FXM Live and my journey to success

A personal blog of my experience with the Forexmentor Live service with Ben Nathan
 
Welcome to my blog, readers.
The purpose of this blog is to document and follow my progress to become consistently profitable trading the Forex market. I recently signed up to Forexmentor Live with Ben Nathan in order to learn his trading methodology but more importantly to apply it in a consistent manner that will help me to extract constant profit and steadily grow my account.

This blog will be a non-biased, honest review of my experiences with the mentor and service.

A bit of introduction: I'm just a regular guy who just like most retail traders have a day job but have an interest in making a living out of trading one day. I know it's an ambitious plan (especially knowing the statistics of failure of retail traders) but we should dare to dream :)

It's been a few years that I've been trying to get profitable, so far unsuccessfuly. Started my journey when a colleague of mine many years ago showed me some info about Elliot waves, and it got me excited. The prospect that some form of analysis somehow could help me to make a fortune was immediately appealing so I started learning about the different forms of technical analysis, bought some online courses and books , opened demo and live accounts. In the meantime reading stories about traders like the Turtles who were taught how to trade financial instruments with no prior knowledge in that famous experiment.
I didn't get anywhere. Sure enough, all these resources contributed to some sort of knowledge but I was still losing money. Part of the reason could be what Jarratt Davis calls 'switching', without the necessary guidance and mentoring it's really difficult to stick to any particular method and try to make it work so you keep trying new methods and systems. Many times I quit and stopped trading for a while but I did not want to give up completely.

This is where I am now. I came across the FXM service long time ago , watched some of the seminars but I never signed up, maybe that was just my lack of commitment. But now I decided that I really wanna make this work. With guidance I'm confident I could become profitable as the method seems relatively simple, easy to implement and knowing my strengths it wouldn't be difficult to be persistent and disciplined. If I know that I have someone to ask questions when I hit the wall will probably make all the difference.

In the past couple of months I have implemented some lifestyle changes , altered my diet, experimented with nootropics and brainwave entrainment all of which helped me to get in a better state of mind.
I think I'm ready.

Nature vs nurture, bring it on!

What a first week it was...

Last week was my first week of following FXM Live trading room and trying to take advantage of the published setups and following the method.

Before the week started I went through the training videos on FXM Live which explains the method and the rules. Didn't take long as it is quite simple and easy to understand so I was eager to get started.

Monday turned out to be a bit disappointing. Bank holiday over Europe meant that liquidity was a bit low, not much action and no valid trade setups to enter. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

Tuesday morning before I logged into the trading room I had a quick glance at the charts. Using the method and the ideas from Ben's recordings I quickly identified two trade opportunities and one pair to avoid as it was likely heading into a range. I was pleased with my progress as both of those setups were valid and they turned into nicely profitable trades. Ben went through all the pairs in the trading room, published those two setups and gave the recommendation for stoploss and take profit levels as well. So all we had to do is to enter those values into the trading platform-easy. Both were triggered almost at the same time and since I had to leave for work I continued to monitor them on my mobile. This is the beauty of this method, even if you cannot spend the whole day glued to your monitor you can still profit from this type of service. Not just that I can manage trades on a mobile phone also I can log into the trading room where Ben updates the stoploss and take-profit levels continuously so you always know what to do. Tuesday afternoon was less eventful, no more valid setups but 50+ pips in profit meant it was a good day already.

Wednesday – what a day it was... Two setups in the morning, one of them I messed up pretty bad. USDCHF triggered too early (I didn't set the order properly) so I got out quickly with a small loss. Got in later on again as per the published setup but managing the trade from the workplace was a bit tricky, when I looked at it the price already moved quite sharply against me and I panicked. Closed it down manually with a loss at around the same price as Ben's rules dictated. The other trade generated a small win so I finished the day with a few pips loss.

Thursday and Friday was a bit quiet again, 3-4 trades triggered and closed with a few pips loss.

So at the end of my first week: I'm up about 40 pips up which is 1.2% profit in terms of equity and that is with very low risk on individual trades (less thank 1%). Not bad I think, especially that I messed up a few things (not to mention that my spreads aren't the best). I'm already itching to switch to a real account but trying to resist the urge just yet, made that mistake before.

