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Warning first

 

Most people lose money trading I am not giving advice and any decisions you make are your own. I will guide you though my journey and mistakes so hopefully you can skip some of them. Don't jump straight in with real money use a demo account so you can trade with simulated funds then if you lose its no problem. You can learn without the pain and stress. Only when you find some success start will a small live account to prove you can do it for real. The game changes in your head with real money even if it is a small amount. Quick blog series on how to start: How to start trading? Part 1 Baby pips (zerototrader.com)

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Join Zero to trader discord group - free

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1 Start here

Baby Pips

 

So if you're brand new to trading and have no idea what I am taking about so far there is a free resource that can give you the basics. Its not fun but this is the first step its from a site called Baby pips. There is a large series at minimum look at the basics.

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Learn Forex Trading at School of Pipsology - BabyPips.com  link

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2 Charts

2 Charts

Trading view charts

 

I was going to put education next but feel you need to have some charts in front of you when doing education so you can learn and try to take in information.

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Trading view is probably the most popular charting website around. You can register and just use the free version which is more than adequate starting out. The benefits of the paid version is you can add extra features such as extra indicators, split screen and second charts. Hands down best feature is the replay tool and unfortunately for anything under the daily chart you need paid version to use it. Replay tool is used for back testing your strategy so you cant see the future when making the trade. Personally I buy the best package on black Friday deals so I have full access and extra data to look back at.

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Good news if you do decide to purchase a plan there is a $15 discount with this link.

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Trading view have a few offers a year black Friday usually offers 60% off if paid yearly this is when I renew my subscription and if before its due they add the days on to you.

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Trading view link

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I should mention while some people trade directly through Trading view (TV for short) they have limited brokers that are connected so a majority of people use TV for trade analysis as it is very clean for marking up the charts with line and boxes ect.. Most people then place the actual trades on MT4 or MT5 this is a program that is downloaded onto your computer or VPS and installed. The broker you chose will have the program for you to download then login details for you to access your account.

3 Education

3 Education

Vaderdan Trading 

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I mentioned Dans Discord is full of content after the Baby pips this can really take you from Zero to trader. Its was $500 for lifetime membership. I know its an expense and I am only a member there so cant guarantee it will run for a lifetime as Dan is already older than me. But right now it is an amazing source of information and a quality community of like mind traders some are very successful 7 figure traders.

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Dan also streams daily all day the US30 chart and has markups and chats about his ideas for the day. He doesn't tell people where to get in and out but it helps to understand his views on the market. He's usually active during London open and again at NY open and sometimes until the close. But most of his trading seems to be in the first couple of hours after each open time. He shares some running totals on trades and closed profits and they are eyewatering and for me motivational that one day that could be me!

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Link to Vaderdan Discord $25pm or $250 one off + tax

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If you have no Idea what Discord is. It is a type of social media platform where people can create their own server to host and share information. You can chat by text, voice and video along with the ability to share your screen for others to view and learn. I have it both on computer and phone.

YouTube

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Completely free recourses is YouTube. There is a wealth of free information some great and plenty bad. I will share some links below.

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FWA trades. I have only just stumbled across this guy and done some back testing, not forward tested yet but this looks really good and plenty of free material on his YouTube without having to buy his course. Liq grabs/ stop hunts and trigger candles to enter. IMHO liq grabs/stop hunts are everything in trading especially short term moves. Of course I am testing a twist on this to get better RR trades. I will let you know how it goes maybe 1 day if it works.

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(36) The ULTIMATE Liquidity Day Trading Strategy | 2023 Forex Strategy - YouTube

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ICT he created a way of trading now called Smart money trading he has years and years of content and many different trading series. It is not easy but when its understood it can make you very successful. His catalogue is huge and videos are long I found it hard work to stick them out.

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(23) The Inner Circle Trader - YouTube

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Stacey Burke trading

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He aims for big explosive high probability trades very interesting stuff.

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(59) Stacey Burke Trading - YouTube

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4 VPS Virtual private servers

4 VPS

Myforexvps

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What is this I hear you ask? Well It is not essential but at low cost this is brilliant. It is a windows based computer that is loaded not onto your computer but in servers around the world. You pick the location close to your broker for the fastest possible trade executions.

