How I Exit My Trades

This article is Part 2 of my learning experiences while trading.

I once mentioned the phrase "It's not how you start, it's how you finish." Likewise, it's not how you enter a trade, it's how you EXIT that determines a winning or losing trade.

That reason alone is proof enough that your exits are way more important than your entries.

When it is time to exit, most people hesitate because they are gripped by 2 key emotions - Greed & Fear.

Of the two, Greed is the easier emotion to manage IF you know how to do it. Not knowing how can just as easily result in a significant psychological bashing of the mind like Fear can render. In this part, I'll give you a tip to manage your Greed.

This method which i personally use is for swing trading and to some extent day trading (depending on the chart's time frame you're using). Because this method is really much like a trailing stop method, take note to use it ONLY when your trade is in PROFIT. Never use this for scalping!

I've learned from one of my trading teachers that the first and most important focus you must achieve after you have entered a trade is to aim for the BREAK EVEN point. That means your stock must come to a point where it has moved in your favour and is in profit enough to cover commissions, or if you trade forex, the currency pair must move in your favour till it has covered the initial bid/ask spread loss.

Do not even think of profits if your stock hasn't broke even. For without a break even, there is no profit. And if you haven't broke even? You're still holding a loss. Logical? Absolutely ;)

Many people start to dream of the profits they can make the moment they enter a trade and when they don't, their psychology takes a beating. Learn to condition your mind and keep your emotions intact. Throughout a trade process, your thoughts, your mind, your actions and psychology must all come into convergence. What this effectively means is your whole must be in unity. This ensures you are mindful enough to react to the market in a correct fashion when it calls for it.

Trading is a step by step process. According to my teacher Conrad, in order to finish first, you must first finish. And how you cross the finishing line is a step by step process. Therefore, don't start thinking about the end when you only just begun, think about the next step and thereafter the next and so on and so forth. Before you know it, the finishing line would just be in front of you to reach out and grab!

Thus, don't think profit when your trade is obviously still in a loss! Think break even first, and once you've achieved break even, then you start thinking about profits, and after you have moved into profitable territory, THEN we move on to protecting profits.

Ok! We're done with the 'short' intro.. Now moving on to the method. After doing my research and analyzing my charts, I determine a good point of entry (remember lesson 1 - Buying the dip in an uptrend and selling the rally on the downtrend). I'm happy, everything on my chart shows no reason why I should not enter. I take my entry.

For example, I BUY a LONG EUR/USD position at 1.3445 with 1 contract and place my stop loss 30 pips BELOW my entry price. I purposely do not set a profit target here. The bid/ask (selling/buying) spread was at 1.3443/1.3445. Therefore after entry, my immediate paper loss is 2 pips, because the selling price is at 1.3443.

Now my immediate focus shifts to achieving the break even price. Few moments later the bid/ask spread has gone up to 1.3445/1.3447. Ahah! Now I have broke even! At this point, I continue to monitor the trade.

Some more moments pass and the trade has moved into the profitable zone and has gone up to say.. 1.3475. That is a 30 pip gain. Now, I immediately shift my stop loss up from 1.3415 to 1.3450 so that I LOCK IN MY PROFITS. What this ensures is now, I have totally eliminated the emotion of Fear and only have Greed to manage. No matter what happens next, even if the trade fell back down all the way, i would be stopped out at 1.3450 with a 5 pip profit already in my pocket GUARANTEED.

You see the psychological management in that move? Now i no longer have to worry about losing money because that move ENSURED I would make money no matter what. Now as the trade continues its up trend, I shift my stop UP accordingly. In an uptrend, the price moves from a Low to a High, retraces back to a Higher Low and then moves up to a Higher High confirming the uptrend. (See Chart attached)

How far up do I shift the stop is determined by where the previous low point in price is. I place the stop just a few pips below the previous low so that I give the price space to breathe when it retraces back before it continues its uptrend. I do this continually UNTIL a trend reversal takes place. By that time, the price would have been high enough and my profits would have run long and far enough. I just let the trend reverse and get stopped out in profit *wink* ;) So in effect, my stop loss has become my stop profit!

Advantages of this method include:

1. IF the trend continues, your profits are as good as unlimited. That is KEY, because you are in the business to cut your losses fast and let your profits run wild!

2. Once you have placed your stop at the break even point, you have effectively eliminated a potentially devastating emotion called Fear. With one less risk to manage, your psychology would strengthen and you can channel your focus to the next important thing - managing Greed & profits.

Disadvantages:

1. The initial phase of achieving break even needs time to monitor. It can take as long or short as it likes. If you don't have the time to do so, don't use this method of exit.


Here is the chart showing a nice uptrend. Most of the time, your chart may not show such a beautiful uptrend and that's just the way it is. If the markets were so organized and predictable, I'd have been a millionaire yesterday and a billionaire today. So don't be so rigid!

Once again recall:

First things first, achieve BREAK EVEN.

Secondly, PROTECT PROFITS as you make them. This is of VITAL importance if you are to become a consistently profitable trader; one who never allows profits to degenerate into losses ;)

That's it for now. Till then, trade smart, trade well ;)

Why Buying Dips In Uptrends & Selling Rallies In Downtrends Make PERFECT SENSE

The following is something I've learned much about and makes total sense to me when I trade.

Think about it for a moment. You are eagerly watching a stock price move on the chart and it is up trending. You are preparing to enter on a position but don't know when or where exactly.

Most amateurs dive straight into the pits as they see the price move higher and higher and they think they gonna miss the wave if they don't act now.

In trading, the hardest thing to do is WAITING for the right moment and not act on the impulse!

Typically, after the amateur dives in, the stock retraces down! And he is constipating a paper loss. Having very bad psychology management, the dip downwards gets his stomach churning sideways and under.

As it dips further, his psychology takes a whipping and he realized he made a wrong entry and proceeds to cut the trade at a loss. Seconds after he has cut the trade, the stock resumes its uptrend! And he kicks himself in the butt realizing his folly.

If you look at the stock chart attached, you will see 2 arrows. One in Red and the other in Black. The amateur would typically buy at where the black arrow is.. looking at it, logically it tells you that you are buying on a HIGH. And you don't wanna do that, because the whole idea is to Buy Low, Sell High for max profit. And because he doesn't know how to manage his emotions, he screws up by selling off at a loss and then later regrets when the price returns to the up trend. Double psychological whammy! Very very bad for the amateur.

But the prudent trader when he sees a good up trend, will not jump straight into it. He will wait for a pullback in the price, or what we call a dip in the up trend. Why is buying the DIP (red arrow) so sensible? A few reasons:

1. When the price dips, and you buy it, you are buying the LOW. It won't be lower than the previous low, but in trading, what matters is the forward movement of the trade. You can't trade the past. You can only trade what is before your eyes at that moment. Therefore, a LOW is a LOW no matter what.

2. Logically, after the price has dipped to its low and doesn't go any lower, where do you think the next likely direction would be? UP of course! (sometimes it goes sideways, but very unlikely in a strong trend)

3. The lower you can buy on the dip, the quicker your initial loss (from the bid/ask spread) turns into profit when the stock resumes its up trend. That way, you don't have to constipate paper losses or even so, it is minimal before you see the trade move in your favour. This ties in with point 1. A low bought, will always see a higher high in an uptrend. And therefore profit nonetheless.

All these work similarly when you are Selling the Rally in a DOWN trend. Aka Sell High, Buy Low.

In conclusion, never get hasty on an entry to trade. If conditions are not favourable, DON'T TRADE.

WAIT for the right moment to enter! If the moment passes you by, don't go chasing after it! Let it go. Wait for another good moment to enter. That's life.

Happy trading and don't do anything stupid :)

Back With A Vengence

I'm back! Well as the title of my blog post suggests :D Yeah i'll be doing more of this in time to come.

Well it's been a long long time since i last traded! I stopped in late Dec, and I only started again in early Feb~ More than a month now!

I've not been slacking around of cos :) The reason i stopped trading was this: I was recalibrating myself while going thru my intensive trader's course. So i avoided trading altogether as suggested by my wonderful coach Mr Conrad Alvin Lim. Check him out at www.conradalvinlim.com.

This in turn helped me in focusing on learning. So in essence I opened my mind towards learning and i stopped trading in case i was reinforcing wrong habits. So a good one month away from trading helped ALOT.. Having learned all that I can learn (well not really all, and I'm still 2 more lessons from graduating), I came back to trade once more. This time, back with a vengence hahaha!

Armed with new found knowledge, an arsenal of tools and a better understanding of how trading works, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the results of my best ever performance in trading yet! In a total of 2 trading weeks, or 10 actual trading days, God did amazingly above and beyond. I made a net profit of 176% plus :) From $100k to $276k plus.

How did that happen? Well, basically I kept things at the bare minimal. Rule One is K.I.S.S or Keep It Simple Stupid is truly wat works in trading. More often than not, traders overwhelm themselves with so much information that we suffer from wat is known as Analysis Paralysis ;) So a golden rule in trading is this: Keep It Simple Stupid! I was amazed just how true that worked out to be.

I applied whatever I had learned about technical analysis from class and researching about market sentiment and what not. Having a better understanding, i was much equipped to better succeed at making trades. Rule Two is know what you are trading. Do everything you can to get a clearer understanding of the markets you are trading in. If it is currency, find out what is driving the sentiment of the economy of that currency. If stock, find out everything u can about the sector, industry, fundamentals of the stock etc.

And finally, the hardest of them all, Rule Three is know yourself. When push comes to shove, every trader will find himself fighting against himself, his own psychology. When you are in a situation where you need to cut losses fast, but you hang on hoping the price will make an about turn. What truly stops you from doing the most sensible things is your own weakness of psychology. Do you know that success in trading lies largely on one's own psychological makeup? The percentage attributed to psychology for success in trading is 60%-70%.

Some Sun Tzu quotes are extremely applicable to what I have experienced over the past 2 weeks.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete."

"Victorious commanders seek the conditions to win first, then fight. Losing commanders fight first, then seek victory."

Check out the 3rd quote. It's one that truly applied in my latest experience in this past 2 weeks of trade. No victory comes without planning how to win first. Likewise in trading, we seek high and low to find ways to reduce risk and increase reward BEFORE we enter a trade ;) To enter a trade first, and then plan and hope for it to move in your favor is asking for trouble, asking for defeat. Trade (Gamble) like that and you will lose every bit of your capital. Some have lost their lives over this. Think about that.

Here are the results of my latest trades. Just 2 panels:

 

 

As you can see from the table, I made a total of 32 trades in half a month. 30 winners vs 2 losers. Each of the two losers were trades of about 5k plus and not more. But I have a total of 8 winners which profits numbered in the tens of thousands, the smallest being S$10,480.41, and the largest amount being S$24,865.06. 

How did I manage to only make 2 losing trades and kept them at a minimal while yet have 8 huge winning trades? The answer lies in risk management. The golden rule is to cut losses quick and let profits run their course. The moment i saw those 2 losing trades move against me, I did not hesitate to cut them. That allowed me to preserve my bulk of capital. After cutting, I simply shrugged off the losses, regrouped my thoughts, focused my psychology, and moved on with life to the next winning trade. 

You can see that on the 10th after I made that losing trade of S$5,197.57, I did the above and went on to a huge winning trade of S$17,298.23 the very same day. That was a trade which i prematurely cut and that move paid off.

The 2nd losing trade on the 16th was a little different. It was a case whereby I had placed my stop loss too shallow and thus got stopped out. Together with this loser, I had 2 other trades which were losing as well but had deeper stops. After I got stopped out, the other trades turned back in my favor and went on to be profitable.

