Just got back from the gym. I was pushing the yield and s t r e t c h i n g my risk. I thought I was invincible...the trouble is I am not new to this and I know better. Last month was the biggest loss I have had in my personal trading and the second margin call of my Forex trading since I began in July 2004. What I learned...well...I cut my risk in half..then in half again and settle for 20-48% yield. This experience allowed me to "open it up" to learn what I can do. Michael B.
He He..I know. I am just trading my system now and the 8k is forgotten...Actually I believe this attitude is essential for a trader to become a pro. There are certain attributes needed in a traders mentality and 8k is nothing anyways...This is a larger number game... I know guys that consider 8k just a single trade...shoot if I am ever going to get with the 'big guys" I will need to learn about numbers.
but what happened if u dont mind tellin' us...did u blow it with just one trade on 1 pair? did u carry your pos overnite and let it run against u 'till the point of no return? i'm not here to bash u, am just interest in hearin' more about it.
I scalp...but I also can carry overnight. without revealing my system this trade lasted for 3 weeks! I could not trade my way out of it and the hedge stopped anti correlating...When that happened I knew I was screwed and the funny thing is the trade came back to me a week later after I got the margin call... You will notice a thread I posted here for some people to make money on..it was "How about that GBP/CHF"...I called the short perfectly...I knew it was way way overheated after the BOE hike, because my system told me it was...
Mr Olsen one of the two academic founders at Oanda, said it correctly in an interview: "Most retail traders commit to heavily in the entry"...
I think mschey said it best in another thread... What I find that's silly, is that you can't figure out the cost of being too conservative, you had better spend some more time studying money management and geometric growth functions.
I think the prerequisite to be a discretionary, pro trader is: Trade a lot..repetition...repetion...repetition... Maybe we can call it repe-tuition Win Lose Feel Get used to the "Feel" and find the limits..push push push..
You might find this helpful http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25425&perpage=6&pagenumber=4