When things don't go so well.....

Well, the trades I told you about last week went okay, I just followed up with a stupid move. I entered a trade to Buy (Long trade) for a lot size of 0.10 slightly before I had to run off to work. The price was 1.3125 on the EurUsd. From the looks of it, a few minutes after I left it, the whole market went south. The only saving grace is that I had a trailing stop set to keep it from going too badly. All in all, I stopped out at 1.3057 for a $68 loss. So Wednesday, I did another Buy trade when the EURUSD was at 1.2937. Thinking of my $68 loss, I set my stop loss closer (15 pips this time), and watched my trade move up and up and up and.... actually it only moved up about 19 pips before it collapsed and I stopped out again. This time I gained $4 on the trade. I have to tell you I was not feeling like a big-time trader at this point. So, while it was falling, I placed a Sell order a few minutes into the reversal. With all the up and down over the next whole minute, I bailed and lost $6 on the sell. Later, on Wednesday, when I got home from work, I placed another trade for a Sell on the EURUSD at 1.3012. An hour later, things were not looking so good to I bailed for an $11 gain. I need a better system.

No trading for the last couple days. Tied up with an open house over the weekend. Hope I got some takers, the ones who visited seemed interested. When I get off work today, my plan is to go try out a new strategy I was sent. I will keep track of my setup and let you know how I do.

Well, two trades later and my account grew by $93 dollars. My stop loss saved me on the first one, limiting me to a $23 gain. The second trade was a sell that netted me $70 dollars before my take profit took me out of the trade. I feel like I might have set my take profit level a little to small. As you can see, I do a lot of second guessing. The important point is that each of these trades made me a profit.
As a little background, I am a technical trader. I use three indicators that I freely admit that I have kept from the stock market. I learned about them back then, and I kind of understand them, so have kept them in use in the Forex market.
The first one is the Stochastic, the second one is the MACD, and the third one is Volume. I have added one tool that was never available to me in the stock markets, and that one is the Williams Percent Range. I'm a little short on time this morning, so I will have to postpone telling you what I look for in using them until my next post.

Lukewarm Market today

I signed into my Forex practice account today and immediately noticed that the EUR/USD market has been see-sawing for the last couple weeks. Well, on the 4-hr charts anyway. I went to the 1 minute charts and my indicators were all pointing up, the 1 hour chart was pointing up, and I placed an order to buy. It looked so good. Now here we are, 2 hours later, and I'm down by 3 bucks. I watched the charts for a little while and when I went downstairs, I was up by about the same amount. The history looks like it went up for the first 20-30 minutes and went sideways for the rest of the time. The down-turn is a minor hump, it still looks like it might come out of it.
This reminds me to mention mind sets. Everyone tells you not to play on emotions. That is so true. I have my trailing stop set and it will exit if the trend goes too far the wrong direction. In January, I have to admit that I played on emotions a bit too much. I wasted a $500 account inside a week. All because I bailed on a negative move. In more than three quarters of those trades, if I had left the trailing stop alone, I would have been in the money after a market rally. I also bailed on gains too early because it turned down for a dozen or so pips before climbing again.
I remember one trade, 3 minutes after I pulled out and took my profit, the market did one of those 150 pip jumps, up. I don't think anyone is fast enough to get a trade in on one of those. Well, I am going to see what happens in the morning. Either I stop out or my take profit will kick in and exit with money in the bank, so to speak.

I started a couple years ago looking into investing in the stock market. My wife and I took a Saturday class from a national stock investing training company in one of the conference rooms of a local hotel. I was fascinated, to say the least. Unfortunately for me, I could not afford to go for the advanced training they offered. I thought, oh well, I can take what they gave me and at the very least, I am an educated consumer. I stayed in there, watching, sometimes dabbling, in the play account. I have not been regular enough to reach that suggested milestone of 'doubling your investment' before going "live" with real money.
Late last year, I don't even remember how I found it, I came across a free guide to Forex. I had always looked at Forex in the same light as Penny Stocks. Penny-ante would be a good description for how I looked at them. I read the info and was immediately smacked upside the head.
I would never have believed how wrong I had been. I found the first 2 facts about Forex to be eye-opening and very possibly, life changing. Did you know the Forex market accounts for GLOBAL maketing in the BILLIONs of dollars? Did you know the Forex market only closes for about 48 hours each week? I didn't.
Then I started to learn more and more. Like, I could create a practice account with a Broker. That broker takes the first 3-4 pips for allowing me to place an order. I look back at that and realized that I had to learn a whole new language. I mean, who, on their first look into the world of Forex knows what a 'pip' is? I think the third thing I learned was something I should have known or gotten during my stock market training. I finally got a handle on what it means when you say long or short trades. I am constantly amazed by just how simple the Forex market is, yet how powerful and lucrative.
I decided to share my experiences with anyone who wants to come along with me for the ride in what I am learning and, I have high hopes, how I go from dabbling to making money as a hobby in this market.
I welcome your feedback, and look forward to sharing many tips, strategies, and stories of my journey from green newbie to successful or at least part time trader in the Forex market.