My first successful trade!

Beginner Questions
1

Yup… that is right I actually had what I would call a first successful trade!

I call this one the first successful trade because I came into it with a plan… not just dumb luck. Well, maybe a bit of dumb luck.

First some brief history before I tell you about my amazing success!

  • I am as green as they come to this “forex” thing
  • I have read the school thing here on this website, looked at Fibonacci thingies:cool:, watched amazed at people making sense of the Parabolic whizzbang :confused: and was totally floored by the “Ichimoku Kinko Hyo” stuff :eek:… but lets be honest, it all went “ZOOM” over my head…
  • So I am looking at all these forex charts, thinking to myself that those pretty little candles must be useful for something… that is when I started reading Tymen1’s thread on candlestick trading.
  • I am only � way through the first part… but figured I would give it a trial run
  • I am using a demo account

Now the trade story.

I have noticed over the last week that at 1:00am (CST) the market goes completely crazy. I decided that maybe I should stay up late and see if I can take advantage of that trend; and so my story begins.

I opened up the charts at 12:00 am to get an idea of where things were. I would describe it as “flat”. I could not really discern a pattern from anything.

At about 1:00 am I see things are picking up as I suspected. I watched the currency pairs I was observing go either wildly up or down and came to the conclusion that they must be tied together somehow.

Anyways, I zero in on the EUD/CAD pair. I picked this for the well researched reason of “I am a Canadian”… so now I had my target.

A quick systems check was in order following Tymen’s plan (I only read � of it so I had to improvise):

  • locate the buy option – check
  • locate the correct time frame – 30 minutes check
  • graph expanded for easy viewing – check
  • BB indicator going – check
  • Starc band running – check
  • MACD running – check
  • Note to self: figure out how to get all those indicators off the main chart

I watched the EUD/CAD develop into what I was considering a “Dark Cloud” candlestick pattern. I quickly checked my definition of the pattern and decided that if the big red thing gets to 50% of the green thing I will sell… go “short” as they say.

I know that if it closed at 50% I would need to quickly jump to the 5 minute chart and search for an entry point. I also made note the BB was “trumpeting”… but decided, the position was high enough on the BB and with such a large spike so early I could probably take a safe chance on the deal.

Sure enough the candlestick closed around 50% of the body, I quickly jumped to my 5 minute chart waited for a minute looking for an entry point. I picked a spot and entered one unit… not a great spot, but I was in. I already decided this would be a “take profit” first with a bit of a twist – in this case at the middle BB band, then exit trade. “Keep it simple for the first few trades”, I said.

So the thought occurs to me, “I wonder where the close trade button is?”

After few seconds I find it in the “trades window”. I also noticed a new indicator on the graph and think “cool”. So I start playing around with the new indicator; which is next to the once red candlestick that is fast becoming a green candlestick. The indicator that appeared is my shiny new “trade”, which I thought was convenient for it to be on the graph.

It occurs to me that I probably should set a stop loss or (PCI stop as Tymen1 calls it). I get it figured out and put down a stop. I should point out that the I did have the stop at first where I would take a profit but I got it straighted out… it just seems counter intuitive, put a stop loss high… oh well… At this point, to my glee, the candlestick turns red!

I watch the candlestick go up and down… up and down… up and down… Getting a bit bored I decided I should investigate the “Take profit” setting I saw on the trade settings. So I am playing around with that when I notice the red candlestick just about runs into my “take profit line”… oops. So I move it out of the way.

I watch the candlestick come just shy of the BB middle band and I say, “I am out of here!” and I exited the trade.

In my excitement at actually having done what I call “a successful trade” I decided I would see how much money I made.

[B][U]At this point I would ask all you veterans to make sure you are sitting down.[/U][/B]

Some things to note:

  • I am using Oanada
  • I placed [B]ONE[/B] unit on the trade
  • I did exit with a profit – I must emphasize this point [B][U]STRONGLY[/U][/B]

Now for the conclusion to my little story.

First of all, I exited as planned. At the middle of the BB band… only on the 5 minute chart and not the 30 minute chart… I got so busy playing with the new shiny “trade” icon on the graph I forgot to switch back to the 30 minute chart. I cut my profit down a bit…

Apparently with Oanada 1 unit is not the same as any of the other test accounts I opened. 1 unit in Oanada is… yup $1… or in this case $1.5687. Take profit was 0.000013 or something like that.

I think the Oanda computer busted a gut laughing because it shows my trade made 0$… I object! Dang it! I know I made money.

Heh… anyways. I thought it was humorous. Hope you did better than me.

Have Fun!!! :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Haha that’s a great beginner story!

I’m in the same boat as you, trying to make sense of the indicators and I’ve followed Tymen’s thread too. So far, my dabbles in trying to place trades have been more focused on learning the platform I’m using rather than the profits while I seek to find a system that I can follow.

Good luck in your trading!

3

Well done [B]Shadowman[/B]!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

I remember my first successful trade (made quite a few losses before then).
I successfully made a 1 pip profit!! :o

Everyone starts from small beginnings.

And from your writing - you are thinking like a typical trader under pressure, you are doing OK!!

If you want to continue using the candlestick method, then you need to get fully up to date before attempting any live trading.

Soldier on!!
You are doing well!!

4

My first 20 or so demo trades we’re all for staggering loss, mostly becuase I just was just rapidly/randomly clicking on buttons. I did end August with a profit though, and so far made $3k this month.

Now only if it were real money :rolleyes:

WTG, keep at it, and read through the ‘School’ here, again if it went over your head. Maybe the second time through it will make more sense :stuck_out_tongue:

5

I’ve been “trading” for all of two days now and I had to smile when I read the original post. Sounds like my record too.

Some things I have learnt.

  1. When you’re sitting on a big pip gain - grab it. Don’t wait for it to drop 75% like I did not once but twice today.

  2. When you’re in a mad dash to close out an order don’t press the buy button by accident when your currency is falling or sell when it’s rising as I did er, twice today.

  3. While bored don’t play around with options and change your default lot size by a factor of 10 and forget you’ve done it.

  4. You will get hypnotised by the charts and the plan not to get emotionally involved - rofl ! It’ll come and I allow it while I’m just starting

  5. You do need time to understand the mechanics of your trading platform

Last of all - I learnt just how fascinating it is…

P.S I’m sitting on a small loss due to 3) but otherwise would be well up on the start.

6

Thanks for the replies and I am glad you guys found it humurous. I was laughing so hard it took me an hour to settle down.

I have no intentions of trading live for at least a 4-6 months. I would stand a better chance at winning the lottery considering my “skill level” right now. :slight_smile:

7

Hehe, nice story. By the way, this is one of the advantages of Oanda. You can scale your position in multiples of 1$, not 10,000$ or 100,000$. This can come in handy. E.g. I recently closed 50% of a 10k position.

8

Reading this I can see that I am not the only one having some fun. I will comment on your numbers below.

  1. yes, I was messing around a few days go in the EUR/USD pair and learned an important lesson. If you get “lucky” and I do mean lucky. And see a spike, the spike drops, then rises and you decide to take the chance and grab it AND you actually profited… don’t get greedy and think you can do it again. I was up in the plus… then down in the negatives.

  2. LOL… I did this other day on one of the JPY currencies. I learned two important lessons there:

  • don’t play the JPY until I know what I am doing - they move way to fast for me
  • just because you want to “sell” does not mean you should click the “sell” button. Instead you want the “close deal” button. Lost money and because of the screwup in about 2 seconds ever more to the negative. About double to be honest.

  1. heh, I almost got burned with default lot sizes as well.

  2. Although I am playing with “monopoly money”, I am treating it as if it was real money. With the understanding that I have a huge learning curve. I figure, if I can’t handle the stress with “make believe” money I will not do well once I use real money. More of a training exercise to get used to losing/winning (and I put losing first for a reason).

  3. I have tried so many demo accounts… which is half the problem. However, I have decided that Oanada is probably my best “newbie” choice. I noticed their spread is quite lower than everyone else’s I looked at and I can enter small/partial lot sizes. Once I know what I am doing I might look elsewhere.

Here is another lesson I learned. I read what a pip was and the definition made sense… but for some reason the practice of said definition totally escaped me.

I entered a trade the other day that “looked” good. I bought at the price and immediately I was in the negative…:eek: … thinking it must be just temporary rally I plunk down my take profit (TP) at “10 pips” and promptly lost money as the deal closed. This sent me on a crusade to really understand what I did wrong.

The thing with pips is they are not based on the last digit… Lesson learned - convert all pips to “pippettes” or “points” as I prefer to call them, so it makes it a lot easier to find the real TP point.

I also learned that every deal you end up in the negative right off the get go… you must account for that and realize you are immediately behind and need to gain ground.

Have Fun!!! :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Sounds like you need to learn more about the spread, you might have gotten burned by the Bid/Ask prices

10

I agree with your statement.

I have a mountain of information to learn.

11

I am by no means an expert here, but I found that looking at the bigger picture and riding trends is not only more profitable, but it allows you to get up from your computer for hours at a time.

Look for trend shift indicators, wax up your board and catch a wave! :cool:

p.s. The School of Pipsology should enlighten you on how spreads and bid/ask works