3 AUDIOBOOK COLLECTIONS

6 BOOK COLLECTIONS
 All rights are protected, though you may print this
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away to anyone that may be interested, such
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© Copyright Protected 2016 by Damien Hooper

DamienHooperTrading.com

This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process,
nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without
the permission of Damien Hooper, O’halloran Hill Adelaide SA 2016
 Contents
1. Forward

2. Disclaimer

3. Proof: 22 Trades In 22 Days

4. Finding My Feet

5. Commitment

6. Indicators are Unnecessary

7. Stop Predicting Price

8. Perfect The Process

9. Increase Your Awareness and Stop Complaining

10. Leave Your Ego At The Door

11. Don’t Overtrade

12. Make Learning Fun

13. Risk Per Trade

14. Trade Your Best Set-up

15. My Parabolic Edge

16. Reducing Market Risk

17. Reducing Broker Risk & Costs

18. When To Trade

19. One Thing at a Time

20. Everyone Needs Rules

21. 25 Rules

22. Find A Model and Learn From Live Trades

 1. Forward

I want to thank you for taking an interest in my trading

style.

It is my experience that the forex market is full of empty

promises and people who have less than noble intent.
That said, I consider myself one of the good guys.

I get a kick out of helping people, and I am really excited

to have this opportunity to give back to the forex
community that I have learned so much from.

If you are new to forex, then I suggest you start your

learning with all the free babypips.com courses, and you
sign up to forexfactory.com and start learning all you can.
I also want to suggest you set up a demo account so you
can try out a few strategies for size as you develop your
understanding and get a bit closer to knowing what you
are doing.

You will then be in a position to have a better context to

test many of the ideas behind my system and the way I
trade when you learn them, and be knowledgeable
enough to understand them.

Once again I want to thank you for checking out this

ebook. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can
contact me at [email protected].

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”

Peter Drucker
 2. Disclaimer

High Risk Warning:

Foreign Exchange Trading has large potential rewards, but also large
potential risks. Leverage very often works against you rather than for
you. Please research the risks of trading in forex and be willing to
accept them before you trade in these markets. Forex trading involves
substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Please do not
trade with borrowed money or money you cannot afford to lose.

Any opinions, news, research, analysis, prices, or other information

contained in this material provided by Damien Hooper is provided as
general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice
or a solicitation to buy or sell any foreign exchange contract, contract for
difference or securities of any type. It does not take into account your
personal circumstances, please do not trade or invest based solely on
this information, or on the information provided by Damien Hooper, his
websites, educational material, or that provided by his employees and
associates. By viewing any material or using the information within this
ebook you agree that this is general education material and you will not
hold any person or entity responsible for loss or damages resulting from
the content or general information provided here by Damien Hooper.

No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to

achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed in any material in
this or attached links.

The past performance of any trading system or methodology is not

necessarily indicative of future results. For the avoidance of any doubt,
the author of this material or any of his employees do not hold
themselves out as Commodity Trading Advisors (“CTAs”).

Given this representation, all information and material provided by this

author or any associated companies, or employees, is for educational
purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice.
Damien Hooper and his associates do not accept liability for any loss or
damage, including without limitation to, any loss of profit, which may
arise directly or indirectly from the use of or reliance on such
information.
 3. Proof: 22 Trades in 22 Days

Time for the proof, but before I do I want to make the point
that during the 22 day period that is being analysed, I
always aimed to make at least the amount of my risk back
on each trade, and more if possible. The risk/reward of a
system is very important and it would have been vastly
easier to create the winning streak with a system that
risked more than it stood to gain on a trade, than one like
mine - which always aimed to make at least my risk back
on each trade.

If you don‟t know the ins and outs of risk/reward ratio in

trading and are fairly new to this stuff, I recommend you
first spend some time completing some of the beginner
lessons at babypips.com.

This ebook doesn‟t provide many trading basics, but there

are plenty of great cheap and free resources around the
internet that can get you started in the world of forex.

The following is my equity curve for the trading period, so

you can be sure the list of trades for the trading period
were sequential.
All losses in the sample that were equal or less than the
spread I have not labelled as a loss. These trades were
closed at break even, but given the volatility of the forex
market, the spread and/or slippage, around a pip loss
occurred in a few cases. This loss was not significant in
the context of the risk taken on each trade.
 4. Finding My Feet

Most traders lose money. It‟s important for me to be

honest and upfront with you about that fact if you aren‟t
already experienced in forex and/or trading. Traders are
in it for the money, but it is important to understand that for
most traders that money never comes.

The great majority of traders give up trading before they

become profitable, and I think it is important that you
decide for yourself if you are up for the challenge. Asking
yourself why you trade is also a good idea, because if your
motivation for trading isn‟t strong enough, you probably
won‟t achieve success - because it is most likely that you
won‟t give the trading journey enough of your time or
effort.

It is also my view that trading can‟t be „the homework you

don‟t want to do‟. What I mean by that is you have to find
a way to engage with it and enjoy it. From my experience
- if you can‟t find a way to make trading fun - you are much
more likely at some point not to continue.

Unfortunately when I began my trading journey, I was n‟t

as smart about my development as I sho uld have been,
and because of that - the journey to profitability took much
longer than it should have. I tried to copy profitable
traders, but unfortunately the products and support they
provided was not adequate.

After a couple of years my routine was well established. I

would focus intensely for several months on my learning
and trading - blow up a small account - then take a few
months off. This process would then repeat over and
over.
What I was guarding against was giving myself a period of
time within which I had to have the trading game „won‟ -
because after that period I would have to give up.

