, go ahead and buy..it will cut your learning curve in half. People are different. What worked for me might not work for you.
Here are some nice YouTube channels to watch. These guys are legit..

1. Sam sieden
   
2. Cuebanks
   
3. TheCoinFx
   
4. The trading channel
   
5. Astro
   
6. Forex family
   
7. Wicksdontlie
   

Advanced stuff

1. ICT

After a short period of time, you will be able to sniff out bs teachers with relative ease. You will also discover some of your own and expand the list. Two tips, start with the oldest videos first and whichever of these resonates with you, stick with till the wheels fall off.
How long will it take until things start making sense
Give yourself time to grow and learn. This is all new to you and you are allowed to make mistakes, to fail and discover yourself. Realistically, depending on the effort you put in, you will not start seeing results until after 6 months. Could take longeshorter so there is no guarantee.
Social media, Mentality, Psychology and Books
Online, forex trading might not have the best reputation online because it takes hard work and scammers and gurus give it a bad name. However, try to not get sucked into the Instagram trader lifestyle as it is nowhere close to what the reality is. You will not make millions tomorrow or the day after, you might never even make it in this market. But that is the reality of life. Nothing is promised, nothing is guaranteed.
Your mentality, beliefs and ego will be challenged in this market. You will learn things that will make you blood boil, you will ask yourself daily, how is this possible, why don’t they teach this in school..bla bla bla..it will be hard but growth is painful, if it wasn’t we’d all be billionaires. Take a break, take a walk, drink a glass of whatever you like or roll one..detox. Chill with your girl (or man) Gradually you will develop mental toughness that will set you up for life. Personally, I sorta ditched religion and picked up stoicism. Whatever works for you.
Psychology, this is unfortunately one of the most neglected aspects of your personal development in this journey. Do you believe in yourself? Can you stand by your convictions when everyone is against you? Can you get up every day uncertain of the future? There will be moments where you will question yourself, am I even doing the right thing? the right way? It is normal and essential for your growth. People who played competitive sports have a natural advantage here. Remember the game is first won in your head then on the pitch.
Books: ironically, books that helped me the most were the mindset books, Think and grow rich, trading for a living, 4 hour work week, the monk who sold his Ferrari..just google mindset and psychology books, most trading books are garbage. Watch and listen to people who have made it in the investing business. Ray Dalio, warren, Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn.
This is turning out to be lengthier than I anticipated so I’ll try to be brief for the remaining parts.
Brokers
You will need to open up an account with a broker. Get a broker who is regulated. Australian ones (IC Market and Pepperstone) are both legit, reliable and regulated. Do your research. I’d avoid local ones because I’ve heard stories of wide spreads and liquidity problems. International brokers have never failed me. There are plenty brokers, there is no one size fits all recommendation. If it ain’t broke..don’t fix it.
Money transfer.
All brokers accept wire transfers, you might need to call your bank to authorize that, avoid Equity bank. Stanchart and Stanbic are alright. Large withdrawals $10k+ you will have to call them prior. Get Skrill and Neteller if you don’t like banks like me, set up a Bitcoin wallet for faster withdrawals, (Payoneer and Paypal are accepted by some brokers, just check with them.)
How much money can I make..?
I hate this question because people have perceived ceilings of income in their minds, eg 1 million ksh is too much to make per month or 10,000ksh is too little. Instead, work backwards. What % return did I make this month/ on this trade. Safaricom made 19.5% last year, if you make 20% you have outperformed them. If you reach of consistency where you can make x% per month on whatever money you have, then there are no limits to how much you can make.
How much money do I need to start with..?
Zero. You have all the resources above, go forth. There are brokers who provide free bonuses and withdraw-able profits. However, to make a fulltime income you will need some serious cash. Generally, 50,000 kes. You can start lower or higher but if you need say 20k to live comfortably and that is a 10% return per month, then you can do the math on how big your account should be. Of course things like compound interest come into play but that is dependent on your skill level. I have seen people do spectacular things with very little funds.
Taxes..?
Talk to a lawyer or an accountant. I am neither.
Family? Friends?
Unfortunately, people will not understand why you spend hundreds of hours watching strangers on the internet so it is best to keep it from them. Eventually you will make it work and they will come to your corner talking about how they always knew you’d make it.
The journey will be lonely, make some trading buddies along the way. You’d be surprised at how easy it is when people are united by their circumstances (and stupidity) I have guys who are my bros from South Africa and Lebanon who I have never met but we came up together and are now homies. Join forums, ask questions and grow. That is the only way to learn. Ideally, a group of 5-10 friends committed to learning and growth is the best model. Pushing each other to grow and discovering together.
Forex is real and you can do amazing things with it. It is not a get rich quick scheme. If you want a quick guaranteed income, get a job.
And now it is 5am, fuck.
This is oversimplified and leaves out many many aspects.
Happy to answer any questions.

