I have decided to also restart my demo accounts for one reason and one reason only: they are almost empty. Well, the main demo is, the other two are still faring okay though I haven't paid much attention to them recently.
My main demo has yoyo'd between 50,000 and 120,000 balance but has ultimately now dropped to 24,000 due to opening huge positions that were never realistically going to be successful - thankfully this means that it is working as being an outlet for my incessant need to trade (which hasn't been so bad recently, I just haven't been stressing so much).
So it's a new start from tomorrow beginning at 50,000 for a new trading day (and almost year). Good luck with all your own trading and feedback to say whatever you want! Thanks for reading.
Sunday 30 December 2012
Saturday 29 December 2012
The scary potential of investment...
After my reasonable success over the last three months of trading I have on several of occassions, friends have raised the topic of the potential for investment. I always say that I would love to have someone invest their money in me as it would give me the opportunity to great improve the credibility and impressiveness of my trading record and ability. I could go from a 1000 USD account, to a 10,000 USD or more with more investors, be able to pay them out and take a commission for myself with much less risk than many other investments. But I also say that trying to stay in the "10% of successful day traders" can be tough and is not always possible leaving the potential for not only high profits but as you all know, large losses. Looking at my record and minor adjustments to my trading strategies that I make to make them evermore efficient and profitable the risk of loss gradually becomes less and less but is always still there. When it comes to investment I think I would grasp the opportunity with both hands and make the most of it - afterall, how else would I be able to eventually manage a hedge fund without a proven record?!
In my last segment I mentioned a good deal about my Christmas Challenge and the profits I was able to return. Overall in the last three months I have been able to go from effectively, 500 USD total investment (200 at the start and 300 later on) to a finishing balance of 1978 USD. To save you the maths (and I hope mine is right, feel free to double check) that is a return on investment of 295.6%. I read about many attempting 10% or even 12% - I have not yet read about this kind of success other than in old threads of FXCM's challenges where only ten people in the same account bracket as me were able to return over 300%. I am impressed with my trading record but will never shout about it being amazing or anything because I worry that the second I become over confident and think that my trading is invincible, that is when I will fail and so I must always, like every trader, keep my wits about me and be sensible.
My thoughts quickly turn to what I would be able to do with an account that an investor let me manage - would I be able to give the same returns? Would I be too scared to trade effectively? Would they expect too much of me? Well, the reality is it would be no different to trading with my own real money - investors are not stupid and would not put all of their eggs in one basket (surely?). My record though is relatively good and I think I could do wonders with a larger account which without investment I would aim to build to in any case.
Before I finish, a quick maths check. On my account I went from 500 USD to 1978 USD, in three months. 295.6% ROI. Even with my newest strategy all of a week old, I have gone from 500 USD to 600 USD in a week - 20% return. If someone were to invest I feel confident that I could repeat this kind of return and potentially turn a 5,000 USD account into a 10,000 USD account very quickly - my only problem is I would have no idea of the rules of investment, when I pay out, what type of returns the investor expects etc... Where would I even start!? Of course I also don't know of investment traps that I could get caught in or tricks that might be played on me. I have no idea about it to be honest but if anyone has any suggestions then please let me know, Tweet @fxamateurtrader or e-mail fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
To anybody thinking that investing in my forex trading would be "too risky" to put it in perspective, I have a good record, I have a higher chance of returns than playing the lottery and while your money would be safer in a bank, 0.5% ANNUALLY (remember mine is over just a quarter) isn't very good in comparison! Please let me know your thoughts and thanks for reading! My next update probably won't be until the New Year, so Happy New Year to you all, have a good one!
*sorry for any spelling errors etc, I did write this in a hurry, hope it makes sense!*
In my last segment I mentioned a good deal about my Christmas Challenge and the profits I was able to return. Overall in the last three months I have been able to go from effectively, 500 USD total investment (200 at the start and 300 later on) to a finishing balance of 1978 USD. To save you the maths (and I hope mine is right, feel free to double check) that is a return on investment of 295.6%. I read about many attempting 10% or even 12% - I have not yet read about this kind of success other than in old threads of FXCM's challenges where only ten people in the same account bracket as me were able to return over 300%. I am impressed with my trading record but will never shout about it being amazing or anything because I worry that the second I become over confident and think that my trading is invincible, that is when I will fail and so I must always, like every trader, keep my wits about me and be sensible.
My thoughts quickly turn to what I would be able to do with an account that an investor let me manage - would I be able to give the same returns? Would I be too scared to trade effectively? Would they expect too much of me? Well, the reality is it would be no different to trading with my own real money - investors are not stupid and would not put all of their eggs in one basket (surely?). My record though is relatively good and I think I could do wonders with a larger account which without investment I would aim to build to in any case.