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There are different packages and locations depending on how many mt4's/mt5's you want to run. I have the pro us version at $17.99pm and run 4 to 5 mt4's with no issues. I use FP markets as a broker and they have servers based in New York so that is the location I have the vps. The ping speed is under 1ms which is amazing for reducing slippage.

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I say all this but in theory there will be a ping delay from when you click as need to send to vps first so maybe not huge difference but really had no issues. The biggest benefit for me is being able to login from mobile phone to manage trades or even place the on the go.

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Other benefits are you can leave it running 24/7 if you run bots and can log into it from your phone when you are out of the house to manage or place trades.

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There are a few tricks to help like optimising mt4 and creating a startup folder so your mt4's automatically restart if ever the vps restarts. Check blog for the video

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Myforexvps link

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5 Live brokers/ demo accounts

5 Live brokers/ demo acocunts

I can't stress enough START on a demo account before live. You can learn with no risk. Once you see consistency. Start a small live account so its real. The game changes even with a small amount of real money involved.

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Quick guide: Once you have an account make new demo/live account. install the mt4/5 terminal on your pc or vps (they will provide a download link for it. Then log into the terminal use the login credentials that are provided by broker usually by email. You need the account number, password and the server it uses. Then you are all ready to go. I change settings to change the view and add expert advisers I use. And also optimise them. I may do a blog on this soon. Or share my protector template. I use RAW MT4 USD account for all.

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FP markets

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FP markets is a well respected Australian broker with many years experience they offer term demo accounts that you can use. As long as you use it it stays active but after 30 days of inactivity it closes. This is my main broker. They have good spreads and minimal slippage, great customer service. Servers in NY. I have live funds in this broker.

 

FP Markets link

 

 

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Fusion Markets

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Fusion markets is a well respected Australian broker with many years experience they offer term demo accounts that you can use. As long as you use it it stays active but after 30 days of inactivity it closes. This is my main broker. They have good spreads and minimal slippage, great customer service. Also lower commission than FP markets. Servers in NY. I have live funds in this broker.

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Fusion Markets Link

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IC markets

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IC markets is a well respected Australian broker with many years experience they offer long term demo accounts that you can use. As long as you place a trade withing 30 days it stays active. Servers in NY.

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IC Markets link

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* I know some people that rate IC but I found us30 min lot being 1 along with some platform freezes and slippage I stopped using these (but not tested in over a year now).

6 Tools

6 Tools

TFX trade manager mt4

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If using mt4 or mt5 this is an amazing tool for risk management. it is £99 one off purchase but worth its weight in gold. You don't have to work out lot size from stoploss level to keep risk the same. Simply select what risk you want say 1% click the trade on screen and adjust it to where you want to buy, stoploss and final take profit. It calculates the lot size all automatically. You can add extra take profits to close partial positions if you want and to auto move your sl to breakeven. Simply great!

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TFX trade manager link

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Position Sizer Expert Advisor for MT4/MT5 (earnforex.com)

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Free trade manager seems full of most feature the paid one uses seems a little more complicated but its free two of my trader mates use it and say its good both for mt4 and 5. I have just set it up on mt5 as haven't got the trade manager for that and looks ok not as easy to use but will test live next week. UPDATE I tried it and it works but I don't like it as used to paid versions that are so smooth and easy to use, but its free you may get used to it.

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Position sizer link

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Account protector mt4/mt5 free

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This is an Expert Advisor (EA) for your mt4/5 add to chart and can set many conditions to save your account. All I use it for is to cut all trades if floating loss reaches a certain amount but there are so many options you can set lowest or highest balance to cut trades and much more and its free works great. I set maximum floating loss as 1% on prop accounts (It should never get that close but it saves me being silly). I also set minimum % equity which I reset each night but now only allow max 2% loss a day then its oh well no more trades I was rubbish (it happens but at least no big damage to the account it 1 bad day).

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Account protector link

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Traders connect online trade copier

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This is amazing so I use this to copy trades from my live account to prop accounts. It works great but I have safety features using the account protector listed above just in case.

