Hi there, I have been reading some of the posts here and I find there are lots of wise and experienced traders here.
Just want to share my experience: I started trading on forex, Brent and gold about 3 months ago on a live account (as many i before tripled my money on demo account from 10k to roughly 30k in one month).
I started with a 1k ending up losing 5K EUR. Stopped for a while, got some advice and started again with small trades gaining back 1700 EUR in little time with just 400 EUR starting capital, so I increased the deposit by another 7 K hoping to recover previous losses. Well, I lost them in 5 trades (too big and kept increasing without putting SL in order not to get wiped out) on Libertex. This because candles started shaking violently and I ended up being whiped out due to the rapidity the pricing moved up (or down).
Long story short: I have taken a loss of over 13k EUR.
Of course I did put myself that limit (is what I could afford to lose, so Max 20% of my savings - very stupid, I know) and now just stopped as I probably would end up losing more until I change my approach (greed and fear are the biggest enemies).
I still have money left, and despite the loss I like trading and I know it can make you money.
Any advice on how to proceed before I decide to give it one more try?
Thanks for your replies, Glober…
I think you have figured out your own issue, which is you are risking way too much on individual trades. There is no way any strategy in the long term would ever work risking that much. You may have a good trading strategy but you won’t know until you can reduce your risk to a much safer level. You are stuck in a bad cycle where now you are just risking big to make up for losses, and by doing so losing even bigger. Sort of like a gambling addiction.
Hit the reset button. Forget about the losses so you don’t keep torturing yourself about having to make up for losses, which will cause you to make poor risk management and trade management decisions. When you start fresh stick to a low risk % per trade. Don’t ever deviate from it no matter how likely you think the trade will become a winner. Seriously on this, once you set a risk rule don’t ever break it or else you are back to gambling again. Pick something really safe like 0.5% - 1%, something you could lose 10-20 times in a row and still be able to recover fairly quickly. Doing it this way you’re not going to make 100% overnight, but you also aren’t going to lose 100% overnight. What you want is a steadily increasing profit curve without huge draw downs. You will be a better trader for it and might actually start making money in the long term.
Agree with krugman.
Find a straightforward, dull, system that gives a reasonable success rate, and trade on demo until you can consistently win month after month after month.
If you love the buzz of a big win, then you could slip back into bad habits. If you can become almost robotic in your trading, then you probably improve your chances of success.
Best of luck
Thanks krugman for your quick reply. Will follow your advice and restart in a while, after studying a bit more, with far lower amounts. Another mistake was going on Max leverage (120x on BRN, 200x on gold and 500x on EUR/USD) which let little space given trend went against me (I actually kept winning as long as I was keeping positions small and leverage 50% lower - and wouldn’t have been wiped out as course quickly turned in my favor as expected, just a BIT too late).
Yes crying on losses makes no sense and probably prevents you from trading with the needed lucidity.
13k EUR is a good amount of money but as said I’ve got some reserves left, since I had given myself that Max limit I could “afford” to lose (doesn’t feel good anyways, especially given the fact I could avoid it).
I was just surprised how candles on BRN and XAU started to shake only when I was in with large positions (5600 EUR on BRN at 120x and 3200 EUR on XAU at 200x); never seen this happening in months, and ever after.
This made me wonder whether some kind of AI system is tracking all moves and capable of manipulating the course for 30 seconds just in order to get large positions wiped out.
We know that nothing in fin systems is managed by humans anymore, it’s all machines, and with the processing capacity of quantum computers combined to advanced AI systems this is an easy game.
Any thoughts on this one?
Best, Glober
Well I traded on demo for a while and turned 10K into 30K in little more than 4 weeks. Then I turned to live and lost 5K, let it sit for a while, restated with a different strategy with 400 EUR, ended up having 2100 EUR after a week, pumped another 8K in and lost almost all in 3 positions, getting into panic and increasing in order not to get wiped out, but candles rises faster than I could react.
Once wiped, everything calmed down. This happened twice, and never after (nor before).
Probably my mistakes but surely combined with (very) bad luck. Or something else?
No problem. Leverage really isn’t the problem. The problem is maximizing it. If my broker gave me a billion to 1 leverage I still will only risk 0.5% of my account per trade. Leverage simply let’s you increase “capital efficiency” but you control your actual loss by how many lots you trade. When I traded through an FX broker I always had 100:1 but I rarely used more than a fraction of my margin requirements. I now trade currency through the futures market which also has around 100:1 leverage, but the 0.5 - 1% risk per trade rule has staid the same.
As for your question, don’t get caught up wondering if someone is out to trigger your stop loss. Firstly the Forex markets flow so many trillions of dollars that it’s highly unlikely anyone could move it in a meaningful way. Secondly the market is two sided so if there was manipulation it would go both directions and help you just as often as it hurts you, i.e. be a wash. Truth is all markets get choppy, so keep your stop losses and profit targets large enough to account for that.
krugman25 - where have you been?
Great posts, you’re needed here.
Got it. Thanks for the advice. Will let you know how I am doing once I get back in. Need to let it settle for a while and digest the loss, in order not to repeat the same mistakes once again.
As for the rest you’re right. The ones longing profited from my loss. I wish I was in the other way around on that one 
.
I therefore must assume that such ultra-rapid huge ups and downs (in a 1 minute candle) may happen from time to time due e.g. to market events and therefore a SL (even if very high, say over 50 to 75 %) should always be in place, right?
Sorry for being naive, but I have little time to spend on studying… so I jumped into trading with far too little know-how.
BR, G.
The important part is that you are learning and willing to continue to learn and improve. Also that you are reaching out for help.
My suggestion to you, to prevent from getting stopped out from whipsawing, is to trade higher time frames, daily/weekly, and make sure from your entry point to your stop loss is at least 1 - 1.5 times ATR - Average True Range.
Great. Thanks again Krugman25!!
Talk soon, G.
Thank you as well eddieb for the advice and for taking the time to reply.
BR, G.
that show you demo is not working but real market is working good you didnt do any mistake , its just market workings , did you see anyone play in casino double his money ? yes
but make it ten times and more over a long period ?! no
Nope… never see any gambler win over the long run.
Mistake we’re too big positions, too high leverage, Bas risk management and emotions.
Demo is not working you’re right. Even just because of the fact that you’ll never act the same way with real money as you do with demo money…
Best, G.
even if gambler use small position or having bet at different risk rewards at table like 1 to get 3 or -5 to 10 ! still losing overall there are players not playing emotional at all and has gambling experience for long time just because they losing for long time and still cant beat it they have plan and they lose , what i try to tell you is just work on doubling your money for a year maybe ! not expect to turn 400 to 4 k 10 k and more , everyone need to be genius and patient to get result , i swear some time there is better chances in casino than the market 
In my trading career, my foremost stupid mistake was to trade again and again. And I did huge loses so many times due to this stupid reason.
Hi @Hadden! trading again and again is not a mistake. But placing wrong orders every time is surely a blunder it can result in huge losses, as you said. Did you start trading directly on live account?
Trading again and again I mean its revenge trading particularly after having some losses.
The most stupid mistakes newbie makes is by investing in forex without knowing what it is. They watch a few youtube videos and they think they have become the masters of trading. So, don’t be fools and learn what is forex trading.
I completely agree with you, after reading few articles, blogs, watching some you tube videos, people think that now they know everything about Forex. Trading can’t be learn overnight, it is a continuous process, which require lot of patience and experience.
Generally newcomers try to get maximal result from this market place without learning , as a result they become loser when trading practically.