Hi All,
I am a 40 year old who has moved to Thailand and has been living here for 6 years now. I have been interested in forex for awhile, but I have only decided to get very serious about it a week ago. I still want to work my job (I love it) but I want extra security.
So I am now going to have a real go at this. One thing I have learnt in my life is that if you are going to do anything, do it properly. This site looks like it contains quite a few people who have that ethos.
To start with, I am doing the Babypips course. It does seems very interesting and enjoyable. From there I will look at the education area over at forexpeacearmy.
I have found it difficult to settle on a broker as reviews are either over the top lovefests or down in the dirt slanderfests.
My goal is simple. A financial goal of $1000 a month from a starting bank of $500. I know that will take a lot of hard work and patience but that is where I want to be eventually.
Thanks to everybody who is involved with this forum. I really think this place may change my life.
Cheers
My retirement home 
Just wanted to clarify my initial investment plan to see what others think.
I know that starting with $500 is humble beginning. I am putting money aside each month that will be available to add into the kitty later on, but I want my first year (after the demo period) to be small trades focusing on developing a good instinct and habit. I have a goal of a 2% monthly increase meaning to begin with meaning I would have a total of about $620. This period is too prove to myself I can do it.
After that, I would add $2000 further investment and look to gain a 4% monthly increase for the next 12 months. This would have me at about $4000. At this point, I would know exactly how I feel about the broker, have tried to withdraw funds, and feel more comfortable with the whole trading concept.
The final investment would be $3000 with an aim of a 6% per month increase getting me to about $ 14000 by the years end. If I can achieve this as a consistent, I believe I would be on my way to getting my goal.
Once I have completed this period, I aim to withdraw funds to have a starting bank of $8500 (so I have my original investment returned)at the beginning of my trading year and push towards a 8% per month increase.
I want to achieve this $1000 a month goal by 2016. 
After that, I will sit down and set a new goal path 
You can achieve that if you are brave enough to over leverage and be a full time trader. If you have a day time job stick to it first and forget the profits. I would rather focus on trading plan and risk management scenarios.
Thanks for the comment Piptylimit :). I do not see that my plan calls for overleveraging and I thought I had leaned more towards being cautious than aggressive. Please tell me why my plan is risky because I would have to revise it as that is not want I want. I will be doing 3-5 hours a day as 7pm to midnight over here matches peak trading times.
I changed to XEmarkets a couple of weeks ago and will use them. I still have not settled on an account which annoys me a little. I find reading through the reviews just leaves you with mixed feelings.
I have been reading about MAs and displaced MAs and look very interesting, so I have been looking at some MAs to use and ended up deciding to try a EMA 21 (3 shift) and EMA 4 (5 shift) plus a SMA 30 (1 shift) on a 5min chart for the EUR/USD and EUR/JPY.
It appears that when EMA 4 crosses all the above lines I have a clear trend picture. I admit I treat this initially as a set up position for trade and keep a close eye on the next candlestick before initiating a pending order 5 pips ahead of the trend. I then keep a tight trailing stop of 10 points if I know I can’t be around the computer too long. Ideally I would wait and exit when EMA 4 touches EMA 21. I have been using an EA for SSI Arrows and this seems to help my plan a lot.
Recently, I used CCI Arrows combined with my trend lines and they do appear to show clear entry and exit points. When I get a buy signal I wait until the EMA 4 lines breaks through and then buy. The trade gets stopped with a sell signal because then my trade does not have parity.
Anyway, if it is okay I will update here weekly with trades and results
So far the last 2 weeks have produced a 1.9% gain on the demo starting bank using 1 volume trades. Very happy with that and feel it is an encouraging start.
Thanks again guys and gals.
If you are scalping a 5 min chart will do with shorter period emas. If you are a momentum trader better look at a higher time frame to analyze the price action and avoid fakeouts. If you are a contrarian focus on sentiment analysis. It is really hard work, there are many indicators to choose from but the best strategy is patience.
Agree. I can actually use a 4 hour chart if required without any problems as the system I have is giving the same results on both 5 min and 4 hour. I liked 5 minute as I felt I could set a better original stop, but I think I would be better getting used to using 4 hours as swing trading is more my style. Definitely not scalping.