I've learned a lot from this latest experience. And i wanna drill down my account to about 10K and start trading from there and use the same techniques and knowledge which i have acquired over the past 2 months. If i can make 276K from 100K, i'm sure that i can make 27.6K from 10K. The scale will be down 10 times and so will be the margin I am able to trade with. But i know dat if i keep my leverage within my risk threshold, I will be able to pull of a great trade.

I look forward to my next trade and in the meantime, here's wishing everybody a Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year! Stay safe and don't gamble! :)

Beautiful Week/end

As the title suggests, this week has been nothing short of AWESOME!


This weekend I performed with the Millennial Choir and Orchestra, my maiden classical choir performance and I must say dat i really am missing performing a great classical piece with a bunch of great ppl :) Sang for all 4 svces but dat seemed too little! Hahaha! Thank God really :) The past weeks of listening to Handel's For Unto Us A Child Is Born day in and day out really paid off! It was absolutely duperbly fun :D

Standing in the front row on the Expo stage was like a first for me.. And it is a feeling i won't forget soon. Nervous for sure but yet exciting at the same time! I'm just wondering how many hundreds of thousands of people viewed those performances live and over the internet... Wow, when you put dat into perspective, you can't help but feel just what a blessing it was to have been there and done dat :) I am thankful for the experience.


Wanna say from the bottom of my heart dat it was such an honour, a privilege and a blessing to serve in a capacity like that with some of the greatest people there is :) Millennial Choir, I never thought it would be so fulfilling to perform like dat with u all, but you guys rock!!!!!!!!!! I am so impressed with how much we've improved in the course of one week! Well done you all!

And Sun was with us this weekend for svc! And, I got to shake her hand!!!!!! I have never gotten that up close to her before and for a moment i was like WOW I AM SHAKING SUN'S HAND.... AMAZING~ And guess what, her hand was like really soft to the touch! That was another surprise there because i've never shaken such a soft hand in a long long time! Hahaha! So yea wow, Sun really takes good care of herself :)


Haha~ Well this week also concludes the end of my UK paper trading account. This account was one of mixed feelings and such because I made 2 major mistakes which caused enough damage to my capital. Mistakes which i failed to curb at the very start and just let them continue. Yep, the most common (and most costly) mistake you can ever make in trading is this:

1. Not putting a stop loss on your trade, thereby exposing it to unlimited risk!

2. Putting a stop loss AND NOT HONOURING THAT STOP LOSS!

These are the 2 most common mistakes which any good trader should not be making but yet, human nature is as such. We hope for the best when obviously things are at a dead end, there is no hope left but to swallow the painful and bitter pill called "TRUTH". And that truth is that if you are holding on to a losing position.. CUT YOUR LOSSES IMMEDIATELY :) Protect your capital, stop trading, evaluate wat went wrong, LEARN FROM IT and live to trade another day. Better to lose a few thousands of dollars than to open up your entire capital to unlimited risk.


But nonetheless, I finally got my frame of mind back in sight and started hedging against my losing positions. My losing positions were going long (means I BUY Euros and sell the US Dollar) on the Euro when in the past week and more, the Dollar was strengthening like never before! So I hedged, I started buying Dollars instead and selling the Euros. And I slowly liquidated those losing positions bit by bit when there was a better price.

This last account happens to be my best record account yet. At one point in time the account was about 117% in profit, which means with a starting capital of £100k Brit pounds, I had made an extra £117k pounds, but about nearly half of those profits were lost when i cut my losses.

Slowly, I got a better hang of the market. I started the account on the 7th this month on a Monday and traded for 5 days right up till Friday the 11th. In those 5 days i had made only 2 losing trades of about 1K plus each and from there it was profit all the way and i made a lot of dough in those 5 days, the highest being about

£10,882.40 pounds in one single trade. In just 5 days I broke my personal best record when I made about £85K in profits.

Normally, I would make trades every single day but from the 14th right up to the 16th I didn't close a single trade because in that period was the time I was struggling over those 2 mistakes. Somewhere along the lines I made 2 bad moves and I spent 4 days hoping that the market would turn around in my favour.. Huge mistake.. I have never before witnessed first hand just how much the Dollar appreciated against the Euro in those 4 days.. I was stunned for a moment, but after shaking off that shock, I went into damage control mode with the hedging.