1. Record News Articles. Then you read through the news articles and save the key phrases,

paragraphs, quotes, etc, that give you insight into the markets expectations, sentiment, global
macro, etc, and then input these input your currency specific master file.
​

1. Record Propriety News Impact Releases Method and input into your currency specific file.

​

1. Record impact of any other intraday events which were not on calendar which moved the

market and input into the currency specific file using the news impact release method if possible.
​

1. Record any key phrases and information released on IFR, forexlive, etc that gives you insights

into market expectations, sentiment, global macro, etc, and input into currency specific file. The
daily recap of the news articles will give you a very nice overview of what happened. However, I
usually like to quickly view the IFR and scroll through the news to see if there was anything
important that was said by an important official, etc. Or if the daily news articles do not give me
sufficient meaning as to why price did what it did for the day, then I can go to IFR to read some
of their explanations to see if I agree with their story and scenarios for the market. Again, any
important information I record it into my currency master files.

1. Label the stops and option barrier levels on your chart and set price alerts to the two closest

ones – one to the topside and one for the downside. Then once one of those gets triggered, you
just reset the price alert to the next closest stop/barrier level. Check the stop hunting section to
learn how to locate the stops.

1. Use your currency master file to perform deep scenario analysis.
   
2. Create an order flow generator list and trigger sheet. Bullish and Bearish triggers and
   

generators for each currency / financial instrument. What is the market pricing in. What will
shatter those expectations. I have provided you Order Flow Generators for each currency in
a separate lesson. There can be similarities between the different currencies.

1. Prepare for next days news. Use your currency master file which should contain the history of

news impacts that you have recorded in order to determine which reports are important and
which ones are meaningless and you should not spend your time on. See the news trading
section for explanations on how to know which news releases are important.

1. Prepare a Correlation Analysis / Sensitivity Sheet.
   
2. Learn about one new order flow generator and/or scenario per day either from forex, or
   

bonds, futures, stocks, commodities, etc. Can be super simple or complicated mix of
participants.

Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. I have no idea what I'm doing. Please do your own research or you will certainly lose money. I'm not a statistician, data scientist, well-seasoned trader, or anything else that would qualify me to make statements such as the below with any weight behind them. Take them for the incoherent ramblings that they are.
TL;DR at the bottom for those not interested in the details.
This is a bit of a novel, sorry about that. It was mostly for getting my own thoughts organized, but if even one person reads the whole thing I will feel incredibly accomplished.

Background

For those of you not familiar, please see the various threads on this trading system here. I can't take credit for this system, all glory goes to ParallaxFX!
I wanted to see how effective this system was at H1 for a couple of reasons: 1) My current broker is TD Ameritrade - their Forex minimum is a mini lot, and I don't feel comfortable enough yet with the risk to trade mini lots on the higher timeframes(i.e. wider pip swings) that ParallaxFX's system uses, so I wanted to see if I could scale it down. 2) I'm fairly impatient, so I don't like to wait days and days with my capital tied up just to see if a trade is going to win or lose.
This does mean it requires more active attention since you are checking for setups once an hour instead of once a day or every 4-6 hours, but the upside is that you trade more often this way so you end up winning or losing faster and moving onto the next trade. Spread does eat more of the trade this way, but I'll cover this in my data below - it ends up not being a problem.
I looked at data from 6/11 to 7/3 on all pairs with a reasonable spread(pairs listed at bottom above the TL;DR). So this represents about 3-4 weeks' worth of trading. I used mark(mid) price charts. Spreadsheet link is below for anyone that's interested.

