I knew it had to be just a matter of time. But, I have to tell you how this trade went down. I went to look at the setup last night and found a ridiculous range between the high point and the low point of entry - like 60 or 80 pips! I thought to myself, "Oh geez, there's no way this is going to work out. Which ever way it goes, when, or better, if it manages to get to one side or the other, it will run out of gas and go the other way." So, I just set trades on both sides and went to bed.
I got up at 6 - it hadn't done much. "Man, I'm glad I didn't stay up and watch this thing," I said to myself. Then again at 7:30. It had fallen to about 5 pips above my entry point on the short side and reversed quite a ways up. At least it was moving. I thought, "Yup, just as I thought - I'm glad it didn't grab my entry." So I just left it and went back to bed. I didn't wake up again until 9. So, I came out and looked at it. Well, something had happened - one of the trades was missing, but it wasn't still on. My first thought, of course was "On no - I missed it." Then I looked down and saw the max amount in the realized gain box. Wow - the sucker just dropped down all at once. Come to find out between 8 and 8:30, the market dropped about 70 points, picked up my order, and got the max.
I've always wanted to make money while I sleep. I know this isn't real money at this point, but I still don't know what is going to happen when I set these things up. Now, I know that I can't be just setting up trades like this and going to bed all the time. I just knew that the range was so wide on this one that it was extremely unlikely to be whipsawed and reversed. I didn't think it would drop through my whole trade without giving me a chance to move my stop down, though. On tighter setups, this wouldn't work, but the trades don't take that long either, so I can monitor it closer in those situations.
I love this trading method! Through good and bad!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
No evidence
I think the toughest part of the path to getting what you want is getting through the times when you think you should be having some signs of success. In other words, if you have enough failures in a row, it's very difficult not to be disappointed and give up. I look at myself and it seems I have less tolerance for the failures that come up. I start many things, but don't stay with them long enough to see success. Probably not as true with the MLM thing (I've been with the same company now for over 5 years), but I can't say I've put my all into that for even the majority of the time.
The reason I'm bringing all this up is because I had a losing trade last night, and am feeling those emotions coming into my being, and the questions that come into my head, like "I wonder when this will start to act like the guy said it is supposed to?"
Well, after I pondered it a bit, I remembered that the process has to be enjoyable, without being attached to an end. I really do enjoy the process - much more so than I enjoy the process associated with running a Network Marketing business. I don't mind staying up late. It gets a little tedious when the pair isn't moving, so I go catch a couple winks on the couch. I don't really know why I enjoy that process - I just do.
By the way, there are a couple of aspects I do enjoy about MLM. One is the prospect of really helping people. My big hold back with it is I understand that many people would rather have a miserable life than do the things they need to do to have a better life. Those people, on many occasions, actually get pissed off if you push them too much to help themselves. So, I actually go too far the other way and don't even try with a lot of the prospects I come across. I automatically think that I might piss them off. There is no such problem with trading...and I know that if I can have long-term success with it, then I can still help others by teaching them the process, as I am with this blog.
By the way, I am now 1-5-4 with the trading (that's wins, losses, and break-evens.) Yet, I am still less than $50 down, and that is with all the screw-ups that have happened. I guess that's why it's a good idea to paper trade. It's still encouraging, though, because one win and I'm practically even.
Not that it matters.
The reason I'm bringing all this up is because I had a losing trade last night, and am feeling those emotions coming into my being, and the questions that come into my head, like "I wonder when this will start to act like the guy said it is supposed to?"
Well, after I pondered it a bit, I remembered that the process has to be enjoyable, without being attached to an end. I really do enjoy the process - much more so than I enjoy the process associated with running a Network Marketing business. I don't mind staying up late. It gets a little tedious when the pair isn't moving, so I go catch a couple winks on the couch. I don't really know why I enjoy that process - I just do.
By the way, there are a couple of aspects I do enjoy about MLM. One is the prospect of really helping people. My big hold back with it is I understand that many people would rather have a miserable life than do the things they need to do to have a better life. Those people, on many occasions, actually get pissed off if you push them too much to help themselves. So, I actually go too far the other way and don't even try with a lot of the prospects I come across. I automatically think that I might piss them off. There is no such problem with trading...and I know that if I can have long-term success with it, then I can still help others by teaching them the process, as I am with this blog.
By the way, I am now 1-5-4 with the trading (that's wins, losses, and break-evens.) Yet, I am still less than $50 down, and that is with all the screw-ups that have happened. I guess that's why it's a good idea to paper trade. It's still encouraging, though, because one win and I'm practically even.
Not that it matters.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Learning the Ropes
Well, so far I've managed to learn a few things about the basics of doing this. It should work out pretty well, because it will take me at least a couple months to get $400 in my account, which I figure is the least amount I need to make it safe enough for trading - in other words, $400 divided by $15 is just under 27, so I would need to lose 27 trades in a row to run out of money. If I do that, then I'll know that this isn't going to work.
