I think it's time for an update. I suggest you get a cup of coffee, take a ****, pause the porn as this is going to be a bit lengthy. I'll first of all thank people who helped in this thread, but i'll admit now that I didn't buy the books as I was feeling poor.
The Background to this thread
Prior to the conception of this thread I had a telephone call for some "exciting opportunity", I was briefed about some job which I didn't catch the gist of, feigned my enthusiasm and then was asked if I could take a telephone interview. I said yes because nothing ventured, nothing gained. Some how I managed to bluff this interview and conveyed myself in a confident, enthusiastic manner and was invited to an assessment centre.
A few days prior to the assessment centre I had bought eur/usd and it had been plummeting. I had been averaging down and the market wasn't bouncing. My assessment centre day came and I seriously considered not going, but I knew if I was so fortunate to get this role it'd be worth a lot more long run than my trade. So off I trudged on the underground to Stamford Brook to go for a Business Monitor International assessment day in Sales. One thing people who have met me can attest to and something I admit is that i'm really not a sales person. I don't have the bouncy energy, nor do I proclaim to be the greatest socialiser in the world. But I had done my preparation for it and I was going to try my best. As I stepped into the room I saw a room filled with fresh faced graduates, all very enthusiastic and arrogant looking and there was me and all I could think about was whether i'd come home to an account and what would be left of it.
The morning started off with an ice breaker and the presenter told us we'd have to introduce ourselves and tell our greatest life achievement. At this point something saddening dawned upon me: I couldn't think of a greatest life achievement, so I made something up and anticipated every conceivable question that could be asked. My turn came around and I stood up, introduced myself and then pulled a bluff in front of about 40 people. I looked them right in the eye and controlled my body language and answered in such a way I believed it myself. When the day was nearly finished all that was left was finding out whether we were successful. We sat in this hot room in Stamford Brook for about 2 hours, I had no contact via internet, no idea what was happening with euro and I just wanted to get home and see what the damage was. I find out I wasn't successful and not really caring, left ASAP to get on the train and spent the next 90 mins to get home and find out my fate.
It shouldn't take a genius to tell, but euro had not bounced back and it was still being bogged down by all the woes of the euro-zone. I took the decision to save my account and took the hit. I hit a trading rock bottom and just didn't know where to turn and felt like admitting it all and this thread was conceived. I had lost all my profit + my account was now down 25% since i'd deposited. I knew something needed to change.
After this thread
So i'd hit my trading rock bottom and sought the knowledge and wisdom of T2W to try help fix my trading and get things improving. I lowered my leverage and started to use stop losses in places where I thought my entries were no longer valid. I found this style of trading didn't go well with me, I often closed trades which looked bad only to see them go back into what would have been a profit. I struggled to run positions and my profits were not big. After a few weeks of constant losing I was feeling hopeless and my account was making new lows. I had dropped another 10% and was down 35% overall on my deposit. I thought i'd hit my trading rock bottom when I made my thread but now this really felt like it. I'd tried to change everything and become better and what was supposed to protect me turned out to hurt me.
My birthday
Towards the end of June I had my birthday. I reflected on my life, the things i'd achieved (more importantly what I hadn't) the dire situation of my life balance and what I could do. I really just felt disappointed that I didn't have more to show for my life. I'd hit my trading rock bottom, my account had some big red numbers looking back at me to show my trading efforts and I felt like it was the time to hit the "withdraw" button and try to do something more "normal" with my life. I didn't trade for about a week. I thought about how i'd doubled my account before within a few months, what I could do differently, what sort of time span would I give myself to see if i could make it work. I wasn't ready to quit on a low and wanted to give it one more try.
Now I realise this part breaks conventional trading wisdom, but I looked at my account with disgust. Although there was still a fair amount of money in there, I saw it as useless and I felt that if I lost it at least i'd be forced into doing something else with my life. So I took the view that I was prepared to take some risks with it. One important thing I had to do was keep my leverage low and not put myself in bad positions where small moves represented a substantial chunk of my account. I gave myself 2 months (till the end of August/beginning of Sept) to see what I could do with my account and then re-evaluate my next move.
Next week will be the end of that period and I shall put the next part up then.