Beginner trader running! How to practice trading

“Come on! Let’s start FX!” “One shot to a fortune!”If you’re pumped up about it, you there!

Are you perhaps depositing into a real account without any practice at all??

In FX there are only two things: buy low, sell high, so you might get lucky and win if you trade on impulse.

But please think carefully.

Throwing your own money into the market without studying or practicing is no different from gambling, is it?

In order to protect your account as much as possible while steadily increasing your funds,

I recommend practicing with a past-curve tool before trading with a real account!

Today,

1. Look at many charts

2. Demo trade on past charts

3. Imitate methods shared by successful traders

These are three practice methods I will discuss.

1. Look at lots of charts

As you all know, charts have an X axis (time) and a Y axis (price).

Therefore, it’s easy to try drawing diagonal lines to predict future charts, butprice movement only moves in two directions: up or down.

（※I’m not denying people who win with such methods！）

First, it’s essential to understand the essence of price movement and grasp the characteristics of each currency pair.

Specifically, I stare at past charts for many years, at high speed, relentlessly.

At this time, I shrink the chart until the candlesticks cluster horizontally into a line, so I can understand that price is moving up and down as much as possible.

If you change the chart time frames to 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, daily, you’ll notice the movement patterns, and by changing the currency pairs to EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, you’ll learn the width of moves and how each pair behaves.

Because the market is formed by decisions of people around the world, similar patterns repeat often. So as you look at charts and grasp features, you’ll start to intuit patterns. Strengthening your “eye for charts” will greatly increase your trading edge.

In FX, you will never master it perfectly, but by looking at many charts and sharpening your intuition, I believe it is far better than jumping in with no knowledge.

Of course, looking at currently moving charts is important, but even if you work all day, you can only view up to 24 hours of charts. Past charts can be fast-forwarded, so you can view an enormous amount of charts in a short period.

To become a winning trader, catch up by looking at more charts than those who are already winning!

2. Demo trade on past charts

After you’ve looked at many charts and grasped their features in your own way,the next step is to demo trade.In other words, backtesting.

When I practice, I think it’s better not to use indicators at this stage, so I initially removed MA (※1). I realized I was relying on MA to predict “this will happen next.” In the beginning, it’s important to grasp the market waves while developing your own sense and market feel.

During this practice I don’t show indicators, but I draw horizontal lines to capture price movement characteristics. Humans repeat the same actions, so you’ll find rules such as ranges reappearing at previous opposition prices, which is interesting!

Also, I practiced by “watching 15-minute charts for months → pause to circle opportunities where you can gain 20 pips or more and note the surrounding price action → resume charting and demo trade.”

Right after doing this, the demo account balance grew rapidly, so I recommend it.

（Since I skipped this practice, I started losing again, so I plan to reintroduce this method… haha）

3. Imitate methods shared by winning traders

Finally, this. Now that the era allows access to a lot of beneficial information, such as this Investment Navigator+, many people can obtain valuable information. People who have lost for years and continue trading now share their knowledge as billion-dollar traders and tell us many things.Gather a lot of such information, initially take it at face value and imitate the indicators as they are, and practice on a demo trade.

Even if you gather a lot of information, unless you can internalize it, you cannot become a winning trader. Do information gathering, read lots of books, study, and yet do you feel you understand? It’s common that you think you understand but you haven’t actually mastered it, so I believe you must try what you think you understand yourself.

If after studying you try it yourself and success doesn’t follow, the cause might be lack of experience or it might not suit you. Instead of giving up quickly, I think it’s better to imitate and continue demo trading. It’s rare to see immediate results in anything. If it still doesn’t work, you might try imitating another method or refining your own method.

The fact that winning traders share different information suggests that there is no holy grail in FX; what matters is whether you can find a method that suits you.

In conclusion

So far, I’ve introduced three methods that, from my actual experience, seem worth trying!

This is something I feel especially as someone who started at a new graduate position, cut losses, and had little financial leeway: nothing magical makes you win easily or simply by paying for courses or seminars.

Even if someone tells you when to enter, cut losses, and take profits, you are the one making the actual decisions. Therefore, paid information and other sources are best truly yours when you practice them via a demo trade first!

I will continue these practices and share deeper learnings if they arise.

Let’s practice a lot and strive to make a big real win at the right moment together (*'ω'*)

Thank you for reading until the end m(_ _)m

See you in the next article!

Izumi Mizuko