Forex Trading Review

So, I've been practicing my strategy using a micro-account for months, and it's time to up my game and start trading for real.

I capitalized my account on Thursday evening and have been playing the AUDJPY with a more serious dollar value for the last two days. Here is a summary of the mistakes I noticed myself making over this period:

1. Discipline breakdown. I broke discipline and acquired too many open short positions as I was predicting an eventual downturn. Actually, I was afraid of it and wanted to be protected from it, but the result is the same. Lesson -- stick to the plan.


2. Too impatient. For quite a while the market was moving very slowly. I tried to push capital into the market and forced some trading. This was a mistake. Lesson -- stick to the plan.


3. Too protective. I was overprotective of my open long positions. Stop losses were placed too early or too close to market prices. This accumulated with my strategy of acquiring in-profit positions. Lesson -- adjust the plan.


4. Confused. With a long position trading sub-account and a long position carry sub-account, I need to use different strategies for each. I got confused and used my grid strategy in the carry account as well. Needless to say this was not conducive to accumulating profitable carry positions. Lesson -- stay focused.


5. Buying tops. With gridding strategies it is easy to buy at the top of price spikes. It is necessary to factor this in when setting stops (see point 3). Lesson -- adjust the plan.

In summary, trading with some real money for a period of almost two days has me up $1. While pitiful, I'm happy to not be negative while trading in such a sloppy manner. Fixing these errors, with the size of positions being used, would have me up $20-$40 over this period. Lesson -- do it right and make some useful money!

I don't know if what I'm describing will be helpful to anyone, but I'm putting this out here for my own benefit. Of course, if you can learn from my mistakes, that would be great.