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[pitstopped]

What am I missing? I opened a $50,000 practice account at forex.com last monday. I day traded every day this week for a few hours a day. I traded USD/JPY, and EUR/JPY. I watched the short trends and took small profits over and over. The account is now $51,890. Not bad for a week, I guess. Am I just a lucky begginer, or should I go ahead and do the same thing with my real money?
Thanks

[RebateFX]

Firstly, well done. Thats a good start. Next I would say no, don't trade with real money yet. Give yourself a good year worth of training and experience before you dive in. At least wait 6 months before you go for a micro account so you can get the live money feel without losing thousands.
Forex is very risky and you WILL blow out a few accounts before you are profitable. Just make sure you don't get yourself into debt to feed your forex account. Nobody can have sympathy for someone who puts their mortgage payment money or maxes out their credit card, then loses it in Forex.
Good luck

[pitstopped]

Thanks' for the reply RebateFX. I do have a lot to learn, I know. But, your advise is good. I invest only with money I could afford to lose. Although I hate to do that. I will continue to read these forums and practice trade. Could anyone recomend a practice account that is mini sized to practice with too? Seems to me a person using a practice account is going to get into live trading on a mini scale at first.... why not get a mini practice account?

Do more forex traders take small quick profits, or go for longer positions?

Thanks'

[RebateFX]

Originally Posted by pitstopped

Thanks' for the reply RebateFX. I do have a lot to learn, I know. But, your advise is good. I invest only with money I could afford to lose. Although I hate to do that. I will continue to read these forums and practice trade. Could anyone recomend a practice account that is mini sized to practice with too? Seems to me a person using a practice account is going to get into live trading on a mini scale at first.... why not get a mini practice account?

Do more forex traders take small quick profits, or go for longer positions?

Thanks'

Many people start out on Oanda for micro trading. While their platform is lacking in many aspects, it's not such a bad place to start. My broker has micro accounts but the demo is on standard with the very good MT4 software which is something you should learn to use sometime The most profitable traders, make longer term trades, catching a trend and riding it. Taking small, quick profits while seeming attractive, is not profitable in long run. Most of my trades go for one or two days going for medium targets, and some go for a week or longer. It takes time and patience to learn it though

[TraderPierre]

Originally Posted by RebateFX

Taking small, quick profits while seeming attractive, is not profitable in long run.

All sound advice but I have to disagree with the above statement.

Not to say RebateFX is wrong, just there's another side to the argument. Forex is primarily driven by fundamentals which are unpredictable, one day the dollar is in the toilet and the next day everyone's buying dollars, all based on sentiment, data, and outlook.

There are some great returns to be had trading intraday using technical analysis, the longer term outlook then becomes unimportant.

Just another opinion to consider is all.

[pitstopped]

Thanks' RebateFX and TraderPierre. I have been more interested in the tech. intraday trading. The Elliot Wave theory and the Fibonacci theories make sense to me, at least in their basic theory. At this point I tend to think some people try to take them too far and rely on them too much. I have been keeping in mind the Elliott theory that peoples emotions drive the market and that people act the same way over and over, and also the theory of resistence and support patterns. I know it is only a week with a practice account. In that week I had 37 trades that made money and 14 that lost money. Maybe just luck though.

Thanks for the replies.

[TraderPierre]

It all sounds excellent, you've got a good win:lose and you're obviously not bothered about cutting your losing trades short. It does sound like you're scalping though, 51 trades over 5 days for just a few hours a day. That's fine if your risk:reward is comparable but that's quite intense trading but that might work for you.

Fibonacci is an excellent tool, not so sure about Elliot waves as it's always been too subjective for me, I can never manage to get the count right!

I think you're doing great for a new trader but one week isn't very long, try not to get complacent. The transition from demo to live can be difficult but you're approaching it in the best way by starting small. Trade your strategy for a few weeks/months and justify the confidence you have in it by confirming it really does work in various market conditions. That way when you come to the point when you want to trade a full size live account use logic, the strategy worked on demo so there is really no reason it shouldn't work live, the only thing that will change is you and the psychology attached to trading serious money.

In your opening post you sounded a little amazed that you found trading so easy, well let me tell you, it is! Thousands of people trade this and other markets every day and make money otherwise what's the point. When you read these forums and see people making everything too complicated and consistently losing money believe me, they are a very small percentage of the total.

Keep it simple, enjoy trading, and make some money, this is one helluva business to be in!