So I’m a beginner trader that has been trading a live account for 2 months now. I invested 2000 dollars which for me is a lot of money and was not easy to get. Apparently I’ve been trading very dangerously and been very lucky but only now truly realize it. By the end of the first month my account was at 5200. Awesome right. Well a week and a half later at present time I’m back down to 2200. This is where I’m at right now. I know there is a lot of people with much worse stories about their life savings going down the drain and such, but I didn’t go in to this blindly. I finished the babypips school and had a demo account for 6 months. But I’ve been trading with Max leverage putting almost my entire account into one trade at a time then falling asleep overnight on them without a stoploss (only regretted it twice but severe losses were incurred) I don’t know how I did so well at first but my luck has clearly worn out and it seems I couldn’t win a trade if my life depended on it. Because of personal limitations my options for work are very limited and I had high hopes for a future in the forex, but now I’m scared to death just to be in a trade. It’s depressing to have spent all the time and energy that I have on studying and practicing forex just to be a failure at it.
that’s interesting story. everyone else does the same story at their first year with trading. your balance, equity are not your gain, not your money yet, but when it’s withdrawn and moved into your bank account, that’s your money, that’s your real profit. keep that in mind.
your current state may become to worries to trade, afraid of loss, just get back in time, at times when your first attempt to learn. what do you intend to, what your very purpose ?
failures, mistakes are part of game, no body said you have to 100% accurate all the time. aware about those mistakes would help you avoid it, be reasonable with your target profit, when anything happen either profit or loss, evaluate! most trader only evaluate when they gain profit, but never do the same with losing trade, means they even didnt know why losing… which result a repetation of those mistakes.
[B]Drew08[/B]
Your situation is a very “standard” situation. In fact it is so standard - that there are “behavior algorithms” created to help out traders like you.
To avoid copy/pasting I will give you couple of links to my earlier posts in this forum where you can find steps - that will help you to overcome your fear.
I advise you to do following steps
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Close your Real account.
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Take a brake for 2-6 weeks (just don’t trade at all). You said you are down to 2200 … [B]so you are 200 in profit.[/B] Withdraw that money - take out your girlfriend somewhere nice. Or just spend it on yourself.
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With step 3 Usually I advise to move back to demo, but in your situation - no point for you to move to demo (you’ve been there for 6 months already) - therefore -> [B]open an micro[/B] account. Or even a “nano” account. Amount of your deposit should be the amount that you are not afraid to loose.
Please read my post here about the size of deposit:
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/69141-amount-start.html#post659099
Goal of this step: “learn to protect your bankroll” ( Thanks to Gp00053 for that phrase :21: )
- [B]Stay [/B]in micro account (or your small real account) - [B]until [/B]you will be able to say honestly to yourself - I’m gaining profit 6 months in the row!
Ideally - by the time when you reach that goal - you should also reach a mental condition that I call
a paradox of profitable trader
- Keep learning!
Just don’t give up! And don’t stop trying!
[B]“You can reach the finish line only - if you keep running”[/B]
And in this case - finish line is - constant profit from Forex trading. Believe me - it is possible.
Post nr 18 can give you some idea about what does it mean to “learn efficiently” (in my opinion of course):
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/69467-what-should-i-do-next-2.html#post665495
Keep in mind - it takes 4-5 years to become a profitable trader.
Hold on a minute…
You started with 2000
You now have 2200
YOU’VE GAINED 10% in your 1st couple of month’s trading
Thats not a bad result!
Okay, you’ve made some mistakes but you know that and you’re still in profit
Take a deep breath and start again, this time properly
Thank you.
Thank you for your encouragement and sharing some resources with me. you really pepped me up.
You lost all maybe because you got greedy or over confident in yourself and you decided to throw precautions to the wind. My advice is that you start from where you stopped. It’s not the end of the world, and don’t have this mindset that you will make back your winnings with few trade. With time and a good trading system, I know you will recover your losses.
Go back and reflect on what you did in the first month that gave you the gain of 3K. Assessed what you did back then to make profit.
What strategy that you used? Now go back and redo it, this time with money management in mind. And you’ll be OK.
Look at it this way, you are still in the green and that’s good.
Hey Drew, it is very courageous of you to post your experience and ask for help.
