12th April

Hi John
I hope you are having a good Easter weekend. I'm home alone. Leigh is in Shanghai, the markets are closed and for me the best time to kick back and cruise the net. It was great chatting to you with Darren this last week.

I've not written many emails as things have been ticking along nicely. Every day I learn something new. I am spending hours on the forums reading different threads and finding out what folk do. There are so many systems out there and its great to see end of the day they all come up with the same results. I'm still working on my system but before I enter a trade now I open the daily, 4h, 1h naked charts with no indicators and draw my trendlines and support and resistance. I do put in the fibo levels to see if they coincide and they do almost every time.

Then I look for possible trades and go to the lower time frames for my entries. I have three trades in mind for tomorrow or Tuesday depending when they happen. If they do great if not that's also fine. I'm seeing that the less indicators you have on the charts the better off I am. My system of late has let me down and it's my fault. I use a system based on the daily and 4h for shorter term trades. Yes they still give me profits but the entries are less reliable. So over the last two weeks I've concentrated on the 1hr chart and although still using my system as a safety net I've been concentrating on looking for entries around support and resistance. Not watching the 1m and 5m bars go nuts I concentrate on 1 candle and with a stop a good distance away and I feel far more relaxed and I've even walked away from the computer.

The big thing is to take profit. On Thursday I entered a Dow trade, was 15 pips in profit and as we had decided to let the trade run didn't take profit. It turned against us and I stopped out at 20. My stop was actually at 35 pips away but once I saw things turn I added new trendlines and saw immediately I was in the wrong trade and stopped out at resistance. I'm mad at myself for not listening to my gut feeling to get out when I had the opportunity. But it was only 20 pips and they are easy to get back. I'm also entering trades and if they go against me go in the opposite direction and make back my losses. This way I have been able to either break even or make profit and out of 14 trades I've had 1 loss. I try to only trade with the trend now and if my entry isn't correct and it goes against me enter at a higher level and then have two trades running. I'm not usually greedy and take my profits when I see them.

My son is trading with me and when I make 27 pips he'll be making 50 by having two trades running using what I just described. I am still nervous about losses and my kibbles and bits strategy has paid off time and again. I've signed up to several rss feeds for free trade calls and although I don't always take them I do like to check on my own charts and what they are seeing saying. Gft have a good one that I've followed for a while now. If I like what they see I enter the trade.

I'm using three websites for these trade calls and it's interesting to see how close they come in their calls. I won't follow these trade calls blindly but it's very satisfying seeing that I am on the right track. I keep learning and when I think back to 6 months ago when I went live I shudder. I wasn't ready. What I thought I knew then was total ignorance and wishful thinking. Only now do I feel confident to go live. Demo trading isn't a good indicator at all of how good a trader you are.

Rather open a micro account and trade at 10c a pip using real money than demo. You get to practice without killing you and you can make money while you learn. If you lose money you've not lost your shirt. I think I mentioned this in a previous email. I've also read so many reports and spoken to folk who have had beginners luck when they go live only to have it turn and bite them and clear out their accounts even faster.

Thank goodness I've not had that problem as I'm overly cautious but talking to traders who could not go wrong at the beginning I am becoming seriously sceptical because as Gabe my friend said you become over confident and think this is a breeze and wham it bites you in the butt. He made $15 000 within a couple of weeks and lost $30 000 even faster. So it will take me longer to make a living but when I do make a living I will understand what I am doing.

There are days when I don't trade and I wait for trades to come to me. I easily make 50 pips a week sometimes in two trades but some times it takes a few days to get those pips but I don't feel pressured to trade every day. And that's it for now. Take care and kind regards Desiree