13th October

Hello John

I have been practicing with my stops and I am slowly getting there. I was able to make a trade and move my stops so that I caught 5 but as I was 14 up decided to end the trade. Just as well, it turned about and went down again. However, when I clicked on sell to end the trade you have to click on buy. Ok I’ve got that well enough however when I went through the motions to end the trade it opened a new trade altogether so I was sitting with two sell trades. I managed to end one and capture 14 and then ended the second and captured 6 pips.

I’m also only trading on £1 now and not £10 as I used to. I think psychologically I need to get used to this sum as that is what I’ll use when I trade for real and to get used to smaller numbers. I also feel more at ease with setting my stops as I have less to loose. So all in all my way of trading is taking on a more modest and realistic approach. Its not about the money now, it’s about making consistent pips. It’s going to be a while before I have invested enough capital to use £10 per trade. AND when I do eventually get to the £10 000 mark I’ll feel more comfortable trading larger sums.

I made a trade where I concentrated on the stop loss and didn’t watch the histogram of the MACD as I wanted to see if I could trail my stop. On the VT its so easy to do but not with Worldspreads. Anyway I was thrilled to come out of a trade only 4 down. That is a first for me. Usually losses last week cut in at 11+ but once I saw I was able to move my stop I did and felt great that my loss eventually would be only 4. on the other hand had I been watching the charts for real and not practice I’d not have put my stop so close because it was a wee spike up which took me out, yet had I left it at 10 I would have made a 20 pip profit as it went down nicely after that. So when I got spiked out I reentered the trade immediately and that’s when I made the 14 and 6.

So all in all despite a disastrous start to the day, a good feeling of accomplishing a stop out at 4. Obviously I need to reduce that even more and I will. My kind of trading is watching the charts anyway so I would in the real trade try not get to that but bale out when I hit 0 if it’s hesitating which I’ve done in the past. I’ve closed trades on 0 when I found they were going nowhere. But it’s comforting knowing it ended on 4 and not 20 as it can so easily do. The times I’ve been caught unawares and sat there frozen not clicking to end the trade hoping it will change (and it doesn’t) are numerous. This way I go out at 4 but at least I can get back in and recoup – something I can’t do easily with a 20 pip or more loss. A huge lesson learned.

I also feel that with the first trade of the day I need to reduce my stake to 50p or less to get into it and if it’s a good run then up my stake to maybe £1 later on. If it looks like a cracker then I will think differently but today was not like last week at all and I was out of my comfort zone. I read somewhere that Tuesday to Thursday are the best days of the week to trade? Is that correct? Or does that not affect me who goes for short term trades and not concentrates on the larger picture.

Also have to keep reminding myself that it’s only been 10 days that I’ve been trading the demo seriously and making regular profits and fewer losses. It’s early days yet.

I set a support and resistance line this morning and all trading has stayed consistently within those lines. London is closed for the day and America is having a day off so no point carrying on.

Any idea when the scalping course is ready for purchase? The 10 days you mentioned are drawing closer. As Leigh has not bought one of your courses yet I will purchase this one myself seeing I have purchased one course already.

Darren has been a great help. I’m so grateful to be able to talk to him about my disasters and discussing how to think. I am learning so much from him. He turned his losses into profits today.

In conclusion. Learning where I went wrong and being able to recognize when not to get in and when to get out is becoming easier for me. Although I still sometimes get into trades too late I do recognize this fact the minute I get into the trade.duh!!!! The timing issue is getting better slowly. I think timing may be a problem for everyone and not just me as a newbie.

Bets in the City is such an eye opener. If I had read this book while contemplating whether to go into trading I doubt I’d have attempted it. I think the woman is a head case. She appears to have gone into real trading before demo trading losing a packet first, then after months of trading discovered the psychology of trading. There appears to be no system to what she does. A perfect lesson in what not to do.

Have a good evening. Can we chat when you have a moment? I do enjoy sending you these emails. They are such a help to me when I go back and see where I have come from. I’m keeping two copies in case one of my systems crap out which is known to happen on occasion.

Thank you John - Kind regards - Desiree