Imagine all your floating profits, plus equity, and balance reduced to a smiget of your account size. Amount lost…$27k 
…but enough left to still be kicking.
This was a very good learning experience in terms of the need for stoploss, MM, getting out when the getting is good, riskiness, etc.
I had a feeling the sterling would bust eventually…
So your realized balance was just under $5000, but you had over 20K in unrealized profit and let it all dissipate? Wow.
Well, I think from the other thread most people knew you were going to bust, but you really got the account up there first! You started with $1250 right? You might be a good contender for those forex contests, where you use demo accounts and see who can get their account highest the fastest. My guess is the winners of those aren’t good long term traders, but can get an account up fast before blowing it out.
Anyway, I know from your other thread that you’re pretty new at this and interested in learning sound money management. I definitely needed to nearly kill an account before seriously committing to learning good MM, there’s hope for you yet!
Some things can only be learned by experiencing them. Congrats on the perhaps most valuable lesson you’ll ever learn in trading. (I’ve learned it also in the past)
Yes!!
Because the forex market is highly leveraged, giving rise to the possibility of margin calls, a stop loss is [B]mandatory[/B].
lavaman…yup started with $1,250 went up to almost $30k then boom…almost down to the same I started, but still good. I knew I should’ve cashed out last night and upgraded the account but it was only a matter of time. Time to work on the MM info now and get things all together.
o990l6mh…indeed.
tymen1…its become more clearer now how important they are.
Learner, you have just demonstrated the truth of this Chinese proverb:
“I hear, and I forget. — I see, and I remember. — I do, and I understand.”
thelearner i feel your pain, i really do. as your name implys, learn from this no revenge, no failure, no dispair just experience. it could have been worse. my first big loss made me feel so bad i basically threw my account away in a spectacular -$12,000 trade that i just held onto and held and held thinking it will turn around and the smack in the face of course after i was margin called the trade turned around and even would have hit profit 
anyway looking back im thankfull for the experience it really taught me alot.
We all knew it was going to happen, and I think you did too. You just needed to prove to yourself that trading like that wouldn’t work in the long term.
With this lesson learned you have to jump right back in and trade the proper way
I think you’ll end up being very good trader!
Indeed, it was only a matter of time.
I’ve actually been spending a lot of time reviewing money management information and the keys to trading the…proper way.
The compounding, which does seem to take forever…does prove to be the best method of growing an account stably for long term/consistent returns.
Hopefully I’ll end up as a good trader 