Determination

I went to a seminar back in November with the intention of learning to trade the foreign exchange market. I had heard that it is easy. So far, the only thing that's been really easy for me is losing money. Not big chunks, but small ones - $7 here, $20 there. But they add up. The good news is, I'm not playing with real money. It's a "practice" account. However, practice only makes perfect when you know what you're doing wrong. Right now, I'm experiencing a great deal of frustration because I'm not getting it right. I keep getting in on the wrong side - not because I clicked the wrong button, but because I thought it was going to go up and it went down or I thought it was going to go down and it went up. To make it even worse, Mark has been dabbling in the practice account, too. He made $500 on a $200 investment his first week. But I can't seem to leave him alone. I look over his shoulder and explain to him why it is a bad trade and convince him to get out of that one and go with a different one - where he subsequently loses money, just like me. (Of course, if he hadn't followed my advice, he would have made a nice profit.) At this stage, he's told me to leave him and his trades alone - and who could blame him?

I don't know why this is proving so difficult. I can read charts. On Tuesday I entered an equities trade that I sold today for a 10% profit. Pretty good for three days! So why the currency charts are proving so difficult for me is a bit of a mystery. I was so ticked off at myself yesterday evening over my inability to get it right that I told Mark I wasn't going to trade it today - I thought I'd stick to something I was competent at, like laundry.

But sometime during the night I had an epiphany. There are other people who are trading forex successfully and some of them are not especially bright. If they can get it, so can I. So there.

I have a new plan of attack. I am going to focus on only one currency (at least until I get the hang of it). I am going to study those charts and study them some more. I am going to email my mentor and see what suggestions he has. I understand that it is about probabilities not certainties and once I can interpret the charts, I'll have a better handle on what the probabilities are. I'll let you know how it goes.