holy fuck 1 year later and im still at it. just funded a new account. i am not going to give up. they say it takes 10000 hours to master something at 8 hours a day thats 1250 days or approx 3.5 years. people make millions off this shit. i don't know if i'm addicted like a casino junky would be or if im making progress either way i'm not going to let this go until I get profitable.

^^good to know your still into it

here's a few things off the top of my head that i've learned over my first year of trading forex, in no way do I consider myself to being close to a pro:

-learn as much as you can, theres not many books on forex out there yet but all you really need to know is the basics
-this definitely is NOT quick money
-you might make a lot of money all of a sudden but be prepared to lose it all soon enough
-dont let your emotions control you
-PLAN YOUR TRADE AND TRADE YOUR PLAN
-always have a trading plan, always
-never disobey your plan or else its not a plan
-dont get lured into any get rich quick schemes, they dont work
-something most traders dont mention often is to try not to switch from forex to stocks just because you see more people making money in the stock market...sure theres more regular folks making money in stocks but that doesnt mean no one makes money in forex
-have the right reasons to trade forex, not just cuz you wanna be a hero
-backtest your plan with a paper account, but there is a day and night difference between putting real money on the line
-us, in vancouver, have a fucked up timing for forex because the markets operate during night time so it might be wiser to be looking at bigger time frames such as 4 hours instead of 15 min charts

thats all i can think of off the top of my head but if im missing something important feel free to add on

so what broker are you guys using for BC residence?...

I want to know too...?

Only a few brokers offer accounts to bc residents, so be careful who you chose to open a demo account with because they might not offer you a live account. I've found oanda to be a good live broker.

edit: woo 1000th post!!

Ya so far I found Oanda, questrade, mfglobalfx and interactive broker that provides to BC residents. I've been demoing with Oanda and trying to get a hang of it. Know any other brokers?

Yea mf global fx and oanda are the main ones I know that offer to BC residents. But if your talking about charting software I use FXCM. Meta trader 4 is pretty good as well.

Just opened up an OANDA Game account
No idea what I'm doing or how it really works but hopefully I'll learn fast

I've read a couple books on forex and seems
like most of them teach basically the same thing.
Unlike stocks where each author gives there own
little techniques and focus on different aspects on
trading. So a good start would be to read 1 or 2 books
solely on forex then read more general books like
"trading in the zone".

Good idea, the charting for Oanda is quite lacking. I initially had an demo with FXCM but found out they changed and couldn't accept BC residents which sucks cause I liked the look and feel of their charting. Also my Oanda demo seems to disconnect now and then...Does this happen on the live accounts?

Nope. I've had the live disconnect maybe once in the past year.
But my demo hasn't disconnected much either. If you set your
take profit and stop losses then you should be good. Comes down
to your trading style really.

Also i've been trading using FXCM demo and using Oanda as a broker and
prices seem to always be the same. Which kind of a trader are you?

ws6ta was right, this shit will make you cry fast!
watch your back guys

im going to open a live account with oanda...how do we deposit funds into our account?

I bank wired it to their account. There's a $35 transaction fee. There's a full explanation on their website to depositing money. You have to do a few annoying things before you can actually deposit money. Like sending photocopies of your proof of residence in Canada etc. It's all on their website and i'd recommend you contact their live customer support cuz their really helpful.

Appreciate the help! thanks!....ya I actually emailed them my documents to complete my account registration today, so just waiting for them to approve and email me back so I can deposit funds...wow $35 to wire?...can you wire online or do you have to go into a branch for that?

I always go to my bank and give them Oanda's account number etc. I think you can use paypal and you have to pay 2% commission to them so could be cheaper then bank wire transfer. But I think paypal is only if your account is in US dollars. Mailing them a check is also an option. This is all from my memory from over a year ago so I would definitely double check all this information on their website before doing anything.

New part of my technique: Cut losses short. Even if you profit in 2-3 out of 10 of your trades and cut the losses short on the rest, you can make good consistent profits.