Let's hope this week will bring me some more profit:)

My second week, let's see what happened...

Monday was a quiet day again, so Ben decided to call it a day for the afternoon due to lack of market moving data and low ADR. I still managed to find a setup later on my own which triggered but did not hit my profit target level. As I moved my stop continuously at the end it closed with 4-5 pip profit. Not much but at least it's not a loss.

Tuesday couldn't have been more different. A lot of action...
Ben published a scalping opportunity before the release of the UK CPI data. I did not want to get in on that one as I wasn't completely sure how to manage that. That was a 10 pip winner that I missed out on – next time. Two more setups in the trading room for the morning session, and the EURUSD triggered. As I couldn't follow Ben's recommendation to close it when some economic news came out and later wasn't able to adjust SL levels properly that was a loss for me (less then 10 pips). Occasionally I do have to work a little at the workplace... There were another two setups for the afternoon and one of them triggered. GBP started to drop against the dollar but the move wasn't strong enough, did not reach the preset take-profit level. At the end it closed about 6 pips profit so breakeven so far this week. Need a bit more practice...

Wednesday was again a bit slow. Two setups were published in the trading room, none of them triggered, seemed like everyone was waiting for the FOMC statement later in the evening. In a way I wish if there was more opportunity with this method but at the same time it would be tricky to manage many trades continuously throughout the day having a full-time job. I already felt the pressure occasionally, even though it's only a demo account I want results...

Thursday morning again did not present too many opportunities. One setup triggered (GBPUSD long) around 10 am and it produced a bit of drawdown initially. It took ages to see it moving again,
 it felt like years . After a few hours price started stalling around the M4 pivot and that's where you can use your discretion to close it manually before the profit level is hit and it was a bit agonizing to decide what to do. Let it run or close? I kept it open and eventually it hit the profit target after 2pm for about 20 pips profit.

Friday morning produced many setups in the morning. Finally - I thought - some action! Unfortunately the two setups that were triggered turned out to be losses. Not a huge loss as the initial stop-loss levels were lowered as time progressed but eventually they were hit producing a total of 30 pips losses. When I checked them against Ben's results they were identical, so it looks I'm getting better at copying those trades. Oh and disciplined enough to follow it through the same way!
There was also a scalping opportunity that Ben published ahead the release of economic news affecting the CAD. His bias was down so it was a sell order published in the trading room, got triggered and reached the profit level before I could even blink! I definitely need to learn more about this type of trading.

Ideally I want more than just the fish handed to me although that is already more than most people have...

So to summarize this week did not produce great results (more like breakeven), still sitting on my 1.2% gain on equity just like a week before.

This would make a good Kindle ebook hotseller.

Good luck to you and congratulations on your journey!

Thanks guys:)

My third week wasn't so great.

Monday was a quiet day again, seems like a tendency, no trades.

Tuesday started up promising but only one setup triggered , Ben called it a scalp although it was more of a daytrade. The trade was based on an entry after a news event which caused the GBPUSD pair to drop considerably and the retracement of that move offered an opportunity to get in. Ben's bias was that the price will continue to drop further so the setup was based on fundamentals with a technical entry. It took a long while to see it moving , in the meantime it was great to be able to continuously get confirmation how to manage it from Ben in the trading room. At around 3 pm Ben decided to close the trade manually even though the profit target was not yet hit ( as he did not want to sit there monitoring anymore). I was really tempted to leave it open to see if it gets down to that level but I closed the trade as I want to match my results with Ben's or to get as close as possible. In case you are wondering price did hit that level a little later. Still managed to get about 16 pips out of it even though I entered a little late.

Wednesday did not go well... Started up promising with many setups materializing but it quickly went downhill. The setups that triggered turned into losing trades and the action was a bit quick and it was a little hard to follow which trades had Ben still open. Once you learn the method you can manage them on your own but when you have a full time job this can be a little tricky (although still considerably easier than scalping).
There was a scalp setup published for the afternoon, it got triggered but I closed it down shortly. Ben had to leave the trading room a bit early and I also could not stay in front of the screen that's why I decided to cut it short with just a few pips profits. Shame as it later did hit the profit level that was initially set for this trade.

