First week of live trading

With talk of stricter regulations coming, I decided to open a live account, that way if some of the restrictions only apply to new accounts I might get around it, worst case scenario I’ll have to close the account when the new regulations start.

I’m not comfortable risking my planned starting balance yet so decided to open it with £100, I’ve spent way more than that on things that I’ve used once or twice then forgotten all about, I wouldn’t be happy, but I could loose it all and nothing bad would happen!

My first few trades were all very small, I made 8p, 5p and 8p, then stepped up slightly and made a whopping 95p! I was pleased that my first 4 trades all ended in profit, I carried on with roughly the same risk for a while, picking a place for my stop loss then adjusting the position size to make the stop loss around 30p, sometimes I would set a take profit around where I thought the price would go but most of the time I would just keep checking on it to see how it was doing.

I won some and lost some, the first 3 days I kept above my starting balance, another thing that I was rather pleased about! Then I stated looking for longer term trades, I thought I’d found a nice opportunity for a long trade on GBP/NZD, I got what I feel was a good entry, the stop loss was fairly close but I was confident it wouldn’t get hit, I set the lot size so the stop loss was £2, the maximum I was willing to risk (2% of starting balance), I left it to do it’s thing, came back to check on it about an hour later to find the price going against me, still a way off the stop so I was happy, then out of nowhere the price shot UP but my stop loss was triggered, I had no idea what happened at first, then I noticed the spread had jumped to 30 pips!! It was already a bigger spread than everything I had traded so far, but it was still less than 10 pips, so that’s how my stop was taken out and £2 gone in the blink of an eye (it was actually £2 and some change, more than I had set the stop to, but I understand why). I tried again, entry wasn’t quite as good as the first attempt and the stop was further away so position size was smaller to stick to £2 risk, the spread was around 17 pips, higher than I like but I was still confident the price was going to go up, shortly after the same thing happened, price dropped a bit then spread jumped back to 30 pips, turns out my calculations were wrong, I didn’t take into consideration the distance I would be from my intended entry because of the spread, another £2 gone!

After that I decided not to play with big spreads anymore! As it turns out the same thing would have happened again, seeing as the price dropped and the spread is currently 60 pips, even if I calculated for 30 pips I’m sure 60 pips would have hit it, so yeah, I’m keeping away from big spreads now!

I also missed out on a good win on AUD/CHF because I failed to notice the price hitting resistance 3 times then turned into a down trend, had I have taken it at or close to the resistance I would have made around £2.50, because I didn’t see what was happening it carried on falling to my stop, luckily I’d moved it to above break even after it had gone up so far so I still ended up with 11p profit.

I went back to smaller trades, around 30p stops, again I won some and lost some, in total I’ve won 12 and lost 12, problem being the losses started when the position size was bigger, so I lost more than I won, now I’m back to small position sizes the wins should go back to being bigger than the losses.

I’ve got a couple of extra days off work next week, I don’t go back until Thursday, so I’ll be spending Monday - Wednesday practicing!

Well, my 1st week trading experience of live trading was too excited! Basically, I opened my live trading account after practicing my demo for one year! So, I had enough preparations, I opened micro account first to deal with my emotions! Till now I can remember, I made 7 good trades out of 10! I addition, end of the week I had withdrawn my weekly profit!

TBH I think I’m about ready to quit, it seems as though no matter how sure I am about the direction, as soon as I open a trade the price suddenly goes against me in a big way, sometimes it comes back just enough to close in profit, most of the time it just takes off into my stop loss, whenever it goes in my favour it always seems to gently creep the right way, I never seem to get big moves in the right direction.

I still have a 1:1 win/loss ratio, it just seems like a waste of time, I didn’t expect to be great at it straight away or anything, I just don’t think it’s for me, at first, from before demo account, right up to the end of the first week with real money, I felt positive about it, now I’m sick of seeing charts, I think the turning point was the jumps in spread closing trades even though the price was going in the right direction, it’s just been downhill from there!

Just relax… this really will take you years to master, just like all successful retail traders.