The one thing that a lot of people who decide to trade never consider is the psychological aspect, as well as impact, of trading. Trading activates aspects of the mind that deal with gain and loss (commonly referred to as greed and fear), these are very primal and hardwired aspects of the human psyche, meant to keep us safe. We feel good when we acquire something and we feel bad when we loose something, in this case, money. When you immerse yourself in such an environment like trading, you experience this on an intense basis and it becomes very hard to see things clearly. You vision will either be filled with hope or fear. Your body also produces a lot of adrenalin as you watch your account go from high to low and vice versa, these chemical surges are very powerful and after a while, it will wear you out.
What you described in your post is a very common experience, essentially, you went from running on the treadmill, to running in the olympics. You mind simply can’t cope with such extremes. You need time to slowly build up your ability to deal with these powerful mental conditions. You also need a proper technical strategy to deal with you trading, i.e., stop losses, take profit targets, signals when to get in and out, how to read the market, etc. You also need a psychological strategy to accompany your technical strategy, i.e., warm up mentally before you trade, sit down and read the markets and anticipate the various ways you can react if such and such happens, how to remain calm and objective, how to walk away if your mind gets clouded and the list goes on.
The fact that you still have money in your account is a good thing. Many people, including myself learned the hard way by blowing up our accounts. Expensive lessons.
So, like some people have said here, take a break, it does not mean don’t trade, just stop, back off for a bit and realize that you were very lucky to not have lost money. When you get back to trading, use a small amount where it would not impact you so hard psychologically, micro lots are great. Also, have a solid uncomplicated strategy that you can apply regularly over time.
We all start off trading lured by the prospects of huge money, but those who survive the explosions of their own minds or accounts, and continue to trade, will tell you that trading then becomes about being equanimous in the hurricane of change as well as consistent in their ability and stability of their own minds. Two totally different goals.
So I wish you great luck (which you seem to have), take a step back, breathe, reflect and go back in slower and wiser and in the long run you will be a profitable trader. Cheers!
Am so sorry about your lost, but its not enough reason to give up on forex trading; it still rather serve as a motivator and my guess is that your problem should either be from your money management or trading system. Do you have a trading journal? If you do, take some time off and go through it to know where the problem is coming from to fix it before you get back into the market.
No one who likes to suffer loss but don’t feel so down with it because there is no experienced traders without loss. Loss is common thing for all traders, even expert trader still faced losses. The most important thing is learning from mistake so you can trade better in the future. If you’re not confident anymore with your own analysis so I suggested to go back on trading with demo account. It can bring back your confidence in analysis and also you should find out proper trading plan to prevent big loss happen again in the future.
loss few times is not a reason for giving up this business . You should know this is not sure profit business. For months you need a lot of trading with live account where you will loose or make profit any time. Trader should have patience to bear loss so it is advised to trade in low risk so that you will not loose all your money.
Its high time that you rectify the mistake made by you which led to such huge drawdown. If you are making such huge money, the odds are that you can also lose money quickly. Hence, using justified risk : reward ratio with ideal money management is critical for traders success. Dont lose hopes if you are passionate towards trading.
I think its normal feeling , who are not giving up when facing the unexpected desire . loss make ones be upset and disappointment after that get depressed . So strong psychologically surely is requirement and needed
It is right that lost several times shouldn’t be reason for traders to give up in this business but many traders did it because the lost was too big amount which they could afford to lose. This condition was happening because mostly of them didn’t know the risk of trading but they only looked on the possibility of profit to take only. So, it’s important to limit loss as much as possible same with taking profit as much as possible. It will be useless to traders if they capable to gain big profits but they could lose big amount of dollars instantly too.
Forex is risky because loss is part of forex. You should not be depressed for long because it is part of the trade. It is time to go back and see where you are getting it wrong. And if possible get more knowledge and so a through research on how to win the forex market.
I think it’s common thing in forex business and traders should realize that risk of loss will be there no matter how good your analysis is. No one who can make sure what will happen 100% in the future so profit and loss is still possible in every transaction. Traders shouldn’t be afraid with risk of loss because all traders ever experienced it. We only need to manage amount of loss with proper money management and risk management, so it is impossible to face loss more than we could afford to take.
You are right its being consequence to do forex business , forex business give good prospective in the future to be rich man , but we must remind we can be bankrupt just in suddenly and loss all our investment within short times