Friday- one trade which was closed near breakeven ( -3 pips)

According to Ben this was one of the bad weeks that you occasionally get but fortunately with this method the drawdown is never too bad. Now I'm looking forward to see a really good week.

Having access to the trading room definitely helps with the psychological aspects of the game. I'm a lot less tempted to cut profits early or to be more precise the temptation is still there it's just easier to resist.:) With regards to losses I'm not the type of person who lets the losses run, if I have clear rules to follow to set stop-losses I find those easy to follow. Another nice thing about the trading room is that you I don't feel the constant urge to tinker or modify things to see if it works better. The real test now is: how long will I stick around when it feels like I'm not generating enough profits or worse- having a losing streak...

Someone in the trading room mentioned that this year is quite slow in terms of ADR (average daily range) meaning low volatility, slow moving markets, often in a range. I also remember that ADR values were much higher less year, I hope we'll see a bit more other than sideways markets in the near future.

This was a losing week overall, total -9 pips which doesn't sound too bad but in equity I gave back some of my gains and sitting on 0.8% profit. My position size on certain pairs needs a little adjustment I think.

The emotional rollercoaster...

Monday was a quiet day again, seems like a tendency, no trades.

Tuesday was all about the emotions. Two trades triggered in the morning, the first one was closed with a small loss (-3 pips). Little later the Manufacturing PMI gave a big push to the GBP triggering a trade and price soon hit the take profit level gaining 23 pips, hooray! I got quite excited about the result and I was already thinking that this week is gonna be good.

But soon I got disappointed...

Same afternoon 2 more setups materialized which Ben published and I set it up in my MT4 hoping to get triggered for some more profits. Ben has a rule that any setups not triggered by 3pm gets cancelled, mainly because he does not want any trades dragging on into the evening. Makes sense I guess, if they don't get triggered by then chances are slimmer to get any decent moves. Now I did not cancelled them and the US Manufacturing PMI released at 3 pm created a spike on USD pairs triggering both of my trades but price soon retraced hitting my stoploss levels on both (total 34 pips
 loss). Basic mistakes: should have followed Ben's recommendation in terms of cancelling my trades also watching out for high impact news releases.

Next morning before Ben's market analysis I quickly had a glance at the charts and I thought I saw an opportunity so I jumped in and opened a position. Now I don't really know why have I done that as if you are following this method you never open market order trades, you set a buy or sell stop and wait until the price hit that level. If you missed the trade you wait for the next one. So I have no excuse except maybe I was still half asleep and maybe too eager trying to recover from the previous day' losses. None of which is acceptable. I lost about 5 pips on that.

No more trading opportunities for the week after, Friday was a US bank holiday so Ben took the day off.

Hard lessons learned this week, and really disappointed by myself (especially that I was a bit bragging about my own discipline in last week's blog ). Need to pull myself together otherwise might as well quit the whole thing.

Results: I gave back almost all my profit , account is pretty much the same as the opening balance.

On the positive side : this week showed me again that if I stick to the rules I could generate profit while minimizing losses.:)

Mixed results again...

Or more accurately a losing week. Here is what happened:

Monday was as usual, no trading opportunities.

Tuesday- a losing trade (USD/CAD), lost 13 pips.

Wednesday was finally a bit different, many setups materialized and out of those two triggered, one of them resulted in 15 pips profit, the other 7 pips loss.

Thursday- similar scenario, few setups but only one triggered producing 4 pips loss.

Friday- two setups but none triggered. Ben closed the trading room for the afternoon and I was tempted to leave the orders open a little longer but managed to convince myself that it's not a good idea.

My results are just slightly different than Ben's I believe and there are two reasons. Firstly I still don't get all the entries that accurately but improving. Also my spreads are slightly higher too.

Results: losing week and more worryingly my account balance dipped slightly below the opening balance.

On the positive side this week I managed to stick to the rules and recommendations so in that sense I am progressing at least.

