I opened an account with photobucket.com and then added it from there. Pain in the back but it works
Personally, I trade all of the pairs that you list as being available on your platform. I am a firm believer in ātrade what you seeā, I just trade the chart. So my view is that trading more pairs gives you the option of picking only the cleanest setups. There are a few more fundamental issues to keep abreast of - I never enter a trade for fundamental reasons, but fundamentals will sometimes cause me to reject a setup - but I am basically a technical trader, so I will trade any chart involving the more mainstream currencies.
ST
Funny old day, as Iām sure most of you noticed. Started the day by making a terrible Aussie/USD trade. Terrible inthe sense that while the long term charts were showing a move lower, they were setting up for a bounce in the short term. Sure enough I sold just at the bounce up and was more annoyed at the bloody stupid mistake rather than the loss of 53 pips.
Anyway, heading into the afternoon I took my lead from the DJIA and S&P futures pointing to a lower open. Shares in FTSE 100 had a slight bounce in the morning session but as the New York session open drew closer they began to give those small gains back. Since EUR/USD has more or less followed the indexes in the short time Iāve been trading, I took the SHORT EUR/USD to follow the indexes down. Opened at 1-4178, Stop 1-4250 and target at 1-4050.
By the time pair had reached 1-4074 I was out and about with my wife and could only keep up to date with PA via my iPhone. Since the iPhone does not provide charts to help determine strength of a move, I decided to close out at 1-4074 for +104 pips.
Takes the account balance up to a new high of $95 so hopefully closing in on getting back above $100 sometime soon.
Also, just as a matter of interest, Iāve started my journal of the trades that I make. I take a screen shot of my entry on 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour and 4 hour. I then list my reasons for getting into the trade. When trade finishes I take a screen shot of the timeframes again and list my profit/loss, how I managed the trade and what, in the end up, I got wrong and did badly, or got right and did well.
At the bottom of all of that I try to write any lessons learned from the trade. It may seem like a long needless process to the more experienced traders but in the short time Iāve been doing it I think it has helped from a discipline point of view, and from a learning candlestick signals perspective.
Anyway, I guess we all have to find what works for us as individuals and for now at least I think it helps me.
HoG
When you are more annoyed at the mistakes than the pips, it is a pretty good indicator of growing underlying confidence, which bodes well for the future.
By my rough reckoning, that makes several weeks of consistent gains. So had you done exactly the same thing with a couple of extra noughts on the end you would have made some nice money - so that is an enormous reason to feel very positive about the future.
I donāt know whether I count as experienced or not, at sub-two years, but for my part I still keep a trading log - I have an Excel spreadsheet detailing every trade I ever placed, what I intended, how it played out, all the details. I still review it at the end of each month and see what I think, looking back. I learn something from it every time I put the time into studying it, I really do. I am a firm believer in not changing something that is working. I started out keeping a log, and expect that I will always maintain it. It does not take long to complete, and it can be a great learning exercise, going through random trades from it, comparing them with the chart, and trying to decide - honestly! - if I would still stand by the trading decisions I took.
Train hard, fight easyā¦
(And yes, you have created a multi-quoting monster)
ST
Took a quick +11.8 pips today while doing a small scalp while EU price was bobbing around between 1-4050 and 1-4010. So it was a quick small gain to the balance. Only risked 10 pips for my stop during this scalp so not the biggest disaster had it gone the wrong way. Listed it in my journal as a scalp during a short term range, maybe classed as more of a gamble than a trade as Iām not sure about the analysis involved.
Price had been down to a short term low and was heading back to short term high, this pattern had played out for most of this morning and into NY open so took the trade in hope short term moves would stay true to form.
Bigger picture is that I bought EU this morning on strength of Asia session closing up, FTSE and US futures pointing to a higher open AND 1 Hour and 4 Hour charts showing signs of an up move. Opened at 1-4076
Regardless of FTSE showing gains, AND later that day NY showing gains, EU has struggled to move as quickly, indeed it spent most of the day below my entry. Trying to break 1-41 as I write and I have my TP up at 1-4176. Reason being Fib retrace from 29/08/11 high to 6/9/11 low shows 23.6% level at 1-41055, and if price CAN get through that, 38.2% comes in around 1-4188.