Before I finish, a quick maths check. On my account I went from 500 USD to 1978 USD, in three months. 295.6% ROI. Even with my newest strategy all of a week old, I have gone from 500 USD to 600 USD in a week - 20% return. If someone were to invest I feel confident that I could repeat this kind of return and potentially turn a 5,000 USD account into a 10,000 USD account very quickly - my only problem is I would have no idea of the rules of investment, when I pay out, what type of returns the investor expects etc... Where would I even start!? Of course I also don't know of investment traps that I could get caught in or tricks that might be played on me. I have no idea about it to be honest but if anyone has any suggestions then please let me know, Tweet @fxamateurtrader or e-mail fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
To anybody thinking that investing in my forex trading would be "too risky" to put it in perspective, I have a good record, I have a higher chance of returns than playing the lottery and while your money would be safer in a bank, 0.5% ANNUALLY (remember mine is over just a quarter) isn't very good in comparison! Please let me know your thoughts and thanks for reading! My next update probably won't be until the New Year, so Happy New Year to you all, have a good one!
*sorry for any spelling errors etc, I did write this in a hurry, hope it makes sense!*
The Christmas Challenge and trading towards the New Year
It's been a week or two since I have written on here and not much has happened but I shall explain anyway! First off, I hope you all had a good Christmas and had a good few days relaxing and stuffing your faces - it was a nice break to have the markets closed on the weekend, then open for just a day before closing again and then open just periodically since due to weekends and in a couple of days, the New Year!
Anyway, the weekend is here right in the middle of the final days of the Fiscal Cliff countdown which I know many are worried about, my plan is simply to wait until something is mentioned and then jump on the trending bandwagon rather than try to pre-empt a move and potentially get it wrong!
The important bits recently: before Christmas I set myself a target, 2000 USD by the 25th Dec, which required me to trade my way on the GBPUSD exclusively up to a profit of around 412 USD in 11 trading days (deadline was set on the 25th but that was not a trading day). I was able to trade my way to about 1695 USD in the first five days which on such a small account was a relatively good profit - just over 100 USD was not bad! I was confident going into the next week.
The markets became more volatile but I was able to use this to my advantage by trading bigger positions - as my balance had increased it made sense to increase position sizes to maintain proportionality. Positions opened grew to 10, 20, 30 and in one case 50 units in size. I was able to get from just under 1700 USD to 1978 USD within three days. At this point I decided to stop because Christmas was in under a week, I wanted to go and see friends and figured it would be a good time to stop - at a high point! So while I did not hit my final target, I hit all others - in 11 days of trading I had gone from 1588 USD to 1978 USD. I have not worked out the maths for this or the profit per trade and the percentages of acc balance made per day etc but it was significant for a small account.
During this ride though I often had several "losing" positions open at a time because I was making occassional hasty and wrong decisions, trading badly (fortunately only on small positions). I would make smarter decisions on bigger positions. I have decided to start again from approximately 500 USD (as of Boxing day) with a new strategy that a few others I know use - essentially, watch the market and see what news is due, then open a position at a peak or trough if possible, slightly larger than usual but only have that one open at a time - waiting for it to hit the profit target before opening another position. Trading closed yesterday (Friday 28th) and I was on 603 USD. That's 100 USD profit in a few trading days - this seems to be a good strategy...
I hope all of your trading and or holidays have been relatively good and you are well rested for the next year of it! I have written another chunk today regarding investment and my view of it. Give it a look and as usual, you can tweet me @fxamateurtrader or e-mail me fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks very much for reading, I'll keep you informed and in the know!
Anyway, the weekend is here right in the middle of the final days of the Fiscal Cliff countdown which I know many are worried about, my plan is simply to wait until something is mentioned and then jump on the trending bandwagon rather than try to pre-empt a move and potentially get it wrong!
The important bits recently: before Christmas I set myself a target, 2000 USD by the 25th Dec, which required me to trade my way on the GBPUSD exclusively up to a profit of around 412 USD in 11 trading days (deadline was set on the 25th but that was not a trading day). I was able to trade my way to about 1695 USD in the first five days which on such a small account was a relatively good profit - just over 100 USD was not bad! I was confident going into the next week.