System Details

I'm pretty much using ParallaxFX's system textbook, but since there are a few options in his writeups, I'll include all the discretionary points here:

• I'm using the stop entry version - so I wait for the price to trade beyond the confirmation candle(in the direction of my trade) before entering. I don't have any data to support this decision, but I've always preferred this method over retracement-limit entries. Maybe I just like the feeling of a higher winrate even though there can be greater R:R using a limit entry. Variety is the spice of life.
• I put my stop loss right at the opposite edge of the confirmation candle. NOT at the edge of the 2-candle pattern that makes up the system. I'll get into this more below - not enough trades are saved to justify the wider stops. (Wider stop means less $ per pip won, assuming you still only risk 1%).
• All my profit/loss statistics are based on a 1% risk per trade. Because 1 is real easy to multiply.
• There are definitely some questionable trades in here, but I tried to make it as mechanical as possible for evaluation purposes. They do fit the definitions of the system, which is why I included them. You could probably improve the winrate by being more discretionary about your trades by looking at support/resistance or other techniques.
• I didn't use MBB much for either entering trades, or as support/resistance indicators. Again, trying to be pretty mechanical here just for data collection purposes. Plus, we all make bad trading decisions now and then, so let's call it even.
• As stated in the title, this is for H1 only. These results may very well not play out for other time frames - who knows, it may not even work on H1 starting this Monday. Forex is an unpredictable place.
• I collected data to show efficacy of taking profit at three different levels: -61.8%, -100% and -161.8% fib levels described in the system using the passive trade management method(set it and forget it). I'll have more below about moving up stops and taking off portions of a position.

And now for the fun. Results!

• Total Trades: 241
• Raw Winrates:
  • TP at -61.8%: 177 out of 241: 73.44%
  • TP at -100%: 156 out of 241: 64.73%
  • TP at -161.8%: 121 out of 241: 50.20%
• Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account):
  • TP at -61.8%: 5.22%
  • TP at -100%: 23.55%
  • TP at -161.8%: 29.14%

As you can see, a higher target ended up with higher profit despite a much lower winrate. This is partially just how things work out with profit targets in general, but there's an additional point to consider in our case: the spread. Since we are trading on a lower timeframe, there is less overall price movement and thus the spread takes up a much larger percentage of the trade than it would if you were trading H4, Daily or Weekly charts. You can see exactly how much it accounts for each trade in my spreadsheet if you're interested. TDA does not have the best spreads, so you could probably improve these results with another broker.
EDIT: I grabbed typical spreads from other brokers, and turns out while TDA is pretty competitive on majors, their minors/crosses are awful! IG beats them by 20-40% and Oanda beats them 30-60%! Using IG spreads for calculations increased profits considerably (another 5% on top) and Oanda spreads increased profits massively (another 15%!). Definitely going to be considering another broker than TDA for this strategy. Plus that'll allow me to trade micro-lots, so I can be more granular(and thus accurate) with my position sizing and compounding.

A Note on Spread

As you can see in the data, there were scenarios where the spread was 80% of the overall size of the trade(the size of the confirmation candle that you draw your fibonacci retracements over), which would obviously cut heavily into your profits.
Removing any trades where the spread is more than 50% of the trade width improved profits slightly without removing many trades, but this is almost certainly just coincidence on a small sample size. Going below 40% and even down to 30% starts to cut out a lot of trades for the less-common pairs, but doesn't actually change overall profits at all(~1% either way).
However, digging all the way down to 25% starts to really make some movement. Profit at the -161.8% TP level jumps up to 37.94% if you filter out anything with a spread that is more than 25% of the trade width! And this even keeps the sample size fairly large at 187 total trades.
You can get your profits all the way up to 48.43% at the -161.8% TP level if you filter all the way down to only trades where spread is less than 15% of the trade width, however your sample size gets much smaller at that point(108 trades) so I'm not sure I would trust that as being accurate in the long term.
Overall based on this data, I'm going to only take trades where the spread is less than 25% of the trade width. This may bias my trades more towards the majors, which would mean a lot more correlated trades as well(more on correlation below), but I think it is a reasonable precaution regardless.