Could just close out just now and take the balance to pennies under $99 ( another step closer to first milestone ) however there isnāt too much showing on the charts just now that worries me. May move stop up to entry if I go to bed and nothing too radical has happened, ( just to be safe I suppose )
However, another positive Asian session could see pair move up to my TP so Iāll let it ride.
[U][/U][B]ST[/B]
Personally I think multi quoting adds that certain something to a reply.Lol Itās a little bit like multi tasking for men !! Anyway, encouraged to hear your story of your journal. However, everytime I look at pictures of 53 pip loss from the other day itās just like having the same nightmare over and over and over. Good for reinforcing candlestick formations and signals though.
Update present trade outcome as it happens. Open EU 1-4076, Stop 1-40, TP 1-4176. If price gets to around 1-4150 I would seriously consider just shutting it down as that would take me over $100 and give me a small cushion for next trade to be wrong and still stay above $100. Thatās assuming it goes my way of course !
HoG
Ok hereās an update quicker than I expected to write one. Just added a rising trend line from my entry point until now on the 15 min chart. A break of that trend line comes in at 1-4087 (+10.3 pips). So that is where I am going to move my stop to. At very worse Iāll make 10 pips, which may not seem like a whole lot for a trade that has ran an entire day, but itās better than a loss.
Admittedly it doesnāt give a whole lot of room for trade to bob down a little ( current price being 1-4098 ) but I donāt care. Take the pips, move on, look for more.
HoG
Ok, trade now closed out for another +10. Truth of the matter is very simple. As far as I can see, charts are beginning to have a ācould go any wayā sort of look about them and I just donāt want to be in.
A little disappointing as balance now stands $97.78 ( 23 pips from $100 ) Thought Iād be a little closer, if not there, by the end of this one. May have jumped ship too early but as Iāve said before I have no intention of crying about what price does AFTER Iāve closed out.
Still moving in the right direction and thatās the main thing. Off to update the other journal now then get to bed. Goodnight all.
HoG
HoG,
remember that [B]usually[/B], right after NY close and most of the Asian session, price do not go above NY high or below NY lowā¦
Thanks yunny1, I didnāt know that. Thanks for sharing.
HoG
Good afternoon HoG! 
First let me tell you, a smart decision to play with the demo in parallel. Very good!
Regarding the above sentences: Try to forget your account numbers. The market doesnāt know anything about your account numbers and if you are looking too much in this direction (your account), it may influent your trading decisions. Which is not a good thing. Like driving a car with something else in mind than looking at the street and signs.
Remember, you can control risk, but you can never control profits. Profits come and go.
Regarding my account, I decided now to extract all my money from this bucket shop. So, over with overleveraged trading, lol. I just canāt stand this bad order execution anymore. Plus I can concentrate better on my other broker account.
Regarding multiple currencies: Iād try to avoid that as long as I do not know everything regarding eurusd. Plus other pairs have higher spreads, less liquidity and behave different. Not to say you canāt trade em, but better know one pair very good than all of the pairs a little bit. I trade 2 years now, watch the eur(german marks)usd since 20 years and even after that time I can still say I do not know enough regarding eurusd.
One thing regarding profits: Some tell they can make 10% a month. I do believe that, but I also believe it will not continue year after year. There will come drawdowns. So, take it all with a grain of salt what is written. The Barclays Index shows that the average discretionary trader makes around 10% a [U]year[/U] (with a dd of also 10%). Sure, this is average and some trade way better. But as long as you are better than average, you are better than average. Donāt chase for profits, because that is the sure warranty for a blown account. Sooner or later. Looking again at Barclays Index, the [U]very good traders[/U] make anything of 30% a year on average.
There is the index and you can look for yourself:
BarclayHedge | Barclay Discretionary Traders Index
So, if someone comes with more than that this is absolutely possible, but it is nothing what a newbie can expect to reach soon with a little help from the web or a hint here and there. The only thing what makes you better is skills and to learn the skills of trading takes a lot of time.
Anyways, great to see your account is growing lately and not shrinking. Which keeps you farther away from blowing an account. Plus the more time you can trade with your capital, the more you can learn. Which also keeps you farther away from blowing your account.