I decided also that if I didn‟t take time off, then I would

become much more frustrated about my failure to - be the
trader I needed to be - and this frustration and added
pressure would make the trading journey even more
difficult.

So here I was - a number of years down the track - and I

was finally starting to hit some good patches of profit and
discipline. I was finally getting to a point where I could be
proud about my progress, and happyish with my
profitability.

And I had been profitable for a while, but then something

else entirely happened...

The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention and

my palms heated up as i tapped nervously on the desk
with my index finger.

I could almost taste the adrenalin coursing through my

veins where blood used to flow.

I may be giving it more credit than is due but I hadn‟t seen

a run of trades like it, except for those „outsiders‟ that
risked much more on a trade than they took in profit.

Risking a lot to make a little was a strategy that I had tried

- certainly for long enough to know it was a complete
loser, and that i needed to always try and made sure my
profit covered my initial risk.
But here i was - after planning today’s trade on the back of
a great run of 18 trades with only one half loss. 18 trades
with only half a loss, and I couldn’t believe my luck.

They say that a profitable trade can set off similar

reactions in the brain to cocaine use. I can attest to that
fact because at the time I was feeling amazing - this was a
high like I hadn’t previously experienced.

Not surprisingly i was more nervous at that point than i

had been at any time in my trading past - even when i had
a lot more money on the line.

The money wasn‟t the thing that I was focussed on, my

focus was solely on what i had to lose - which was my 18
trade winning streak - when I should have just been glad
that all of my work had paid off.

For many years in the past I was much more accustomed

to a large string of losses than wins - even up to 9 straight
losses in my previous trading life a couple of times.

But here it was. Vindication.

Here finally was the indisputable proof that i had become

more than just a slightly profitable trader, that my edge
wasn‟t so small that I would lose it sometime down the
track. But in that moment none of it seemed to matter as
much as not losing my next trade.

Thankfully it was also that moment I realised that I was

falling back into one of the largest strategic traps of my
past - the trap where a trader cares most about NOT
losing his next trade rather than about trading his system
accurately and systematically. The trap where a trader
then uses that motivation as an excuse to break his rules.
The trap which most often produces a massive drawdown.

It turned out that remembering the trap was enough to put

me back on the right path, and into the mind frame that
had more than partly led to the statistical anomaly of my
current trading run in which i only took one half loss.
Because I took stock at that time, the drawdown that had
accompanied my most successful periods previously didn‟t
happen this time.

At the end of the streak, i was able to achieve ½ a loss in

22 trades over a 22 day period, and my trading has never
been the same since.

Up to that point and for many years I had been tweaking

every aspect of my system to find the optimal set of
settings and rules.

The problem with always tweaking a system though is that

it doesn‟t provide you with the consistency and focus that
are so necessary to trade a system most effectively.

At that point, I decided to draw a line in the sand, and stop

searching or changing my system.

I spent time thoroughly analysing that relatively short

trading period, pulling it apart, and distilling all of the
important wisdom within it, so that I could double down
and use the system to change my fortunes forever.

I have trading systems to trade almost any market, but I

decided at that point that I needed to simplify everything
and just focus on what worked best for me.

What follows are the best tips and most important strategic
considerations I learned from trading that system.
Prior to achieving such good results, I had been on a 7
year pilgrimage to profitability, and though i had achieved
profitability sometime in the latter part of that period, I was
not happy with my statistical edge.

I kept asking myself what good was only making 1-2% on

your account after 20 trades if one mistake could wipe it all
out? How could i build a trading career from a relatively
small edge?

Because of these considerations - I struggled, I fought, I

studied and busted plenty of accounts over those years
until I finally achieved my goal.

I finally had an edge large enough I could take to the bank,

and I finally had the skills and discipline to consistently
trade it.

Thank you for giving me your time, i am so pleased that

you are on the same journey that consumed so many
years for me.

What I hope is that your journey to profitability isn‟t

anywhere as long as mine, and if you are yet not a
profitable trader, I hope you find what you are searching
for in these pages and from my upcoming trading videos.

Life is short, too short to waste spinning your wheels for

years and years because you refused to take the more
difficult path of action.
 “Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the
ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your
sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain
 5. Commitment

I could write a book on this topic, but for the sake of

brevity I will say that whether your current circumstances
are a result of your choices and actions or someone
else‟s, you need to take responsibility for your current
circumstances - and make a firm commitment to changing
them.

Something I learnt early in my journey was that if you don‟t

commit to doing whatever it takes to succeed, then you
will more than likely fall short.

There is simply nothing I know of that is both life changing

and incredibly valuable that comes easily, and doesn‟t
require hard work and commitment. As time goes on,
information is becoming easier and cheaper to access.
We are connected to people and resources in ways that
are a complete change to how things were in the not too
distant past, but what hasn‟t changed is the work required
to apply this learning and developing the skills to be
successful.

You may have better or more effective learning tools than

many others have or have had in the past, or have a more
profitable system than most others ever trade with, but
they won‟t of themselves make you a great trader.

I believe that it is your ability to commit to being a great

trader and then taking the actions that will bring it about
which will determine your success.

You can search out shortcuts and ways to make things

easier, but at the end of the day you can‟t run from hard
work where it is required.
 6. Indicators are Unnecessary

A famous Einstein quotes is “Everything should be as

simple as possible, but not simpler.” I am a big fan of the
quote, and I think it is one of the secrets to good trading.

Have a look at the following picture. This is a screenshot

of a chart from a system I used to like trading. While it
may have been profitable, it is clearly a long way from
being as simple as possible.

I spent many years in the pursuit of effective indicators,

and my experience has been that the indicator route is a
bit of a rabbit hole.