The markets became more volatile but I was able to use this to my advantage by trading bigger positions - as my balance had increased it made sense to increase position sizes to maintain proportionality. Positions opened grew to 10, 20, 30 and in one case 50 units in size. I was able to get from just under 1700 USD to 1978 USD within three days. At this point I decided to stop because Christmas was in under a week, I wanted to go and see friends and figured it would be a good time to stop - at a high point! So while I did not hit my final target, I hit all others - in 11 days of trading I had gone from 1588 USD to 1978 USD. I have not worked out the maths for this or the profit per trade and the percentages of acc balance made per day etc but it was significant for a small account.
During this ride though I often had several "losing" positions open at a time because I was making occassional hasty and wrong decisions, trading badly (fortunately only on small positions). I would make smarter decisions on bigger positions. I have decided to start again from approximately 500 USD (as of Boxing day) with a new strategy that a few others I know use - essentially, watch the market and see what news is due, then open a position at a peak or trough if possible, slightly larger than usual but only have that one open at a time - waiting for it to hit the profit target before opening another position. Trading closed yesterday (Friday 28th) and I was on 603 USD. That's 100 USD profit in a few trading days - this seems to be a good strategy...
I hope all of your trading and or holidays have been relatively good and you are well rested for the next year of it! I have written another chunk today regarding investment and my view of it. Give it a look and as usual, you can tweet me @fxamateurtrader or e-mail me fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks very much for reading, I'll keep you informed and in the know!
Sunday 16 December 2012
How to get over a bad day's trading
Sometimes when I have made a mistake like I did after the US elections and it all looked like I was going to lose all the money I had built up I need something to pick me up. Usually it's a case of just having to wait until the market returns to a good place or ignoring it because really there is nothing you can do when you make a big mistake in trading unfortunately.
Today while clicking on links for economic figures and weekly forecasts (the one from the NASDAQ website seems the best I have read this week; most clear and concise and specific) I found this link to a part of reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/14welq/24m_relationship_of_7_years_with_24f_just_found/c7h72yj
It is a link to a forum section where a cancer patient is having a hard time coping with his girlfriend cheating on him - it all seems too hard for him to deal with and he doesn't know what to do next. The comment at the top of the page is a fantastic piece of inspirational writing which when you read it, really gets you fired up and makes you want to do stuff! It definitely is helping me not worry about the GBPUSD hitting 1.62 later with a bunch of short positions open... HELP!
As usual, thanks for reading, I hope you like the speech in that link and have a good week's trading.
The link to the NASDAQ page I found particularly helpful was:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/forex-gbpusd-weekly-outlook-december-17-21-cm199401?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nasdaq%2Fsymbols+%28Articles+by+Symbol%29#.UM5AJaxfy1w
Hope it helps.
Today while clicking on links for economic figures and weekly forecasts (the one from the NASDAQ website seems the best I have read this week; most clear and concise and specific) I found this link to a part of reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/14welq/24m_relationship_of_7_years_with_24f_just_found/c7h72yj
It is a link to a forum section where a cancer patient is having a hard time coping with his girlfriend cheating on him - it all seems too hard for him to deal with and he doesn't know what to do next. The comment at the top of the page is a fantastic piece of inspirational writing which when you read it, really gets you fired up and makes you want to do stuff! It definitely is helping me not worry about the GBPUSD hitting 1.62 later with a bunch of short positions open... HELP!
As usual, thanks for reading, I hope you like the speech in that link and have a good week's trading.
The link to the NASDAQ page I found particularly helpful was:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/forex-gbpusd-weekly-outlook-december-17-21-cm199401?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nasdaq%2Fsymbols+%28Articles+by+Symbol%29#.UM5AJaxfy1w
Hope it helps.
Saturday 15 December 2012
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's trading, target #five and briefly, the coming week's predictions.
Okay, there is a lot written here but I hope you will bear with me as I am going over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's trading, with a bit of chatter about stops and limits chucked in. There's drama too (market drama of course). I have highlighted the essential bits in bold for those without the time to read fully.
Wednesday was not a good day's trading seeing just 4 USD profit but as I have said since I started trading, it's a profit and that's better than nothing and definitely beats a loss! I don't care whether the profit from a position ends up being 0.10, 20 or 200 USD, it is still a profit and that is good enough - it's a step forward and a bench mark to try and beat with the next trade. I was expecting an end of week rush in one direction or the other, spread over Thursday and Friday but that did not happen as I made clear over Twitter, wondering why there was no real movement in the markets.
Thursday was a very boring day of trading unfortunately - the US economic numbers that were released having much less impact than I expected! THAT WAS UNTIL 1700 GMT (1200 EST) when I checked my mobile phone trading app on a whim (having previously given up on the market) to see, to my surprise, the market had dropped just minutes before. I didn't catch it right at the bottom of the trough but figured that with a solid day up-trend my short positions (sell positions) would probably not get another chance to see the bottom of that trough and so implemented "stop orders", with dynamic follows on all of my profitable positions. I will explain stops and limits for those unfamiliar with trading, so those of you who know about it can skip down a bit.