Any news regarding a system? I guess you need one. I never heard of any profitable consistent traders without a system.
HoG
If you are a golfer and I suspect you are, you will endless parrallels between fx and golf, the same emotional highs and v, ery deep lows, in quick painful succession. Also no amount of driving range practise and knowledge guarantee success on course, only experience will put knowledge into perspective, but this is the pro circuit, no cut no pay. The pressure is nearly unbearable and as you trade more lots it starts all over again, so to aim for 10% pa is not worth while in my opinion, it is like walking through a mine field to pick a nice red apple from a tree.
If you risk 2% per trade and end up with 10% after a year, something is wrong.
Just my view.
Oh yes, newbie traders are all great golfers like Tiger Woods and wanna get compensated like him, lol. 
[B]Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered[/B] 
[U]Not[/U] just my view. 
BC, have I touched a nerve there, not everybody is TW but to aim just to putt for pars wonāt get you far in paying bills, the fact is, if the average is 10%, some make millions and some loose a lot, thus the average. But why aim for average,my point is clear, this is very risky, if the rewards are not very high, why get into it. Even a Mom & Pop business should do a lot better than 10% pa with much less risk, risk is paramount.
About the concensus view of 10%, just because the majority agree, it is not necessarily right, as with GW Bush for instance and B O as well, it seems.
Oh and about the animals, where would you group George Soros.
JSF,
10% of 500k is 50k. Do you see a problem to live from 50k in a year? I donāt! Plus if you read again, I didnāt say it must always be 10%. Itās just what you can read is the average. I am not responsible for this number, I just posted a link to this index of the traders average. Those are professional traders btw. and not small herrings. The average of retail traiders would be much worse. They [U]lose[/U] on average. Mostly, because they have more wishful thinking than skills and knowledge and believe in quick rich myths.
If you believe trading is like āwalking through a mine fieldā, then you may have too much risk or it is the wrong job for you and you would maybe doing better to do what else you have in mind where you get more out of it. Not everybody can be a successful trader, as not everybody can be a successful golf player. Speaking regarding money.
So, George Soros started with a fx retail account with 100 bucks and made it in no time to a multi billion dollar guy while having roiās of 100% per year consistenly? My information is that he was already wealthy with his partner and a company and had some insider informations when he for instance speculated against the BoE. Obviously he knows what he is doing and does not risk too much.
I guess it is definitely bad advise to tell a newbie who lost already some money while trading that 10% roi a year is not good enough. 10% roi per year is definitely better than to lose anything. If HoG can make 10% per year then he can grow his account. He can try afterwards to improve that or if he has enough money for trading he could even get a lot of money with ājustā those 10%. There is still a lot of time. Right now it is counter productive to speak about unrealistic dreams. Like anybody could pay bills out of no knowledge or skills in no time. It is much better for a newbie to get a feeling and experience for himself and not somebody who tells him about big, but useless numbers. I trade since almost 2 years fx now and I am a speculator for several more years with also a higher roi. I am profitable and more than 10%, but I would be a fool to dream I could pay my bills out of that. I for myself believe I can make it in this business, but I set myself a time of another 5 and more years until I even would start thinking to pay any bills out of that! If somebody needs to pay his bills urgently, Iād suggest a regular job and not trying to become a gambler and asking for hope and luck.
BC, ok point taken.
HoG,keep an open mind though, the market is driven by human emotion, rigidity and fixed systems will not do.
lol. Itās not about points, but [U]skills[/U], [U]experience[/U] and [U]knowledge[/U]. Not myths and hearsay. Systems ARE doing it and doing well. Look at the turtles, for just one of the endless examples that systems are better than hunches. Plus there is another evidence for it:
BarclayHedge | Barclay Systematic Traders Index
Beside of several books I studied. There was one with an interview of the partner of Rich Dennis and he clearly stated that systems work. I donāt know if you know that they made millions in trading mechanical systems. Plus I have my own experience that systems work. They work so good for me that my former bucket shop slowed my order execution down, lol. A profitable trader with a systematic approach is the nightmare for every of such bucket shops. :16:
The average performance is the same as with a discretionary trader who may use a system as well. As I said I do not know one single profitable consistent trader without a systematic approach. Plus it is clearly to see at the link above that systems are on the plus side.
