Financial Independence Trading Currencies

How We Found My Way To Financial Independence Trading Currencies

It all started when I was doing nothing one night and I got on the internet looking around for anything interesting to read. Then I saw one of those little blue ads, which we all know now are from Google. That’s how long I have been doing this; there wasn’t even a Google then. So sad, not that there wasn’t a Google, but how long I have been on the computer looking for something appealing to do!

The advertisement said something like; “How I Make $50,000 A Month.” First, I thought it was a joke or just one more “Get Rich Quick Scream,” but I clinked on it anyway. That was the start of this tremendous adventure that can tear your heart out at one moment and make you feel like you’re the smartest person in the world five minutes latter.

The mouse click of the advertisement takes me to a site offering automated Forex Trading Systems for sale. I read their sales pitch and I will never forget what is said, “Just Turn Your Computer On and Plug in our System and go Play Golf and we will Make you Rich.” It sounded great, but I knew there was no way I could buy a piece of software for $100 and it was going to make me rich. But, the supposedly intelligent fellow I am I did it anyway.

The first few days went great. I forget the actual amounts I made, but it was something between $100 and $150 a day for the first three days. Then day four came and I lost $500 which wiped out all of my winnings and put me in the red. Enough of this I said to myself, if I want to really make money I need to find out what I am doing. Then I started searching the internet for free currency trading training tools.

The entire time I was reading everything I could get my hands on in the back of my mind I never forgot that the software did do a few things great. One was that it collected huge amounts of data, which I could never have done myself. Second, it sorted through that data and provided me specific information based on its initial programming. Third, it allowed me to tweak the program for what I wanted to see and turn the automated trading off.

When I first start searching the internet for free information relating to Forex trading for profits I found out there is not very much of it. Then I hit the mother-load. I keep noticing during my search that all the brokerage firms offer you free a free education on currency trading and a free demo account when you fill out their application for an account. I tried the first one and I did not have to deposit any money to receive the free educational material as well as the demo account. I tried a second one, and then a third one and found out they all worked that way.

I signed up for four of them and read everything they had. By the time I got to the fourth one I realized I was not getting very much more new information. They were just rehashing what I read at the previous sites. But, at least now I know what I am doing, or I thought I did. The next thing I did was I starting messing around with the demo accounts. And the same thing would happen sooner or later. I would do fine for a while making money and then I would crash and burn going broke time after time.

Then a revelation hits me one morning while I am reading the newspaper. I read a story about Japan’s economy and realize that was why the trade I made two days ago went bad. This was my first big turning point and a huge tip for those of you that ever read this short story. My newspaper had it two days after it happened, which does not help me at all. I check the records on my demo account and I able to determine what time the story was released. Because the Yen, started to weaken although the trend line from the software informed me it should getting stronger.


Anybody that has read the paper knows that all of the newspapers subscribe to wire services like the AP or Reuters. I do a search for Reuters because I wanted to keep their site up all the time and watch the news in the business section as it came up. After a day or two of doing this I notice a button for a RSS feed. I did not have a clue what that was, but I put the mouse on it and click it anyway. Wow, the “Holy Grail” of information for FREE. I could not believe it. What a RSS feed is a system where you receive continues information for free at the same time it is going across the wires to the newspapers. They will send to your computer after you sign up for it. Not only that, I am able to subscribe to the channel I want. Just like a newspaper that has different sections, such as; local new, world new, business, or sports Reuters offers you the same thing in a channel. I sign up for the business RSS feed. Finally, now I am starting to get somewhere.

I feel a lot more confident now and it is back to the demo account, again! I am not going to invest any more money until I am sure I can make money. Now I have three screens up constantly, the demo account from the brokerage firm, the software which is based on currency trends and the Reuters RSS feed from the business section. I keep playing with it and now instead of losing a load of money I am only losing a small portion. I am getting closer to where I want to be. But I am still losing money and I need to know why this is happening? I am never going to get where I want to go, which is quitting my job and telling my boss to stuff it if I can’t make money doing this.