Even though messed up a few things last month, June was overall a winner (though by not much), +0.77 up. I do follow some other traders in a different trading room, just keeping an eye on their performance and their return for the month also wasn't stellar. One of them trades very safely (low risk) and he managed to gain less then that. That just tells me that other traders struggle as well in the current market conditions and we just need to wait out until we see some more favorable conditions.

Hopefully we won't have to wait too long...

Another challenging week...

Monday was no trades as the FXM service needed a server upgrade. I looked at the charts but nothing jumped at me so I left it for another day.

Tuesday I messed up pretty badly. Two trades triggered and they both went against me which shouldn't have been a huge problem except that on one of them I entered the incorrect value for the initial stoploss, instead of 30 pips I set it to 40. Now I paid more attention to the other pair first (EUR/JPY) because of the quicker drawdown and I failed to lower the stoploss on the EUR/USD when I should have. When that also went against me I was sitting there hoping that it will bounce back from the figure ( 1.3600) which of course it didn't. Two mistakes: not entering the correct values (duh) and not acting quickly enough later. There was also a scalping opportunity I didn't take but many members banked some nice profits. I ended up losing a lot more than Ben ,his loss was a total of -28 pips on the two trades, mine was almost -50 pips loss!

Wednesday – just before Ben's morning presentation I saw a setup and got into a trade which Ben later confirmed as valid. He didn't take it as by the time he started the presentation it was too late to jump in. Price later advanced in mty favor, got very close to my take profit level and it was agonizing just watching it bouncing a little up and down just a pip or two from that level. But patience paid off and eventually price hit the level netting 20 pips. Another trade that Ben published later turned out to be a losing one so that day I did better on my own:)

Thursday and Friday were both pretty slow, few setups but only one triggered producing 4 pips loss.

Results: losing week and now my account balance is about 1.2 % below the opening balance.

Annoying as I was already considering trading the system on a real (although small) account from next week, maybe I should wait a little longer...

This week and the next will be slightly different to my normal trading pattern. I'm on holiday which means that on some days I can't be in front of the screen but when I do I don't have to split my time between trading and the workplace. I was hoping that this could work out well let's see how it went...

Monday as usual, slow and no trades.

Tuesday I was travelling so I did not have a chance to look at the charts. I believe I did not miss out on much though in terms of setups and trading opportunities.

Wednesday- few setups but again none triggered.

Thursday– few setups, one triggered in the morning but failed to hit the target level. Ben took some 8 pips profit of that with a manual close but I missed that notification so I exited at breakeven.

Friday- two setups triggered in the morning almost at the same time. One went in the right direction (USD/CAD) but failed to hit the target level, so Ben closed it manually (which I copied) when the move slowed down hitting a pivot level. The other trade was EUR/USD which was affected by the German Ifo news producing a loss of 15 pips. Interestingly that particular news release is labelled as medium impact on myfxbook but high impact on Forex Factory.

Results: still no great trades, this week is roughly breakeven (-3 pips). Looks like this whole summer might be slow, I might have to lower my expectations too.

Another week but finally some results...

Monday as usual, slow and no trades.

Tuesday GBPUSD triggered a trade in the morning, but the move seemed to slow down at a pivot level so Ben closed it manually which I copied faithfully:)
Making some progress on the discipline front I think...

Wednesday – finally a bit of excitement! Two setups triggered but both went against us after the release of US ADP Non-Farm Employment news, almost hitting stoploss levels. Luckily the Advanced GDP figures from the US was better than expected, suddenly turning both trades around. EURUSD hit the profit target, but USDCAD was slowing down according to Ben so he closed it manually ( which I quickly copied as I should:). End result of the two trades : 28 pips profit.

Thursday– no trades.

Friday was all about the NFP release. In the trading room Ben explained the approach, how to trade it also which pair he picked to set an order up. Unfortunately the price spiked the other direction so the order didn't get triggered.

Results: finally I took some profits (although modest) this week so now I'm only marginally in the red. In terms of trading approach August will be slightly different according to Ben as apparently many institutional traders are on holiday. So the focus in the trading room will be more on economical data and fundamentals as opposed to technicals.