I've done a few trades using a couple of different pairs (in forex, you trade different pairs of currencies - the way the currency values move against each other creates the movement.) I found out that the ones using the USD, or our dollar, end up as $1 dollar per point, or pip as its called gained or lost. I had the guy at the place change my practice account to where it would work like that, because it was too confusing to have each point equal $50. I figure if this works the way it should, I'll be there in 3 years or so, but for now I'd better have it as realistic as possible. I tried a few trades with the GBP/EUR pair, but since there was no dollar involved, the per pip amount was $1.60, which would be too high for me right now. I also decided to stick with the same pair, as I figure the more consistent I am, the more likely this should work. I've still only had one full winning trade out of the first 9, but I'm only down $34. Also, I had to start over when I had my practice account reset to the lower amount. That took away my one winning trade. I have to stay up late, but at least no one else is up to interrupt my trading. Sometimes the trade gets set up (or stopped out) within the first hour, and I can go to bed. Last night took longer. I don't really mind, though. I'm able to catch a few winks until the last part of the set-up happens. If it doesn't stop out, I'm waiting for it to move enough in the right direction so I can reset my stop at break-even. That's what has happened 2 out of 3 times since I reset my practice account. I'm pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before one of these doesn't retrace, and I'll get a winning trade. That should put me in the plus. I'll let you know next time.
I've done a few trades using a couple of different pairs (in forex, you trade different pairs of currencies - the way the currency values move against each other creates the movement.) I found out that the ones using the USD, or our dollar, end up as $1 dollar per point, or pip as its called gained or lost. I had the guy at the place change my practice account to where it would work like that, because it was too confusing to have each point equal $50. I figure if this works the way it should, I'll be there in 3 years or so, but for now I'd better have it as realistic as possible. I tried a few trades with the GBP/EUR pair, but since there was no dollar involved, the per pip amount was $1.60, which would be too high for me right now. I also decided to stick with the same pair, as I figure the more consistent I am, the more likely this should work. I've still only had one full winning trade out of the first 9, but I'm only down $34. Also, I had to start over when I had my practice account reset to the lower amount. That took away my one winning trade. I have to stay up late, but at least no one else is up to interrupt my trading. Sometimes the trade gets set up (or stopped out) within the first hour, and I can go to bed. Last night took longer. I don't really mind, though. I'm able to catch a few winks until the last part of the set-up happens. If it doesn't stop out, I'm waiting for it to move enough in the right direction so I can reset my stop at break-even. That's what has happened 2 out of 3 times since I reset my practice account. I'm pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before one of these doesn't retrace, and I'll get a winning trade. That should put me in the plus. I'll let you know next time.
Friday, December 18, 2009
So what gives?
Alright, so now I've started a blog that I swear to myself that I am going to do something, but strangely enough, I keep bogging down. The least I could be doing is giving periodic updates, but I'm not even doing that. Truth is that I can't really get excited about finding a team and doing real estate investing full time. The only thing I can think of that I particularly enjoyed over the past eight-and-a-half years is trading. That is, besides playing music. I don't mind the sound gigs, but they aren't that much fun. I don't know why trading is fun for me. If I leave out the fact that I generally lost money when I did it, it was great. I just got an idea that if I did learn to trade on a consistent basis (meaning I actually did make money semi-consistently) that I could teach others how and do well with that. I know there are a bunch of people out there that would love to work from home and not have to sell anything, or even talk to anyone, and still make money! Sounds like one of those shady ads you see on the internet.
Now, this may sound like I am copping out on my initial plan, but keep in mind that my plan was to create a source of income. Yeah, I know I said I wanted to make money while I sleep, and I don't know of a way to do that trading. Now that I think about it, if you made money while you sleep, what would you do the rest of the time? You can't spend your whole life on vacation! Well, I guess you could try it, but I would guess after awhile, no matter how great the vacations were, it would start to get boring.
What if I did something that, even though it wasn't necessarily perpetual income, I loved doing the thing that created it, that should be ok, right? Especially if we're only talking an hour a day, and that hour generally would be when everyone else is sleeping.
I've found a way of trading the Forex markets that is not a 'black box' system (that, supposedly, you can turn it on and it will crank out money on it's own. Ha ha - I'm sure that works.) This is a little system that this guy who, after 20-some-odd years doing it, decided to put out on the internet. Now, I hear you saying, "Oh, God, Mike, are you out of your mind? Those things are a dime a dozen - and they're all scams." I have to tell you. The same thought occurred to me. Then I started looking at it. The primary features of this thing mirror, in a very simple way, a bunch of fundamentals about trading I have read in many books. They just never had a set-up for it that seemed simple enough to do without reading every single book on trading that's out there. So, I looked into it, and found that Forex has a lot of features that, if you do things according to a few very consistent patterns, make it fairly easy to make money (over time, of course). All we are looking at is being able to get 10% a month out of your account, and within 6 years, even if you start with a measly $500, you have an account over $1,000,000! Go ahead, set up a spreadsheet, and do a monthly table, and have the total increase by 10% every month, and see what happens.
