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Before I get into the real reason for this post, let me just say that automated news trades haven't been going as a lot of us expected. After 4 weeks, I've gained a total of 13 pips with a couple of economic releases left for tomorrow. Just the fact that I'm still in the black is enough to continue with automated trading though today was very disappointing. It seems like whether you were conservative, moderate, or aggressive, the results were similar; very little gain during the FOMC release. If an engine cannot capture a move like today, it's going to be tough to trust it in the future. It makes you realize more that there is no substitute for the human mind. Computers are fast but have no intelligence (artificial doesn't count.)
My Trade History and Goal & Performance are being kept up to date daily. In the past, everything was categorized by week but I have since changed this to by month. I feel that doing this will put less pressure on me each and every week. It gives me less of a sense of urgency. Before, if I had a bad week, it was like the end of the world. Now my "final" performance can be evaluated 12 times yearly instead of 52 times!
My goal right now is to profit 260 pips a month. This is not just an arbitrary number. This is a figure that I have calculated based on how much I need to make a year to sustain a living by trading 3-4 lot positions. It isn't set in stone that I have to trade 3 or 4 lots each and every time but it is a best effort at an estimate. I feel like if I can consistently profit 260 pips or more each and every month, I can do this full-time and for a living. I live in New York City so for some of you that have a lower cost of living, this figure could be much less. Read my post a while back titled, How Realistic Am I Being About Trading Full-Time. This explains more about this.
With the end of the month of June coming tomorrow, my goal of 260 pips will not be realized but I didn't start discretionary trading again until June 18th. Since this date, I have profited a total of 131 pips and $1250. I am quite satisfied with my trading over the last couple weeks but I have to remain disciplined no matter what happens. I'm obviously still learning a lot and have to expect that there will be many bumps on the way. I have been learning and trading Forex for almost a year now but the road is long and if I want to put it into the perspective of a formal education, I am a still a Freshman. My "GPA" certainly wasn't stellar but I learned a lot, had plenty of all-nighters, studied a lot, and certainly had heapings of stress. My motivation remains as I continue the journey into year 2 which is critical to success. I can't say that there haven't been times when I felt like giving up but in all honesty, being surrounded by so many other traders striving for the same goal has kept me going.
Happy Trading.
Forex Trading
June 2006
Learn Forex
trade the news
Hi Rich,
If you trade well, it can't be a problem to make 260 pips a month. Try to built up your account size and maybe within 2-3 years, you can trade up 20 standardl ots making awesome money. Based on your 260 pips/month, that would be $52000/month or $624000/year.
Good trading,
WimB) Hi Rich,
Forgot to ask, how expensive living in New York City? Can you give some figures.
Wim Wim, the cost of living is a lot because of rent and housing prices. Rent in NYC for a Studio apartment runs around $1600-$1800 (400 square feet) and a 1 bedroom is over $2000 a month. Ridiculous. The average 1 bedroom in NYC costs 1 million dollars. In New Jersey, houses are typically between $400,000 and $1,000,000. |
