An extraordinary week's trading.
I'd shorted the FTSE at an averaged position of £22 a point and watched in horror as it climbed and held it's ground at 6380 so was around £1700 down on the trade.
I'd also gone long on USD/JPYearlier in the week and watched as it fell away which I was also down at one point around £750.
Wednesday night my combined losses left me with less than £1000 equity and no funds available to trade.
Bottom line is I had to stay awake all night Wednesday which is a really good thing as around 4am I was forced to fund my account with £500 to stay alive. At that point I would have given anything just to get my money back and never play again.
I know for sure I will make a success of trading and I'm determined to make this work. Through a process of using the force open button, enabling me to open a trade in the opposite direction I managed to hoover up points during the course of Thursday. Price fluctuates up and down in zig zag patters and quote often crosses the same level during the day, especially in periods of consolidation exactly such as we experienced this week.
I began to add to my funds although my equity wasn't increasing as my original trade was still so far down. I knew it had to drop at some stage though this week and I knew my position was within the ball park range of between 6280 and 6380 so it was just a question of hanging on in there.
Eventually the price dropped and as it did so my equity increased, from £1000 to £3600 and this achieved within the space of a day. That's how easy it is to make (or lose) money in this game.
I wanted to go into the weekend without open positions so I closed out the remaining parts of my open trades for a £400 loss at which point the FTSE and my FX positions retraced exactly to my point of entry. Never mind, I made money this week and learnt invaluable lessons.
Swing trading, that is not sitting in front of the computer watching every move up or down and having the strength to not check for a few hours has worked for me this week. Crucially the use of 'force open' saved me.
For the first time in a long time I made money from trading. I took great pleasure in withdrawing money (£500) from my account for the very first time. In the immortal words of Katrina and the waves 'and don't it feel good!'
I'm trading better by making less trades over longer time frames and I'm looking forward to trading next week.
Nice one Geoff, well done !
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had quite a hair raising experience this week. I am really glad you got a good result at the end of it.
It is always good to experiment trading different time frames.It is generally easier to make a profit swing trading than scalping provided you manage you risk effectively.
As you have said the FTSE has been in a trading range during February. In a trading range it is best to buy low (and/or sell out of shorts) and sell high (and/or close longs). Be careful though if using this strategy and the the market breaks out into a strong trend,like it did in January. If you get the direction wrong the market may not come back to your entry point and your losses will just get bigger and bigger.
All the best for some profitable trading,
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