Wednesday was not a good day's trading seeing just 4 USD profit but as I have said since I started trading, it's a profit and that's better than nothing and definitely beats a loss! I don't care whether the profit from a position ends up being 0.10, 20 or 200 USD, it is still a profit and that is good enough - it's a step forward and a bench mark to try and beat with the next trade. I was expecting an end of week rush in one direction or the other, spread over Thursday and Friday but that did not happen as I made clear over Twitter, wondering why there was no real movement in the markets.
Thursday was a very boring day of trading unfortunately - the US economic numbers that were released having much less impact than I expected! THAT WAS UNTIL 1700 GMT (1200 EST) when I checked my mobile phone trading app on a whim (having previously given up on the market) to see, to my surprise, the market had dropped just minutes before. I didn't catch it right at the bottom of the trough but figured that with a solid day up-trend my short positions (sell positions) would probably not get another chance to see the bottom of that trough and so implemented "stop orders", with dynamic follows on all of my profitable positions. I will explain stops and limits for those unfamiliar with trading, so those of you who know about it can skip down a bit.
-----------------------
[Stop loss orders and limit orders: let's say you open a position on GBPUSD. Many
traders will immediately implement a "stop loss order", a line on the graph at a certain
value which if crossed will trigger the position to be automatically closed at a loss. So
for example if you open a "long" or "buy" position at 1.610, you may set your stop loss
20 pips away at 1.698, if the position is worth 1 USD per pip, the position will then close
at a 20 USD loss. Stop orders prevent positions' losses from increasing to silly amounts.
They close the position automatically, even when you aren't there, and can be very useful
for some traders.
Limit orders do the same but for profits; you open a position and if you think it may hit a certain
value but only for an instant or want to garuantee a profitable close it if does so, you can use a limit order to make it close when it hits that price. Automatically and immediately.
Both types of orders' values can be changed at anytime.]
-----------------------
Now I must say that I don't use stop losses in the traditional way because no loss is really ever acceptable to me - if I make a loss, I want to learn a lesson from it to prevent it from happening again rather than just accepting it and moving onto the next loss. The only time I use stop orders is when I have a position open and in profit and I want to get the maximum profit from it. To do this I have the computer automatically close the position at a spike in the price. I get it to do this, as you may already have worked out, by using the "dynamic stop" option - so that the stop line follows the profit line at a set distance but never goes back on itself, only increasing the profit that I can bank from the position. By doing this, Thursday evening's drop in the market brought me around 30 USD in profit before rebounding slightly. That was all for the day, I had hit my target and was pleased that the trading day had livened up a bit!
Friday was a very mixed day. It was SO BORING all day and I even tweeted that it was, wondering where the end of week rush was... Then suddenly it happened, very suddenly. The market had been twiddling it's thumbs at around 1.62-1.64 all day and was being really dull until the late afternoon/early evening when there was a spike upwards towards 1.62. As it began I knew that this was the start of a strong trend because it started with such impetus. I went long, then again and again as it went up. By the end of the trending period I had banked almost two hundred pips profit and while not all of my positions were of any significant size, it helped me surpass the day's target... Make up for Wednesday's losses... Bank next Monday's profits and put a smile on my face for a good end to the trading week. Three days in one wasn't bad!
Friday was a very mixed day. It was SO BORING all day and I even tweeted that it was, wondering where the end of week rush was... Then suddenly it happened, very suddenly. The market had been twiddling it's thumbs at around 1.62-1.64 all day and was being really dull until the late afternoon/early evening when there was a spike upwards towards 1.62. As it began I knew that this was the start of a strong trend because it started with such impetus. I went long, then again and again as it went up. By the end of the trending period I had banked almost two hundred pips profit and while not all of my positions were of any significant size, it helped me surpass the day's target... Make up for Wednesday's losses... Bank next Monday's profits and put a smile on my face for a good end to the trading week. Three days in one wasn't bad!
After this enormous and unexpected movement, the GBPUSD stopped moving and with my "Oh there it (the end of week surge) is" Tweet tweeted, I was ready to relax for the weekend. I am very reluctant to get next week's trading going again as I can see it rising above 1.62 and I do not want this - I still have short positions open further down towards 1.61 and below and I really wanted those to close this week, when I expected the market to drop due to the US economic figures being predicted as good and also being actually good. Alas it looks as though fear of the fiscal cliff is directing and urging the market in one direction. We shall see what next week brings and I will keep updating on here and on Twitter - I am thinking of opening a Facebook page related to my trading as well so that it is easier for others to directly interact with me - as a fellow twitter user mentioned last week, trying to chat with a 140 character limit is a nightmare! Let me know what you think, opinions on everything here are very welcome - especially criticism on the way I trade as it will open my mind up to mistakes I might be making or things I am missing. I have just 200 USD to go to hit my Christmas Challenge and seven days to go (six strictly as trading is closed Christmas day).