Very quickly you can hit overwhelm status and find it hard
to make your way back to a straight-forward system that is
both clear and effective.

Throughout most of my development I considered learning

to trade with indicators a rite of passage, but I now believe
that using indicators isn‟t keeping with the adage of being
as simple as a system could or should be, and so they
may not be the right of passage I once thought.
Having said that, every trader should have a good
understanding of the various types of indicators available,
and understand how they are used and what information
they are said to convey. That is the only way I see them
as a rite of passage, to be used as a tool to educate
yourself about the innumerable dynamics of the market.

The reason for this is that understanding what an indicator

is doing helps us understand a little more about the market
each time, and that knowledge can then be integrated into
your own system.

Even if you don‟t use it in your system, the understanding

will provide the right foundation for your growth as a
trader.

Other than not being as simple as possible, the other

problem with indicators is that they always lag price.

Because of those things, my system uses only price action

to determine entry and exit criteria, and (almost) uses no
indicators whatsoever.

My only exception is a tool I use to filter the market for the

strongest current trends.

At any time when you are looking for a setup with my

system, it is strategically crucial to be only focussed on
the best current trends across all relevant markets
and all relevant timeframes.

What this means in a practical sense, is that if a setup

occurs in a market that is not on my leader board of
trending high achievers, I don‟t even consider it - and you
shouldn‟t either.
The tool I use to filter for the strongest trends at any
moment is called Forex Trendy.

There are plenty of free indicators for MT4 that you may
be able to use to filter for the best current trends, but I
haven‟t found one that is satisfactory.

If you choose to run free indicators in MT4 you will need to

have multiple charts running simultaneously which will
drain your computer resources. There will likely be other
issues that pop up for you but it can be done.

Over my trading history I have preferred IOS applications

to MT4, but now that I have ditched my iphone for a better
VR experience, I don‟t have a choice but to use something
that displays in a browser window. I think that at only
around $12 a month, I wouldn‟t be without Forex Trendy.

Forex Trendy enables me to select my most favoured

specific timeframes, my preferred markets, and to locate
up to 20 charts with the strongest trends for those
timeframes and markets.

Considering that just five timeframes (eg 5m, 15m, 30m,

1H, and 4H) and 25 markets would provide you with 125
charts requiring analysis in order to determine which were
trending the strongest, and you will easily appreciate that
a tool which automatically finds the best of them and
places them in trending order is pretty helpful.

Forex Trendy also measures the largest recent pullback

as a % of the current move, which is a really great
objective way of placing markets in order of the strongest
trends to weakest trends.
 7. Stop Predicting Price

When I started out on my forex trading journey, I made the

assumption that what I was learning to do was predict
price.

In hindsight, I can see that assumption subconsciously

dictated much of my early development. Having that view
meant I actively looked for systems, strategies and
techniques that appeared to or attempted to predict price.

What I came to learn more recently, is that attempting to

predict price is a bit of a fool‟s errand. My current thinking
is that a prediction of direction only occurs when the
direction of the market is weak or unclear. When the
direction of the market is strong, there is no need to
predict direction - it is obvious. When the direction of the
market is strong, the only question to ask is whether the
trend is going to continue.

So if prediction of price is required - or even possible, I am

not interested in that market at that time. The result of that
view and trading approach is that I only trade strong
markets.

A distillation of my approach would be;

 Only trade the strongest trends,

 Only trade in the direction of those trends,

 Only enter a trade when that direction is confirmed by

the current price action, and
  Always use solid trade management.

So I no longer try and predict price, i merely find a market

that is moving and make sure it is still moving, then try and
hop in the market using a precise strategy.

The result of my „precise strategy‟ - is that most times i

miss out on an entry in the market because the market
doesn’t fit my specific requirements, or I miss out on
an entry because the market stalls. Sounds like a
bummer right?

The important point is that neither of these scenarios

cost me a cent!!!

Unlike the days when a moving market was enough for

this monkey to go chuck his hand in the jar and just hope
he can pull it out afterwards, with disastrous
consequences, I now sit and wait for the right conditions
prior to a trade.

And I don‟t hope i can get away with breaking my rules

just this time - because I was sure the market was ready
to pop. Trading like that is just a crap shoot.
 8. Perfect The Process

I often wonder what chance aspiring traders have of

finding effective systems to teach them how to trade, when
the forex industry is so full of marketers who can‟t and
don‟t trade. Not only can many of these marketers not
trade, but a great number are promoting results which are
based on blind hopes and lies.

Most beginners are going to naturally gravitate towards

results which appear the most promising, which - due to all
the unrealistic claims floating about, will mean they are
naturally more attracted to the information which is the
least legitimate.

Unfortunately in this context, the chances that you - a

developing trader - don‟t get crushed by the shiny objects
and snake oil salesmen floating around the top of the forex
ecosystem is statistically pretty slim.

Said another way, the sad reality is that you are largely
alone on your journey to profitability and success, and
most of the shiny objects that you find in forex land will
only assist you to haemorrhage money quicker than you
otherwise would, and ultimately cause you to fail in your
attempt to become a profitable trader.

If only you could sit next to someone like you did when
you were learning to drive, who had their own brake pedal
that they were prepared to use to help you (and them) to
stay safe, your results may be different.

I like comparing learning to trade to learning to drive a car,

because firstly - most people reading this material will
have successfully learnt to drive a car, and secondly -
comparisons between them can provide a context which
we can use to develop our understanding of the learning
process and requirements as they relate to our
development as a trader.