This all has a reason: The outcome of any single trade is unknown! If the outcome of any single trade, just one, would be known, you could bet with the highest lot size and would get rich quick. Only the statistical outcome of several trades may give you an edge and this edge can only be traded by a more or less systematical statistical approach. Thatās why hunches donāt work consistently over say 10 years. You may have a lucky number who wins big. Same as playing lottery. But this is a random outcome and not replicable from one to another trader. Thatās the reason why 97 traders fail where 2 or 3 are winners. Whereas a systematic approach IS replicable, because it is not based on luck, hunches or random outcome.
Donāt believe in smoke and mirror tactics from brokers and advertisers, who just want to tell you itās easy, everybody can be rich quick and systematic approaches donāt work. Just the opposite is the truth!
The Forex Market likes daily Fib numbers, all indicators aside, watch volume around the Fib or Support/Res levels, you can use the Euro Futures contract as an indicator too if trading the Eur/Usd too see real global volume. Indicators work well to confirm a trade but volume tell you what is really happening.
Hi All,
Quite a lot to get through in this reply as it will probably be my last post of the week. So let me get on with it.
First of all account balance has gone through the $100 line, ( $102.38 to be exact !! ). Now I know there may be plenty of people out there reading this who may be thinking that when you take todayās PA into account, it is little wonder account balance has gone up, but I donāt care.
I started my account, as I have wrote many many times, in MAY 2011 with $400 as a guy who knew virtually NOTHING about forex. Unsurprinsingly I tanked that account down to $43 in next to no time. But then I was lucky enough to have have had the sense to step back and realise I needed to start to learn.
Well to answer these two points firstly, if you take my low of $43 and gauge my account from when I started to read about and study the FX market, I think you may find that bringing it up to $102 works out a little bit more than 10%.
Secondly, I donāt do FX to pay my bills. I already have a job that does ok in the bill paying department. FX is a thing I am trying to learn in my spare time with a longer term view of it one day replacing my current job as my main way of making money. But, for now, itās a spare time excercise Iām enjoying studying and learning about.
So feeling slightly smug about this milestone for now. Donāt worry, come Monday Iāll have the serious game face back on and the new challenge will be to get to $200. But let me have my moment over the weekend please !!
To be honest I only made +42 pips out of all this movement today that took my balance up. I usually work all day on a Friday so donāt normally get the chance to trade at all, but I had to get the kids early from school today so that allowed me time to trade. +42 was made up of two trades which admittedly I snatched at the profits just to get me over $100. First trade actually sold at 1-38267 and targeted 1-3750 but I moved my stop down to 1-38 when price hit 1-3790 and sure enough price bounced back up and stopped me out.
Second trade follwed much the same story just at different levels. Too quick to move my stop down to lock in a profit so that I now have a 23 pip cushion to be wrong on next trade and still stay above $100.
Anyway, thatās that. Account up for now, any profit will do nicely on a Friday !!
Iāll tell you a thing Buckscoder that you, or anyone else reading this might find quite strange, possibly even quite geeky. About a month and a half ago, my 14 year old daughter startes asking me questions about this Forex thing I was doing on the internet. So since then I have been trying to impart my years of FX knowledge to her 
LOL.
Anyway, she has become so interested in it, that over the last couple of weeks we have invented the āWhat happened next?ā game. ??? you may ask. Hereās what we do. We start to search through historical candlestick chart and take a screenshot of a random point, and then print it off. Then we take a screenshot of where price actually went next. So the question is, What happened next? Itās a good little game to try and learn candlestick PA with.
It seems to be working as well because my 14 year old made a total of +78.6 pips last night through my demo account in 3 seperate trades !!
As far as a āTrading Systemā goes Buckscoder, Iāll tell you exactly how I am working now. Not sure it constitutes a āsystemā, but for now the general rules I use seem to be working. If they are sustainable or not, time will tell, but as I learn more then I may add more. But this is how it is working at the moment.
First thing I did was remove all the clutter from my screen. MACD, Slow Stochastics, Moving Averages, Pivot Points, ALL gone. Only thing I have on my screen now is candlesticks. Then I draw lines of support and resistance as I see them. ( Iāve also stopped reading the āExpertsā opinions on several different sites, But I do print off the Economic Calendar for the coming week and avoid trading around release of news times )
I then draw any trend lines I see. To base my trade decisons, the lowest time frame I use now is the 1 Hour, I also look at the 4 Hour and biggest time frame is the daily.
Iām trying to discipline myself to ONLY trade when when all of the charts are telling me the same thing. But in honesty Iāve used the fundamentals, current economic news and direction of S&P and Dow to help make decisions as well recently.
Iām still using a slightly larger risk % than I would like ( sometimes as high as 7%) but given the size of my account, and the restrictions a 2% risk would put on me regards the ammount of pips I could risk ( only a 20 pip risk on any trade ) I feel the larger % is warranted for now.
Using a 2% risk just now might just make my stops too tight at the moment but hopefully as my account grows, and hopefully it will, a 2% risk would become a higher ammount of pips. If I get to $200, then 2% would let me risk 40 pips, which I see as a more reasonable margin to give a trade.
Anyway, once I have entered a trade, set my stops and profit levels, I tend to drop down to the 15 min, or even the 5 min chart to managed my trade and try to keep an eye on real time PA. Since the bad trade a week or so ago, I have used this method to tighten my stops, but NOT widen them.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I have started to keep a trading journal by taking screen shots of my entry points on the 15 min, 30 min, 1 Hour and 4 Hour charts. I then explain my reasons for taking the trade. Explain why I chose my stop and targets and then I take screen shots of the charts again when my trade has finished. Make some points about what happened, if I closed trade early and why. Then I save it all to a word doc and add that trade to my journal folder. In time it will be a good source of info I hope
And to be honest that is pretty much how I trade now. Candlesticks and PA of S&P, DOW, to make entry decisions on EUR/USD. Support, Resistance and trend lines + keep any eye on Economic Calendar. I havenāt even ran a moving average on my charts this whole week at all. (Although I may start to run just the 200 periond average.) Popped the Stochastics up a couple of times but thatās all.
So thatās my āSystemā. I donāt know how sustainable that is consistency wise, but as I say, Iām still reading what I can, learning what I can, and if I find something that I think might help my trade decisions, Iāll run it out on my demo for a while to see how it performs, IF that is, my 14 year old ever lets me back on my Demo account !! LOL.
Anyway I think thatās me done. Canāt see myself doing any more trading at this time on a Friday evening. Donāt know if it is worth the risk even to try to scalp a few pips for the risk of a few pips. Sort of counter acts the effort to develope a discipline in a way. Thatās not to say I havenāt done it over this week, but it does feel like more of a gamble than a trade.
So overall Iām happy with the way things have worked out this week. Just realised I donāt know my profit or loss for this week so thatās something Iām going to have to start adding to my journal. I know Iām up overall for the week after starting it by losing 53 pips, so thatās good.
Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Iām lucky enough to be playing golf up at St Andrews Bay on Sunday so Iām looking forward to that and the new trading week. Good luck to all of you.
HoG
I know I said I wouldnāt post again this week but by the time I had wrote the last novel, SaraMakets had put the above post in.
I donāt know how to find, interpret or use volume in making trading decisions. I watch the news channels ( mainly bloomberg ) and hear them talk about volume, but as of yet I donāt understand it. Any suggestions on finding any good reading material on the subject would be greatly appreciated.
And I know I should have wrote this first but Hello to you SaraMarkets, thanks for joining in and I hope you visit us here as often as you wish. Just in case you donāt know Iām trying to write this thread as an ongoing journey from a total newbies perspective. Iāve been lucky enough so far to have had some great insight from more experienced people on this thread and it really has turned into more of an adventure than a thread, but Iām loving it anyway and itās fantastic to have you here.
Anyway, Iām really away this time, if I donāt feed the kids soon I think theyāll start eating the furniture !! Talk soon.
HoG
Volume can be elusive in FX because it doesnāt trade through one central location. If you like the GBP or Euro you can use futures volume from the currencies as another tool to compare your platforms volume. The end use is simply to not trade low volume, if you do, record how many times it goes your way in your trading journal and see the success.