"let this be a lesson to me" the tale of my first two live trades

Some background

Started as a complete beginner about six months ago. Have been demo trading for four of those months but without much luck to be honest and have been getting quite lax with it - it is only virtual money after all. I opened a live account a while back to build up funds but only have $500 in it just now.

The trades

So the thought came to me - “try trading live”. Well I lived with this thought for a couple of weeks and then was sitting in front of the screen, price going up, all indicators say up, demo trade is 35 pips up, so going to take profit here and open another position. The thought came again - “you could do this live” price is near the top of its range but there is still room to go up, maybe 30 or 40 pips to next resistance. I open my live account, set the rules to one lot ($10,000), 400:1 leverage, and sit there waiting - is the moment right ? will price really go up or will it retrace a bit, shouldn’t I wait ? Oh f**K it, I press the button. And … nothing. The dollar/yen does what it often does and goes sideways. A couple of hours later and still the same so I set a sensible SL and go to bed. Next morning, yes ! 22pips up and slowly creeping up. Set my SL to take 20 pips and off to work, come back and have got 20 pips out of a possible 33, not much - 16 bucks but good for me and I so wanted my first trade to be succesfull !

Well that was easy I think that night, but $16 isn’t much, wonder if I can increase it. Well you know, you can. On $500 you can trade $100,000 lots at 400:1. Well the dollar/yen isn’t doing much but the Aus/usd is falling. Looks good I think and press the button. Well this time price did the other thing it often does and shot off the other way ! Quickly. Things aren’t looking so good, $10 a pip and price is racing against me, $500 is not going to last very long. I now have to sit and think how much of my account can I bear to lose - 25 pips isn’t much but at $10 a pip is still half my account ! Set stop and wait, walk about a bit, flick back and forth between the charts and babypips, walk about a bit. Eventually price starts moving in my direction, 10 pips now, I should take profit right now. “Well hang on” says my mind "you were right, just leave it - its going your way " Actually it is not now, it is going rapidly against me again. "Don’t panic, set your SL and wait " I panic and set my SL 100 pips away. By the time I notice price at break even just time to close the trade, it slips 1 pip and I am out for a $10 loss, phew.

My lessons ? - I was lucky, I could have blown my whole account in a few minutes ( I could also have much richer ) !
Everything the experts say is true, but you will not believe it until you try for yourself.
Money management and your mind are very important - these were only tiny amounts of money and pips but had a big affect on me.
It was fun though !

peter -( apologies for rambling on, but thanks for reading if you got this far :slight_smile: )

Emotions run high once you go live!! $10 pips is way to much for a single trade with your account size.

The Babypips school teaches you to be well capitalized and then trade only micro or mini accounts untill you have at least $50,000 equity.

That was one piece of advice i definitely took.

Regards, Tymen Wortel, Perth, Western Australia.:slight_smile:

Quite agree, i have been through the babypips school a few times myself.

I think the point I am making is that you can read something again and again but it will not sink in until you try it for real. People like me are probably always going to blow a few accounts until we learn the hard way, frustrating though it must be for teachers.

Also it amazed me how quickly your mind’s perspective can alter depending on if you are in a winning or losing position.

some times also you need to make a leap and go for it - like fairies, like platform 9 3/4 you just have to believe.

You can learn a lot about yourself in this business !

peter