Ive been live trading for just under a month now, and i have to say (for me anyway) it’s very challenging. i demo’d for 4 months prior to going live and made an average ROI of 51% per month with very little work. i would just take a highly leveraged position and hold it until it became profitable. I drew projection charts on excel, you know, the one that has you becoming a millionaire in just under a year (don’t laugh I’m sure some of you have done it :D). I had a very naive and somewhat arrogant view of the market.
Going live really changed my perspective on the currency markets, oddly enough i have become 10x more conservative and operate a very tight risk management plan. Sounds great right? Well not quite, my problem is i feel I’m wasting time or losing out on an opportunity by sitting out of trades. Today i literally had to switch of my PC and go play some football just to take my mind off the market and the fact that i didn’t have any trades.
Its a cliche, but emotions really do play a big part of trading, i know, conquering them will ultimately lead to success. I dream of the day when i can execute my trades in a zen-like state, till then i just have to rely on my system( more like set of procedures) to help me stay out of the markets when I’m not fully confident of the outcome.
i am in the black at the moment, but alas i doubt ill be buying that Learjet by the end of the year ( i still think its theoretically possible for someone to do it) but with my tight risk management plan, it would take divine intervention for me to achieve that (a couple of years maybe).
Its tough but very enjoyable and i thank the babypips forum and its numerous helpful members for helping me to become a better trader.
Personally, I think this is the view most traders start off with. At some point reality comes along and knocks them down a peg, or ten.
Going live really changed my perspective on the currency markets, oddly enough i have become 10x more conservative and operate a very tight risk management plan. Sounds great right? Well not quite, my problem is i feel I’m wasting time or losing out on an opportunity by sitting out of trades. Today i literally had to switch of my PC and go play some football just to take my mind off the market and the fact that i didn’t have any trades.
Its a cliche, but emotions really do play a big part of trading, i know, conquering them will ultimately lead to success. I dream of the day when i can execute my trades in a zen-like state, till then i just have to rely on my system( more like set of procedures) to help me stay out of the markets when I’m not fully confident of the outcome.
i am in the black at the moment, but alas i doubt ill be buying that Learjet by the end of the year ( i still think its theoretically possible for someone to do it) but with my tight risk management plan, it would take divine intervention for me to achieve that (a couple of years maybe).
Its tough but very enjoyable and i thank the babypips forum and its numerous helpful members for helping me to become a better trader.
You have no idea how happy I am that you posted this. Now others just getting started will see that the advice the more veteran traders on this forum provide isn’t coming out of an orafice I won’t name.
You are not rambling!
I have recently went live.I have been live for about a month and a half.I have traded twice.I am down 2 pips.LOL.I don’t want to trade right now.But I feel I do not a a sound system yet,I am still after 7 months of learning looking for something that fits my trading style.Give it time!!
Hi, I am very new as well I have only been using a demo account for about 6 weeks now so can not say how different I would trade on a live account as it is a total different ball game when you go live and its your own money but the one thing I hope I will have is the instict to take that risk to do a trade once I have looked at my charts and figures if it all adds up then place that trade, As I have read alot on this forum and am going through the school of pips which is very very helpfull and at the end of the day I want to win more times than I loose but I am only going to trade/Gamble with money that I can afford to loose, I am going to treat this as a hobbie to start with and see where it leads to but I do know that this is going to be a very long learning curve ahead which I look forward to doing and also meeting some interesting people on the way, So dont worry about the rambling as that is what the forum is about meeting people and helping people teaching people new things no matter how big or small and teaching yourself something new each day, So happy trading.
Kaigen - you’re doing great, and you’ve got the right idea. I didn’t have ONE setup yesterday. Not one trade. I don’t know if you were looking at fibs, but if you were, you understand what you’re doing because there wasn’t anything to trade.
Those days happen. And its the same with almost any method. Some days, there just won’t be signals and you need to sit on the sidelines.
You did the right thing by removing yourself from the charts and doing something else. Traders fall into the trade out of boredom trap very easily. We think that if we aren’t in something all the time, we are being unproductive and wasteful with our time, so we can allow ourselves into trades that we shouldn’t be taking just to make ourselves feel like we haven’t been wasting the day.
But if you wait like you should, you get a day like today that is putting me net +125 and still holding two position long in the Yen pairs right now. And that more than makes up for yesterdays prudent inactivity.
Out of most of the new traders on here, I think you are one of, if not the best new trader i’ve come across based off your posts on this forum. Keep up the great work, you’re on the right track!
Yeah i use fibs as my primary technical indicator, i’ve had success using them. i do like to read market commentary in addition, just to gain more info.
thanks for the comments guys, i’ll keep you guys posted on my progress…
Congrats on your transition into live, I also have a thread with my personal lessons on trading in general (not here to plug it, just glad to see another person posting with their initial experiences), I’ll continue to read this thread as it may give me more insight into the initial experience of traders as I know it’s different for everyone, for me it’s realizing who I am, which is someone with an addictive personality, high risk tolerence and always ‘swinging for the fences’…hasn’t worked out too well so far. Good luck to ya’ and remember that there’s alot of good advice on here, but also you must find something that works for your own trading personality, with real money.
Keep us updated guy, your learning…but I assure you that the temptation to “go all in” will tempt the hell out of you, and you like most new traders will fall for it atleast once(as I have, even when I knew the consequences - it’s a combo fo greed + boredom = dissaster)…if you can dodge this sudden temptation to pull in massive bucks, I will REALLY be impressed…but I keep checking back here in about 3-6 months and see what happens.
Not to discourage you or anything, because you are in fact one of the most knowledgedble newbies here, I’m just warning you to watch for that sudden urge that can and will wipe out your entire account.
This is a strange journey, but as the months pass, you get used to the uncertainty of the markets and before you know it you’ll be doing pretty well for yourself…I hope you have a 2nd job and a Xbox 360, PS3 or Nintendo Wii to keep your mind occupied waiting for setups or sitting out non-productive days altogether…I just invested in a 360 and that 400$ investment has kept me out of trouble as of lately.
hehe, that works to…I’m a bit younger so its what I’m in to to keep my mind occupied temporarily…I love golf to, it’s so relaxing, but we only get golf weather like 4 months out of the year
Well its the end of the week and its been a slow one for me (exam week) so i missed a lot of the good moves(theres always next week :))
one thing i have noticed, is that im spending more and more of my time looking at charts, slowly but surely im picking up candlestick patterns, identifying S&R levels and using them to help me make better trade decisions. I’m not always right but im better than i used to be.
I was never successful using crossover systems or any other ‘robotic’ system. Whenever i placed a trade the market would turn right around and reverse on me. It was frustrating to say the least.
I guess analyzing price action suits me better. It’s weird but i feel like im more of a trader this way. Strange huh?
Well you should feel like more of a trader this way. 99% of all professionals i’ve ever met use price action/pattern analysis to make decisions and only use indicators as secondary confirms.
The newbies typically spend months trying to find the holy grail of indicator setups and don’t study price action at all. ANY system would be more profitable if you understand the price action and support levels playing out in the market along with your system signals.
forex…there’s so much too learn i feel i’m learning a little bit about the market everyday, its been pretty fun actually. I’ve even found a favourite pair, GBP/JPY. when it moves it really moves you know. having said that, i’d pretty much trade any pair as long as the sentiment of the market and my setup favoured a profitable trade ( you don’t have to say it, i’m loose, i know. Why be faithful to one pair, when you can enjoy the rest as well :D:D)
Now to serious stuff, the past week i have come to fully appreciate the wisdom of the 2:1 reward to risk ratio. I traded a 30pip stop for a 30 pip profit target, this strategy would result in the lack of growth on my account. if im looking to take a 30pip profit ill use a 15 pip stop(on a the eur/usd i think a retracement of 15pips is quite enough for me to realise i got my entry timing wrong.)
today i made 4 trades, 2 were losers the other 2 were winners. but im one whole win up for the day.
Ive come to fully appreciate this money management technique. i think regardless of what method or system your using, a clever money management system will ultimately produce successful results for you.
well its 01:41am i better get to bed, prep for tomorrow starts at 7:30am
Ok what lesson has the market giving me today…Over trading!!!.. Over trading=emotion, emotion=bad trades, bad trades = blown account, blown account = no Learjet, ever!!!..
Im gonna limit the number of trades i make per day to a maximum of 3 and if i lose 2 in a row…quit. ill go read some lecture notes or something, or just do the student thing and be a leech on society:D.
that means i could have a really good day and make 12% or a really bad day and lose 4% .
i know to most of you that sound like suicidal money management but it works out for me. out of 21 trades this week( i know its been a busy week) i won 13 lost 7 and drew 1(broke even).
Those are the kind of lessons you don’t learn until you make them yourself. Overtrading is the evil step dad of gambling and it gets the best of us from time to time.
Your smart to setup parameters to prevent this from happening again. I think you’ll find however that as you develop your trading further it won’t become such a problem.
Sounds like you had a great week either way. Congrats to you!
Post up some of your trades setups if you want to, can, or have a chance either here or in the fib thread. I’d love to see how your interpreting the trades for yourself.
I would also be great to hear how many pips you have made this week, so we can follow your live trading journal in more detail. Cause at present there is so little that other traders can relate to, therefore luck of commentary and feedback.
I have traded alot this week and doubt ill achieve this kind of performance next week, in terms of pips. i wont be trading as much as my last post says. i normally take 20 pips off pairs that dont move much eg. usdcad, eurusd, aus/usd.
My profit target for pairs such as gbp/usd, gbp/jpy eur/jpy gbp/chf is 40pips.
because i use 15 min chart, these targets are achievable.
I also tend not to think in terms of pips these days but rather percentage of my account… i always risk 2% per trade. so regardless of my pip target. i’ll make 4% if the trade is a winner. Of course that means i’ll lose 2% if its a loser.
Another reason why i like oanda it allows me to fix my risk up to the last cent.
Variable lots are great
( i still think its theoretically possible for someone to do it) but with my tight risk management plan, it would take divine intervention for me to achieve that (a couple of years maybe).