Time of Day

Time of day had an interesting effect on trades. In a totally predictable fashion, a vast majority of setups occurred during the London and New York sessions: 5am-12pm Eastern. However, there was one outlier where there were many setups on the 11PM bar - and the winrate was about the same as the big hours in the London session. No idea why this hour in particular - anyone have any insight? That's smack in the middle of the Tokyo/Sydney overlap, not at the open or close of either.
On many of the hour slices I have a feeling I'm just dealing with small number statistics here since I didn't have a lot of data when breaking it down by individual hours. But here it is anyway - for all TP levels, these three things showed up(all in Eastern time):

• 7pm-4am: Fewer setups, but winrate high.
• 5am-6am: Lots of setups, but but winrate low.
• 12pm-3pm Medium number of setups, but winrate low.

I don't have any reason to think these timeframes would maintain this behavior over the long term. They're almost certainly meaningless. EDIT: When you de-dup highly correlated trades, the number of trades in these timeframes really drops, so from this data there is no reason to think these timeframes would be any different than any others in terms of winrate.
That being said, these time frames work out for me pretty well because I typically sleep 12am-7am Eastern time. So I automatically avoid the 5am-6am timeframe, and I'm awake for the majority of this system's setups.

Moving stops up to breakeven

This section goes against everything I know and have ever heard about trade management. Please someone find something wrong with my data. I'd love for someone to check my formulas, but I realize that's a pretty insane time commitment to ask of a bunch of strangers.
Anyways. What I found was that for these trades moving stops up...basically at all...actually reduced the overall profitability.
One of the data points I collected while charting was where the price retraced back to after hitting a certain milestone. i.e. once the price hit the -61.8% profit level, how far back did it retrace before hitting the -100% profit level(if at all)? And same goes for the -100% profit level - how far back did it retrace before hitting the -161.8% profit level(if at all)?
Well, some complex excel formulas later and here's what the results appear to be. Emphasis on appears because I honestly don't believe it. I must have done something wrong here, but I've gone over it a hundred times and I can't find anything out of place.

• Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%
  • Winrate: 46.4%
  • Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 5.36%
• Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%
  • Winrate: 65.97%
  • Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): -1.01% (yes, a net loss)

Now, you might think exactly what I did when looking at these numbers: oof, the spread killed us there right? Because even when you move your SL to 0%, you still end up paying the spread, so it's not truly "breakeven". And because we are trading on a lower timeframe, the spread can be pretty hefty right?
Well even when I manually modified the data so that the spread wasn't subtracted(i.e. "Breakeven" was truly +/- 0), things don't look a whole lot better, and still way worse than the passive trade management method of leaving your stops in place and letting it run. And that isn't even a realistic scenario because to adjust out the spread you'd have to move your stoploss inside the candle edge by at least the spread amount, meaning it would almost certainly be triggered more often than in the data I collected(which was purely based on the fib levels and mark price). Regardless, here are the numbers for that scenario:

• Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%
  • Winrate(breakeven doesn't count as a win): 46.4%
  • Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 17.97%
• Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%
  • Winrate(breakeven doesn't count as a win): 65.97%
  • Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 11.60%

From a literal standpoint, what I see behind this behavior is that 44 of the 69 breakeven trades(65%!) ended up being profitable to -100% after retracing deeply(but not to the original SL level), which greatly helped offset the purely losing trades better than the partial profit taken at -61.8%. And 36 went all the way back to -161.8% after a deep retracement without hitting the original SL. Anyone have any insight into this? Is this a problem with just not enough data? It seems like enough trades that a pattern should emerge, but again I'm no expert.
I also briefly looked at moving stops to other lower levels (78.6%, 61.8%, 50%, 38.2%, 23.6%), but that didn't improve things any. No hard data to share as I only took a quick look - and I still might have done something wrong overall.
The data is there to infer other strategies if anyone would like to dig in deep(more explanation on the spreadsheet below). I didn't do other combinations because the formulas got pretty complicated and I had already answered all the questions I was looking to answer.

2-Candle vs Confirmation Candle Stops

Another interesting point is that the original system has the SL level(for stop entries) just at the outer edge of the 2-candle pattern that makes up the system. Out of pure laziness, I set up my stops just based on the confirmation candle. And as it turns out, that is much a much better way to go about it.
Of the 60 purely losing trades, only 9 of them(15%) would go on to be winners with stops on the 2-candle formation. Certainly not enough to justify the extra loss and/or reduced profits you are exposing yourself to in every single other trade by setting a wider SL.
Oddly, in every single scenario where the wider stop did save the trade, it ended up going all the way to the -161.8% profit level. Still, not nearly worth it.

