FXM Live and my journey to success

Thanks jotek:) I shall continue then... At least today was good so stay tuned:)
And what about you, trader or just interested in FX in general?

Another rollercoaster ride this week...

Monday and Tuesday- nothing triggered.

Wednesday – finally some results! Two technical setups published in the trading room, both triggered. The first one (GBP/USD) quickly hit the profit target. The second trade that triggered (sell EUR/USD) was a little slower and when price reached the figure (1.2900) I hesitated for a while to close it or not as the initial profit target was below that. But I did close it at that level and it seemed it was a good call afterall...

Thursday- technical setup triggered in the morning but later went against me and hit the stoploss. Fortunately by this time stoploss was reduced according to the rules so it was about -16 pips loss.

Two trades on Friday, one technical and one news related. Unfortunately both losers, not a good day at all...

Results: it was a breakeven week, still about 4% down from my opening balance (for some reason myfxbook does not update). At least some volatility returned and there was some positive results with the technical setups. Next week I will have more time and less distraction (as I've been made redundant) so hopefully that will reflect in the bottom line as well...

Not a good week...

Monday- surprisingly two technical setups materialized (Monday is always slow), Ben published both in the trading room. Unfortunately the first one was a 10 pip loss (AUD/USD). Second one triggered quite late, around 4pm, the order should have been cancelled by then as it's not advised to enter any trades after 3pm. I closed it shortly after at break-even as it seemed to hit resistance which turned out to be a good call.

Tuesday- two important news releases in the morning. The first one triggered my buy-stop and spiked up but failed to hit my take-profit level so I quickly closed it resulting in 3 pips profit. Not much but at least it's not a loss. Looks like these trades need to be strictly monitored as prices reversed again after a few seconds, I do need fast fingers...
Second news related trade of the day spiked a sell-stop but it did not advance, watching it going into red was still a bit nerve-wrecking. I closed it manually (following Ben in the trading room) and got out at breakeven.

Wednesday did not start well...
A news release trade triggered my sell and buy stop almost simultaneously resulting in two losing trades:( It might be better to stay out when it's a cluster of releases. And I do need to reduce the risk on these trades...
Next news release at 10am again created a spike to get me in the trade but then hit my stoploss soon afterwards. Three losses in a row, 3% down for the day, time to reduce lot size.
Fourth trade (again news related) turned out to be a winner, but of course with half the risk I halved the profit as well. Only 10 pips down for the day but the bottom line doesn't look so good...

Thursday- first a news related trade setup triggered the buy and few seconds later the sell stop as well- a few pips win on that one. Another setup triggered on EUR/USD which was a retracement-trade, expected the move to continue down. For a while it looked promising but then price reversed , fortunately the stop-loss was already at break-even

No trades on Friday.

Results: not a good week, about 6% down from my opening balance. At least some volatility returned and there was some positive results with the technical setups. It does feel like though that if I could iron out a few issues I could get better results, we'll see...

This week was slightly different as the trading room was not operating (Ben is on holiday)
That meant that all the trades I placed was the ones I identified myself. Didn't go to well...

I opened only one trade that was based on technicals and a few which were news related. The technical trade was a loss. The news related trades (6 in total): one was a winner, two closed at breakeven and the rest were losers. So I decided that I won't open any more trades until Ben is back and the trading room is fully operational again.

Results: not going great, about 7.5% down from my opening balance.

shreedharcva posted:
This would make a good Kindle ebook hotseller.

Totally agree! Moreover you can be a successful author if Fx won't work for you 😉
Of course I hope everything will work for you perfectly 😳

This week the trading room was now back in operating as usual (Ben is back from holiday). Let's see how it went for me.

The first trade of the week was on Tuesday, a news release trade which triggered and hit the profit target, good start of the week...
Wednesday I missed out on the morning opportunities as I was away from my computer but it turned out I did not miss out on much as the setups that triggered weren't resulting in much profit. In the afternoon there was a bunch of news releases at the same time (Retail Sales and PPI) and I followed Ben's advice setting up buy-stops on two pairs just before the release. Both triggered , one hit the profit target the other hit my stop-loss which meant I was 10 pips up. Not bad so far.

Unfortunately Thursday wasn't that great. The opportunity was the 1:30pm news releases, two trades triggered, both resulting in losses.