Most here on this forum (and others) have agreed three years when learning from the ground up without a professional mentor. [I’m talking about a proven to be profitable, industry professional - not a salesman selling a course].

Typically, with the help of an industry professional, although varying, the expected time is reduced to 1.5 years.

I can’t comment on how realistic these figures are - although I can relate to them, even if it did take me over three years to get it right.

Just take it one step at a time. Eight years I’ve been at this game - and i still have days like you have described - the best traders in the world do also.

Yes I agreed with Jezzode. I been on demo for near 3 yrs b4 I really start a trading account. Due to emotion cos it really money I have lost n start all over again. It really not easy n long way… U have slowly search, try n error to know which strategy suit u the best and what kind of trader u want to be. For myself, I’m short temper. Can’t wait… But I did try long term trading but not suitable for me. I love thing which is v exciting. So i chose to be a scalper and also hunt for reverse or pull back tread. I even trade heavy news. Can get few pips from there, hahahaha… For mi trading is a super enjoyable thing. I love to see the candles jumping up n down. Collect the pips keep it n get more pips again. It get mi v excited for 5yrs until now still going. At same time., I’m still learning. Wish to learn as much as possible, like what other trader strategy is ect… May God be with us.

These experience still better than me, my first week trading on real account only defend on three day trading and eventually get margin call account on eurusd which on first analysis I think will long term trending up, but in fact movement easy to changed and only hope price move to early track but what happen is price against order and eventually margin call account

institutionally 10 000 hours is number you need to achieve before it is considered you have a solid base knowledge. Your training wheels are allowed off only and after that.

Office jobs in London are typically 10 hour days in the City, so 50 hours a week. This is close to 2,500 a year. So after three years you are well on your way, and after four years with 10,000 hours you’re at institutional level.

Seems like a realistic estimate to aim for, both on retail and institutional level

I’m probably no exception, because I’ve drained my first money… Although I’ve sat on a demo account for quite a long time, but it still didn’t help. Also I’d like to add that this isn’t the only deposit drain I’ve had, it happens to everyone.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, things took a turn for the better last week with a couple of trades on GBP/JPY, I made about 6% profit on the first, the second was half the size but thanks to the massive spike when the market opened last night, I took a nice 11% profit.

I still have a short XAU/USD trade open, this one I shouldn’t really have done in the first place because the minimum position size isn’t really compatible with a (now less than) £100 account, unless you have a really tight stop loss, but decided to go for it even though the stop loss is at -10%, because the whole account is only 10% of my planned starting balance, as luck would have it, the price went in my favour in a big way when the market opened! I considered taking the profit when it first dropped but decided to leave it to see where it goes.

Oddly enough I’m less bothered about wins and losses with real money, probably because it’s such a small account that loosing it all wouldn’t be a great loss, and the wins, although some have been decent % wise, aren’t big wins. What used to bother me about practice accounts was seeing big wins but it wasn’t real, or seeing big losses and being glad that it wasn’t real, like an emotional roller coaster!

With real money I’ve just got sick of looking at charts, I’m still not convinced it’s for me, I think I just got excited thinking I’d found something I was interested in that I could do sitting down, now that I’ve started to come to terms with not being able to do what I used to, due to an accident 6 years ago.

I’m not giving up yet though!

Then you’re gambling.

I don’t really have enough experience to offer advice, but until someone more qualified steps up, maybe the following will help.

Your first priority is to try to protect your account. Look again at risk management - I’m sure you know that there’s lots of stuff here to help you with this.

You don’t have to look at charts all day until you’re sick of it. Think about trading longer term time frames. Whatever time frame you choose, produce a trading plan/strategy that suits you and stick to it.

Using someone else’s method can help to instil trading discipline. This thread was recommended to me and I’m learning a lot from it:

Starting out trading and don’t know how to make Profits?

I’m demoing this at the moment until I’m absolutely sure that I understand exactly what’s going on, the nuances, the why’s and wherefore’s and how profitable it might be. It’s also making me aware of the importance of having familiarity with the currency pairs I’m trading and their current ‘behaviour’, as well as giving me a better understanding and appreciation of correlation when trading multiple pairs.