Any thoughts?

blew my account...feel fucken horrible

how much?

damn sucks to hear man, how much did you lose and how did you lose it?...didnt put in a stoploss? leverage too high and got a margin call?

dont worry man keep at it and learn from your mistakes and one day u'll make the big bucks with forex!

from our conversations you seem to have very small accounts. Its very difficult to get anywhere with a small account. Stop believing the hype of ridiculous gains from every other getrichnowdriveaferrarisin2weeks system because they don't work. Keep learning, demo trade, make money from something else (I know you in particular can work with your dad so do that!) and trade when you have a decent sized account and only put on a MAXIMUM of 3% risk per trade. I do less then 3%. When I had no concept of money management I was losing thousands daily.

Read books on psychology of trading and money management. This shit isn't easy but your foundation has to come from the psych and mm books. Trust me I've been at it for close to 2 years and if I didn't have the resources I have I'd be living on the streets by now.

Honestly boys and girls DO NOT PUT MONEY INTO FOREX THAT YOU ARE NOT READY TO LOSE.

edit: and for those of you intra day trading forex you must be awake during the most liquid hours of the market. LONDON is the session to be trading make no mistakes about it. 34.1% or 1.36 trillion dollars are traded during this period.

what time in YVR would that be for when LONDON is in session?

midnight to 9 am. it overlaps with the us session which goes 5 am to 2pm.

thanks for the info!...wow trading from 5am-9am must be the thing to do!

edit: holy shit i didnt realize how much i typed. LONG and boring read ahead!!!

sry for late reply

Your 100% right. I actually blew my account a while ago but I just made it official just recently:p What happened was back in December to January I was making a killing. I initially started out with a very small account. I turned a bit less then 1k into almost $2500 in about 2-3 weeks. I was thinking in terms of percentage so 100% gains in 3 weeks sure made my confidence go up! Thought I was the king and no one could stop me, thought about funding a larger account, make easy money, go to lambo dealer, pay asgar cash for a gallardo and walk out...LOL:haha:
Then luckily reality hit me. I started putting on trades, no stop loss, take profit of some ridiculous amount like 50 pips then check back days later. HOW STUPID! I actually cant believe how much confidence I had in making money in forex it was really retarded now that I think about it. So I kept making stupid trades and when I lost money, I made more trades thinking I would make that money back. Slowly my account went down, and down, and down until I realized what was happening. For some reason you can't think clearly when your losing money after a long winning streak.
So now im going back to my basic method, I thought about what I was doing when I was making money. Some main things I remember are I didn't listen to anyone. That means I wasn't taking advice from online forums about what to buy or sell (I don't mean you, ws6ta, your advice and tips are the reason forex hasn't made me an alcoholic!). Also I made trades based on one single method and I would never disobey it. If I were losing money on the trade and I listened to my method I would get out before I lost more then 20 pips.
Your right about demo trading but I honestly don't give a shit when i'm using fake money. I just can't keep myself to be serious about it. So I think a better solution is to have a stupidly small account like $100 or whatever your comfortable with losing and trade to see your results, because when you lose money you'll realize you lost real money but when you gain money you know how you did it;).
So right now I took a breath and see what was wrong then started trading properly (I hope!) again. Funded another account, which is a bit bigger then before and let my brain think before I enter any trade. So far thanks to god its going alright, I'll post a pic of my account history lately and you can see I've been making consistent trades with around 10 PIPS profit each. Doesn't seem like much but now im more conservative. Slowly but surely is the way to go, consistency is key in my mind. I've been on around 3 hours of sleep for the past few days so forgive me if something doesn't make sense in my post:p. Here's a screen shot of my recent history of my fxtrade account with some profitable ones and one loss (you can see its my real account lol). For some reason I can't go further back:confused: (If anyone can tell me how I can look further back to january that'd be great).

http://i47.tinypic.com/s3hqtf.jpg


Also here's what I use to keep track of my trades. I deleted my account balance just cuz i don't feel like making it public. But the real one calculates your actual balance amount. These are just a few of my latest trades, my actual one is huge which I started recently lol(Anyone wants a copy PM me and I can send it to you in email, it works better for stock traders though)

http://i50.tinypic.com/f4fhiq.png


Thanks for the long read.