Every time I go to bed I can’t sleep because I am now obsessed with be able to make money trading currencies. I just keep thinking about why I can’t make a profit at this. I finally decide to purchase a comprehensive currency training class online for a few hundred bucks. After all, I tell myself you can make that up in one trade. I take the class and I realize that all the free education I received from the brokerage firms, while it was great, I only received the equivalent of a high school degree in Forex trading and the online course really increased the level of training and I equated it to a college degree in currency trading.

Again, back to the demo account and I know now that I am going to start winning this time for sure. Finally I am able to start making real money, but no now I am just breaking even. WHY, WHY, WHY? I remember something they mentioned in the class quite a few times, “Trading Signals.” The first software I bought was programmed around trends, it other words which way has a currency been moving. After I bought the first software and started looking around for free educational information I noticed there was other software programmed specifically for trading signals. A software based on trading signal system sends you a notice instantly as soon as it is aware of what has been programmed into the software as its basis for signals has changed. By now, that is it; I am going to win at this I don’t care what I have to do. There goes another $100 bucks when I buy a piece of software for trading signals.

Back to the demo account again, one more time, will it never end? Now I have four screens up, if you can believe it. I have the two software systems based on trends and signals, the Reuters RSS feed and the demo account. I have so much information coming at me constantly I am starting to feel like a computer myself. After a while I get used to it and it is really not that tough.

My trend software is telling me which way a currency has been moving and my signal software is telling me every time something starts to change. I quickly find out I need to adjust the signal software down, because it is sending out so many signals with every little change in the market that it is driving me crazy. After I make that adjustment the signals slow down and I am getting fewer of them. As soon as I get a new signal from the software on a currency I check Reuters to see if they have news feed for that particular country.

At this point I realize I can’t concentrate on every currency that is traded and I need to narrow it down. I adjust the software to only process information on the US Dollar, the EURO, the Pound and the Yen. My information overload is decreasing as is my tension level. But, I am still not where I want to be. Now is when I start making a little money, but not enough. I am so close and of course I can’t sleep, it is driving me crazy.

What else can I do? Next I start playing around with my Stop-Loss (SL) and Take-Profit (TP) percentages when I enter a trade. I might want a profit of 100% (your never going to get 100%, don’t even think about it, this is just an example,) so I would put my SL at 50%. Or if I set my TP at 20% I might set the SL at 10%, 12% or 5%, whatever, you get the idea. Don’t worry if you don’t know what I am talking about, when you set up your demo account you will understand. This was finally the turning point; I am really starting to make good money with the demo account. Tomorrow the BIG TIME BABY, the real money account.

I don’t even want to tell you what I do next, I really could not be this stupid, but I am. I search the internet for a brokerage firm that has really low Pip’s which is how the brokerage firms make’s money. In stead of paying them a commission on each trade you pay them a percentage of your trade. The higher the Pip rate the higher the commission. My demo account worked great, I have no idea why I changed. I set up my account with the new broker and fund it with $10,000. After a week I am up $3,000, not so bad. And then the big bang hits, where their stinking server crashes for fifteen minutes while I am trying to get out of a losing trade. I was only down $200 when I wanted out. By the time the blasted server gets rebooted I am down $5,000. What an expensive lesson, I really could not be that dumb and head back to my broker where I had the demo account. I never once had the server crash on me and after I returned I never looked back from there.

That’s my story. The end! This is how I did it. I have never been able to make $50,000 a month like the first advertisement said I could. But, I have made enough to tell my boss to shove it and trade Forex for a living. Of course I learned a few other things along the way, like only trading when the markets at the most active and a few other little tricks. But, if you do what I did and refuse to give up, anybody with a reasonable intelligence can do it.

One really important suggestion to part you with and that is if you noticed I did not start trying to trade with real money until I was successful with the demo account. I think this is one of the most important factors of why I made it. It allowed to practice, learn and develop my own trading style until I really felt there was no way I was not going to make and did not feel the pressure of losing money that I would of felt had it been my own money.

Author : Willaim R Alheim Jr