$800 in 2 1/2 months

Beginner Questions
1

Started out with a small account of $200, my first week I earned $250 (no joke) and by the end of the second week and I already have $580.

Prior to this I only had like a few weeks or even less of demo trading experience. I was totally in cloud 9.

Things started to go awry from that point on, As I always put my entire account on the line (of course with stoploss) so each time I would either lose 10% or win 20%.

1 bad trade was all it take to reverse things, 1 revenge trade was all it took to let my greed, fear and all control me.

It was also my first loss in a long time, from that point all, I kept losing to revenge trading until the point where I lost all my profit and even half of my capital.

I sat down and reflected and decided, “Look here, I’ll just settle with 10% every week and at the end of 1 year, I’ll have $16,200”

Things went well for a while, but I got greedy, because usually by tuesday I’ll already be 10% up and there’s still 3 trading days left!

I managed to convince myself that it was easy money, started to over trade. Sure enough, the final nail was nailed into my coffin.

I started to trade with stop loss, something about hearing trading without it so that your broker doesn’t know where your SL is and they won’t be able to stop hunt you and many times I was caught 80/100 pips in the red.

Got margin called, topped up my account several times.

Market was merciful to me, many times it gave me a chance to restart by letting me take $0 profit or even 10%, but greed controlled me, I wanted more. From taking profit of 20pips, 40pips, I was looking to take 150pips without proper risk management.

I didn’t take the mercy that was given to me, Now officially I’ve wiped out $800 of my own money, or $1180 of what could have been my money. I owe the bank about $250 for one of the credit card topup I made.

And I’m only a citizen conscript, my allowance isn’t a lot, I"ll probably struggle for the next 2 to 3 months and I’m seriously contemplating taking up odd weeked jobs just to pay up my debts. I’m even considering selling off my PS3, I won’t deny this but I’m also thinking of taking another swipe of my card and putting in $250 to recoup some losses.

Which not only is the $250 owed to the bank but also another $300 owed to a foreign language school and also another $100 from my retail purchase.

My advice to all aspiring traders, never revenge trade, never over trade, learn to have reasonable expectations.

I heard this quote from TV, I think it was Pier Morgan who said it “You have not lost because you have not quit”

I would be trading demo right now until I can consistently make money week in and out and until I have the right amount of capital to trade live.

2

I have not traded “live” yet but my #1 fear is letting greed get in the way. Revenge trading I think I can stay away from but the greed is the hard 1

3

As A new trader you should not be setting percentage of account goals you need to set a pip day and week and month goal at first you should set a reasonable goal like 20 pips a day for 20 trading days then go up to 30 pips day for 20 trading days it adds up if you set a pip gial and average your pip goal for 2 month in a row then add a lot or double your lot size which ever you feel comforable with Once you hit that daily pip goal until you learn consistancey and discpline shut your trading platform down and plan on your next trading day.

5

Rather than worry about overtrading, try taking just the very best high probability trades that you can, and nothing else. As per your solid trading strategy.

Odds are you won’t see such trade opportunities as often as you’d like. Maybe a few a week, or even none. Depends how you trade. If you see fifteen winning trades a week and you trade them all, and do well… then great! If you don’t do so well, it’s time to re~examine the strategy and consider the concept of overtrading.

It is difficult, yes! I often take a look at the charts and think that it must be juuuust about on the verge of a major reversal. Quick, trade, trade! But resist the urge to ‘play anyway’ even if you are itching to trade. Or if you absolutely must trade to scratch the itch, make it 1 penny per pip and don’t expose yourself to more than a cup of coffee’s worth of risk. Recognise that trades based upon hunches or just hope are simply educational at best, or entertainment (in the form of gambling) at worst. These markets are very unkind to gamblers. I must confess to a few ‘penny a pip’ type trades when I have a sense of how a news event might go… but of course, they have been more educational than profitable.

Finally ~ for anyone who takes off spectacularly in the beginning… that tells me you are either a forex expert of many many years and an absolute genius… ~or~ you are risking a sizeable portion of your account to achieve such results, and were simply fortunate in the beginning. Statistically though, that sort of risk management (or lack thereof) has rather a rapid consequence.

Gently recommend focusing upon risk exposure first, and return on investment far later.

I firmly believe there are some really good guys on this board who are actually sharing how to make money. For free. Just because they are nice. Seriously! What more might one possibly ask for from a voice on the internet, not much mmm? The key is to understand that yes it is going to take time to learn, a lot of time, and that yes you are going to have to work at it. And that there is no hurry. If there’s an extreme hurry, you need to be doing something other than forex.

I’m here for the long haul myself. I am not an expert trader (far from it!) but my trading has improved by leaps and bounds by simply Reading, Understanding, and Applying what a fair number of people have said to do, here. With ‘Applying’ being the hard step!

Again, congratulations to anyone with the courage to admit losses. It shows acceptance of responsibility, and the ability to face the truth and learn from it ~ an extremely positive sign. I wish the very best to you.

6

I love the “stop hunting” myth.

Do you really think a broker will go 80 to 100 pips out of their way for $27.61?

And while we’re at it, 10% weekly compounded adds up to far more than you gave it credit for.

$35,841 to be exact.

So if you hit 10% a week, stop.