In terms of the dangers of trading for example, for most

people driving a car is the single most dangerous thing
they do on a regular basis, yet after a period of time, the
danger involved usually recedes to our unconscious and
we rarely think about it any longer. Trading on the other
hand while dangerous, is only dangerous to our bottom
line, not our actual bottom.

In addition to the danger, the technical requirements of

driving are quite complex and challenging. It is not a skill
that we learn within a small amount of time, and to
maintain our level of ability, it requires we continue to
practice our skills on the road.

We can see by these two examples that trading is not as

dangerous as driving a car, and learning to trade is not as
technically difficult and physically challenging as learning
to drive a car.
These are important points to grasp. I want you to clearly
see that if you can drive a car, you‟ve pretty much proven
you have the ability to learn the skill of trading simply due
to the other skills you have successfully learnt in your life.

You have the ability, but what is required amongst other

things, is the perfection of the trading process. Research
from the University of Sydney and the Westmead Hospital
Brain Research Unit has said that to fully learn a new skill,
you will have to repeat the action up to 1000 times. Ouch.

What action is that I hear you ask? That action is your

trading process. I have a free template of my trading
process available for download on my website that you
can use to either copy my trade process and/or develop
your own.

One of the biggest problems in my view for aspiring

traders is that they don‟t have clarity over their trading
process, and if they do, they don‟t stick to one process
long enough before tinkering at the edges. I admit that I
was very guilty in that regard over much of my early
trading period.

Developing traders will usually end up following some new

idea they have come across, and are trying to integrate it
with insufficient understanding and/or testing as to see if it
is a profitable or complimentary addition to their existing
system.

This less-than-merry-go-round of insufficient practice

followed by insufficient testing inevitably ends when a
trader runs out of money or patience, it invariably does not
end well.
9. Increase Your Awareness and Stop Complaining
If I was to ask you what you thought humanities greatest
collective hobby was, what would you say? I personally
think that it is complaining and whining. People can‟t
seem to get enough of it - so much so that it seems to me
to be the collective hum of civilisation.

Whether I am right or not, on the surface it probably

doesn‟t appear that it would have much to do with trading,
but I hope that as I explain further you start to believe me
it does. The fact is that you don‟t trade outside the context
of your psychology. Your psychology is in that way the
instrument through which your system is traded.

We may hold a view that in order to trade well we need to

stick to the specifics of our system - and we would be right
- but we also have to understand to the best of our ability
the „what‟ that is doing the trading and executing our trade
management, which is our psychology and our mind.

This is why I consider it a necessary part of your

development as a trader to spend time developing your
„knowledge of self‟, and learning about self-awareness and
self-analysis.

If you raced cars for a living, you wouldn‟t question how

important it would be to understand many technical details
about the car, and those subtle nuances to driving it that
can give you an edge over your fellow drivers. For some
reason when it comes to trading however, people think
that their psychology, emotions and self-awareness don‟t
matter. They want to act like they are trading in a vacuum.

Many people want to reduce trading down to its logical

technical aspects exclusively, and forget that the most
complex part of a trading system is the vehicle which is
doing the trading. My experience has been that without
developing our understanding about our habits,
preferences, and cognitive bias, it is hard to see our
weaknesses let alone work on reducing them.

If we trade a system that other people have proven to be

profitable, and are not able to trade it profitably, then the
only place we have to look for the problem is ourselves
(assuming our technology or broker isn‟t letting us down).

I have a friend who has been a trading buddy for a number

of years. He is most definitely smarter than me, but even
though we have been trading for a similar amount of time,
and we talk over every interesting angle and edge that
either of us find, I am profitable and he still isn‟t (and no I
can‟t get him to attempt to trade my system).
I am fairly certain that the reason I am profitable and he
still struggles is that I have devoted much time and effort
to understand myself and my psychology.

I don‟t try and reduce everything down to logic, without

seeing the significant part that my mentality and general
level of understanding about myself plays in the trading
process, but it seems that he knows what he knows, and
nothing will convince him that a change of path may be
necessary.

The idea that you need to be more self-aware isn‟t very

helpful however unless you have some guide around how
to start the process. I am a big fan of Tim Ferris, the
author of “The Four Hour Work Week” who has one of the
most successful podcasts on the internet.

Tim Ferris interviews a great number of leaders in

particular fields, and has said that about 80% of the
extremely successful people he has interviewed undertook
some form of regular meditation. I have meditated for
many years and can highly recommend you undertake
some regular form of mindfulness meditation. It will
provide many benefits beyond an improvement in your
trading performance.

Another important part of becoming a successful trader is

ensuring you adopt a mindset which focuses on removing
actions that are not helpful or are counterproductive. One
of those counterproductive mental actions is complaining
about life.

It is remarkable how pervasive the hobby of complaining

about life is, and it is probably not until you start to take
notice of when and how often you do it that you have a
chance of realising how much time you are wasting, and
how much optimism and mental energy it is draining from
you.

The reality is that complaining about life doesn‟t improve

life at all, and we know from our own experience that the
most successful people in our life are definitely not the
most negative people, or the people that complain the
most.

If something in life needs fixing or changing then FIX IT or

CHANGE IT, but stop you‟re whining - because you are
wasting time and energy, and complaining about life does
nothing to bring you closer to your goals.

Seriously… STOP IT. I promise this strategy is more

important than you appreciate.

10. Leave Your Ego At The Door

Beginning traders almost without exception come into the

forex market with unrealistic expectations. Whether that
relates to the profit they expect to make, how long they
expect it will take to make that money, or the steps
required before they will achieve the success they desire.

But soon enough aspiring forex traders find out they will
not make as much money as they expect, and it will take
longer than they expect, and the road to success will be
much bumpier than they anticipated.

