Just wanted to introduce myself to everyone here, I have been a ‘lurker’ for far too long now!!
I first became aware of Forex around 6 months ago, and very interested around 5 minutes later:D and so tried (and am still trying) to soak up everything I could lay my eyes on. It’s been said hundreds of times that the Babypips School For Traders is brilliant, but I feel I have to say it again, it’s one of (probably THE) best Forex site that i could wish to come across, so muchos kudos to Babypips!
Anyhow, been trading with a demo account through Oanda for around 3 months now, with varying degrees of success, basically trying out different trading methods. I’m currently using good ol’ Bollinger Bands coupled with candlestick indicators, have to say I’m quietly confident about the method I’m using, so fingers crossed:) All going well, I’m planning to go live around February / March.
A final say goes to all the experienced guys on the forums who continually give great advice (did I say I’m a lurker?), it’s brilliant to read the feedback to the many different questions on here. Keep it up!!
I am sure you are aware but i will say it anyway. There is a huge difference trading live compared to demo trading. The reason being emotions. You will feel differently and as such very likely to trade differently. You must give yourself some time to overcome this impulse so when you go live make sure you trade very very very small position sizes. I’m glad you are with Oanda because they allow you to do this. Start with a very small amount of money on the line for any single trade and see how you feel, then work your way from there.
Cheers for the advicee Pipbull! What I’m doing just now is demo trading with the amount that I plan to deposit once I go live. Oanda give you an initial virtual balance of $100,000, which is waaaaaaay out of my budget! I have reset my starting balance to $1,000, which is more realistic for me in terms of live trading.
Maybe you could also comment on one aspect of my money management? For every trade I make, I make the pip value exactly 1/1000th of my overall balance, e.g. my current balance is $1,123 so my pip value would be �1.12. My stop loss is always set 15 pips from entry point, so I am risking 1.5% (15/1000) of my total balance for every trade I make. My current leverage is 1:30, which I am quite comfortable with. I have read a lot of stuff on these forums about leverage being a killer, maybe I am missing something, if I am please comment, but do you think I am trading within reasonable levels?
jroxman, how do i change my virtual balance in oanda? I want to lower it also. I go to the acct tab and then i choose add/remove funds but nothing happens.
Hi Ozzy, I had the same problem for weeks on end and was driving me mad, but finally figured it out! Make sure ALL of your pop-up blockers are off, at first, I turned off the pop-up blocker in Norton Security, but still nothing happened. I am using the in-laws computer just now, and they have google toolbar installed, so I had to turn off the pop-up blocker in that as well. Also, just to make sure, if you are using Internet Explorer 7, go into the ‘tools’ menu and turn off the pop-up blocker there too. Hopefully that will sort it, let me know how you get on!