Final word: I read a statement the other day that struck me as a very obvious and a very valuable rule to trade by, it was "Trade what you see, not what you think." - said by no-one in particular but not me originally. If I had done this since I started I would have avoided losses of ~300 USD. I keep repeating it to myself as I am trading since I heard it and I think it has been working somewhat. This is something I recommened urgently to beginner traders - don't try to predict the trend, just follow it. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed it happening to me. Remember, follow me on twitter @fxamateurtrader and comment here if you have anything longer than 140 characters to say! Thanks.
Damn that was a lot...
Thursday 13 December 2012
A slight recover and Christmas targets
As I have said before it is my target to get from around 1588 USD to 2000 USD by Christmas. When I decided to undertake this challenge a few days ago I had 412 USD to go, 12 trading days in which to do it and a daily target of 34.29 USD - doesn't sound like too much but it is difficult as some days (like yesterday) can pass due to unexpected fluctuations in the market with little or no profit and occassionally even a loss.
I suffered a loss of all of 2 USD last night due to a negative rollover (a fee to maintain an open position; it can be positive, so you get paid, or negative, you get charged) on every one of my positions.
Anyway on Monday the 10th when I began, I was able to hit the target and infact over shot it by a few dollars. Check target one of twelve.
On Tuesday I missed the target by a couple of dollars, but the previous day's overshoot made up for that so no problems. Check target two of three.
Wednesday... Today I was AGAIN expecting the GBPUSD to go down (i.e. from 1.61 down to 1.604/1.60) as it had been rising gradually the two days before and some US economic figures were due out. Alas it was not so and it continued rising through 1.61 up towards 1.615 (1.617 at it's peak). My positions collected together were over 1,000 pips out, with each pip being worth between ten cents and a dollar... EACH PIP! I was almost in despair as I saw my "profit/loss" section go down past -100 USD, -300 USD.... At it's worst it reached -600 USD. I was very worried as it occured to me that I had simply repeated the exact same thing that had happened to me before/during the US election and I was kicking myself, wanting to close my positions that were costing me money every second as soon as I possibly could. This was how Wednesday ended for me unfortunately, waking up this morning to an account with massive negative numbers plastered across it... Suffice to say, I made 4 USD Wednesday and it was shit but a profit nontheless.
Please note, that I am never ever eager to close a position at a loss because many times, a position will go into a larger loss before coming into profit. You start off at a 2.2 ish pip disadvantage in trading through my particular broker and you have to make that margin up before you can profit. Quite often you move further away from that before moving into profit - I think this is just to do with poor position timing (not placement).
So Thursday, was still rubbish until it came to approximately 1700 GMT (1200 EST) when the market had been fluctuating all day between 1.615 and 1.613 (little fluctuation) and had calmed down. Just to suddenly crash thirty pips in less than a minute... I am still unsure what caused it but it dropped and brought me into profit on a few of my positions - unfortunately I was out at the time and unable to fully compute the situation but I closed for a profit at just the right time and was glad to close over half of my units for a profit. I still have to make up for yesterday's target miss but I will try to do that next week, I want to close all my remaining positions before the weekend (ideally). SO in the first week of my challenge, I have made around 90 USD of headway into the target and am determined to make it all the way!
Wish me luck and let me know what you think of my challenge by tweeting at me @fxamateurtrader or messaging me on here or leaving a comment, I don't mind which but will endeavour to reply to everything I can. I know I have written a lot but I appreciate all the support and thanks for reading!
I suffered a loss of all of 2 USD last night due to a negative rollover (a fee to maintain an open position; it can be positive, so you get paid, or negative, you get charged) on every one of my positions.
Anyway on Monday the 10th when I began, I was able to hit the target and infact over shot it by a few dollars. Check target one of twelve.
On Tuesday I missed the target by a couple of dollars, but the previous day's overshoot made up for that so no problems. Check target two of three.