Ben mentioned that finally some volatility is coming back to the fx markets which is showing in the average daily range of many pairs. Still the approach is slightly bit different than last year as he is trying to focus on fundamentals more and filter out some of the technical signals that way. But unfortunately that also means less opportunities it seems like.

Results: losing week for me, lost about 1.2% from my account balance this week.

Hey, not a terrible loss. Glad to see you are still at it! This will be valuable for you to look back on it in the future as well.

I don't wanna give up too quick:) Thanks again for the encouragement.

Somewhat better results finally...

Monday surprisingly presented a technical setup on GBP/USD which resulted in 15 pips profit although some members who used a different trade management extracted around 50 pips. Oh well, still profit...

Tuesday morning Ben was already in a trade by the time I logged in to the trading room. Since price was still hovering around the entry level I also jumped in and set my stoploss 15 pips away from my entry. Unfortunately that wasn't exactly the same level as Ben's so later I got stopped out but anyone following more accurately would have profited 20 pips instead of a loss. Arrghh... Such a small difference (about 2 pips) made it a loser.

Wednesday was eventful. For the BOE's MPC release at 9:30 I followed Ben's recommendation setting up a buy and sell order on GBP/USD a few minutes before the release. The buy triggered on a spike but seeing the result of the vote I quickly closed it with about 4 pips loss. The sell order triggered too in a second and that eventually hit my profit target . Next trade that was published in the trading room was related to the retracement of the same move but I was less lucky with that, turned into a loss. Next trade was the 1:30 pm CPI release. Placed an order a few mins before which triggered and quickly hit the profit target. I closed the day 40 pips up, would be nice to keep that up...

Thursday there were a few news releases, not all triggered a trade, and unfortunately Ben updated his recommendation for an afternoon trade which I missed so that resulted in a losing trade as opposed to getting a winner, very annoying:(

Friday morning to trade the UK GDP news there was a buy and sell setup as well. A spike got me into the buy then price reversed triggering my sell as well which hit my profit target so the net profit were 10 pips afterwards. A technical setup that Ben posted triggered in the afternoon without me realizing and I'm still in, now have to wait for Sunday evening to see what happens to it. Such a basic mistake...

I'm still making very annoying little mistakes which really affect my bottom line and I really need to cut those out.
Results: at least this week was profitable (not hugely though), hope I can keep that up for next week too.

Mixed results again...

Monday - no trades.

Tuesday there were a couple of high impact news releases. The first one (Core Durable orders) did not trigger a trade. The second release did trigger my setup, even though I followed everything properly I was the only one whose order got triggered. I was really annoyed as it turned out to be a loss but occasionally this does happen due to broker price differences.

Wednesday was about the anticipation of the FOMC statement so no setups all day. Unfortunately the statement was to come out at 6pm GMT which I could not monitor so no trade for me.

Thursday there was a technical setup published in the trading room by Ben (NZD/USD) which played out nicely netting 46 pips. Later a few news releases at 12:30 triggered a trade, resulted in a losing trade.

Friday another news trade , again unfortunately a loss.

Results: this week should have been profitable (in terms of pips I'm up by 10) although for the technical trade I used smaller position which made this week a breakeven week.

Very eventful week but not a good outcome.

Monday – a winner on AUD/USD, good for 22 pips , not a bad start.

Tuesday - no trades.

Wednesday we had quite a few setups. The first one on the NZD/JPY, trying to get in after a retracement. Unfortunately it hit the stop-loss level soon after.
When the US Non-farm payroll report came out the reaction was a bit surprising, possibly as the dollar moves were already extended, dollar strength was apparent for the morning. So another loss on that.
Another opportunity on GBP/USD resulted in a loss as well. One more news release trade on the USD/CHF also a loss. Ouch.

Thursday a trade on GBP/USD at the release of the BOE interest rate resulted in a breakeven. Wasn't so lucky with a EUR/USD trade a little later, 20 pips loss on that.

Friday - NFP day, which is always a very important release. The idea was to set up a buy and a sell order on EUR/USD and whichever triggers should move enough to hit the profit target level. Upon release there was an initial reaction which triggered the sell, hit the stoploss, then price reversed triggering the buy order too but reversing again after a minute or two for another loss. On top of that it seems that there was some slippage to, instead of 20 pips that I set for SL the losses were almost 30 pips on both.

Results: very disappointing week, one of the worst so far, making it really difficult to keep up the enthusiasm. About 100 pips down from the week before, that is difficult to recover from but will try.