The primary problem is that our ego is attached to our

expectations, our ideas and our projections of how we
have succeeded in the past, and the market won‟t act in a
way that will support your expectations and projections.

What the market will do is show up your limitations, and it

will mirror back your faults and prejudices. It will make
you keenly aware that there are things about yourself and
about the market which you don‟t know, and it will often do
it in a way that is demoralising.

If you approach the market with expectations (which is

entirely natural), then you are bound to be frustrated and
disappointed by the process. This is fine, and actually a
benefit to trading the market, because it may be one of the
biggest reasons a small percentage of people succeed in
trading.

The fact is that if you are not willing to face yourself

squarely and fairly with all your warts and limitations then
you may not achieve profitability in trading.

Did you know you have over 14 cognitive bias that impede
your logical perception of reality and the operation of your
mind? If that is true then most of what you think you
know is likely to be incorrect.

The market doesn‟t exist to inflate your ego, or support

your perceptions of yourself. If anything it will show you
how little you really know. Just because you succeeded in
your previous ventures, that doesn‟t mean you will easily
become the trader you wish to be.

If you leave your ego at the door and use the journey to
challenge yourself, be humble and learn, then the trading
journey will likely open your mind up to things which you
had previously not known beyond the market.
Keep in mind that you cannot fight the market, and the
market will not reflect your ego back to you. Rather it will
most likely help you realise the folly of its ways.

You don‟t even know where your next thought is coming

from, so don‟t expect that little i dentity you have
constructed from all those random thoughts to be anything
more than a plaything of the market.

11. Don’t Overtrade

Overtrading is possibly the biggest and most recurring trap

a trader will face, and it needs to be personally addressed
by every trader.

I have a number of components hardwired into my system

which operate to prevent overtrading, and I would say they
are absolutely fundamental and crucial aspects to my
profitability.

As you are (i assume) yet to see the specifics of my

trading system, I can suggest a quick fix if you are a trend
trader. Most trading mentors/educators will advocate
trading larger timeframes, but I am too impatient to want to
trade daily timeframes all the time, so I will suggest a
couple of other options.

The first suggestion I have is to take 10 minutes or so off

after every trade is closed. Use the time to reset and to
move back in a calm and relaxed mindset.

Another suggestion specifically for trend traders is to use a

tool that finds the best current trends available in your
chosen timeframes and markets, and only trade those
markets.

My favourite tool for locating the strongest current trends

in any timeframe in any forex market is Forex Trendy.

As mentioned elsewhere in this document, Forex Trendy

is effective, affordable, is always up to date and for the
price of a couple of coffee‟s a month is really a no brainer
for any trend trader wanting to reduce the time he spends
analysing the markets and finding trades.

The comparative amount of time I save now that used to

be spent looking for trades and analysing trends is
ridiculous. I am just surprised Forex Trendy isn‟t more
expensive.

If you try those suggestions but still find you are having
trouble overtrading, then you need to do a deep dive into
what is going on under the surface of your trading
methodology and mindset. My view is that solid discipline
and effective methodologies are the antidote to
overtrading, so if you aren‟t making headway on the
problem, you need to address the fact you are most likely
addicted to trading, and your greatest motivation is
probably not making money - it is something else.
 12. Make Learning Fun

I have always been a person that enjoyed learning new

things. I have always been naturally inquisitive and keen
to further develop my understanding in areas that are of
interest to me, and it seems to me that this focus on
learning has been the cornerstone of me achieving
profitability in trading.

Learning institutions such as Universities are not meant to

solely teach us the subject we go there to study. Their
purpose is as much to teach us how to learn, and to
develop in us the principle of the necessity of lifelong
learning.

This is very important regarding your desire to become a

profitable trader. From my understanding, you don‟t get to
learn the bare minimum and walk away, never to pick up a
trading book again.

Your research and self-analysis needs to be ongoing and

not stop until you wish to stop trading.

Change in life is constant, and even if you have found a

relatively simple system to trade, you need to be learning
and on your guard for changes in the market, your broker
and your temperament. You can‟t afford to approach
trading in a lazy or haphazard manner.

So please take it on board, that profitability and success in

any challenging endeavour will require an attitude of
lifelong learning. My view is that anything less will not
keep you in the mindset and position necessary to not only
achieve success, but more importantly to maintain it.

Luckily for us these days there are some really affordable

resources that can assist in the development of new skills.
One of my favourites is Udemy. Udemy is the largest
seller of video courses online - and most courses are at
good prices and all come with a 30 day money back
guarantee - so you can refund and avoid any average
courses. I recommend that you think about what skills you
wish to develop, and dive right in. Once you are in the
platform, be sure to hunt around and find out which
courses are currently being discounted.

The next side to the learning equation is the time that it

takes to learn a new skill.
It is said by developmental psychologists that it takes
40,000 hours to master a skill.

Sounds scary right?

Let me firstly say this is a general principle and I don‟t

think it would take you anywhere near 40,000 hours to be
a consistently profitable trader. Having said that, to
master your trading skills 40,000 hours may be an
accurate number.

The biggest issue about the 40,000 hour rule is that

psychologists have come to an understanding that if you
don‟t have fun for the first 5,000 hours or so at least, you
will most likely not be there for the 40,000th hour.

We can understand the principle most clearly in child

sports. No professional basketball player that I know of
started playing ball at 16 or 18, rather they invariably
started their development as a younger child, whose
primary aim would have been to have fun.

It seems pretty clear to me that if someone‟s first

introduction to the game was a strict NBA level training
regime and timetable, that person would not stay
interested in playing ball for very long.

