Pipcrawler's Thoughts on Setting Newbie Expectations

[highspeculation]

Hi Guys.

I'm new here and am just introducing myself. I'd also like to give you guys a huge thumbs up for your website and pip school in particular!

[Herman Kane]

Hello, it's my first post here after joining the forum for some time

I started live trading about 6 months back. Before that, I was doing demo for only two months. Dangerous? Actually I find that demo account is good for me only in that it allows me to get used to the trading platform. When I started in demo, I tried to trade 0.1 lot, but somehow it gave me an unrealistic feel that you are moving large amounts of money. In any case, I would not have started a live account that lets me trade 0.1 lot. I guess a number of newbies got lucky when the period they demoed happens to be a trending market, and they may post winnings of 20k to 30k in a month, before thinking of "hey, if I had done that in live, I would have been rich!", only to bust their account when they do go live.

While I didn't win at demo consistently, I thought that the best way out for myself is to trade live. My main reason for wanting to trade live is that every mistake is "costly", so I tend to learn beh!" when you lose $2 in your first live trade.

6 months on, my $1k live account has gone ully in the range of $5 - $10 win/loss for every trade. As of now, I have done 237 lives trades and is down 15%. I don't know if it's consider good or bad, so I still carry on the same way.

How many friends do you have that trades forex and can discuss trades, strategies and all that trading stuff with you? Sometimes I feel that trading is a lonely business, but on deeper thought, most of our friends are online, across the world, and there is no stopping you from asking anyone about anything! Any one on the same path as me, just keep going yah! So for the pros out there, I do need a bit of thoughts from you guys

Over the past year, I have read a lot of trading books and perhaps the best advice is to focus on building up trading psychology, so I am not panicking about my account, yet. If I have been able to bring my account to 10% profits before, I will be able to do it again. I do keep try notebook on setups, strategies, mistakes, pointers and etc etc... I have been changing a number of strategies and trading timeframes and is now most comfortable with trading H4.

However, my main problem is that I have been asking myself "What's next?" Do I just keep trading, reading, learning? Is there some point at the start of your trading career where you hit such bottleneck? If yes, I hope you can share how you managed to overcome this.

Are you using limit orders to enter trades with because if you don't, that's half your problem right there.

[RookieForex]

Are you using limit orders to enter trades with because if you don't, that's half your problem right there.

Yes I have been using limit orders. Wasn't good at market orders most of the time as it became more of a price chasing when I just started to trade.

[nedo]

I like how you say trading is an Artwork!

I like your analogies. Next time I trade I will listen to Miles Davis whilst wearing my Air Jordans!!

Keep the posts coming!

[philmac]

One thing that should be mentioned its that all newbies should develop a trading plan. Trading plans act as your text books and help you pave the way that you trade in the future.

[Lakhwaira]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help me with this statement? I read this on the website 'Risk is minimized in the spot forex market because the online capabilities of the trading platform will automatically generate a margin call if the required margin amount exceeds the available trading capital in your account.' What exactly does this mean? It would be great if you put it in a context Thank you!

[Azalea]

Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum. But I wanted to share a bit about my trading because I have found it so interesting reading about how you all trade and what you think about trading. I have been trading for 2 years and when I started the first thing I did was set up a demo account. I found a broker FXCM that would allow me to have an account for only $2000 so I started learning the platform so when I was ready to go live I would be familiar with their platform. I didn't even know how to open a chart or execute a trade. I messed around with the demo account for months and learned as much as I could about what all the buttons did and how to place an entry, limit, stop etc. Then I did all the courses that FXCM offers which I found terrifying and exhilarating. Once I had done a string of webinars and a 8 day mini course I started hearing a lot of things that I had learnt already so I went forward looking for more information. In the mean time I set up a real account because I couldn't take the "play money" seriously any more. Then I found a course that you could do in your own time and it was one that you bought so I thought it would be a lot more information and new ideas for me, that was with TOP DOG TRADING, Dr Barry Burns he is really likeable and interesting. After completing that course I have reviewed it many times and then started Babypips school, which is amazing and would have been a great place to start really. I have over the last 2 years had losses and profits and nothing remarkable really if anything I am running at a loss. But I just love learning all about trading forex and I love being allowed into the world that was previously reserved for Brokers and the extremely wealthy. I aim to make trading into my job. Im sure a lot of you will criticise me for having been at it for 2 years and not "made it" yet. But I trade because I enjoy trading and learning something new that is totally different from what I do as a profession. (Horticulturalist). I would love it if some of you would share your trading story. What made you start trading? How have you gotten to where you are now? Why do you trade? Has anyone got a mentor?

[Azalea]

I have $2000 account if my leverage is 200/1 and I make a trade for 100,000 it ties up $500 of my account as a "bond". (Just divide the size of your trade by your leverage: 100,000 divided by 200 =500. If my trade goes badly and turns against me then gets as bad as -$1500 it triggers a margin call on my account and the trade is atomically closed at -$1500. Then you will still have the "bond" remaining of 500. The reason they do this is so you account can never get into debt. You can't lose more than you have put into your account. All platforms are different though. You really don't want to get a margin call. Hope this helps. If not you can go to FXCM and they have a Q&A sections.

[Azalea]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help me with this statement? I read this on the website 'Risk is minimized in the spot forex market because the online capabilities of the trading platform will automatically generate a margin call if the required margin amount exceeds the available trading capital in your account.' What exactly does this mean? It would be great if you put it in a context Thank you!

I have $2000 account if my leverage is 200/1 and I make a trade for 100,000 it ties up $500 of my account as a "bond". (Just divide the size of your trade by your leverage: 100,000 divided by 200 =500. If my trade goes badly and turns against me then gets as bad as -$1500 it triggers a margin call on my account and the trade is atomically closed at -$1500. Then you will still have the "bond" remaining of 500. The reason they do this is so you account can never get into debt. You can't lose more than you have put into your account. All platforms are different though. You really don't want to get a margin call. Hope this helps. If not you can go to FXCM and they have a Q&A sections.

[Tassiefx]

Hi Azalea,
Just wanted to clarify one thing with you, just so you are aware. It is possible to lose more than your account balance, although extremely rare. Say you had a trade at the end of Fridays trade and it had moved against you, but just short of the margin call (because you chose not to use a stop loss in this example). The market closes on Friday and a big event happens (Earthquake, Greece leaves Eurozone, Euro goes belly up, elections etc) and the Monday open is say 2 cents lower than Friday close. Your trade was a long and almost at the margin call. Your marin call happens on open, but the broker is not going to take the loss, so the trade closes at the open price, not the margin call price. This could be a disaster of you were badly leveraged, not aware of consequences etc and you could be in debt overall.

I protect myself against this by never trading more than my allowable risk per trade, and my methodology (VSA) has me closing any trades befor eht eend of most days, especially before end of week, so I prevent any weekend exposure.

Just wanted you to be aware you can lose more than the amount in your account. You will find that this can happen for any broker as they facilitate your trade, and as such will not bear your risk on their business operations.

Tassie