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So how it works you add mt4/5 details into it and it has access to trade them. You set master to copy from and slave to trade to I use fixed lots as stoploss levels are all pretty similar but you can set a balance multiplier if you wish so say you trade 1% normal but want 0.25% on prop set it to 25% in options and away you go. Make sure the symbols you trade are mapped correct as some have different names i.e. FP is us30 while FTMO is us30.cash.

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Its not free but well worth it. It costs $10 per account so say you just have live to copy to 1 prop that's $20pm. I had 6 accounts linked so $60pm.

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I use the inbuilt equity protector to stop account losing more than 2% a day at that point it closes trades and stops further copying until I change levels and turn back on.

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Full disclosure These had over a week downtime after a Metatrader update. I have joined a new service. These are back online but I have already changed. Once fully tested I will share who. But now fixed I have confidence Traders connect will be just as good if not better as they plan on integrating Tradingview in the future.

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They are back up and running all looks good again.

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Traders connect link

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7 Prop trading firms

7 Prop trading firms

What is a prop firm and why would I want this?

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A prop firm lets you trade with their capital so you don't risk your own money if you lose they take the responsibility but you lose access to the account if you break the rules.

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Sounds great what's the catch? Well to get a funded account in most cases there is a 2 part challenge that you have to buy. The cost varies between firms depending on the amount of capital. To pass the challenge phase there are drawdown an profit target rules. For example you have to make 10% gain but cant lose more than 10% overall with a daily drawdown rule of max 5% loss. Usually the second phase is verification and the profit target is lowered to make it easier to pass without braking the drawdown rules.

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Below are my current ranking from general reviews and reviews from people I know that are funded traders. In time I will do a post about each one. After a shakedown with Meta trader suspending some prop firm licences especially targeted at Customers from the US. Some now do not allow US traders at all or have swapped their trading platforms. I have reordered number wise as my preference I am UK based so you need to check if your country is allowed along with all the rules!

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1/ FTMO  These guys have been around for a good while in the prop world and have a great reputation and also offer free trials. I highly recommend to start with passing a few free trials before spending any money. I plan to take a standard challenge and once passed change account type to swing so there is no restrictions about trading news and holding over the weekend, also EA's are allowed. Now no time limits on each phase. $400k max funding or $1m with the supreme program. Also offer free trial.

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Leverage 1:100 or 1:30 swing.

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Uses own server. Platforms mt4/5, c trader or dx trade.

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I did have max funding with these $400k capital. But terrible trading and I blew them both. No issues with them it was me.​

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Latest discount code (This may not be UpToDate) : 

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FTMO link

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2/ Funded next These guys are up and coming so not as established as the others but getting great reviews. Big benefit they have no time limit on challenges so you can take your time and minimise risks. $300k max funding. Also offer free trial.

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Uses own server mt4/5

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Latest discount code (This may not be UpToDate) :  You get 5% off with my link but there may be other offers on

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Funded next link

 

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3/ 5%ers These guys have been around a while. Just note they have rule for news and need a stoploss in place on platform.

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Uses own server MT5

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Latest discount code (This may not be UpToDate) : 

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5%ERS LINK

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8 Automated trading

8 Automated trading (EA's/BOTS)

So automatic trading sounds great right?

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Its risky. There are great bots out there that make a lot of money for sure. But finding them is like finding needle in a haystack.

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I have dabbled with Bots had some success but usually end up blowing up the account. Currently no mt4/5bots running.

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Social trading bot copy on FP markets mt4 or mt5 in your own account

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I restarted in Nacho Trade. See blog post about this MT4 copy trade bot (zerototrader.com)

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Telegram bots for passive income

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Let me start by saying these are super risky as you deposit funds to them for them to trade and there is nothing stopping them being scammers and run off with your deposit. Having said that I am in some and used others. I will share below the links you need Telegram app to add them either on phone or computer. They all accept USDT deposits on the Tron network TRC-20 which can be sent from crypto exchanges such as Kraken or Binance.

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My plan for all is get risk free as soon as deposit is doubled then take out regular little chucks.

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Astro bot link (I am risk free)​​

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Other links:

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FP social trade blog link

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Join Zero to trader discord group - free

 

​Join My investments Telegram page (this is focused on auto trading)

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