Archive for Work From Home Mum’s
Work From Home Mum’s No.11
Hello Traders!
Today marks the first day of the month for trading and the first day of the new hours in the Forex Room. I have a feeling I will like the new hours and it will suit my lifestyle as I’m home in the afternoon/evenings when the calls are being made.
So March ended up as a fairly negative month for me. -170pips
I went into today with a little bit of trepidation. I felt the twangs of doubt starting to creep in as a trade was called and I have to admit I hesitated. Only for a fraction of a section because I gave myself a good talking to and put the trade in. I’m so pleased that I did because not only did it go to profit, I had THREE trades go to profit! Weeeeeeeeeeee!
The last two trades were a bit later in the US session and it was close to when I was going to bed and I don’t like going to bed with trades open so I brought my stop to 60 pips on one trade and 20 on another.
Today’s total? +160 pips. J Big grins here. Taking into account the March total, I’m only 10 pips off being square again. I feel positive with my trading plan and am loving learning from Erica and the other’s in the Forex room.
I am still struggling with the amount I’m going to risk each night. Shortly I’ll have to decide whether or not I want a mini or a micro account. A mini account works with $1 pips and the micro account 10c pips. I think my initial thoughts to have a $1000 starting account needs to be bumped up to $2000.
I’ve been chatting to people and it seems that my 6% I was prepared to risk each day is a bit much for some others, hence why I need to look at the different account options.
6% risk on a $2000 account is 120 pips on a $1 mini account. That means I can be in maybe 3 trades with stops of around 40 pips.
If I do a 6% risk on a $2000 account for a 10c micro account, it ups the pips to a whopping 1200 pips. That would mean I’d be free to take pretty much ALL trades called. The downside is that the profits are a LOT smaller. Then again, one would argue that good things come to those who wait. 
So again, I have more thinking to do. Do I be content with just 3 trades a day and trade in $1 pips? Or do I drop my account to 10c a pip and take EVERY trade? I have a feeling I’m still going to go with the 3 trades a day on only certain pairs, but I am going to investigate all options to make sure I make the most of my investment.
I’m off to bed to read a bit more about trading psychology.
Work From Home Mum’s No.10
Hello traders!
It seems we’re on a roll with the stopouts. Like I said yesterday, I refuse to let it waver my confidence. Mark Douglas had it down pat when he mentioned in his Disciplined Trader book that
“you can’t control or manipulate the markets and the markets
have absolutely no power or control over you, then the responsibility for
what you perceive and for your resulting behavior resides only in you.”
(M.Douglas, 1990. P.9)
That quote really struck a chord with me. My responsibility is to choose when to get in and out of the market. Even with Erica’s help in the Forex room, the ultimate responsibility falls back to me. A hard pill to swallow when I’m up to my sixth stopout in a row, but this is where the test starts. How would I feel if I was using real money? I’d be devastated. I NEED to get control of those feelings now before I go live with real money because it will affect how I trade which then will affect my profits.
Gee this trading thing is a bit tougher than I expected. On the upside, it’s the last day of school today for the next two and a half weeks so I won’t be in a rush in the mornings for a bit.
This weeks tally.
Tuesday -60pips
Wednesday -60pips
Work From Home Mum’s No.9
Hello traders!
Well it’s a Tuesday and I’ve already reached my two stopout limit. L It’s hurting a lot at the moment considering I had the two stopouts before the weekend too but I have to be realistic. I could have 10 stopouts in a row and I have to allow for it. I cannot let myself get down about it. Even though I do feel that way. I just need to look back over my figures and remind myself that sometimes there is a feast and other’s a famine. It appears I’ve started off in the famine but I’m determined to not let it get to me.
I think I might have to look at my trading times shortly though because after the Easter holidays, the Forex room is changing the trading times. I’ll have to work out which time best suits me as a trader/parent/worker. There is also a set and forget trade option which could be something to look at too.
Next week I’ll trade all sessions to see what happens in each. I’ll be sticking to my trading plan of course. Here’s to a great day tomorrow!
Tuesday -58pips
Work From Home Mum’s No.8
Hello traders!
I had a wonderful night’s sleep courtesy of my 13km bike ride yesterday towing 50kg worth of kids and trailer. It’s invigorated me to get lots done so I can sit down and have a read of Mark Douglas’ book The Disciplined Trader (1990).