Wednesday... Today I was AGAIN expecting the GBPUSD to go down (i.e. from 1.61 down to 1.604/1.60) as it had been rising gradually the two days before and some US economic figures were due out. Alas it was not so and it continued rising through 1.61 up towards 1.615 (1.617 at it's peak). My positions collected together were over 1,000 pips out, with each pip being worth between ten cents and a dollar... EACH PIP! I was almost in despair as I saw my "profit/loss" section go down past -100 USD, -300 USD.... At it's worst it reached -600 USD. I was very worried as it occured to me that I had simply repeated the exact same thing that had happened to me before/during the US election and I was kicking myself, wanting to close my positions that were costing me money every second as soon as I possibly could. This was how Wednesday ended for me unfortunately, waking up this morning to an account with massive negative numbers plastered across it... Suffice to say, I made 4 USD Wednesday and it was shit but a profit nontheless.
Please note, that I am never ever eager to close a position at a loss because many times, a position will go into a larger loss before coming into profit. You start off at a 2.2 ish pip disadvantage in trading through my particular broker and you have to make that margin up before you can profit. Quite often you move further away from that before moving into profit - I think this is just to do with poor position timing (not placement).
So Thursday, was still rubbish until it came to approximately 1700 GMT (1200 EST) when the market had been fluctuating all day between 1.615 and 1.613 (little fluctuation) and had calmed down. Just to suddenly crash thirty pips in less than a minute... I am still unsure what caused it but it dropped and brought me into profit on a few of my positions - unfortunately I was out at the time and unable to fully compute the situation but I closed for a profit at just the right time and was glad to close over half of my units for a profit. I still have to make up for yesterday's target miss but I will try to do that next week, I want to close all my remaining positions before the weekend (ideally). SO in the first week of my challenge, I have made around 90 USD of headway into the target and am determined to make it all the way!
Wish me luck and let me know what you think of my challenge by tweeting at me @fxamateurtrader or messaging me on here or leaving a comment, I don't mind which but will endeavour to reply to everything I can. I know I have written a lot but I appreciate all the support and thanks for reading!
Wednesday 12 December 2012
Toptradr Competition
This is just a breif word on the TopTradr competition that went around Facebook and has several hundred competitors for a $10,000 prize. I was originally very interested and reached 6th places but others simply out-traded me and I was unable to catch up.
Unfortunately my attention has been drawn from this account (it was another demo account that I set up especially for the competition) and I forgot about it for a number of weeks. Since, I have dropped from 6th down to 84th. I am trading it again as of yesterday and again expect to profit from the GBPUSD hitting a six week high. Again this will be updated only when something significant happens or when the competition ends.
Unfortunately my attention has been drawn from this account (it was another demo account that I set up especially for the competition) and I forgot about it for a number of weeks. Since, I have dropped from 6th down to 84th. I am trading it again as of yesterday and again expect to profit from the GBPUSD hitting a six week high. Again this will be updated only when something significant happens or when the competition ends.
Demo Accounts
After I began trading again I thought it would be a good idea to open a demo account to try different strategies and get out my constant urge to open position after position (the risk management downfall that lead to my post US election debacle).
I opened a demo account and it was filled with (fake of course) 50,000 USD. Of course this is much bigger than a regular account and can make your brain get lost in what you are doing partly because it is a rare amount of money for a day trader to have in an account and also because you know it is fake your mind does not taking the trading seriously and that definitely affects how, when and why you open positions. You can go 10,000 units long at 5 USD a piece at the month high because "you think it might keep going up" and it won't matter because it's not real. Whereas in a real account a smart trader does try to be able to explain every position they open - myself included; although even being able to explain the logic behind a position doesn't mean it will be profitable unfortunately.
This demo account experienced good fortune in the very first day, having it's balance boosted by a couple of smart trades to over 80,000 USD. The following days saw more erratic trading on the account and a loss which reset my to approx. 50,000 USD again! I collected my self and was able to, within three weeks increase the account's balance to over 172,000 USD which was the highest value I have ever had in a demo account. I was pretty chuffed with this as the US election approached. Alas I had done the same as I had done on my real account and managed my risk AWFULLY. The election saw me take a hit of 115,000 USD and reset to around my starting balance...
Again as I did with my real account, I traded carefully and between ~20/11/12 and 07/12/12 I had increased the balance from 55,000 USD up to 118,000 USD. Then on Friday, doing exactly what I had created this account for, it took another hit due to my over-opening of positions, and the balance hit an all time low of 40,000.
I am already increasing the accounts balance again having gone short at the currencies six-week high. I will periodically update on this account in the future but as it is fake and not of utmost importance they won't be too often.
Thanks for reading!
