Hi,
I am Rudy (27). I am from the Netherlands. Proud to say I finished the school of pipsology with an average quiz result of 92.6%. And I am proud to say I am still a newbie in trading(even with 2 years experience).
I started trading early in 2014. Got interested in investing some of my savings in gold/silver. As soon as I opened my first trade on silver the price shot up. After that first trade I made several more and slowly ate my profits. With a small profit left I figured out I had no idea what I was doing, and that I should start studying on how to trade.
I started of with the dutch book “leren traden” by Steven Antonis. It thought me the basics on technical analysis. What I liked most about the book was that it started with a big part on psychology which he believed was the most important factor in trading.
Closely after reading the book I opened my first live trading account. I started taking trades on various random signals. I got emotional and lost a bit. Blamed it on the broker/charting software.
I moved to a different broker (intertrader) so that I could use MT4 which allowed me to draw lines on the chart and use more indicators. I traded the main forex pairs and indices. I started on the education at Spread Betting, CFD Trading | Value for Money Winner. I followed multiple video courses there (trading for a living, building blocks of trading, higher timeframe-trading, candle stick patterns etc etc.) I also payed Steve Ruffley (chief market strategist and educator) to become my mentor.
I had a hard time becoming profitable (I had no complete written plan, just a few lines of ideas). Blamed Steve for it and got frustrated. In these months (beginning-end summer 2014) I lost 15% live trading. I had no idea what to do, was clueless and anxious. Beginning August 2014 the M5 chart on the DAX showed a perfect bearish pennant, and I took a big position. That trade made up for all the loses I had before.
I was so full of stress that I told myself: ENOUGH!
I closed out every position and withdrawal my account balance. Steve was shocked. “why stop trading now that you are winning???” he said. I said that it did not feel good and that I had to take some time to get myself together. I promised myself that I would not be trading or do anything to do with trading for at least 5 months. I succeeded 
I even accidentally ended up in a mindfulness course that still helps me a lot both in my personal live as in trading (knowing your psychology gives so much rest to your mind).
Early 2015 I suddenly thought: lets watch a trading webinar. This started my passion again. I was determined to do better and pay more attention to education and a trading plan. I read several books from van K Tharp (super trader, trade your way to financial freedom, trading beyond the matrix). Started on a lengthy and detailed trading plan(10 pages on the chapter titles alone).
While I was working on the plan and started putting together setups I came across The Forex Trading Coach Course | Andrew Mitchem’s Forex Course. I attracted to it as Andrew Mitchem promoted to sell a a full (proven) strategy. I was in doubt of buying the course as it was quite expensive, but Andrew convinced me. I started learning the strategy and within a few weeks I read trough all the theory. I then started a demo account to trade the strategy. within 6 weeks I was up 17%. I was convinced this was the strategy for me. Opened a live account and started trading. From that point it went downhill. In a few months I made several classical mistakes (rushing trade, revenge trade) which costed me about 7%. On the other trades that were according to the strategy(plan) I lost another 5%. :mad:
I got demotivated:(. At the start of August I decided to use a trade copy service Andrew started. I let him trade his strategy with my money. That kept me off the charts and gave me time to get myself together (again). My mind got some rest and I started studying MQL4 to create my own EA’s (while the trade copier was still running). After 3 months my account was down another 10% (fully on the trade copier). I decided to stop live trading (again).
Finished my study on MQL4 so now I can make reasonable good EA’s.
I was determined to not jump on live trading again. This is the point where babypips.com came across my screen. I got determined to finish the school (and i did).
There I am, still survived the Forex game
I will leave on a volunteering trip for several months in 2016. This will give me the opportunity again to take a step back, and get back to the detailed trading plan and finish it.
Looking forward to learn as much as I can to the point I leave for my trip online (not going to trade live up to that point), and move to paper and the trading plan after.
I would like to thank babypips.com and the FX-men for the wonderful website, school and forum !!!
There were a lot of subjects in the school that were new to me even though I did several courses and books on Forex before. I will implement this new knowledge in my trading plan.
Well that was my introduction.
May all of you have a wonderful day !
Rudy