After my lovely night’s sleep, I’ve had a couple of strong thoughts I am hoping to put in action this year. I am like many other stay at home parents around Australia who at times struggle to give our families the little extra things that make life enjoyable. It was something as simple as an offer of a dance class for both my children, but at $70 a pop (which is cheap for dancing I KNOW!) I had to give it a second thought as we would have to really scrounge for money. That’s not what I want for my family hence me trading in order to make our life that bit nicer.
I’ve decided to set myself a goal to try and get to by the end of the year. It’s a big one, but I think it’s achievable. I want to be at a point with my trading, that it replaces my usual income each week. I am not sure I want to give up the casual work I do have as it’s a good social outlet, but I would love to have that little bit extra for us to enjoy life a bit more. The figure’s not a big one. $400. Yup. That’s it. $400 per week would be lovely. I’m a fairly simple person with simple needs and that amount of money would be grand to have sitting there for me to call on if I ever needed.
So my big plan is to stay in sim till perhaps the end of June (That gives me that time to save some money in readiness for my live account) then I have 6 months of live trading to try and work on my dream. I am not going to work with a profit goal though. I don’t want to limit my profits. I DO want to limit my losses so I figure if I stick with my trading plan to conserve my losses, with no ceiling on profits, the sky truly is the limit. J
Now that in mind, Thursday’s trading wasn’t all that flash for me. Ended up 60 pips down for the day which hurt a little.
Continuing the tally thing,
Tuesday -30pips
Wednesday +70pips
-30pips
Thursday -30pips
Work From Home Mum’s No.7
Hello Traders!
I think I need to clarify my position for trading. I re-read my last post and I got confused reading it! Ha ha! So I’ll try and clarify what my trading plan actually is. After I wrote that post, I went back to all my figures and crunched them even further. This is what I came up with.
On a $1000 account (which is realistically what I’ll be starting with), if I trade $1 pips, I can allow myself up to two stop outs of 30 pips each. That’s a total of 60 pips maximum per day or 6% of my trading account. Regardless of whether or not I’ve had a successful trade, if I have two stop outs in the one day, I will stop trading and shut down my trading dome. I am also only allowed to have two trades running at one time because of the potential for both trades to stop out. This is going to get a bit confusing, but if the trades are successful, it means that I am free to take the next trade as long as I still only expose myself to a maximum loss of 60pips.
I spent a couple of hours early this morning in between breakfast being served and tidying up the kitchen to discover that if I traded only 2 pairs at a time, sticking to the 60 pip stop-out rule, I would be 559pips up in January, 255pips in February (which was a terribly difficult month to trade through) and halfway through March, the pip count is up to 128pips. Don’t get me wrong. There were weeks where the pip count was down by -240pips only to be rescued the week after by sticking to the plan and seeing the profits. Seeing the numbers over a longer period of time allowed me to see that there will be days in succession that I might have two stop-outs and be in negative pips, but the overall picture should be positive if I stick to my rules.
All of the above is only hypothetical. I now have to put it all into practice. I think that now I have specific trading rules I’ve set for myself, I can detach from the “fun” of placing the trades and get down to business.
Ok. So it’s half a day later after I started this post and I’ve managed to put my trading plan into practice. It feels right. I don’t feel exposed to too much loss and I’m learning patience twice over. The EUR/JPY(EJ) is as badly behaved as my two year old at the moment. Both are not being very compliant and it’s 10.37pm at night and my trade is still open. I entered the trade at around 5.30am. I just want it finished!!! GBP/JPY(GJ) took 30 pips off me, so I was one stop down. Other trades were called, plenty that I would have liked to have been in, but to stay true to my trading plan, I had to wait for the EJ to stop out or go to profit. I did not anticipate having a trade last so long. I think tomorrow I’ll ask Erica and the room what they do in these sorts of situations. Perhaps it’s something I need to add to my trading plan. Hmmm… What to do? I’ll leave it tonight, but I think I need an answer or at least suggestions of what other’s would do. I better get to bed. The first text came through at 5.30am so I need some beauty sleep.
Tally so far.
-30 pips with 1 trade still open.