24 Hours A Day 6 Days A Week?

Well, that's true, but not.

Apparently the markets are closed from Friday at 4:00pm EST until Sunday at 5:00pm EST. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a 48 hour closure to me. Sure, there is only one day that trading does not occur, but that is semantics.

A 48 hour closure means that you can trade 24 hours a day for a period of five days straight.

A minor point, but I'm sitting here in an open position and I'm going to have to watch world news and events for two entire days!

New User Mistake

Well, don't do this!

I fell asleep last night before putting a loss limit on my USDCDN position. I could have lost my entire account balance if something disruptive had happened. Bad investor, bad.

However, upon dragging my sorry behind to the computer, with much trepidation, I found I was in the positive. So far, FOREX is my friend. I know the shoe will be dropping soon... especially now that I've been reading up so much and know how clueless and careless I really am.

B USDCDN 1.0554 S USDCAD 1.0560 +1.42 (TL)
B USDCDN 1.0545 S USDCAD 1.0595 +0.47 (TL)

Anyway, when I noticed I was in the positive I promptly put on a trailing stop, which theoretically allows me to continue to profit in a rising market as long as keeps rising. Of course, the market promptly dropped and my orders were executed at prices that kept me in the positive.

Fun stuff.

First Use Of Limits

Surprise, surprise, I've been involved in yet another trading session. This time, due to my reading, I decided to add a stop and a limit after completing my purchase. I'd never done this before and wasn't sure how easy it would be to do. One more small step on my road to knowing what I'm doing:

B USDCAD @ 1.0565
S USDCAD @ 1.0571 (L)

While not all that exciting, I should mention that I only risked $3.00 due to the stop order (which was not used). So, with that amount of money risked I earned $0.57 profit. In reality, more was available to be made, but as this was my first limit trade I set the limit low and was able to observe it in action.

Cool stuff!

Another Trading Session

I've been doing some reading, while waiting for prices to move up and down so I can get in and out of the market, so it's possible that I'll start to use industry terminology within the next few weeks.

The best introductory site I've found so far is the Babypips.com offering. As I learned just the other day, a pip is a single movement point in the price of an issue being traded.

Anyway, during this reading I realized how the candlestick charts work. I also realized that I'm trading on a 5 minute chart. Now I'm armed and dangerous! Well, okay, I'm feeling lucky. This sessions trading went like this:

B EURUSD @ 1.3622
S EURUSD @ 1.3637

This puts another $1.50 into my pocket. Of course, keep in mind that I'm learning on a $100 SuperMini account... so this is a nice percentage point gain.

Lucky Morning Session

This morning I was quite simply very lucky. I had been having network troubles and was not able to watch my position closely for several hours:

B EURUSD @ 1.3625
B EURUSD @ 1.3612
B EURUSD @ 1.3606
B EURUSD @ 1.3603
B EURUSD @ 1.3597

When I did finally get my network fixed, I was sitting pretty with:

S EURUSD @ 1.3650 (x5)

Wow, I'd just turned $100.33 into $121.03 in a morning. Can you believe the ~20% return on investment in such a short period of time? However, that means it is just as easy to burn that much money as well.

Anyway, I have to tell you, when I was watching my positions, seeing them all underwater at one point was a bit nerve-wracking. All I can say is that I watched the charts and felt the direction and then, by luck, hung on long enough to see it happen that way.

You'll notice that I'm not employing any "sophisticated" ordering strategies at this point. Beware, lucky novice at work!

First Evening Trading

While I'm sure it will prove my amateur status as a trader here are some details of my first evening with my new toy:

B EURUSD @ 1.3656 S @ 1.3657
B EURUSD @ 1.3647 S @ 1.3651
B USDCDN @ 1.0620 S @ 1.0619 ***

Yeah, big time gains. Approximately $0.33 in my pocket after an evening of anxiously watching the charts.

I learned an important lesson on the USDCDN trades. First, the spread, or the difference between the buy and sell price is 10 points for this issue. Second, when you click the buy or sell you absolutely must verify that the price shown is a price you are willing to sell at. I had intended to sell my position at 1.0623, and thought I had, until I noticed that my income was a lot lower than I had expected.

About This Blog

Well, believe it or not, I just signed up for a FOREX account. I plan to blog my experiences (whether gains or losses) and perhaps help introduce some other people to this interesting world.

Late last night, on the spur of the moment, I decided to create an account, jump in, and get my feet wet. I'll blog about the details later today, but while a little bleary eyed this morning I was $0.33 ahead.