Looking back in hindsight it was easy to say how much better it would have been if i had cut my losses earlier. But then again, in hindsight things always seem better. You always tend to think of the "what ifs" and dat really messes up ur psychology. But I'm slowly but surely learning how to accept my losses better than the last :)

So anyway, damage control was a success. On the 17th and 18th (I was trading while at drama rehearsals whahah! Of cos, I knew what was going on and didn't skipped a beat during rehearsals~ Now dat's gd multi-tasking ;) ), I cut my losses gradually and freed up margin for my account.

In those 2 days, I managed to restore the account not only back to the 7th-11th period level of £85k, but I went on to make another £15k more to make the final profit of £200,079k. Could have gone on to make more but I told myself to commit to the goal of hitting that £200k mark and leaving it as it is :)

So in 2 weeks or rather 6 trading days to be exact, I made 100% profit on my 100K capital, my best ever result yet in almost 2 months of daily trading practice. Of cos, the money is virtual haha! But these results are a foreshadow of the near future to come :) If I can do this in virtual practice, I can surely duplicate similar results with real cash :)

I have a few conclusions with this latest trading experience:

1. I still make those mistakes which I don't wanna make. Dat means I haven't fully mastered my trading psychology :) No problem, the first step to overcoming that is to admit I still have a problem with it.  

2. I must learn to not be afraid of cutting losses sooner than later.

3. I must honour my stop losses. They are there for VERY GOOD REASON. Even though it means losing the trade, it is better to lose little than to lose much.

Below is the compilation of my profit and loss statements:

 

 

Well, finally I just wanna end this post with a verse from the Bible. This is the Rhema word confirmed with the Logos which God gave to me when I decided to embark on this 10,000 hour journey of learning to trade well.

NKJV Deuteronomy 8:18

"And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day."

May I never forget the day when I become super rich, that I will remember it was all the work of God, that He made me rich so that I can establish His kingdom and purpose here on this earth :) Amen, glory to God :)

Greater things have yet to come, greater things still to be done in my trading experience. Till the next account!

My 10,000 Hour Project

Recently I mentioned in FB dat the Lord spoke to me and I would share about it soon :D

So finally, i've gotten a little bit of time to talk about it. Throughout this week, from since last Friday with Dr John Avanzini, right up till now with all the morning prayer meetings etc, it has been a really fruitful week.

I've started rehearsing with the drama team and the music is about almost done :) We will be so by the time the show is stated for tech runs. And, i've also been rehearsing with the Millennial Choir and Orchestra for next weekend's performance :D Really looking forward to that one cos i believe it's gonna be great.

Well anyway, what I wanted to share was something that God showed me during one morning in JW during morning pm. In one of those meetings, I had a vision of my life in the near future :D

I saw myself leading a team of ppl, very much like a cell group, a core bunch of ppl. These ppl were like me, they were traders! I've thought of being a cell leader before, but never really wanted to go into the cg ministry as it was. I know that i'll lead a group of ppl someday, but that morning, i think it became much clearer what kind of leader i will be. And this is wat i saw of those ppl:

We were a group of traders with one united goal in mind, that is to use our wealth to build the kingdom of God :) Each one of us had the finance and ability to move markets! I pictured all of us having families who wholly followed God's will for our lives and we were never in lack. Our children are brought up in the ways of the Lord, our wives are capable, beautiful, wise, the best helpers that any man can have. Our families were in order :)

I pictured ourselves coming together and making huge amounts of money. It was like anytime there was a need to build a school, a hospital etc etc, anytime the work of God needed financing, we were there to raise that amount of money and God made it come true for us! :D

So well, we have our medical fellowship, aircrew fellowship, business breakthru cg etc etc.. Hm why not a fellowship specially for TRADERS?? :D Dat should be really really interesting~


Yeap, that was the gist of it :D haha! This whole trading thing that I started on.. it has since become my 10,000 hour project. I started practicing in Oct till now. Honestly, from Mon to Fri, I spend an average of.. at least 12-15 hours reading financial reports, studying charts, learning about technical indicators, learning psychology etc etc. So mathematically speaking, I should become a pretty good trader within 2-3 years. Haha. But i think there's no way i can put a figure to this because the market is too dynamic and there is no way you can know everything about it in one lifetime. It has to be a CONSTANT ONGOING process of studying it. The day I think i've learnt it all, is the day i have failed.