Correlated Trades

As I've said many times now, I'm really not qualified to be doing an analysis like this. This section in particular.
Looking at shared currency among the pairs traded, 74 of the trades are correlated. Quite a large group, but it makes sense considering the sort of moves we're looking for with this system.
This means you are opening yourself up to more risk if you were to trade on every signal since you are technically trading with the same underlying sentiment on each different pair. For example, GBP/USD and AUD/USD moving together almost certainly means it's due to USD moving both pairs, rather than GBP and AUD both moving the same size and direction coincidentally at the same time. So if you were to trade both signals, you would very likely win or lose both trades - meaning you are actually risking double what you'd normally risk(unless you halve both positions which can be a good option, and is discussed in ParallaxFX's posts and in various other places that go over pair correlation. I won't go into detail about those strategies here).
Interestingly though, 17 of those apparently correlated trades ended up with different wins/losses.
Also, looking only at trades that were correlated, winrate is 83%/70%/55% (for the three TP levels).
Does this give some indication that the same signal on multiple pairs means the signal is stronger? That there's some strong underlying sentiment driving it? Or is it just a matter of too small a sample size? The winrate isn't really much higher than the overall winrates, so that makes me doubt it is statistically significant.
One more funny tidbit: EUCAD netted the lowest overall winrate: 30% to even the -61.8% TP level on 10 trades. Seems like that is just a coincidence and not enough data, but dang that's a sucky losing streak.
EDIT: WOW I spent some time removing correlated trades manually and it changed the results quite a bit. Some thoughts on this below the results. These numbers also include the other "What I will trade" filters. I added a new worksheet to my data to show what I ended up picking.

• Total Trades: 75
• Raw Winrates:
  • TP at -61.8%: 84.00%
  • TP at -100%: 73.33%
  • TP at -161.8%: 60.00%
  • Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%: 53.33%
  • Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%: 53.33% (yes, oddly the exact same winrate. but different trades/profits)
• Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account):
  • TP at -61.8%: 18.13%
  • TP at -100%: 26.20%
  • TP at -161.8%: 34.01%
  • Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%: 19.20%
  • Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%: 17.29%

To do this, I removed correlated trades - typically by choosing those whose spread had a lower % of the trade width since that's objective and something I can see ahead of time. Obviously I'd like to only keep the winning trades, but I won't know that during the trade. This did reduce the overall sample size down to a level that I wouldn't otherwise consider to be big enough, but since the results are generally consistent with the overall dataset, I'm not going to worry about it too much.
I may also use more discretionary methods(support/resistance, quality of indecision/confirmation candles, news/sentiment for the pairs involved, etc) to filter out correlated trades in the future. But as I've said before I'm going for a pretty mechanical system.
This brought the 3 TP levels and even the breakeven strategies much closer together in overall profit. It muted the profit from the high R:R strategies and boosted the profit from the low R:R strategies. This tells me pair correlation was skewing my data quite a bit, so I'm glad I dug in a little deeper. Fortunately my original conclusion to use the -161.8 TP level with static stops is still the winner by a good bit, so it doesn't end up changing my actions.
There were a few times where MANY (6-8) correlated pairs all came up at the same time, so it'd be a crapshoot to an extent. And the data showed this - often then won/lost together, but sometimes they did not. As an arbitrary rule, the more correlations, the more trades I did end up taking(and thus risking). For example if there were 3-5 correlations, I might take the 2 "best" trades given my criteria above. 5+ setups and I might take the best 3 trades, even if the pairs are somewhat correlated.
I have no true data to back this up, but to illustrate using one example: if AUD/JPY, AUD/USD, CAD/JPY, USD/CAD all set up at the same time (as they did, along with a few other pairs on 6/19/20 9:00 AM), can you really say that those are all the same underlying movement? There are correlations between the different correlations, and trying to filter for that seems rough. Although maybe this is a known thing, I'm still pretty green to Forex - someone please enlighten me if so! I might have to look into this more statistically, but it would be pretty complex to analyze quantitatively, so for now I'm going with my gut and just taking a few of the "best" trades out of the handful.
Overall, I'm really glad I went further on this. The boosting of the B/E strategies makes me trust my calculations on those more since they aren't so far from the passive management like they were with the raw data, and that really had me wondering what I did wrong.