Not a good idea to trade on NFP with 20 pips SL. A sell and a buy setup the way you did it is gambling.
I have a rule: Never trade on important news. I wait at least 30 min to 1 h before trying to trade again.

Good luck for this week.

A bit less eventful but slightly better results this last week...

Monday – a setup based on the expected continuation of the move on the USD/JPY, selling after a small retracement. Unfortunately the move did not continue, it reversed instead hitting my stoploss.

Tuesday and Wednesday- no trades.

Thursday a technical trade on GBP/USD offered an opportunity, seemed like price will break out to the downside but the move quickly reversed. Fortunately by then the stoploss level was reduced to about 6 pips.

Friday – a setup on the GBP/USD gave me a few pips, Ben in the trading room used different profit target and got about 40 pips. Next opportunity was the US Retail Sales release, using the usual method got 20 pips winner. Yay!

Results: somewhat better than previous weeks, closed the week with a positive balance but still long way away from recovering my losses.

lseres posted:
Very eventful week but not a good outcome.

Monday – a winner on AUD/USD, good for 22 pips , not a bad start.

Tuesday - no trades.

Wednesday we had quite a few setups. The first one on the NZD/JPY, trying to get in after a retracement. Unfortunately it hit the stop-loss level soon after.
When the US Non-farm payroll report came out the reaction was a bit surprising, possibly as the dollar moves were already extended, dollar strength was apparent for the morning. So another loss on that.
Another opportunity on GBP/USD resulted in a loss as well. One more news release trade on the USD/CHF also a loss. Ouch.

Thursday a trade on GBP/USD at the release of the BOE interest rate resulted in a breakeven. Wasn't so lucky with a EUR/USD trade a little later, 20 pips loss on that.

Friday - NFP day, which is always a very important release. The idea was to set up a buy and a sell order on EUR/USD and whichever triggers should move enough to hit the profit target level. Upon release there was an initial reaction which triggered the sell, hit the stoploss, then price reversed triggering the buy order too but reversing again after a minute or two for another loss. On top of that it seems that there was some slippage to, instead of 20 pips that I set for SL the losses were almost 30 pips on both.

Results: very disappointing week, one of the worst so far, making it really difficult to keep up the enthusiasm. About 100 pips down from the week before, that is difficult to recover from but will try.

Don't give up there will be bad times and good times. Focus on minimizing the bad times. In terms of important announcements it better to wait anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour before jumping in. Wait for the market to determine a solid direction after the fundy comes out.

I have been following your progress for a while now. Hang in there. I know you are just demoing for the sake of learning, but shouldn't you rather invest $10 in a cent account and get a feel for the emotion side of things? Also get realistic spread. I am sure there are brokers out there offering cent accounts with little or no commission.
Just my 2c.

Hi guys
Your comments make a lot of sense, but I really don't want to invest money unless I managed to be profitable on a demo account. Made that mistake before , being too impatient and lost money that way. Also the reason to use that specific broker becase that's what Ben uses who runs the trading room. It's a bit of an experiment to see if I can replicate his results.

Not great results but not disastrous either...

Monday – a setup based on the expected continuation of the move on the USD/JPY, selling after a small retracement. Unfortunately the move did not continue, it reversed instead hitting my stoploss. Originally I thought we supposed to use 15 pips as stop-loss but after I opened the trade I realized the stoploss Ben used was 30 pips which meant I had to double the risk. In hindsight I should have closed the trade straightaway, instead of letting it hitting the SL level.

Tuesday- two trades, both of them news release trades. First one moved favourably upon release but slowed down soon so I got out with a few pips profit. Second one was similar, created a spike and just missed my profit target by a pip or two then retraced and hit my stoploss which by then I adjusted to break-even. Ben got about 8 pips on that I believe.

Thursday a technical trade on GBP/USD offered an opportunity, price advanced for a while but the afternoon news release reversed it. At the same time on the news release entered on AUD/USD as well which almost hit the profit target before price reversed.

Friday – a news related trade setup on the USD/CAD gave me 10 pips profit. Should have been 20, I used the app to open the trade before the news release, may have been my settings wrong. Still profit is profit...

Results: small mistakes still being made and affecting the bottom line. 15% down from my opening balance.

I have tried real trading and know very well what it feels like after blowing up several accounts. Thats why Im demoing now to get my trading psychology and trading plan on track.

very informative post .. as i understood u use BUY STOP SELL STOP orders most of the time ??