#trading

I wasted my first year watching the 1-minute chart. Thought I was a genius every time I caught a 5-pip move. Didn't realize I was just burning spreads and accumulating losses. Three things I wish someone told me in 2015: 1. The 1-minute chart is a slot machine. It shows you signals everywhere so you trade nowhere. Start with 4H and daily. One chart, one pair, one decision. 2. The price doesn't move because of your trendline. It moves because of what 50,000 people in London and NY are doing right now. Learn the sessions. The patterns follow. 3. Your first 10 losses will teach you more than your first 100 wins. That tuition is mandatory. Don't skip it. Gold is simple. We make it complicated because simple doesn't feel like work.

The hardest thing in gold trading isn't the analysis. It's the 15 minutes after you enter a trade. Price pulls back 3 dollars. Your brain screams "you were wrong." You move your stop closer. Price hits it — then runs 20 dollars without you. I've done this more times than I can count. The fix wasn't a better strategy. It was learning to sit on my hands for the first hour after entry. Give the trade room to breathe. If your analysis is sound, the market will come to you.

I get asked a lot: "what's the one indicator I should use?" Truth is, I deleted all of them years ago. Not because indicators are useless — because they became a crutch. I was staring at 12 charts looking for confirmation instead of looking at price. Price action + structure + volume. That's it. Everything else is decoration. The moment I stopped adding indicators and started removing them, my P&L flipped.