Alright folks, let’s talk about my deep dive into Ken Hardy’s stuff. I’ve been hearing a lot about his approach to trading, especially his focus on price action and all that jazz. So, I decided to roll up my sleeves and see if it was all hype or if there was some real meat to it.
First thing I did was hunt down as much info as I could. I started with his books, found a few interviews online, and even dug through some old forum threads. You know, the usual internet sleuthing. It took a good chunk of a weekend just to get my head around the basic concepts. This guy’s got a whole system built around identifying key price patterns and levels.
Next up, demo account time! No way I was going to risk my hard-earned cash before I even understood the fundamentals. I set up a virtual account with my broker and started practicing identifying the patterns Hardy talks about. Things like the ‘Three Drives’ pattern, ‘ABCD’ formations, and looking for those key support and resistance levels. I’ll be honest, at first, it looked like a bunch of squiggles to me. But I kept at it.
So, I’d spend a couple of hours each evening after work, just staring at charts. I’d mark up potential patterns, wait for confirmations, and then “enter” the trades in my demo account. At first, my win rate was atrocious. Like, really bad. I was probably right only about 30% of the time. But I wasn’t discouraged. Hardy himself says it takes time to develop that “eye” for the market.
I started keeping a detailed trading journal. Every trade I took, I wrote down why I took it, what pattern I saw, what my entry and exit points were, and most importantly, what I learned from the experience. This journal was a game changer. It helped me identify my mistakes and see where I was consistently screwing up. Turns out, I was often jumping the gun, entering trades before I had proper confirmation.
I kept tweaking my approach based on what I was learning from my journal. I started being more patient, waiting for stronger confirmations, and focusing on trading only the highest probability setups. Slowly but surely, my win rate started to improve. After a few months, I was consistently profitable in my demo account.
Alright, demo account success is one thing, but real money is a whole different beast. The emotions, the pressure… it’s a different game. So, I decided to start small. Really small. I opened a micro account and started trading with tiny positions, just to get a feel for the real-world psychology.
And guess what? Even with tiny positions, the emotions were there! I felt the anxiety of losing money, the temptation to jump out of a winning trade too early, all that stuff. But because the stakes were so low, I was able to manage those emotions and stick to my plan.
I’ve been trading with real money for a few months now, still keeping my positions small. My results have been mixed, but overall, I’m still profitable. The key takeaway for me is that Ken Hardy’s approach is solid, but it’s not a magic bullet. It takes a lot of practice, discipline, and self-awareness to make it work. You gotta put in the time to learn the patterns, develop your own trading style, and manage your emotions. It’s a journey, not a destination.
So, yeah, that’s my Ken Hardy experience so far. Still learning, still tweaking, still trying to become a better trader. Wish me luck!