I opened a demo account and it was filled with (fake of course) 50,000 USD. Of course this is much bigger than a regular account and can make your brain get lost in what you are doing partly because it is a rare amount of money for a day trader to have in an account and also because you know it is fake your mind does not taking the trading seriously and that definitely affects how, when and why you open positions. You can go 10,000 units long at 5 USD a piece at the month high because "you think it might keep going up" and it won't matter because it's not real. Whereas in a real account a smart trader does try to be able to explain every position they open - myself included; although even being able to explain the logic behind a position doesn't mean it will be profitable unfortunately.
This demo account experienced good fortune in the very first day, having it's balance boosted by a couple of smart trades to over 80,000 USD. The following days saw more erratic trading on the account and a loss which reset my to approx. 50,000 USD again! I collected my self and was able to, within three weeks increase the account's balance to over 172,000 USD which was the highest value I have ever had in a demo account. I was pretty chuffed with this as the US election approached. Alas I had done the same as I had done on my real account and managed my risk AWFULLY. The election saw me take a hit of 115,000 USD and reset to around my starting balance...
Again as I did with my real account, I traded carefully and between ~20/11/12 and 07/12/12 I had increased the balance from 55,000 USD up to 118,000 USD. Then on Friday, doing exactly what I had created this account for, it took another hit due to my over-opening of positions, and the balance hit an all time low of 40,000.
I am already increasing the accounts balance again having gone short at the currencies six-week high. I will periodically update on this account in the future but as it is fake and not of utmost importance they won't be too often.
Thanks for reading!
The End of November and the start of the Christmas Period
Come the end of November I had recovered (more or less) from the diabolical month that followed the US election. With a loss of over a third of my account balance I was going to very much ease back into trading. I returned with just single unit positions taking tiny profits when they were available. Anything from 0.10c to a few dollars. I have gradually built back up my trading confidence and am back in the game.
I had, over the tough last month deposited more money into the account to prevent it from bottoming out - this was effectively the amount that I ended up losing meaning that when I began properly trading again It was as if I had not lost anything - of course that doesn't count as profit and does effect the final value of how much trading success I have had.
I also did some maths for my account a couple of weeks ago. Despite my losses I make successful and profitable trades 94% of the time. In my first month I was 257% profitable although while my average profit was 3 USD, my average loss was 9 USD. That was my most dissappointing stat but I think that will have changed recently as over the last few weeks I have had a high volume of small trades with I think one out of every fifty or sixty being a loss. Rollover fees not included as trades.
My aim by Christmas is to have increased my account balance by a significant margin of profit going from 200 USD at the end of September to over 1700 USD (2000 USD including the money I had put in and not taken out afterwards) by 25/12/12.
If I can accomplish this then I will be very impressed with myself and will put more money into the account to boost it's potential for higher profits in the future. To turn 200 USD into 2000 USD (with 500 USD total deposit) is my anyone's standards a good job and definitely beats having the money sit in a bank gathering 0.5% interest per YEAR - this account shows (going from 200 to 1700 true balance) a 750% profit.
If some of this doesn't make sense or you are interested in knowing more then feel free to comment, message me, DM me on Twitter or tweet directly at me - I will do my best to reply.
I had, over the tough last month deposited more money into the account to prevent it from bottoming out - this was effectively the amount that I ended up losing meaning that when I began properly trading again It was as if I had not lost anything - of course that doesn't count as profit and does effect the final value of how much trading success I have had.
I also did some maths for my account a couple of weeks ago. Despite my losses I make successful and profitable trades 94% of the time. In my first month I was 257% profitable although while my average profit was 3 USD, my average loss was 9 USD. That was my most dissappointing stat but I think that will have changed recently as over the last few weeks I have had a high volume of small trades with I think one out of every fifty or sixty being a loss. Rollover fees not included as trades.
My aim by Christmas is to have increased my account balance by a significant margin of profit going from 200 USD at the end of September to over 1700 USD (2000 USD including the money I had put in and not taken out afterwards) by 25/12/12.
If I can accomplish this then I will be very impressed with myself and will put more money into the account to boost it's potential for higher profits in the future. To turn 200 USD into 2000 USD (with 500 USD total deposit) is my anyone's standards a good job and definitely beats having the money sit in a bank gathering 0.5% interest per YEAR - this account shows (going from 200 to 1700 true balance) a 750% profit.
If some of this doesn't make sense or you are interested in knowing more then feel free to comment, message me, DM me on Twitter or tweet directly at me - I will do my best to reply.
The run up to the US Election on 08/11/12
I was experiencing good success in trading up towards the US Election. I was expecting that Obama winning would weaken the $ due to the fact he was going to be pushing plans to implement "Obamacare" or Medicare. This of course WOULD have weakened the $ had it been a more immediate course of action for him.
