Been lurking for a while. Submitted a few posts. But I’m ready to contribute.
Hi. I’m a newbie. Standard story really. Signed up for a demo account about 6 months ago, made millions, figured hey this is easy and then started my real account and got killed.
Put $500 into the account and started trading. After the first two weeks had close to $1300. Very cool I thought. I’ll be retired in a year living with my millions. So I decided to raise the stakes and deposit another $1500. Went well for a few days (some moderate gains)… Then I lost my first $500. Bad luck I thought, and I just kept moving on. Bang, won a hundred, Boom - won another 250…then lost 4. Hmm.
The moral here is that there is no magic bullet. There is no out guessing the market. What once was $2800 whittled down to $850. At that point there are 2 ways this can go. Just accept that hey, this ain’t for you, or dig your heals in and try to figure this out. I’m glad I chose the latter.
You can’t beat the market, you can’t beat the banks, and you absolutely must have an entry and exit strategy before you place a trade. And never ever try to ride out a bad trade. It might work some times, but it will completely sink you when it doesn’t. Humility and identifying when you are wrong are absolute essentials.
I was able to grow my account into profit by a good bit, but it takes time and understanding. Sometimes (I suspect most times) these are lessons you need to experience and not just read about.
Back to the title of the post. The only thing that matters is that you know yourself. Your tolerance for risk. How you will react in various situations. Whether you’re up 100 pips or down 100. Once you do that you can trade within somewhat of a comfort level. You will lose. You will win. But always know why you are getting into a trade and when you should get out.
Glad I’m here. Look forward to interacting with you.
Quite a first time hands on experience there, but I guess sometimes it is the right way to learn as long as you do not throw in the towel and run. The morale of the story, “You can win some of the time, but never always”. As such risk management should be second to nature when it comes to Forex Trading.