I’ve Been a Frustrated Trader Until I Focused on The Important Things

We spoke with Alejandro about his trading plan, insights, and lessons gained while trading in the Forex market and our platform as a funded trader.

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• Tell us a little bit about you.
  I’m Alejandro from Venezuela but living in Canada since 2014. I work full time as a Telecommunications Engineer. I like sports (soccer, baseball, hockey, etc). I also like to travel whenever I can. I have a 2-year-old son whom I love very much.

• How long have you been trading?
  I have been trading for 8 years. I got introduced to trading from a colleague at work in Venezuela, and I haven’t abandoned it to this day. I have been through a lot of frustrating moments and very few successful experiences until I decided to focus on the things that, in my opinion, are important in trading, particularly fundamental and macroeconomic analysis to trade strong vs. weak currency pairs. It took me a long time to shift from pure technical to focus more on the fundamentals and use technical analysis only to define risk and find key levels to trade upon.

• Briefly describe your Trading Plan and how it contributes to your success.
  My trading plan is very simple. Every morning I use free resources to determine the bias from a fundamental view of all the major currencies. I look at bond yield spreads, and I check the COT reports and current retail sentiment. I try to keep up to date with Central Bank views of their economies, and I determine the current market sentiment (risk-on/off). With all that information, I establish a fundamental bias for each currency, and I try my best to trade strong vs. weak currencies according to my analysis. Once I have a fundamental bias, The only thing that I need are key technical levels, where I can define and limit my risk, and for that, I use Supply and Demand. I don’t use candlesticks or chart patterns as confirmation. I’m only interested in trading the key levels in the direction my fundamental analysis gives, so I enter my positions using limit orders. I don’t use take profits, so I trail the stop loss with each R movement in my favor. In that way, I allow the possibility of having huge profitable trades

• Share with us a challenge you faced in your trading career and how you overcame it?
  It took me a long time to see that technical analysis by itself doesn’t work for me. It could work for some people but not for me. I needed reasons to trade apart from a candle bouncing from a Fibonacci level or a moving average. I think technical analysis has its place in trading, but the focus should be on the fundamental reasons that move the markets. Learning the terminology and jargon of fundamentals was certainly a challenge, but with some time and effort, anyone can learn it. Now when I read an article written by an analyst, I understand what they say. It was certainly not the case at the beginning.

• How did you adjust risk management to your trading personality?
  One of my strengths as a trader is that I tend to stay away from a gambler mentality. Since I’m a trend-following trader, I know I will have more losing trades than winning trades, so I limit my risk considering that I could have a long losing streak.

• Describe a key moment in your trading career.
  Passing the 5%ers evaluation period has certainly been the most important moment in my trading career. I see it as a confirmation that I am finally on the right path and motivates me to keep trading the way I have been trading and to stick to my trading plan

• How long it took for you to become a consistent trader, and what aspects did you change that helped you to become consistent?
  It took me 7 years to be profitable. I made all the mistakes you can think of: looking at trading as a get-rich-quick-scheme, switching from system to system, inconsistent risk management, avoiding fundamentals at all costs, following fake gurus that were supposedly making millions each year, etc. It wasn’t until I looked at trading as a career that I began to ask myself the right questions. There is a lot of misleading information out there, and you need to be very careful and look at this as a career, as a serious business, so you can filter all the noise and focus on quality information. This is as serious as being a lawyer, a physician, an engineer. That is how you need to look at trading.

• What is your mental/psychological strength, and how did you develop it?
  I’m very persistent, otherwise, I wouldn’t have endured 7 years of frustration before I became profitable. This is something that I learned from my dad. Once he sets a goal he persists until he succeeds. I guess I unconsciously added that into my character.

• What was your strategy to successfully passing The5%ers’ First Level?
  My strategy is not complicated at all. I do fundamental analysis and determine which currencies are strong and which are weak, and I try to trade strong vs. weak. Once I have a bias, I look for supply and demand levels to define my risk and trade with limit orders. I don’t use charts or candlestick patterns. I don’t set take profits, and I trail my stop loss with each R movement in my favor.

• How is trading for the5ers different from trading by yourself?
  It makes you focus 100% on risk management since there is a drawdown limit. This encourages traders to trade responsibly; otherwise, you are out of the program. Maybe with my personal account, I would be more permissive with risk.

• What would you recommend to someone who is just starting with us?
  I would recommend having a proven strategy beforehand and being able to adjust risk to fit in the 5%ers program. I would encourage people to avoid seeing this as a casino and really think of this as an opportunity to boost their trading career

• Share online resources that were/are significant in your trading development. Name and links are appreciated.
  ForexLive.com, Actionforex.com, A1trading.com, COT reports, Bond Yield Spreads (many videos on youtube) Book: FOREX Using Fundamental Analysis & Fundamental Trading Techniques to Maximize Your Gains by Dave Matias

• Would you like to share anything else with us?
  Give an opportunity to fundamentals since in my opinion it can give you the needed edge to profit from the markets

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