A member of the trading room shared a link with the rest of us which was a Bloomberg article about the volatility drop in the FX markets. Again let's hope that we will see a bit of increase in volume after the summer...

Here is the link in case anyone interested:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-28/global-currency-trading-falls-amid-volatility-drop-market-probe.html

A very uneventful week but at least it's not a loosing one.

Monday – one setup that did not trigger.

Tuesday I was travelling so I no trades for me. I did not miss out on much though.

Wednesday – two setups but annoyingly I missed out on one which was a 15 pip winner (I was on the way to work). The other one that triggered was going in the right direction and I was very tempted to stay in a little longer even after Ben closed it (as he needed to leave the trading room) before it has reached the profit target. I hesitated for a few seconds but for now I just want to replicate his results so I closed it too and I pat myself in the back for being disciplined...

Thursday and Friday I could not trade because of technical issues.

Results: one small win (about 8 pips) which hasn't changed the bottomline much. I guess I'm doing a good job sitting on my hand when there is nothing else to do. Looks like we have to deal with a slow and mostly boring month but at least I get to learn a bit more about the fundamental approach as that is the basis of the setups until the end of this month.

In the meantime I found a very interesting website that introduces to the idea of cognitive biases
(I never read Kahnemahn's book on the subject but planning to). There are some great video lectures and a free one that explains the Gamblers' fallacy which I think is especially useful for traders as it shows how our thinking can lead to serious errors of judgement.
Here is the link in case anyone interested:

https://www.criticalthinkeracademy.com/

Another one of those slow weeks. The focus in the trading room is still on the fundamentals which means that every day Ben tries to find a news release that might trigger a reaction and will set a buy or sell stop. Alternatively if there was a market moving news overnight then we will try to trade the retracement of the move.

As usual nothing on Monday.

Tuesday – one small loss (10 pips)

Wednesday – made up for the loss from previous day winning exactly the same amount :)

Thursday was a bit of disappointment.
After one small loss in the morning I was looking for the afternoon news release (US uneployment claims) to see if I can get a winner. But just before I placed my order which is normally about 5 mins ahead of the release my PC blue screen-ed. NO, NOT NOW! Ran downstairs to get my laptop and I managed to place the order just on time. Phew... The order triggered and slowly moved towards the profit target so for a few minutes it seemed like we are onto a winner. But suddenly the price spiked to the opposite direction hitting my stoploss and with some slippage! So I lost 20 pips instead of the normal 10 which is the usual stoploss for these news release trades...
Checking the price on other chart confirmed that this wasn't just the broker's trick to hunt for stops but there was no apparent reason for the spike. Maybe a 'fat finger' trade?

Nothing on Friday so no more trades for the week.

Results: because of that 'spike' this week was a loser (-25 pips) so I'm down from my opening balance by 0.8 per cent. But we are halfway through August and hopefully in September we might see some increased volatility and market movements which we can take advantage of. Can't wait...

August is almost over which I can't wait as the expectation is that we will have more trading opportunities in September as opposed to just trading the news releases.

This Monday surprisingly we did have a setup though it did not trigger so no trades.

Tuesday – the morning started up with a losing trade which was published in the trading room by Ben. He said he'll set up another order to get back into the same trade but I did not feel like doing the same. Also Ben pointed out the news trading opportunities for the afternoon. The idea is that just before the news release we set up an order a few pips from the actual price and if it gets triggered we close it within a few seconds (hopefully with some profit). Now my EUR/USD order got triggered by the news but unlike after most high impact news releases the price wasn't going anywhere for a while. I was about to cancel the trade when suddenly it started moving! Again with this type of trades it moves so fast that it has to be closed within a few seconds but since it was moving a little slower I waited to see if I can get about 20 pips out of it (which was also where the next pivot level was). It came close and I closed it which netted exactly 20 pips, yay! The move did slow down afterwards and it seemed it won't go any further. At least I managed this one well on my own...

Wednesday and Thursday was a bit of disappointment as none of the trade setups triggered.