The reality is that before professional athletes start

seriously in their chosen field, they have most likely spent
many thousands of hours first having fun in that field or a
related one.

So it is an important point - that you should try and find

ways to make your development as a trader interesting,
engaging, and if possible - fun.
Find a trading buddy, an interesting forum, find different
forms of education, learn which teaching methods best
suit your psychology and preferences (because so many
trading books are all kinds of boring).

There are many things you can do, and this principle is
one that will filter through into all of the most complex
endeavours that you attempt in your life.

It is powerful, so don‟t ignore it, or you will likely walk away

from trading at some point and not even fully understand
why.

13. Risk Per Trade

I will never recommend risking more on a trade than 1% of

your account. I understand that many people will say you
can risk up to 2% per trade safely, but my experience is
that professional traders don‟t risk more than 1 % of their
account, and more often they risk much less.
The problem with risking more than 1% is that it introduces
more volatility into your system, and that volatility
increases exponentially as the % increases.

You could fairly easily lose five trades in a row trading any
system. If you took those trades over the course of a day,
then you are now down 10-15% of your account,
depending on how much you have risked per trade. You
would then be in a situation of being bummed out,
frustrated and worried about your losses rather than
focusing your mind on what you need to focus on such as
reducing your risk in a trade.

Something you will hear often is that most traders or

aspiring traders are people who are successful in another
area, and move over to trading to find a new challenge.
The reason for that is that those sort of people are usually
the only ones who actually have enough money to trade
properly straight off the bat. For everyone else, they need
to find another way to build their account to a level that
makes their level of profit worthwhile.

Many newbies, and not-so-newbies entertain the idea they

can risk a relatively large percentage of their account early
on when their account is small. They rationalise that as
their account grows, they will reduce their risk accordingly.

The thinking is that they don‟t currently have enough

money to trade with that could realistically provide an
income, so they will have to take large risks early to build
up their account.

Think about the annual return the trader who is being paid
big money to trade your superannuation fund is making.
He or she is being paid a lot of money to make 6-10% or
so a year.
And here you are thinking you can make a few hundred
percent a year to build your account up, and then slowly
taper off with your risk?!?

If you think about the sums further, let‟s say the best
scenario is that you make 30-40% a year return on your
trading account. How much money will you need to trade
with in order to achieve an acceptable standard of living if
you make 30% a year on your money?

The fact is the required size of your account would be

much bigger than you anticipate.

The other issue, and one that is pivotal in my mind, is that

you need to trade how you want to continue. There is no
point in developing discipline and consistency, if you are
then going to mess with various aspects of your system
and/or position size down the track or as you go along.

You have at some point thrown your consistency out of the

window with that methodology, and you will most likely
struggle from that point.

It takes considerable time to teach yourself what you need

to know and execute to trade profitably consistently, and it
takes time to train yourself to execute your strategies and
plans consistently and with discipline. If you are playing
around with your risk levels, you will find it very hard to do
that.

14. Trade Your Best Set-Up

Many professional traders that I have learnt from over the

years trade multiple entries and strategies. Some traders
even have a strategy for every market condition.
I am not going to say that you shouldn‟t adopt that
approach, but I will say that it didn‟t work for me, and that
is why it is not the way I teach. That is why I teach traders
to trade their best setup.

As stated in the beginning of this ebook, it seems logical to

me to simplify my trading as much as possible, and one
way of simplifying the whole business is to only trade my
best setup.

Obviously it matters how often that setup comes up. If you

only get a particular setup once a week or month, then you
can‟t build any sort of trading career around that, but if you
find a setup once or twice a day, then you can use that to
build a career - if that is your wish.

I will be honest and admit that my natural predisposition is

often to complicate things endlessly and unnecessarily.
With trading however there is just too much at stake to act
in accordance with my predispositions, and besides, there
are many benefits to that strategy beyond mere simplicity.

Trading my best setup removes mental clutter and can

help me avoid attempts to multi-task while I am trading. I
think it gives my equity the best bang for its buck when I
enter a trade, and it helps prevent my mind over-analysing
the market action.

I am sure it could also help you recover from an addiction

to the markets, if that is something that is a problem for
you, because whether you appreciate it or not, trading
Markets is a highly addictive pursuit. In many ways it can
make slot machines seem not even worthy of being called
a gateway drug (lol).
Funnily enough there is so much information available in
the world of forex, so many strategies to play with and so
many markets to trade, that many people don‟t seem to
really care that they don‟t find profitability.

The complexity inherent in financial markets just adds to

the appeal and makes the market that much more
addictive. So much so that many traders seem to be just
happy with their new hobby that takes all of their
intellectual prowess - and more.

A very apt and famous trading quote by Ed Seykota is “win

or lose, everybody gets what they want o ut of the market”.

Maybe you only think you want to make money - when

maybe the intellectual challenge is all your subconscious
is really interested in. After all, our subconscious
motivations are often very different from our conscious
ones, and in the contest the subconscious usually seems
to win.

But that isn‟t our path, because we are here to take our
trading seriously, and part of becoming professional in our
approach is to stop fixating on shiny objects in the world of
forex and just get the job done.

Make your money and get back to building the life of your
dreams - because you should be trading for the amazing
upside - not to give yourself a new 20 year hobby.

15. My Parabolic Edge

One of the absolute cornerstones of the way I trade, and a

key takeaway from this ebook - is that I only trade markets
that have a lot of momentum, and the more momentum
the better.

It is important though that you use your own discretion and

experience as you go along, and develop your own
standards for how „parabolic‟ a market has to be before
you trade it.

As you should know there are - generally speaking - two

market conditions. A market is either is trending or is
ranging, and depending on what measure you use, it is
possible to determine which is occurring at any one time.

