Investing & Financing: Forex Trading

Are there any forex traders around here?

I've been learning the art for about a year and finally took the plunge and went live ready for 2007.

So far I'm doing quite well and it's been a good few months. I have strict rules that I find sooo difficult to stick to, but I am trying! The hardest thing I've found so far is to not be in a trade! I am extremely guilty of over trading but I guess I have been quite lucky so far!

What are your experiences? Would be great to hear from other members who might be trading forex. It's impossible to talk to people about it on most trading forums, but I get the feeling YGG members are much friendlier.

I have mainly been trading GBP/JPY simply because it seems to work with my strategy, and when going long it yields good interest.

I do hold positions overnight quite often, and am currently holding a long position over the weekend. It does depend on the situation though, if it looks like it's getting ready to reverse then I will close it rather than take the risk.

My strategy is quite a simple one. I look at the daily trend and will only trade in that direction. I then look at the hourly chart along with a stochastic and use that to determine my entry point.

The exit strategy is something I haven't really perfected yet, and have lost quite a few pips simply because I didn't know when to get out. I have been using a 3 hour chart with a parabolic SAR to place my stop loss, so to exit my trades I just wait until my stop loss gets hit.

I know there must be a better way to get out, but that's something I will keep trying to discover.

I was doing amazingly well with the practice account so just had to go for it! The transition was a million times harder than I ever thought it was going to be!

As soon as real money is at risk your whole game changes, strategy goes out the window, patience flies away and you really do have to work hard just to stop yourself making silly decisions.

Thankfully I'm past that phase now and no longer let my emotions do the trading.

I wouldn't like to automate it, sure it would take out the stress and psychological factors but I still like to be in control, or at least think I'm in control lol.

Some times going against the strategy can be a good thing, yesterday for example, I closed my trade as soon as I saw the reversal start whereas if I had stuck to my normal strategy, I would have still made an extremely good profit, but it would have been 150 pips less than what I actually took.

I think I'm slowly getting there with my exit strategy!