What I will trade

Putting all this together, I am going to attempt to trade the following(demo for a bit to make sure I have the hang of it, then for keeps):

• "System Details" I described above.
• TP at -161.8%
• Static SL at opposite side of confirmation candle - I won't move stops up to breakeven.
• Trade only 7am-11am and 4pm-11pm signals.
• Nothing where spread is more than 25% of trade width.

Looking at the data for these rules, test results are:

• Winrate: 58.19%
• Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 47.43%

I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes!

Other Technical Details

• ATR is only slightly elevated in this date range from historical levels, so this should fairly closely represent reality even after the COVID volatility leaves the scalpers sad and alone.
• The sample size is much too small for anything really meaningful when you slice by hour or pair. I wasn't particularly looking to test a specific pair here - just the system overall as if you were going to trade it on all pairs with a reasonable spread.

Raw Data

Here's the spreadsheet for anyone that'd like it. (EDIT: Updated some of the setups from the last few days that have fully played out now. I also noticed a few typos, but nothing major that would change the overall outcomes. Regardless, I am currently reviewing every trade to ensure they are accurate.UPDATE: Finally all done. Very few corrections, no change to results.)
I have some explanatory notes below to help everyone else understand the spiraled labyrinth of a mind that put the spreadsheet together.

• I'm on the East Coast in the US, so the timestamps are Eastern time.
• Time stamp is from the confirmation candle, not the indecision candle. So 7am would mean the indecision candle was 6:00-6:59 and the confirmation candle is 7:00-7:59 and you'd put in your order at 8:00.
• I found a couple AM/PM typos as I was reviewing the data, so let me know if a trade doesn't make sense and I'll correct it.

Insanely detailed spreadsheet notes

For you real nerds out there. Here's an explanation of what each column means:

• Pair - duh
• Date/Time - Eastern time, confirmation candle as stated above
• Win to -61.8%? - whether the trade made it to the -61.8% TP level before it hit the original SL.
• Win to -100%? - whether the trade made it to the -100% TP level before it hit the original SL.
• Win to -161.8%? - whether the trade made it to the -161.8% TP level before it hit the original SL.
• Retracement level between -61.8% and -100% - how deep the price retraced after hitting -61.8%, but before hitting -100%. Be careful to look for the negative signs, it's easy to mix them up. Using the fib% levels defined in ParallaxFX's original thread. A plain hyphen "-" means it did not retrace, but rather went straight through -61.8% to -100%. Positive 100 means it hit the original SL.
• Retracement level between -100% and -161.8% - how deep the price retraced after hitting -100%, but before hitting -161.8%. Be careful to look for the negative signs, it's easy to mix them up. Using the fib% levels defined in ParallaxFX's original thread. A plain hyphen "-" means it did not retrace, but rather went straight through -100% to -161.8%. Positive 100 means it hit the original SL.
• Trade Width(Pips) - the size of the confirmation candle, and thus the "width" of your trade on which to determine position size, draw fib levels, etc.
• Loser saved by 2 candle stop? - for all losing trades, whether or not the 2-candle stop loss would have saved the trade and how far it ended up getting if so. "No" means it didn't save it, N/A means it wasn't a losing trade so it's not relevant.
• Spread(ThinkorSwim) - these are typical spreads for these pairs on ToS.
• Spread % of Width - How big is the spread compared to the trade width? Not used in any calculations, but interesting nonetheless.
• True Risk(Trade Width + Spread) - I set my SL at the opposite side of the confirmation candle knowing that I'm actually exposing myself to slightly more risk because of the spread(stop order = market order when submitted, so you pay the spread). So this tells you how many pips you are actually risking despite the Trade Width. I prefer this over setting the stop inside from the edge of the candle because some pairs have a wide spread that would mess with the system overall. But also many, many of these trades retraced very nearly to the edge of the confirmation candle, before ending up nicely profitable. If you keep your risk per trade at 1%, you're talking a true risk of, at most, 1.25% (in worst-case scenarios with the spread being 25% of the trade width as I am going with above).
• Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -61.8% - not going to go into huge detail, see the spreadsheet for calculations if you want. But, in a nutshell, if the trade was a win to 61.8%, it returns a positive # based on 61.8% of the trade width, minus the spread. Otherwise, it returns the True Risk as a negative. Both normalized to the 1% risk you started with.
• Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -100% - same as the last, but 100% of Trade Width.
• Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -161.8% - same as the last, but 161.8% of Trade Width.
• Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -100%, and move SL to breakeven at 61.8% - uses the retracement level columns to calculate profit/loss the same as the last few columns, but assuming you moved SL to 0% fib level after price hit -61.8%. Then full TP at 100%.
• Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread take off half of position at -61.8%, move SL to breakeven, TP 100% - uses the retracement level columns to calculate profit/loss the same as the last few columns, but assuming you took of half the position and moved SL to 0% fib level after price hit -61.8%. Then TP the remaining half at 100%.
• Overall Growth(-161.8% TP, 1% Risk) - pretty straightforward. Assuming you risked 1% on each trade, what the overall growth level would be chronologically(spreadsheet is sorted by date).