I further divide trending markets into two separate

categories - namely a regular trend and a parabolic trend.

The following is a normal trend:

The following is a parabolic trend:

The difference between a standard trend and a parabolic
trend is the level of momentum that each contains, and
how quickly it has moved from one price point to another.
As you have seen from the above images, a parabolic
trend will have clearly stronger momentum than a
standard trend.

It is fundamental to my trading system that average trends

are ignored, and only the strongest trends gain my
attention. Why not trade the strongest and fastest markets
exclusively, and leave the rest for everyone else? What
have you to lose from discriminating against sluggish, slow
or erratic market trends?

As discussed elsewhere in this ebook, Forex Trendy is

the tool I use to find the best curre nt trends across the
entire forex market. It is the best tool I have found that
doesn‟t come with a massive price tag. My view is that for
ease of use and value for money, Forex Trendy is an
invaluable addition to a developing trader‟s arsenal, which
has the potential to save you countless hours of analysis.

16. Reducing Market Risk

I choose to only trade the strongest trends I can find not
only so that I am trading with massive momentum behind
my decision, but also so that I am in the market for the
shortest time possible. It is a deceptively simple idea, but
one that is very powerful. The specific term for the risk of
being in a trade is market risk.

You will not always find a parabolic trend in your chosen

time-frame(s) over the 20+ pairs you choose to trade, and
that is both good and bad. It is good because it will keep
you out of the market the majority of time, and it is bad
because it may leave you frustrated and sometimes bored.

Please keep in mind also that a characteristic of forex

market action is that often many markets will trend in
unison, and the opposite is also true, that in quiet times
often few if any markets will be trending strongly.

You will often therefore find either a famine or a flood of

trading opportunities, and that is entirely in line with what
you should expect of the market.

The point I want to reiterate is that when you are in a

trade, you are exposed to risk - and so in order to
minimise market risk, you should ensure that you are in
the market as little a time as possible and that your time in
the market is most efficiently used.

One good way to do that is to only trade parabolic trends.

17. Reducing Broker Risk & Cost

Another significant risk to the aspiring trader relates to
your broker, and the fact that finding a good broker is
almost as important as finding a good trading system.

Trust me on this one!!!

The four biggest problems with forex Brokers are:

 most have terrible spreads (ie the distance between

buy price and the sell price),

 occasionally brokers go out of business (taking your

money with them),

 many brokers use back-end applications which

distort the mt4 trading environment, and

 some brokers make it difficult to withdraw money

from a person‟s account.

A way around these problems is to keep the minimum

possible balance in your account, split your money
between a couple of brokers, and only trade with a broker
you trust or with whom you have done due diligence.

If you have $10 000 to trade with for example, then using
my 1% rule you should be risking $100 per trade. You can
easily risk that amount per trade with a $1000-$2000
account.

If you were to maintain two separate $1500 accounts for

example, you can easily trade a $20 000 account using
$3000 and you have only risked $1500 in total at a single
broker!
Without the massive leverage that forex Brokers provide,
you would not be able to safeguard the majority of your
funds from your forex Broker.

You should use the leverage to your advantage to protect

your money, rather than using leverage the way most
people use it, which is to take too much risk in each trade
and blow up their account.

My system involves trading many markets beyond the

majors, so it is important that you trade with a forex Broker
that provides good spreads.

It is hard enough to trade profitably without giving more

money to your broker than you need to, or trying to profit
from a broker who actively frustrates your attempts to
trade profitably.

The unfortunate reality is that while spreads in general are

improving due to recent growth in the numbers of people
that want to trade forex, most brokers charge more than is
reasonable, so much so that even my system might
struggle to be profitable if I traded with many of them.

Keep in mind that the difference between a good broker

and a bad one can be 100‟s of % difference in transaction
costs.

Over the years I have come to have several favourite

brokers, but my most favoured broker is Global Prime.

Global Prime is sufficiently large, has been around for long

enough, has tight spreads and has provided me with good
support.
I recommend you do your homework when it comes to
finding suitable brokers to work with, and keep in mind that
from my experience most brokers should be avoided!!

A site which may help you do your research is

forexpeacearmy.com. I want to repeat that my choice of
brokers comes from many years of trading, but it also
comes from discussions with well-connected institutional
traders.

You should still however do you own homework, and

remember to keep your trading account as small as
possible (given your overall trading equity) whoever you
choose to trade with. I have attached a link to Global
Prime below.
 18. When To Trade

The forex market can be broken up into four major trading

sessions;

 The Sydney session

 The Tokyo session
 The London session &
 The New York session.

Open times are based on local business hours, which will

vary according to daylight savings hours in each
applicable location.

It is a very important part of my trading system to only

trade the busiest sessions in the forex market, and these
are both the London and New York sessions.

While big moves can happen at any time of the day, and
the forex market is open 24 hours a day for over 5 days of
the week, I am only interested in trading when there is the
most liquidity and the highest number of traders
participating in the market.

This happens to be the London and New York Sessions.

Technically you will have the highest liquidity in the

crossover of both those market sessions, which is the time
I am usually trading.

All the way along my educational journey in forex I have

been instructed by experienced traders to stick to the Euro
and US sessions, and it is a rule that I adopt without
exception.
The larger the time frame you are trading, the less
important it is to only trade the highest volume sessions. If
you are trading 2 hour bars or higher, it wouldn‟t make
sense to limit yourself to specific sessions. You will likely
need in that case sessions outside of London and New
York in order to give your trade the time it requires to
move sufficiently in your favour.