It is my intention to keep on practicing and practicing and practicing. If you ask me when will I trade the real money? Honestly, I dun think i am there yet :)

Late Nov till early Dec was a really bad time for me. My state of mind was not exactly correct. There were many distractions, I could not focus, could not make sense of the market. I practiced on one account that lost more than 90% of my capital. Yea, made a whole host of mistakes.. BIG ONES. But dat's ok, I must not make those same mistakes again.

That account has since expired and during the last few days it was active, i was having technical problems with the loading of the website and I just couldn't trade for the last few days.. So I decided to set up another account, this time with the UK website instead.. So now instead of 100K SGD, I had 100K GBP instead.. quite a different ball game.

Took me a bit of getting used to trading in Brit pounds instead of Sing dollars.. This time I was determined not to make the same stupid mistakes. I spent a good amount of time monitoring the charts and market sentiment first, and then made some small trade amounts to 'test' whether my analysis was on the right track. Well, I lost a couple of thousand pounds in my first two trades but after that, I was getting a feel of the market sentiment. My confidence, shaken slightly from the past experience was slowly being restored. From there on, it was profit all the way. I started this account on the 7th of Dec which was a Monday, and so I traded for 5 trading days right up till Friday the 11th and below is the progress of the first week of my trading:

This is my best trading result yet :) Bettering even my last record of about $62k from $100k in two weeks. I've turned my $100k (Brit pounds) into a pretty good $185,800 plus in 5 days. So dat leaves me with another 5 more trading days before this account expires and I set up another practice account. Pray that I dun do anything stupid and lose all that has been accumulated in the last 5 days haha~

At the end of the day, it is NOT about trading to make money. It is really trading to TRADE WELL :) because if you cannot trade well, you will never make a single cent, but lose all you have invested. When you can make trades to an extent whereby you always max the profits and minimise the losses, you will eventually become a consistent profitable trader. And dat's the key, trading to trade well :)

The world's greatest sportsmen never became the greatest sportsmen because they were motivated by the money factor.. No. They became the best in their sport simply because they trained to do their sport WELL :) They trained to be the best sportsperson they can be. The money and sponsorships and endorsements and wat not were just by products of their standard of excellence in their quest to become the best. Trading is like that as well. Even though you deal with money on an ongoing basis, it should never be the motivating factor.

So, I wanna be the best online trader that I can be, that God wants me to be. And dat's exactly y I do wat i do :) I love wat i do, and it thrills me to know that this is the will God has for my life ;)

The Beginning of My Trading Journey

In recent times my FB account has been inundated with loads of forex trading related stuff. How on earth did i ever get myself into this 'mess'? Haha!

Oh well, my first exposure to the world of trading was when a fellow cell group member (yes, CGs open up opportunities in your life you never knew were there!) introduced me to the world of stocks and shares some 2 years back or so. I learnt what an IPO (initial public offering) was, what a CFD (Contract For Difference) was etc etc. Ironically, there was nothing much about trading. Most of it was investment related. Buying shares of a company and holding them till the share price increased.

Over time, I learnt about this market called the Foreign Exchange market, aka Forex - a financial instrument whereby people buy or sell currencies against another currency, earning the subsequent profits or losses of the difference between the Bid (Selling Price) and the Ask (Buying Price). Very interestingly, I clearly remember hearing this term 'Forex' as a very young boy overhearing a conversation between two people in my former church where I grew up in. So going to church and sticking around, you'd learn stuff that could change your life ;)

I also learnt the term 'leverage'. It was a highly attractive word to me because it made total sense :) It made SMART sense to me that I need not have to make money the hard way, that I could make it the SMART way :) Every successful business person in life will tell you the importance of leveraging, such that you duplicate your time and yourself. You multiply your ability to generate profit. In FOREX terms, leverage is a powerful double edged sword. It could make you huge profit within minutes, or it could kill you with snowballing losses.

