Forum Forexroasted

trading gold through cpi and complaining about spread. bold strategy

demo trading on phone is fine for learning the buttons and getting feel. but for actually committing real money to live trades, get a real computer setup first. doesnt have to be expensive - even a $400 used laptop with two monitors works. the difference in your decision quality with proper screen real estate is enormous.

the feel-versus-data gap is the entire reason journaling matters. memory is dominated by the dramatic trades, the big wins and the near-disasters, so you feel like those drive your account when usually the quiet disciplined trades do the real work. without the journal youd have doubled down on the aggressive trades that merely felt important. the data redirecting you to what actually works is the payoff for six months of logging.

depends on broker and pair. major pairs (EURUSD, GBPUSD) have tightest spreads during london and ny sessions. they widen slightly during asian session because liquidity is lower. for asian pairs (AUDUSD, NZDUSD, USDJPY) the situation reverses - those have tightest spreads during asian hours. broker pricing follows liquidity availability.

+1. consistency of vpn location matters more than vpn vs no-vpn. brokers flag location changes as potential account takeover attempts. if you use vpn, lock it to one location consistently to avoid security holds.

for what its worth thinkmarkets execution improved a bit in 2026 compared to late 2025. think they invested in infra to keep institutional clients post-regulation.

or just dont give scam brokers your real docs in the first place but thats just me

watch what they emphasise. a good room teaches process, shows losing trades openly, and pushes you to develop your own plan. a farming room hypes winners, hides or excuses losers, and frames the next call as something you cant afford to miss. if the free content is mostly winning screenshots and urgency, thats the herd machine. if its mostly reasoning and risk talk, it might be worth a trial.

mt5 has built-in basic alerts (no code needed) that handle simple price-based triggers. for combined conditions you need basic mql5 scripting. there are also free third-party indicators on the mt5 market that add multi-condition alerting without you writing code. start with built-in, graduate to scripts when you outgrow them.

+1 on second test. its the cleanest improvement. the failed breakout fade (variant 1) works too but requires reading the failed move correctly which is more discretionary. second test is mechanical: did price come back and respect the level? yes or no.

i run mt5 on my desktop, a laptop and a vps. keeping templates, custom indicators and chart layouts in sync between all three is driving me insane. i set something up on the desktop, then have to manually copy files to the other two and i always forget one.

whats your actual workflow for this? not looking for theory, want to know what people really do day to day.

my middle ground: i specialize in trend following but reduce position size by 50% when my regime indicators suggest ranging conditions. doesnt require switching strategies, just modulating intensity. captures most trending profit, takes less damage during ranges.

this matches my experience. learning SMC's view of 'where do stop hunts happen' was the actual big improvement. the rest was relabeling. but its not worthless - sometimes new language makes old ideas click.

+1 on adapting to your life rather than fighting it. parent traders cant treat trading like a 8-5 job because life doesnt have an 8-5 quiet period. either: trade fewer sessions per week at higher quality, or pick the session that genuinely fits your routine.

thats the right framing. if knowing the session changes what you do, ie you only trade the overlap, then highlighting it enforces discipline. if it doesnt change your behaviour, its pure decoration. the indicator is only as useful as the rule behind it.

+1. i wait for the first 15-min candle to close after the release. enter on the second candle in the direction of the close if it shows continuation. small targets, tight stops. been profitable doing this for 18 months on NFP and CPI specifically.

mt5 has a depth of market feature that shows pending orders and volumes at different price levels. in stocks and futures this matters a lot. but i've heard forex dom data in mt5 is either limited or unreliable because it only shows the broker's internal book, not actual market depth.

is mt5 dom worth looking at for forex, and how do you interpret what you're seeing?

the followed-plan-or-not flag is the highest value single field ive ever added. tagging each trade as on-plan or improvised instantly shows whether your losses come from your strategy or from your discipline. for most people its overwhelmingly discipline, and you only learn that by tracking it explicitly. it reframes the whole problem.

how long did the actual payouts take? that's the main thing people want to know.

someone in a discord asked me what resources to learn trading and i realized most of the stuff i learned from in 2019-2020 is either outdated or behind paywalls now.

whats your current top recommendations for someone genuinely new (not just buy this course bro). books, free youtube channels, structured learning paths, anything actually valuable.

bonus points for explicitly saying what NOT to follow.