The only other point I would like to make is that you should
research what the non-farm payroll is if you don‟t already
know. It doesn‟t relate to a trading session so much as it
is a day each month which affects trading conditions
significantly, and extra care and/or absence is necessary
on that day.
 19. One Thing at a Time

“The minute you get away from the fundamentals -

whether it is proper technique, work ethic,
or mental preparation -
the bottom can fall out of your game.”

Michael Jordan

Given that trading often takes many years for most people
to learn and master (without the right information and
instruction), you can reasonably assume that it is a
complex art. What is not often understood is that even
though trading can obviously be complex, it doesn‟t (for
me at least) require multi-tasking.

The common wisdom from experienced traders is that

you should know what to do at each point during a
trade prior to opening the trade.

This is a very important principle and something that

should be etched into your brain.

What is a lesser known truth (because I made it up) is that

you can and should try to only focus on one thing at a time
during a trade. A good example of this is that after
entering into a trade, my system involves a single focus on
removing the risk in the trade.

The risk is removed in two steps, and once removed, then

I am able to move my focus onto more fun and interesting
things like managing my profit.
I have found it an important component of my system to
have a singular focus at all points within a trade, because
it is so easy to become distracted by other considerations
and then become too overwhelmed to execute our plan in
the way we intend.

Implicit in becoming distracted by shiny things whilst in a

trade is the idea that risk isn’t the most important
consideration in all of trading.

Let me burst that bubble right now.

Trading for me is pretty much 99% about the management

of risk, and the other 1% really doesn‟t matter that much.
Okay maybe i am exaggerating.

Seriously though, get your head in the game and focus

only on what is important in that moment!!!

It is such an important strategic consideration i cannot

emphasise it enough.
 20. Everyone Needs Rules

Every trader needs a trading plan, and then they need to

adhere to that plan. If you are not adhering to a trading
plan, or you don‟t even have one created, then you don‟t
have a trading business.

You are like a gym that isn‟t maintaining a profit/loss or

balance sheet. They might be able to convince people
who look on from a distance that they have a business,
but it is only a matter of time before the tax office is going
to come along and burst their bubble, charge them fees to
do it, and require them to create their financials. At that
point - if they don‟t have the 15-20k required to reconstruct
their financials, they will have to close the doors.

Your trading plan is what you should think of as your

„minimum viable product‟. Many aspiring traders keep
their trading system rules in their head, not appreciating
the importance of comprehensively writing t hem down. If
you don‟t write them all down, then you can‟t establish
consistency - and you can‟t get very far as a trader without
first establishing consistency.

Trading rules can be a component of a trading plan, but

for me are a more personal thing. Not every professional
trader will talk about them as separate from a trading plan,
and I expect not every trader adheres to the view that
separate rules to the specifics of a plan are necessary.

I think that in the same way we give children rules, we

similarly should give ourselves rules - beyond our trading
system rules - in order to more safely travel the forex
terrain. There is a lot to learn on our trading journey, and
building up a list of rules is a great way to distil the trading
wisdom that we learn along the way, and have it available
to us in a form that is succinct and efficient.

21. Twenty Five Rules

If your trading plan is sufficiently detailed, then maybe you

won‟t need a separate set of rules, but my view is that
your trading rules should be developed separately, and
then incorporated into your trading plan.

I am always interested in learning about other people‟s

trading rules and adding to my own. I don‟t expect to
reach a point at which I stop looking at different rules and
trying to consider if they can help me in my own trading.

Here are 25 of my favourite rules, I encourage you

consider adding some of these to your own list;

1. Leave your ego at the door

2. Markets are never wrong

3. Enter with an exit

4. Don‟t overtrade

5. Never let a profit turn into a loss

6. Only trade in the direction of a trend

7. Never trade without a plan

8. Cut losses short

9. Never average a loser

10. Never trade tips

11. Don‟t formulate strategy whilst in a trade

12. Trade one market at a time

13. Take windfall profits when they occur

14. Take a break after closing a trade

15. Buy strength, sell weakness

16. Be humble

17. Control what you can, manage what you can‟t

18. Avoiding losses is beats taking wins

19. Trade the strongest trends

20. Make price jump through hoops before entering

21. Don‟t let a trade turn into an investment

 22. Protect your trading capital

23. The smarter you are the longer it takes

24. You are your biggest trading adversary

25. Don‟t increase risk level after a string of wins

22. Find A Model & Learn From Live Trades

When we learn to drive a car or undertake any complex

skill in our life, invariably we copy an individual or a
process outlined by an individual that was competent at
that skill. It seems that an accurate adage is that “we do
what we see”.

How many of your parents actions and mannerisms are

mirrored by you simply because you saw them so many
times that you integrated them yourself?

Given most profitable traders are busy being profitable

and are not available to model behaviour for us, it is
especially difficult for the developing trader to learn in the
manner which they are most accustomed, and one that
has proven effective in their past.

Because modelling is so effective as a learning technique,

I think it is very important to find traders that can model
behaviours for us. I will be providing videos of my live
trading to my ecosystem, but there are a number of
trading rooms and competent teachers around, it is just a
matter of hunting them down.

If you want to see a modelling of how I trade, I will be

posting regular live trades on my facebook page and
youtube channel if there is enough interest in my trading
methodology, which should check out when you can.

Feel free to provide feedback if there are things that you

think could be improved [email protected]

All rights are protected, though you may print this

document for your own reference or give this ebook
away to anyone that may be interested, such
as your subscriber base for promotional purposes.
 © Copyright Protected 2016 by Damien Hooper

DamienHooperTrading.com

This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process,
nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without
the permission of Damien Hooper, O’halloran Hill Adelaide SA 2016
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