Now I'm not, at this point, going to go into the details of this trading method, because I'm still testing it, and everybody knows that there are a ton of things that can go wrong with the best thought out plans, and this one isn't all that well thought out. I just see some great possibilities here, and I am inspired to actually do it, unlike some of the other things I've attempted in the past, as you know. I know things will start out slow, since I will be starting with a $500 account, and I'm sure most of you realize that 10% of $500 is only $50. But, as you can see on your spreadsheet, if you did it, you give that just a few years of compounding, some pretty big things happen.
It's going to take me a couple months to get $400 or $500 in my account, but in the mean time I plan on trading it with a practice account so I am really familiar with how it works by the time I start with real money. The tools supplied in the account are free, and there is no monthly outgo while I'm practicing.
Incidentally, I've found out that you can only go down to a certain point and risk as little as the guy on this system suggests. I'd have to start out with $1000 to do that, so I'll be risking a bit more when I start out. If this thing works like it should, though, my account will be growing at an average of $100 a month instead of $50. I plan on keeping it there until I reach $2000. If I survive the area between $500 and $1000, I'll be going using the safety parameters suggested by the author. I figure that should take 5 months or less.
I'll keep you all updated - so far I've made 4 practice trades. The first one I overslept, but was a winner if I would have been there to get my trade in, and 1 out of the next three were winners. Basically, I could have the next three go bad and still be even (which could happen :)
Now, this may sound like I am copping out on my initial plan, but keep in mind that my plan was to create a source of income. Yeah, I know I said I wanted to make money while I sleep, and I don't know of a way to do that trading. Now that I think about it, if you made money while you sleep, what would you do the rest of the time? You can't spend your whole life on vacation! Well, I guess you could try it, but I would guess after awhile, no matter how great the vacations were, it would start to get boring.
What if I did something that, even though it wasn't necessarily perpetual income, I loved doing the thing that created it, that should be ok, right? Especially if we're only talking an hour a day, and that hour generally would be when everyone else is sleeping.
I've found a way of trading the Forex markets that is not a 'black box' system (that, supposedly, you can turn it on and it will crank out money on it's own. Ha ha - I'm sure that works.) This is a little system that this guy who, after 20-some-odd years doing it, decided to put out on the internet. Now, I hear you saying, "Oh, God, Mike, are you out of your mind? Those things are a dime a dozen - and they're all scams." I have to tell you. The same thought occurred to me. Then I started looking at it. The primary features of this thing mirror, in a very simple way, a bunch of fundamentals about trading I have read in many books. They just never had a set-up for it that seemed simple enough to do without reading every single book on trading that's out there. So, I looked into it, and found that Forex has a lot of features that, if you do things according to a few very consistent patterns, make it fairly easy to make money (over time, of course). All we are looking at is being able to get 10% a month out of your account, and within 6 years, even if you start with a measly $500, you have an account over $1,000,000! Go ahead, set up a spreadsheet, and do a monthly table, and have the total increase by 10% every month, and see what happens.
Now I'm not, at this point, going to go into the details of this trading method, because I'm still testing it, and everybody knows that there are a ton of things that can go wrong with the best thought out plans, and this one isn't all that well thought out. I just see some great possibilities here, and I am inspired to actually do it, unlike some of the other things I've attempted in the past, as you know. I know things will start out slow, since I will be starting with a $500 account, and I'm sure most of you realize that 10% of $500 is only $50. But, as you can see on your spreadsheet, if you did it, you give that just a few years of compounding, some pretty big things happen.
It's going to take me a couple months to get $400 or $500 in my account, but in the mean time I plan on trading it with a practice account so I am really familiar with how it works by the time I start with real money. The tools supplied in the account are free, and there is no monthly outgo while I'm practicing.
Incidentally, I've found out that you can only go down to a certain point and risk as little as the guy on this system suggests. I'd have to start out with $1000 to do that, so I'll be risking a bit more when I start out. If this thing works like it should, though, my account will be growing at an average of $100 a month instead of $50. I plan on keeping it there until I reach $2000. If I survive the area between $500 and $1000, I'll be going using the safety parameters suggested by the author. I figure that should take 5 months or less.
I'll keep you all updated - so far I've made 4 practice trades. The first one I overslept, but was a winner if I would have been there to get my trade in, and 1 out of the next three were winners. Basically, I could have the next three go bad and still be even (which could happen :)
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