Moving on, i decided to find out more myself. I discovered that I could have a taste of this by applying for a demo account. A demo account is basically the exact trading platform where one does trading but the money used is virtual. Everything a real trader experiences on his platform happens on this demo account as well. So it is a very good gauge of how you would fare in the real world of trading should you be using real currency.It is free practice :)

So anyway I signed up for one with this broker called FXCM. In a matter of a few days, I wiped out 2 or 3 accounts. Each account allotted me $50K of startup capital. I was basically testing out the system, learning how it works, learning what a stop loss was hahah! But I didn't know alot. And frankly I was fooling around with it, aka gambling. I didn't know that I needed to use tools and other stuff to help me. I didn't even know how to work the charting tools dat came with it. I didn't know how to read the charts and candlestick patterns at all.. To me everything was greek.

Well, that experience was quite emotional. I actually engaged my emotions in something that was virtual.. When i made profits (by fluke honestly), i was darn happy. And likewise when i was making losses, my world was upside down. I didn't know why or how i was making a profit or loss. At the end of it, I concluded that forex was a sham started by some dude who was out to kill people like me. Hahaha! Funny how I concluded that when i never really knew about how the system worked anyway! For 2 years or so, it was out of my mind..

Then in recent times this year, that same member of mine introduced me to forex once again. This time he recommended me some books to read. 2 books in fact. So thus I began to get myself educated in this business. I devoured the information in these books and got a decent basic education in learning how to read charts and using technical indicators, learning the time zones of the forex market, who traded what and when etc. Basically, my degree of understanding of the forex market rose by leaps and bounds after I read those books. Unsatisfied, I bought more books and material to read and study. Bought a book on trading psychology and candlestick patterns etc.

Then I started another demo account in late Sept. This time I was using a different platform by igmarkets. They allotted me 100K of virtual capital to start off with. Each account lasted a duration of 2 weeks. So i have been 'paper trading' ever since and my results this time were vastly different from the beginning.

My first two accounts were losers. I lost close to 50% of my capital on the first one and about 20%-30% on the second. During this time, I only knew about technical indicators cos I had a brief introduction to it. But using those without full understanding meant i still made alot of mistakes. However the books dat i had invested in were proving to be of great help. They had changed the way i traded on the market.

Then I started with my 3rd account. That was slightly more profitable, I had made as much profit as losses but there was a little net profit overall. By then I had started learning how to study candlestick patterns and psychology and how that plotted itself on the charts. So I spent a hell lot of time staring at charts, learning how to decipher potential reversal patterns and breakouts etc.

My 4th account from the 29th of Oct to 12th Nov was my first very profitable account :) In that 2 weeks, I had made losses and profits. But my net profit amounted to about $43K plus. That is what an average person would earn in a year if he/she made like $3.5k a month :) A miracle as far as i was concerned haha!

Naturally I was really surprised and happy of course! I had found a hidden talent i never knew i had! haha! I actually have the ability to make some serious money trading on the forex market! But well, I began to get a little cocky for my own good.

On the same day this account expired on the 12th, I opened a new 5th account starting with the same $100K capital. And to my horror of horrors, I immediately made losses amounting to nearly $40k. I made 2 losing trades that amounted to SGD$28,658.92 and SGD$11,101.41 respectively. That taught me one thing - I sure wasn't as proficient as I thought i was ;) It was a far cry from where I wanted to be, that is to be a CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE trader.

I didn't wanna earn thousands of dollars for 9 consecutive trades only to lose them all on the 10th trade.. No, I wanted to maximise my profits and minimise my losses, ensuring that i was overall consistent in my profits and losses. I am a long shot off the way I manage my risks. There's still lots to learn and overcome. I know that my trading psychology is still very raw. I haven't fully mastered my mind yet :) I've improved, but I still fall prey to my own fear and greed every now and then.

Well, thank God on that same day I incurred a HUGE loss, I had also made back $35k in profits. So I trimmed those losses down to $5k or so. That just goes to show just how volatile the forex market is and just how leverage can make or break you if you don't know how to respect it :) From that day onwards, I began to treat this account like it was with REAL money. I began to treat it as though i traded with real currency! In short, I started taking things much more seriously.

After those losses, I took extra care to make sure my analysis and research was better. For the rest of the account duration, I only made one other loss of SGD$3475.50 on the 17th of Nov. All in all I had made a total of 31 trades on my 5th account, 28 of which were profitable. Dat is about a 90% success rate. However, i wasn't satisfied because though i was consistent in profitable trades, my losing trades were huge.. So i had my work cut out for me to minimise those loser trades. All in all from a net profit of $43k from my 4th account, I made a net profit of about $62k in two weeks on my 5th account :)

I have since started on my 6th practice account now. Of cos, i intend to practice as much as possible before dealing with real cash. 10000 hours? Let's do just that! :D As I write this entry, my current account has already increased by 20% profitability in the first 1 1/2 days.

What does all these mean to me? Well, for one, the money is but virtual. But what it has shown me is that if I had used real money, that would be the profits and losses i would have made. It is like a type of the future and vision that i have for my life!

You see, everyone has a gift or gifts dat God has placed in our hearts. We are given talents and abilities which are UNIQUE to our individual self. For me, I have been immensely blessed with musical talent, ability to hold a note, and other creative talents. And recently, i discovered a new talent trading on the forex markets. If anyone told me i could potentially make such an 'obscene' amount of money in a matter of weeks some 2 years back? I probably would regard the person as nutz. But I've experienced it :) And when you experience breakthrough like that? It is incredible.

God is true to His word. When He says that He is THE GOD who gives you the POWER to get wealth, HE REALLY MEANS IT ;) And you better believe it. Time to open up my mind, time to dream great dreams :)

The vision I have for my life has to do with financial freedom :) But I wanna go beyond just financial freedom for myself. I wanna use this talent for the kingdom :) Bible says that in the end times, the wealth of the wicked would transfer into the hands of the righteous. I raise all my limbs to that in agreement! I've seen it, i've experienced the possibility of it for my own life! What further prove do I need that God is true to His word? :)

In CHC we talk about building schools, hospitals etc etc.. Well won't it be beautiful to be able to fund such building projects eh?? HAha! Yeah i am dreaming BIG TIME :) But i know this is a picture of what is to be in the near future :)

Well, come next year, I will begin my year going back to 'school' to get myself a financial education. I will be learning from arguably Singapore's greatest trader yet, a guy by the name of Conrad Alvin Lim. A former recent bankrupt, he is now so rich, you wouldn't believe he was about 3/4 of a million in debt just a few years back :) And when a former bankrupt turned millionaire gives you financial advice and education, you better take it seriously. The only other person I know who came out of bankruptcy is our very own Jacelyn Tay, now very successful i her business as well :)  If God can turn the impossible into possible, just what on earth can He not do amen?

So in the meantime, I will be practicing and practicing and practicing and reading and researching and wat not. I am no professional trader, I am not even a quarter of where I'd ideally like to be, but i would like to get there some day soon :) To get there, I have to take concrete steps. There's this chinese proverb 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with the FIRST step'. Well, I've taken dat first step, but i know i gotta keep on walking in order to reach my destination. And along the way, i will fall, get bruised and cut for sure. But i can't give up if i hope to reach the finishing line :)

I hope this post has been inspiring to you the reader. Find the talents and abilities God has given you and put them to good use. And use it for His kingdom, for His glory. Nothing limits God, except you yourself ;) If you're willing, so is He. If you got mustard seed faith, you can certainly move mountains! God bless you and all the best with your dreams!

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Here's my profit and loss statement from igmarkets for my 5th account. Read from bottom up: