Turning a new leaf from a life of failure to success.

Hello whoever ends up reading this. Throughout my short life I have never really been good at anything however have always had a love and interest for business. I had many business plans and schemes growing up some of them making turning a small profit others ending up loosing me money through online scams but never did I give up trying to start a successful venture and start living the lifestyle I have always wanted.

Attending a private school I was surrounded by wealth which only encouraged my future ambition however do not mistake me my fees were paid by a generous someone as an act of charity which I am ever grateful for. Yet I was just an average all round student, not popular nor unpopular. I passed all of my A levels and am currently in my first year of University doing a business management degree and what a disappointment that has been. My mind filled with irrelevant facts and useless theories about business I can hardly focus, causing much distress as I am now at the end of the first semester facing exams some of which like econ 101 I know I will not be able to pass which I have in around 8 hours from when I am writing this.

However about 2 months ago I discovered FOREX. At the time I thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever, at my part time job I marveled over my practice account learning nothing and even loosing money overall. Yet I loved trading, and a few weeks later I was very excited to have my very own live account. I placed 400 dollars into it ( about half of the money I had at the time)and the first week brought some usd/jpy and by utter fluke make about 100 dollars using what I now realize to be a very risky and stupid margin. But yet I was hooked,making the same amount as 8 hours work in the space of about an hour. At the time I was in the University library on the computer and let out a bit whoop that disturbed almost everyone causing me to be "shhhhhhed".

Next as any Noobie would do I purchased some more yen at a more reasonable margin and over the next few days my life was filled with depression as I slowly watched it drop and drop and drop until it auto sold as my account was drained. I was left with about 200 dollars and it was after coming back from opening weekend that I made another rookie mistake and figured to make that back I had to invest more money. So alas I did, using my University fund I invested around 4.5 thousand dollars as my addiction grew to cover my looses and yet I was beginning to break even. This is about a week after my first loss so looking back it wasn't bad. The next week flashed by and I was on 6 thousand before I really knew what was happening and after trading 100k lots my 20-50 pip profits really started to add up. I was addicted however to the definition and traded multiple times a day. The following week as I was keen to double my investment in a month I was upto 9.3 thousand but that's when it all started to go wrong...

By this stage I was the happiest I had been in a long long time and with my success arrogance soon followed as I had felt ( and still feel ) like I have found my true calling in life, in business and to start through trading FOREX. It really felt good to finally in my life get a source of achievement. I brought my family a bottle of Blue Label and Beluga Caviar and felt so proud I had made the money myself and that they were for once proud of me. Yet this was to be my downfall because that Thursday I made the fateful decision to buy the USD/JPY at 81.40 hoping to claim easy pips as it rose again to 82. Man was I wrong. With no stop loss set every day it had a lower high and began to decrease, yet I was obsessed. I HAD to make a profit out of it and so at each new low I purchased another 100k lot until finally it caught up with me and while I was sleeping it auto sold when I ran out of margin.

After the dust had settled I was left with 2000 dollars from my previous 9.3 thousand. Yet being myself I would not give up that easy. Continuing to loose money on the euro/usd drop from last week I ended up on 1500 dollars where a few days ago things started to look better. I made myself a promise that I would make all of my money plus more back by becoming one of the best forex trades out there, by working around the clock,studying and practicing and that's where I am now people. If you are still reading this the last 3 nights besides my exams have began to turn around. Making around 40 pips on average each night trading the euro/usd and the usd/chf I am back up to a balance of 1700 dollars and over the next 3 weeks after exams I will be working full time during the day and trading all night ( which is day in europe ) to become the best FOREX trader I can be. AT ANY COST.

I will try to post daily updates on here of which currencies I have been trading and my profit or loss etc as a record to myself when I become everything I am currently trying to be. This is the start to my Journey hopefully to riches and the life that I have always dreamed of.

Wish me luck fellow traders :clap:

I admire your determination to succeed at trading and certainly wish you well, although not so much 'good luck'. In trading there is no such thing as luck, it all comes down to just one thing in the end: Controlling Your Risk. Thanks for sharing your story with everyone and be sure to keep us posted!

Hi Prestige,

My advice to you would be to educate yourself before trading any more real money. I know from your post that you are above average intelligence. You need knowledge and experience to succeed. If you don't know where the markets are headed next, then you should not be trading a live account. There are always clues in the charts. I only trade from a technical perspective. Most people here disagree with me, but it works for me and I never trade fundamentals or the news. My point here is that any system you develop that works for you is the most important thing. If you can develop your own system that can consistently make you a profit then that is what you should do. My last piece of advice is to never chase the markets..............That will lose money faster than anything else.

Yes, as far as I can tell everyone is right, in their own ways.

There is no luck in the long run, and there is a problem of over-leverage, by which I have been affected for over a decade. Small account, you want to make it grow fast, or you want to make back some losses... you over-leverage, and put all your eggs in one basket.

As he says, you can learn all you want, but if you trade live and real money as you learn, you're going to lose it. It's like juggling knives. You don't start with knives but with similar harmless objects, like clubs, or else you'll hurt yourself. But now it's too late, because you've already lost all that money. From my experience, if you keep going, you'll lose the rest of the money on that account. Stop immediately. The passion is good but here you need more calm and patience than passion.

With that over-leverage there is no way you will make money, no matter how good you are. You will get one trade wrong, and you will lose everything. Think about it: the best trader in the world, makes one mistake every once in a while. If you're betting everything on the next trade, as you are, you're going to lose everything sooner or later.

If you're in a rush, you're not going to make money, from my experience. I've always been in a rush and I never made any money. And you seem to be in a rush. Unfortunately, this is going to take years, and it's only going to work when you'll stop being in a rush.

It's best to lose all your money when you are young and don't have much than to lose when older and have more money. My suggestions is keep going until you are wiped out. This will leave you with nothing but thinking to do.

Working round the clock gambling will not make you a better gambler. I don't believe you have yet to attain this insight.

Thank you everyone for your helpful feedback and advice, I can honestly say that I both appreciate and value it. My economics exam however didn't go so well and I expect a B at best but that's my fault and I can only move on from that. I mentioned how seriously I was taking this trading especially over the next 3 weeks starting Sunday your time Monday my time when the markets open so I hope all of you who are interested will follow me then and any advice or feedback left will all be taken in.

My Business School is actually having a FOREX competition in a August trading off demo accounts however the prize money is real and with 3 thousand in first place I will be entering for sure so I will keep you all posted about that. As well as the fact that the prize money could really come in use coming back from my account's real loss. And with that said here is where I am at so far today.

I will remind everyone that my account is at 1700 dollars however I have taken 200 dollars out for personal needs ( epic clubbing this weekend with some females whoop whoop ) I figure to celebrate after my exams right? Anyway so I am currently at 1500 dollars which will be my base to build upon. Until this weekend due to trading time constrains I will only really be messing around with 10k lots so little risk to practice getting better etc. At the start of my holidays I will be making sure that I have $3000 in my account to begin with.

So today I looked at the USD/JPY chart at 80.90. I saw that the high for the day had breached 81.00 from a support that I even now think is fairly strong at 80.55. I figured the trend was bullish and figured the currency would gather support at around 80.60 before trying to have another go at the 81 mark and with the trend I figured it could reach 81.4. So I brought the trade before leaving for my exam buying at 80.90 setting a stop loss just about the 80.55 support TP at 50 pips (80.40) and SL at -30 pips (80.60). Unfortunately The yen spiked down just below 80.60 and I look the loss bringing my account balance down to around $1453 so a loss of $47 (I round the change for those of you who worked out it wouldn't exactly be $47 on a 10k lot) which considering my past few trades with that same risk to reward ratio have made a profit of $200 I find that the loss is acceptable.

However I realize that going into that trade before the exam was a rash decision and I should have waited until now to purchase the deal just above the 80.55 support as I still see a bullish trend and overnight (during the day for you guys) I believe there could be a chance of it beaching the 81.00 level again.

For now I am looking at the euro/usd charts, bgp/usd and usd/chf pairs to trade tonight (today for the rest of you)

Thanks again and I will keep you posted

Alright I have been scoping out the euro/usd and figured with its declining trend line that it would break its support and continue downwards, I therefore did a short with the following details (note I copied it off my account statement)

6/16/2011 5:07:30 AM Sell EUR/USD -10,000.00 1.41167

6/16/2011 5:35:37 AM Buy EUR/USD 10,000.00 1.40756

1.40756 is where I placed my TP which is -40 pips and my SL was 30 pips.

So an easy 40 pips in about 30min is always good, this recovers my usd/jpy loss completely
giving me the balance of $1504 bringing today's net profit at +4 dollars.

But hey that's better then a loss right?


p.s I realize a lot of people on here make **** up so I will take a screenshot of my account or something but if you guys have any suggestions as to the best way that would be great. Thanks

If I was running a prop shop I think one of the job entry requirements would be er maturity.

It comes early to some and later to others

As a forex trader myself, I can't help thinking it's for boring middle aged grumps who stumbled across it by default cause they too had the anti-midas touch..or is that just me !? Anyways, G/L with your pursuit and don't forget that the most important thing at your age isn't staring at screens it's clubbing/women.

Good Luck.

Pat494 said:

If I was running a prop shop I think one of the job entry requirements would be er maturity.

It comes early to some and later to others

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1. What is a prop shop?
2. And I also don't understand why you said that, are you calling me immature?

Is that clubbing AND women, or clubbing women ?

the hare said:

Is that clubbing AND women, or clubbing women ?

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depends what you end up with at 2am when the lights go on ! (Nothing looks the same in the light !)

bbmac said:

depends what you end up with at 2am when the lights go on ! (Nothing looks the same in the light !)

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Well what is the main ting that clubbing and women require? MONEY

However I am doing this for other reasons then just that of coarse

It's true so just make sure that you are sure about your trading edge, what it is - what it is not and know all you need to know about it so that it does not surprise you/comprimise your ability to act upon it...the market is no place for flying by the seat of your pants, it will find you out as you are already learning. Also be aware that the much greater probability almost to an absolute certaintty given your experience is that you will lose your remaining a/c balance - ie be prepared to lose it-if you are not - don't put it up as margin.

Good Luck!

Prestige said:

Well what is the main ting that clubbing and women require? MONEY

However I am doing this for other reasons then just that of coarse

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Prestige said:

Well what is the main ting that clubbing and women require? MONEY

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If they require money, why did you throw so much of it away ? It's almost as if you don't like women.

Because I guess you could say I am inexperienced and became greedy I thought I knew the market and I didn't. It was my mistake and I have learnt from that.

Prestige said:

Because I guess you could say I am inexperienced and became greedy I thought I knew the market and I didn't. It was my mistake and I have learnt from that.

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So you have learned, and now you know the market ?

BeginnerJoe said:

So you have learned, and now you know the market ?

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I have not learn't the market, I have never said that I have

It's going to take years if im even lucky enough to learn part of it.

I learned how I lost the money and to stop it happening again with leverage.

BTW nice trolling

Prestige said:

Well what is the main ting that clubbing and women require? MONEY

However I am doing this for other reasons then just that of coarse

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That's a very good point, or rather it's a bad point that seems to make sense, and that I was making, too, when I was in college. I felt that the prettier women, the ones I wanted, would only want me if I had money, or rather it would have been much easier to get them that way. So, I thought, like Tony Montana, let's first make the money, and then go after those women. And I discarded some of those women I could get (not all, but now I regret having discarded... "anything that moved", as they say).

But then, in the process of making money as an independent retail trader (unless you're the daugther of Larry Williams), you get so old that money, as an older rich guy, will get you women who are worse looking than those you would have gotten as a younger poor guy. Tony Montana said "in this country first you make the money, then you get the power, and then when you have the power then you get the women". But if you think about it, money got him Michelle Pfeiffer, who was pretty much playing a prostitute, and her womb was so polluted, that he couldn't even have a ****in' little baby with her.