I had been building towards the election for a number of days opening long positions on the approach to 1.600 from 1.617 with varying position sizes (between 1 and 10 units each). As we all know Obama did win the election and it strengthened the $ very significantly, trading below 1.60 and 1.59 for the following weeks. This almost "account-rupt" me and I was very close to losing all of my progress. My error was obvious afterwards - I had built my positions up to respond well to only one situation.
This huge mistake and error in risk management resulted in next to no profits over the next few weeks and infact a loss of 1/3 of my account balance. It was large set back but I was determined to make up my losses afterwards.
I understand that many traders use stop losses - this is not a strategy that appeals to me as I feel that closing a trade before it has a chance to profit is a very bad idea. If the market goes in the wrong direction on what should have been a sensible trade, it will inevitably recover. For example, my positions that I opened before the US election ranged from 1.601 to 1.615. During the time of the results shockwave I would have closed all of those positions at a loss as the market went against what I hope it would. Instead the market recovered and as we have recently seen it is trading as high as 1.617. Meaning I have infact been able to recover my losses and close many of those positions at a profit - though this is not preferable trading and I avoid doing this as much as possible now, thinking my positions through muchmore carefully and being more open minded.
Anyway, now I will explain my come back and what is happening at the moment.
I had been building towards the election for a number of days opening long positions on the approach to 1.600 from 1.617 with varying position sizes (between 1 and 10 units each). As we all know Obama did win the election and it strengthened the $ very significantly, trading below 1.60 and 1.59 for the following weeks. This almost "account-rupt" me and I was very close to losing all of my progress. My error was obvious afterwards - I had built my positions up to respond well to only one situation.
This huge mistake and error in risk management resulted in next to no profits over the next few weeks and infact a loss of 1/3 of my account balance. It was large set back but I was determined to make up my losses afterwards.
I understand that many traders use stop losses - this is not a strategy that appeals to me as I feel that closing a trade before it has a chance to profit is a very bad idea. If the market goes in the wrong direction on what should have been a sensible trade, it will inevitably recover. For example, my positions that I opened before the US election ranged from 1.601 to 1.615. During the time of the results shockwave I would have closed all of those positions at a loss as the market went against what I hope it would. Instead the market recovered and as we have recently seen it is trading as high as 1.617. Meaning I have infact been able to recover my losses and close many of those positions at a profit - though this is not preferable trading and I avoid doing this as much as possible now, thinking my positions through muchmore carefully and being more open minded.
Anyway, now I will explain my come back and what is happening at the moment.
In the beginning there were losses.
My trading adventure started on my 20th birthday when my parents gave me an account with FXCM trading platform that had a small amount of money in it (~161 USD). As I was new to it and had no real idea how to use the platform or what trading was about I inevitably lost this money... I experienced slight profits at the start which were possibly dumb luck but after that it was all down hill.
During my last year at university I decided to try again with just a 50 USD deposit. Again I experience profits at the beginning in the first couple of weeks and was able to increase the balance to approximately 80 USD. From what I have read online many traders who attempt day trading from home experience profits at first, shortly followed by extensive losses and then them giving up. I also suffered losses again down to a zero balance. This was very frustrating and off putting as I was at a loss as to why this kept happening to me.
Recently, in September I began trading again after gathering the funds to restart. I began this time with approximately 200 USD. I was once again on the road to success, still unsure if I was going to lose all of this too or actually make some money.
During my last year at university I decided to try again with just a 50 USD deposit. Again I experience profits at the beginning in the first couple of weeks and was able to increase the balance to approximately 80 USD. From what I have read online many traders who attempt day trading from home experience profits at first, shortly followed by extensive losses and then them giving up. I also suffered losses again down to a zero balance. This was very frustrating and off putting as I was at a loss as to why this kept happening to me.
Recently, in September I began trading again after gathering the funds to restart. I began this time with approximately 200 USD. I was once again on the road to success, still unsure if I was going to lose all of this too or actually make some money.
Pre-amble; What started this blog.
I have started this blog to accompany my Twitter account which follows my FX trading. If you are reading this you probably came from my Twitter or LinkIn so thank you for taking an interest and also following my trading.
If you have made it here from somewhere else then please feel free to follow me on Twitter - I usually follow back if you post interesting things and I do my best to reply to any tweets @ me and to thank for any re-tweets. https://twitter.com/FXAmateurTrader
If you have made it here from somewhere else then please feel free to follow me on Twitter - I usually follow back if you post interesting things and I do my best to reply to any tweets @ me and to thank for any re-tweets. https://twitter.com/FXAmateurTrader
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