Pairs

1. AUD/CAD
2. AUD/CHF
3. AUD/JPY
4. AUD/NZD
5. AUD/USD
6. CAD/CHF
7. CAD/JPY
8. CHF/JPY
9. EUAUD
10. EUCAD
11. EUCHF
12. EUGBP
13. EUJPY
14. EUNZD
15. EUUSD
16. GBP/AUD
17. GBP/CAD
18. GBP/CHF
19. GBP/JPY
20. GBP/NZD
21. GBP/USD
22. NZD/CAD
23. NZD/CHF
24. NZD/JPY
25. NZD/USD
26. USD/CAD
27. USD/CHF
28. USD/JPY

TL;DR

Based on the reasonable rules I discovered in this backtest:

• Date range: 6/11-7/3
• Winrate: 58.19%
• Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 47.43%

Demo Trading Results

Since this post, I started demo trading this system assuming a 5k capital base and risking ~1% per trade. I've added the details to my spreadsheet for anyone interested. The results are pretty similar to the backtest when you consider real-life conditions/timing are a bit different. I missed some trades due to life(work, out of the house, etc), so that brought my total # of trades and thus overall profit down, but the winrate is nearly identical. I also closed a few trades early due to various reasons(not liking the price action, seeing support/resistance emerge, etc).
A quick note is that TD's paper trade system fills at the mid price for both stop and limit orders, so I had to subtract the spread from the raw trade values to get the true profit/loss amount for each trade.
I'm heading out of town next week, then after that it'll be time to take this sucker live!

• 86 Trades
  • Date range: 7/9-7/30
  • Winrate: 52.32%
  • Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 20.73%
    • Starting Balance: $5,000
    • Ending Balance: $6,036.51

Live Trading Results

I started live-trading this system on 8/10, and almost immediately had a string of losses much longer than either my backtest or demo period. Murphy's law huh? Anyways, that has me spooked so I'm doing a longer backtest before I start risking more real money. It's going to take me a little while due to the volume of trades, but I'll likely make a new post once I feel comfortable with that and start live trading again.

So last week I went to my car and found this letter attached to my windshield.
I read it and the language had the patented MLM-speak and red flags that we see with just about every MLM. So I looked it up as I hadn't heard of it before and lo and behold,
IT'S AN MLM
I think about just throwing it away and not thinking about it again, but seeing as he's a young dude and probably new, I thought, " Let me try and help him see the company for what it truly is."
Well one thing led to another and I found myself doing a deep dive into this company as well as using this as an opportunity to flesh out my thoughts about MLM's in general.
Here is the email chat I started with him.
I ended up giving the highest effort persuasive essay to try to save him from the MLM Forex Huns. I swear I condensed as much as I could!
Fair Warning: It is pretty long lol but I think it is worth the read if you're interested in a detailed explanation as to why exactly MLM's are so bad. (worth just reading the horrendous income stats of this company)
I'll post an update if he responds.
Let me know what you think! 💸💸💸
UPDATE: Here is his response and mine.
I don't think he will be responding again, but I do wish him the best. Hopefully, me ripping off the rose-colored glasses made a difference and he will avoid a worse future had he not known any better.