Last week, I discussed a variation of a stochastic crossover trade. All by itself, buying or selling when the blue line crosses over or under the red line is not a profitable way to trade. After all, if it were that easy, everyone would do it. But when you throw in a few other technical setups, you can make some pips. There’s really quite a bit more to trading than this, and that’s what I said I’d discuss in the next few articles.

Now, I know I promised some words regarding technical trading setups. And don’t worry, those are on their way, but before I talk more about RSI divergence, and stochastics crossovers and MACD movement and regression trend channels (by the way, this is a favorite of mine) I wanted to put a few personal words or caution out there.

THE KEY TO SUCCESS
The biggest secret to trading is that you need to ruthlessly exploit a few simple trading strategies to become profitable rather than understand a lot of different trading setups. I plan on sharing both with you, but making money is your responsibility. It’s important to keep the goal of making money firmly implanted in your mind. So, let me discuss my mentality.

I am hardly a perfect trader. I am far from that in fact. When I was new to the markets, my biggest fallback as a trader was that, like so many others, I wanted to find the Holy Grail, the “way to trade.” After all, from kindergarten, we are conditioned to find the one and only answer; exclusive of all others. I wanted to discover this right way to trade. What’s wrong with that? Aren’t we trained to find the answer? The problem is, in trading there isn’t an answer; there isn’t the right way; there is only the way in which we make money. If you want to trade currencies, there isn’t an easy way to do so.

The real world doesn’t work so simplistically. And, trading forex is more a reflection of the real world. There is no “one way to trade” or “way to do it” or “strategy that makes money.” Trading is a mindset, not a technical setup. It is a desire to conquer the markets rather than a formulaic solution. It is a lifestyle.

Before I share more with you regarding effective ways to understand and exploit price movement, profit and technical setups (and don’t worry, I will), I wanted to put a few caveats out there. If you want to trade, you must understand and immerse yourself in the markets. You should be more concerned with success than you are the bottom line. After all, money will come so long as you keep your mind focused. As with many things in life, if you want to be successful, money should not be your motivating factor, the drive to succeed should be. Money should be the result, not the goal.

Next week, I will expand on my stochastic crossover trade and throw in a few other goodies. But, the bottom line of becoming a successful trader is less in the technical setups than it is in the desire to conquer the markets.

That being said, if you want a good trade idea: I would look to short pullbacks in the British pound.
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