24th October

Hi John

Here is a summary of this weeks real life trading. I have taken a rest. Finished my day job and have time to reflect properly. Did your class think I was a total bimbo?

I am emtionally whacked. It’s been quite a roller coaster ride and despite all the things that I did wrong I am thrilled to be in this game and I am determined to improve and do well. I know what I’m doing and can recognise my mistakes and to me at least that’s progress. I still have to get out of trades faster. I feel like I did when I started demo trading. Very nervous and scared to push the button and not sure when to get into a trade. Now several weeks down the road, I am past not knowing when to get into a trade but the nervous finger is still there although getting better. Clicking sell and buy was fun.

It’s been great trading with Darren but I was thinking he’s doing so well and then I have to remind myself this is very early days for me and in a few weeks time I will look back and think I’ve come a long way. He has done extremely well and we get on well too. He’s the same age as my daughter. I keep reminding myself this is a new venture and career move. To learn a near trade you need to invest money to get your training and that is how I am seeing this now. Once I could get my head around that I felt a lot better. I also worked out that although I did pure crap yesterday I was below my 5% per trade. My only regret is starting at £5 per pip. I wasn’t ready for that and after the first mess up should have lowered my stake. I did that this morning on day 2 and it went so much better. I was less afraid after I got over the frozen finger syndrome but after that and talking to Darren and doing the maths I let it go and got on with the trade. When I reached 9 pips I was elated and left the trade as I was in profit despite being able to make 35 but the sheer joy of being in profit had to be captured.

Darren and I went over some of his mistakes of getting into trades too late. When he grasped that he was away and did so well. We pooled our limited experiences and they worked for us.

Second trade was a repetition of a mistake done before when I wanted to get out at -9 I clicked sell instead of buy and had two trades going. Darren also got caught out in this one. The one trade ran away to -21 while I tried to get out of it and the other went into profit at +12. So with my first trade of the day and the next two I broke even. Then I went and got a further 4 pips and ended the day on +4. I feel great. I don’t look back to yesterday’s losses as they are history. I look forward and went home happy with 4 pips. The image attached shows the trade that caught both Darren and I.

Trading £5 a pip was too ambitious for a start although I see why you made me do it. My losses on £1 would have been less but would I have learned from it? I don’t think so. That huge whack hit me in the butt and brought me to my senses that this is REAL LIFE. Demo trading is nothing like the real thing although I felt differently about that yesterday but having a day and night to think about it there is no comparison. Sure you learn the basics on the demo but nothing prepares you for the real thing. You enter unknown territory on your own because until you trade for real you don’t know your level of fear and reaction to when things go wrong. When things go right it’s a doddle but it’s when things go wrong that makes you a good trader end of the day.

I had to smile. Darren traded at £5 a pip and made over 40 pips today. He lost in the same trade as I and was seriously bummed by it. He then went in again and made £165. Worldspreads got stuck and he cashed in on it. I was so struck dumb by the glitch I froze. What I found interesting is he said ‘I wish I’d been trading £10 a pip’ and I said Darren you are £165 richer than you were three minutes ago. It’s the ego thing. Iain and Leigh are the same, I’m content with my wins and as I get better so I’ll increase my stake.

Please don’t get me wrong and think I am blaming the software. I’m not. I am completely at fault for what went wrong yesterday and today. Never did I expect the two platforms to have glitches and now I know they do and I don’t enter a trade unless I check to see they are in sync. When our VT account is live I will try the live platform and see if that makes a difference. I sure hope so.

Speaking of VT and its quirks. Iain made a massive loss today. He was in a trade and doing well with tons of pips to his advantage. He hadn’t trailed his stops. Another lesson learned. He wanted to get out as it started going against him. When he clicked sell VT gave him an error and a yellow dialog box flashed in front of him and disappeared before he could read it. When he tried again to get out and it wouldn’t let him. His entry line wasn’t there either. When he eventually exited the trade he was miles away. He was seriously bummed by that but it was humbling as he’s had 2 weeks of solid profit trades.

Do you experience these strange delays between VT live platform and Worldspreads of is this rare and we just caught them at a bad time?

Despite everything, I feel elated and ready to carry on. I can see why many loose heart and get out. I’m here to stay. I love it. I’m hungry to do well.

Have a super weekend. I hope the course was a success. What did your students think of the eBay forex scheme? Don’t you think that is an awesome example of crookery?

Desiree