New to trading

Beginner Questions
1

Hello everybody… I just wanted to introduce myself to this wonderful community because I plan to be a part of it for as long as it exists. About 2 months ago I got into FX and have spent the time learning, reading, and most of all practicing. I have to say that this site has been the absolute best resource I could ever find. I love the school and I absolutely love these forums and the vast amount of information I find here from real traders virtually for free.

I currently work a full time job and am saving up to open my very own mini account to go live trading as soon as I feel comfortably “profitable” with my practice account. I have been honing my skills with FXCM’s practice account and have been pretty successful. I am still learning a lot and I haven’t really gotten into a “system” or trading plan yet but I have to say that I am catching on really quick and have made some pretty serious gains in a short amount of time (wish it were real money tho :stuck_out_tongue: ). I have noticed that the more I stick to the basics, the more successful I am and personally, for me, it all comes down to those beautiful candlesticks. The important thing here is that I am VERY committed to this.

Since I work 9-5, my trading is limited to after 6PM EST. My goal is to make trading not only a hobby I love but a profitable gig where I can make extra cash (especially in tough times like these). I am young but ahead of my time and plan on using trading as a stepping stone to eventually becoming independent and free of the slavery that a day job is. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t plan on quitting my job after my first successful trade. I want to be a part of BOTH worlds for as long as I can which I think is ultimately the smartest thing I can do. My question to the community is the following: is there anyone out there like me? Anyone out there who works AND trades on their spare time? Anyone who worked and traded and then became so successful trading that their day job’s earnings became almost dispensable? Eventually I want to use this money to reinvest it in all sorts of things and HOPEFULLY one day be able to sit back and let my money work for me and retire young.

All I want is to know that I am not crazy for thinking like this if there’s others like me. Thanks in advance to those who post any valuable comments. :slight_smile:

2

Pip Stop congratulations on your new found obsession! :slight_smile: I don’t have a “day job” where I leave my home but I do work from home, take the school here, teach school during the day and trade the London session. Like you I found Bp early on and have been learning everything I can while trading at the same time. Until now I have only been in demo putting back my spare cash to open a mini account also. I have had a few demos over the last 3 months and I often trade two demos a day, one with my system and the other with a scalping technique I am trying to perfect. I started several different ones so I could see the differences between mini and standard, the effects of leverage, and just to generally see what platform, and circumstances worked for me. Most importantly I blew a demo account right off. Similar to the account type that I would be trading. I wanted to see how long it would take me reckless trading before I got the dreaded call. I guess as a way to “pinch” myself and make sure that I wouldn’t blink and it all be gone. From what I have read it sounds like you got a great plan. You are certainly in a good place to learn and have a great time while doing it. I wish you the best of luck, Happy trading, Raven

3

I’m very similar to you, and I also plan to be a part of this community as long as possible its so hard to find a good internet resource, even harder to find an on-topic message board. Flame wars get old fast, but between the type of people and the moderators here I feel this comunity will survive long term.

As far as what your doing, when I started looking seriously at financial wealth I did quite a few things and right or wrong here are the steps I have taken:

I’ve gone through great pains to free my schedule as much as possible, I do odd work here and there and was up untill recently babysitting, which paid very little but allowed me to live and trade with 90% of my waking moments.

I’ve done as much as possible to lower my bills all of them, and while I’m not ready to quite smoking I have adjusted my living circumstances (am almost ‘bill free’ now, was $100/month previously, and before that it was ~$250-$300/month) Provided I can trade, and have the time/quite place to trade I’m fine with living anywhere with an internet connection, and a clean enviornment – last roomate was … messy…)

I’ve worked it out so my food costs less, I’ve sold my vehicle and use a bicycle thereby avoiding insurance and fuel (I can walk to several stores anways) and have made it clear to anybody I live with that trading time is most likley quiet time, if it dosnt work out, then I’ll go elsewhere.

In short I’ve lowerd my expenses and ‘occupied’ time, at a slight cost to my income. I’m forcing myself to get better, and giving myself the time to do so. I’m more or less investing in myself with the expectation of a payout in the end.

I was doing good, and had a nice return (went from a starting deposit of $73 somptin to $105 or so) and recently have gone all the way down to $2.33!! (Keep ignoring my rules/forgetting the basics) but when I was making a moderate return a week it almost offset the lost income for the time I tried to keep free. Now I could work a full time job, and trade a few hours a day with more then likley better returns! (I get stupid staring at charts all day, but I want to get over the bordom/stupidity as soon as possible, I figure I could make another 40-60 bad trades before I need to deposit more :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

4

Guess I’m not alone :slight_smile: … I just always had this feeling that FX was for people with enough money to spare and (I hate to put it this way) kind of “gamble” away. I haven’t physically met anyone who has made money trading (hell, i don’t know anyone who trades at all) and so I don’t know exactly what I’m getting into.

rantinraven: I am also a scalper, which I always heard is the most difficult type of trading, but yet I seem to be getting the hang of it (or so I think I do :p). Like I said before, I don’t have any system in place yet but I use “general” rules and simple money management techniques. For example, I don’t invest more than 2-4% of my account in any trade and I keep my R/R ratio roughly 2:1. I also have learned to use S/L and T/P orders pretty well by way of support and resistance (and sometimes Fib levels). I’m always aware of the news too but I haven’t been able to take advantage of it trading-wise. On my practice account, I generally aim to make anywhere from 30-60 pips a day and lately I have been shattering that high mark making 80-100 pips a day (maybe because of all the market shakeups). On a mini account this would equate to anywhere from $30-100 a day which is AWESOME (for me at least ;)).

Anyway, thank you guys for the feedback. Hopefully more people add to this thread and share their experiences too.