Hope this helps.

Forex is too risky in my opinion, by when you actually work hard to get the needed knowledge and skills, you can minimize the risk and get the best out of forex. This why I always welcome the idea of trading with Robots, since it is program to trade in a certain way and it is not affected by emotions. Sometimes, our fear makes us to pull away from profitable trades.

I’m fine with that, as far as I’m concerned it’s all gambling anyway, you risk money to gain money. Having said that, I don’t intend on risking any more than 2% on my trades, I made the exception because it was that or miss out on a potentially great trade because of the size of the smallest possible position, which won’t happen on a properly funded account.

I don’t really have enough experience to offer advice, but until someone more qualified steps up, maybe the following will help.

Your first priority is to try to protect your account. Look again at risk management - I’m sure you know that there’s lots of stuff here to help you with this.

This is something that I fully understand, most of my first week trades were less than 1% risk, the first 3 were way less! It was only towards the end of the week that I started risking 2%, unfortunately that’s also when I had a loosing streak that knocked me back, although I’m glad to say that if I close all my positions now, my balance will be the highest it’s ever (ha, ever, all two weeks!) been.

You don’t have to look at charts all day until you’re sick of it. Think about trading longer term time frames. Whatever time frame you choose, produce a trading plan/strategy that suits you and stick to it.

It’s not the length of time I spend looking at them, maybe that’s what it was at first, when I first started learning and opened demo accounts I spent an awful lot of time watching charts for hours on end! Now I have a quick look to see how my trades are doing every hour or so, usually just on my phone while I’m at work or out of the house, then if I’m looking for another trade (I have a limit of 3 open trades at a time for now) I’ll spend a while on them, looking for opportunities. I just find it a bit boring, there’s nowhere near enough oil involved, I used to spend most of my free time in an engine bay!

Once (if) I get properly into it, my plan is to have a couple of longer term trades most of the time, no set time to close, just watch and see where it goes, while at the same time do some short term trades on a night, maybe up to a couple of hours, when I have time to keep a closer eye on things.

For now I’m sticking with the longer term trades so I don’t have to sit and watch charts!!

Using someone else’s method can help to instil trading discipline. This thread was recommended to me and I’m learning a lot from it:

Starting out trading and don’t know how to make Profits?

I’m demoing this at the moment until I’m absolutely sure that I understand exactly what’s going on, the nuances, the why’s and wherefore’s and how profitable it might be. It’s also making me aware of the importance of having familiarity with the currency pairs I’m trading and their current ‘behaviour’, as well as giving me a better understanding and appreciation of correlation when trading multiple pairs.

I’ve seen that thread, I’m also trying it out on a demo account, I started that before I opened a live account, I’m waiting to see how it does with the demo before I try it with real money, if I do use it with a live account I’ll make a sub account for it.

As it happens it’s working quite well, the account started as £1000, I had already been playing with it and had it down to around £960 when I started the high 5 strategy, at first it didn’t do too well and now the balance is at £928, but the equity is £1040, some of that profit is now “locked in”, I do believe it’s going to be profitable, maybe I’ll open the sub account with my end of month bonus, we’ll see.

Hope this helps.

It does, thank you.

I’ve made my mind up, I quit!

My total balance including my one open position is now £118.60 ish, I’m going to leave the one trade open (long on gbp/jpy) to see if I can get a nice round £120, whatever happens I can’t go below £110 because I’ve been moving my stop every couple of days or so, but I think it’s more likely to hit the stop than go over £120! Either way, once this trade is closed I’ll be taking my money out of the account and won’t look back.

The thing that made my mind up is I can’t be bothered to look for new trades, once my gold trade closed today, taking my realized p&l from -£10 to +£8, I realized I have zero interest in forex anymore, I didn’t even think about it over the weekend, and for the last couple of weeks I’ve barely paid any attention to it, just checking my trades from time to time, I figured it’s best to quit while I’m ahead.

I just wanted to come back here and say thanks to those that have offered help and support, there really is a wealth of information on the site, I’m glad I found it when I did, but it’s not for me.

Good luck everyone, happy trading!!