Nothing great this morning. Setup for a short looked good, struggling to get down and I'm trying to do homework, pay bills, and get ready for work WHILE babysitting it - bad combination. Was originally looking for 15 pips, but whatever. As usual, as soon as I'm out and start writing this, it breaks down hard (or up if I was long). Sh!t happens, easy profit is profit even if it's small. So it could have been 20 pips about four minutes later... so what... ugh. Short - USD/CAD 1.10870 x1 Covered USD/CAD 1.10820 5 pips
Pretty lazy tonight, had a crazy day. Not going to try to trade while half out of it. That USD/CAD trade turned out to be quite a large move. Should have stuck with it. Oh well. Live and learn - some more. Week 3 Day 3 +42 pips 12/5/1 Keeping this in perspective: my goal is to move up to a standard account and make enough money to allow me to quit my job. Now, you're probably saying, "whoa, hey, you're a loooong way off from that!" But, consider this, I only work part-time. I don't get paid much at all. My checks during the school year are in the $140/week range after taxes. That's all of 14 pips/week on a standard account... Ironically, that's almost exactly what I'm averaging now, WITH the limitation of trading around work. My self-imposed goal is to double the value of this account, at which point I'll allow myself to move up to a standard account with a goal to average a whopping 15 pips per week (that'll keep stress down considerably, rather than trying to make as much money as possible). We'll see how that goes. Still have LOTS of learning to do...
Forex.com failing again today. Charts/quotes are so ridiculously out of sync I'm afraid to even attempt a trade. They're so off (like 3-5pips) I can't tell if the charts are lagging the quotes or the quotes are lagging the charts, or maybe they're both off in their own worlds. Too bad because there were some solid setups. Better luck later maybe.
They still haven't resolved the issue. The charts are in-sync for about 2-3 minutes after I start the program, then progressively get more and more out of wack. Trading with a screwed up chart is interesting to say the least, I just have to watch the quote and visualize what the current candle should look like... nothing quite like further handicapping yourself in a game in which the odds are already massively stacked against you. Nonetheless... Short AUD/USD .086305 x1 As usually happens when I trade anything other than USD/CAD, it immediately found support exactly at my position. Only looking to take 10 pips on could (never say "should") be a 30 pip retrace.
You know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I was literally trading my P/L because the chart is lagging in minutes at this point. Happy to not have taken a loss, but getting fed up with this hack-ass shop. Time to go bitch out tech support. Covered AUD/USD 0.86294 1.1 pips Were it not for the nearly 5 pip spread demolishing scalps, I'd actually be happy enough with that. Week 4 Day 3 +43.1 pips 13/5/1 Lack of time to trade (back to schoolz now) and this sucky platform has pretty much halted my efforts at this point.
This is unreal... four calls to tech support later and the problem simple reoccurs within five minutes of each "solution," then proceeds to get worse the longer the program is open. After fifteen minutes or so the charts/quotes are so far off (not even lagging, just randomly all over the place) that I might as well not even have a chart open. (as an example, AUD/USD chart currently reading 8 pips above bid, just in the length of time it took to type that it's now 5 pips below bid - the bid has hit neither of these prices in that time) Does anyone here have an idea? DNS cache has been flushed 9999999 times. Java cache has been dumped. All ports I've been given (they give me 1-2 new ones each time I call) are forwarded through the firewall. It's NOT my internet connection, and nothing has changed on my computer since I've downloaded the program. As much as I'd like to can this horrific platform, the support is excellent (if not so effective) and easy to get ahold of, and I just can't get used to Oanda...
If anyone cares - no, I'm not dead... no, I haven't given up. STILL trying to get the lagging chart issue resolved with forex.com. I've been looking to switch to a new shop, but the ability to talk to a real, live person after only a single ring is enjoyable, as is the ability to trade metals, have limit and conditional orders, an excellent news feed with "insider" commentary that actually makes good calls/observations, and the super easy credit card deposit/no charge check withdrawl all combine to keep me around. As much as everyone recommends Oanda, I just can't get used to the platform. I've gone to the dark side and am now demo'ing the FXCM Micro platform, which I really like. As always, the reviews on them are mixed, but the spreads are half or less of what forex.com is charging, they have the easy withdrawl/deposit and charts that I can actually use that Oanda doesn't, and, really... do they actually care enought to scam me out of chump change?
Tenth call to forex.com tech support, no help whatsoever. Screw them. FXCM micro spreads are all <2 pips for the pairs I trade, often as low as 1 pip during NY session (compared to 3-6 pips for forex.com), and they can't be any more crooked or dishonest than forex.com or any other bucket. If nothing else, at least the platform saves my charts so I don't have to redraw trendlines and such ever time I close the program. And, best of all... IT WORKS. The only thing I don't like (so far) is the lack of 2hr and 4hr charts. The jump from 1hr to 1 day is ridiculous. I'm just waiting for the money to clear. I will be resuming exactly where I left off with the old account dollar-wise.
Back at it... Short AUD/USD - 0.87341 Enjoying the 1k lot sizes, working with pocket change makes it easier to pull the trigger. Low spreads are great too, nice to not start the position 5 pips in the hole.
Covered AUD/USD - 0.87307 3.4 pips Like usual, broke down solidly after I covered. Would have easily been the 8-10 pip move I was looking for. Eh... one of these days I'll stop stressing and wait it out.