Friday - the focus was on the 1:30pm news releases. The idea is that we place a buy or sell stop just a few minutes before the actual release to see if the order get triggered. Unfortunately my order wasn't close enough to the actual market price (should be about 5 pips away when placed) so the spike in price was enough to trigger it but then it quickly retraced hitting my stoploss (which is only 10 pips away with these type of trades). Fortunately Ben has a new ace up in his sleeve which is an app that will make these trades a lot easier as it will place the trades using preset values as opposed to placing them manually. The app is still being tested but I beleive it will be released soon and that should help me a lot.

Results: not much difference compared to last week, 1% down from my opening balance. Fortunately August is almost over, one more week to go...

Still, breaking even is good. Glad to read your posts. They are very informative.

Thanks for the encouragement as I was expecting more in terms of results. But yeah I guess difficult times... Also it's good to know that someone actually reads my posts:) I should keep going then...

This week was still about trying to find trade opportunities based on fundamentals and news releases. What's new is that the News Trader app for MT4 is now released and since it was heavily discounted for FXM Live members I bought it quickly. It's an EA but unlike most EA's t won't trade on it's own unless all the parameters are entered. That just means that within 24 hours of major news releases you just need to enter certain values (such as when to place trades and when to close it). Should make life a lot easier:)

This Monday was a US bank holiday so no trades.

Tuesday – there was one news release in the morning but since I did not set up the app properly it did not trigger for me (luckily as that would have been a 10 pip loss). Another release in the afternoon but it failed to generate any moves so no trades.

Wednesday was slow and no news releases.

Thursday night there was an important aussie news release which some of the members in the trading room managed to take advantage of for 20 pips profit. Need to keep an eye on the overnight news from now on...
There were a few news releases from the Eurozone in the morning and at 1pm but failed to moved the market. So I was looking forward the 1.30pm US release as there were a group of news to come out. Set up the app which placed my orders as it should (very nifty little tool indeed) and EUR/USD triggered but the move was really disappointing and quickly slowed down s I closed the trade with 1pip profit... Is that it? These news used to move the markets big time if I remember correctly, where did the money go?

Friday – there were a couple of news releases at 10am and a trade triggered for Ben but for some reason my didn't. Not sure why, possibly messed up the values or maybe something else, need to keep on eye on this thing. Ben took about 5 pips at the end on that particular trade.

Results: again not much difference compared to last week, 0.5% down from my opening balance. August is over, hopefully the next few weeks will bring some volatility back...

Well...a bit of a disaster...
I was expecting a bit more action this week but I was hoping to catch winning moves as opposed to accumulate losses.

Monday – no action for me.

Tuesday –since the average daily range was still very low on most pairs Ben only traded the news. There was one news release in the morning, for that I used the EA to enter. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of slippage when the trade was opened so when the trade went against me and hit the stop-loss level that meant 20 pips loss as opposed to 10. Quite a blow... Need to finetune the settings somehow. Another release in the afternoon also triggered and since I could not keep an eye on it I only closed it in the evening with a few pips profit.

Wednesday – not much better unfortunately. Few setups, one of them triggered (opened by the EA) which was a news release: BOC statement. Again the spike it created was only to get me in the trade but quickly reversed and hit my stoploss within a few seconds. At least this time the loss was not more then my normal risk which is 1% on a single trade.

Thursday- total disaster. Now it seems quite obvious that I cannot just 'set and forget' the trades related to news releases. There were several releases that I planned to use the EA to take advantage of, the problem was that I did not have a chance to monitor the trading room or the individual trades. So some of the pairs I chose weren't the same that Ben traded and on the top of that I did not have a chance to watch and close them manually if needed. So several issues but I can still see the potential here, good thing that it's still a demo account...

Friday – there were a couple of news releases at 1.30pm. I followed Ben's advice so I got two trades triggered, one winner , one loser but the net result was a profitable day. At least the week ended on a more positive note.

Results: definitely not what I expected from this week, almost 4% down from my opening balance (for some reason myfxbook does not show Friday's trades yet). So not great results but I can see the potential and if I could be more accurate and careful I should be able to get some more winners mirroring Ben's and the trading room's results. We'll see..