OMG... maybe I should start a new blog just for trading. I'll think about that as I progress. I'm not sure many people would be very interested in hearing how I scream at ChatGPT for giving me information that's incorrect, unthought-out, or completely misses the point I'm trying to make. Some would say, and probably be right, that the problem isn't ChatGPT at all, but me. I can concede, but in the middle of my tantrum, it wouldn't be a good time to point that out to me; trust me.
I started a free trading account with Oanda and began trading about two weeks ago, but I wasn't sure what I was doing and just couldn't connect all the dots. I gave myself until today (meaning yesterday) to draw a line in the sand, making it exactly two weeks of training, and then I began trading for real. I began with $92,000.00, (again free fake money on a demo account) a fresh start, and so much more knowledge than I had two weeks ago.
Before you think, "Wow, she lost $8000 in two weeks," you would be wrong. I lost it in about 2 days. I was up, doing most things correctly, then I decided to take a chance on what is called a non-traditional pair, which wasn't that non-traditional; I wasn't trying to trade rubles for lira. I was trading USD/JPY, the U.S. Dollar against the Japanese Yen. It wasn't the same as trading a traditional pair like EUR/USD. Even the reverse, the USDEUR, is considered a non-traditional pair.
At one point I traded them against each other, which means if you win both you do well, but if you lose both you double your trouble, and in some cases, because the spread was so much higher on the USDEUR than it was on the EURUSD, I would have lost a great deal more. I got out of them both before they could close and strip me further. I did lose on both, but not as much as I could have; being able to watch or monitor the trades, rather than simply setting a stop loss and moving on, is the saving grace.
Don't get me wrong, I still set a stop loss; I'm not stupid. I don't want to lose more than I need to, but I will move it if I think the market will reverse after a quick spike in the opposite direction. I've been stopped out at least a dozen times because I saw the candlestick but didn't see the wick until after it closed, and damn -- out! Oh well, knowing when to move the chains is part of the game, and if it is actually your business, then yeah, you're supposed to work that entire time and keep a good eye on the results. Know your game.
Today was supposed to be my first two-trade day. Now I allow myself only two trades a day to see if I can hit my goal of $400 a day. I figure if I'm making $400 a day for 20 trading days a month, I'm bringing in about $8,000, so if I'm up in the middle of the month, I may just pay myself and keep trading, allowing the rest of the money I've earned to stay in the pot and grow the account. That sounds like a good plan. My actual goal is to earn $400 a day and pay myself only $2000 a month, letting the rest compound.
With Laura working and me paying myself a little, we can still do what we need; I can focus on trading, get better and better at it, and never have to go back to regular work again. It's a lofty goal, but absolutely attainable. I just have to get the real live active account up to $50,000.00 first so I can do this -- and that's where Jesus takes the reins. I have a plan, and it's a good plan, but I know His plans are greater, His ways are better -- I'll wait. Just like a good trader waiting on a reason to enter -- I'll wait.
Today did not turn out to be a two-day trade. My computer was lagging, we had internet issues, and the online demo account canceled me 3x for either setting the wrong numbers or leaving the take profit and stop loss toggles on when they should be off. I accidentally set two limit trades instead of market trades, had to get out of those, and by the time I was ready to go back to a market trade, I had lost momentum on one of them. I was furious!
But in the end, I had 3 active trades today. I won two and lost one because I had to close when I miscalculated. I lost $117, which, if that had happened in real life and I had lost $117 in less than 1 minute, I'd be really upset with myself. The key is not to be. Not to be upset. You can't trade if you're emotional or chasing the $$$. You can't; it will never work for you. So, in one trade, because I had the numbers completely too low, I won, but I only won $3.00!! In the other one, the one I did correctly, I won $675! So, all in all, at the end of my trading day today, at 12:13 p.m., after working less than 4 hours, I earned $561 (fake money).
Gold star day!! I'm going to get a little book with a calendar in it and mark off my green and red days...maybe buy some gold stars, and really treat myself. If I win, I get a candy bar! If I lose, I don't get a candy bar, and that could be devastating for me; enough to make sure I never lose. Some things in life are actually worth fighting for.
There you have it, today, my first real pretend day without giving myself too many passes, I earned $561, and I will indeed enjoy that Milky Way bar. I have a rule about them too; only the fun size will do. I'm not going to pull out the full-sized bars daily, which is how many times I think I will win. I could lose a trade every day and still make my goal by winning a trade every day. I just have to cover the $400 spread that I want every day, so if I lose $500 but win $900, I'm good. It's a really fun way to work; I hope I can do this full time soon.
Some people trade all day. Some people trade all markets. I trade early in the NY market, usually from 8:30 to 10:00, and watch the trades grow or fall between 10:00 and 12:00 -- after that, the day is over for me. If I haven't won, sure, I'll linger to see what happens, or if I can pick something up, but your chances go way, way down as the day goes on. I trade Forex, by the way, not stocks, not gold, not Bitcoin. I only trade Forex. If you're interested in how it works and what you could do to learn it, I would suggest giving yourself a full year and searching YouTube for "The Trading Channel" with Steven Hart. He's good.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of other trainers, and they are usually good-natured and mean well. They really want you to do your best, but I think Steven breaks it down the easiest for me anyway, and after I learned the basics, I started with a free online DEMO account from Oanda and use TradingView as my platform. I trade on TradingView, and I use ChatGPT on the side to show it what I'm thinking of doing and see what it thinks. It's right most of the time, but let me say this: you can't rely on it, NO, YOU CANNOT! Let your own brain do the work, but having the AI reiterate what I think I know, or correct this or that, has been very helpful.
The hard part? Figuring out the RSI, the EMA, and the SPREAD, finding the entry point isn't that hard, but pulling the trigger isn't just about making a sell or buy trade; there has to be a reason. The numbers have to line up across the chart, not just in the candlesticks. You'll learn. It really does take a full year to get it all inside your brain; I'm glad I waited and that I'm using a fake account to work out all the bugs.
This is the trade I won today. I closed it short because I could see that it was about to reverse. I earned $675 instead of $920, but I could have lost $$ too if I had just set the stop loss and gone to lunch. Nope, I watched it, closed it, and called it a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment