The Last Account

This is my trading journal for my last account. I have been active in the forex market off and on since 2006 and have lost at least 34,000 USD along the way destroying 7 accounts and wasting money on "education" and trading systems. I now have about 2,000 dollars in an account and it is my last. If I destroy this account I am out forever.
I am keeping this journal to give myself accountability. The reason I am so open about numbers and past failures is because I see no reason to lie about it. Many people have lied to me over the years about their skills and accounts. Im not going to be that guy. Poor money management in the past is the major contributor to my dead accounts. That combined with over leveraging and chasing other peoples systems.
The way I trade now is based off price action and my evaluation of other traders decisions. I am looking for mistakes made by others and I want their stops being run to drive my trades to profit.
If I bleed this account dry then at least you all will get some entertainment and a good example of "how not to trade".
If I do well.... Ill cross that bridge if I get there.

starting account balance for today:$ 2,138
profit so far: 6.00

Good luck to you man and hopefully you will make it through safely!

thanks, appreciate the support.

Done trading for the day already, due to work.
final account balance:$ 2,162
Off to a good start.

This is my trade from this morning. I had only an hour so I only took one trade. I traded against the current trend because I saw the momentum fading and a good spot to catch late comers that were shorting the market and trade against them. I made 5.00 on the trade.

Price was testing the edge of or resistance, the momentum on the approach was strong but it failed. Ending account balance $2,134

no one seems to be asking the important question :

why will, or should, this time be any different?

you mention you are looking to run into stops and whatnot, but have you done any testing (if that is even possible for your specific strategy) to see if you have a chance of making profits?

"Poor money management in the past is the major contributor to my dead accounts. That combined with over leveraging and chasing other peoples systems.
The way I trade now is based off price action and my evaluation of other traders decisions. I am looking for mistakes made by others and I want their stops being run to drive my trades to profit."


I wish you the best mate - hope you stay in the game. You mention a couple of things that you consider has contributed to your dead accounts in the past, but you didn't mention any weaknesses in your methodology.

May i ask that you outline the specifics of your strategy, and that if you don't have a more detailed outline of your strategy than you provided, then that may be a major contributor to your dead accounts.

May i suggest you don't take another trade until you have your more detailed plan outlined in this thread. I would alos suggest that you can't take a trade based on 'the mistakes of others'. This is unquantifiable subjective nebulous waffle that won't make you money in the real world.

Maybe a couple of rules you could give yourself as part of 'avoiding going bust' is that you won't take discretionary trades or counter-trend trades.

It appears to me you are trying to trade without sticking to a discernible and objective edge - if that is the case - of course you haven't started making money yet.

Come on man - you can do this!!!!

I appreciate the contributions and the questions. Very good points made. The one defining factor that makes this last stand very much different from the rest is the money management. I will not risk more than 1% of my account on any trade. Over leveraging in the past and large risk were definitely my undoing.
I felt the temptation this morning when I spotted a setup that "I was sure would run into profit." It turned out to be a loosing trade, had I overleveraged the trade I would be hurting much worse now.

Concerning the trading methodology I am definitely using a discretionary approach that cannot be back tested or tweaked like a system.
Some would call this foolish, I have had very bad experiences trying to duplicate others "systems" in the past so basically this is all I have left.
I will try to better define my current methodology so it is apparent.

I start with a macro look at a currency pair, the daily chart, then the four hour, 1 hour, 15 min etc.
I trade with the 1 and 5 min chart.

I look at momentum in the price, is price chopping back and forth, trending, and how fast is it all happening.
more to follow

Once I have a top down look at the market I create a bias for future market direction, and look for movement in the opposite direction to loose momentum, then I enter in the direction of my market bias.
To give myself a bias I examine
1 the current trend and its strength
2 is support and resistance close by
3 watch breakouts for failure... or retest.

Three trades this morning.
1 loss- breakout failed
2 wins quick short, went long when momentum came back in the market towards the trend

end of the day up $5.90

-6.90 loss
simple pull back trade

stopped out

the entry was a little late on this one but price was indicating up.

Monday morning 6:30 am in the U.K.
The eur/usd made a massive retracement during the night and is now interacting with major support. I went long near support where I could reasonably afford a stop loss.

good trade

Just wanted to display the figures of last weeks trades along with the accompanying data:

Total Trades Taken: 13
Wins: 4
Losses: 9
Loss in Dollars: -34.83
Loss as a percentage of the account: -1.6%
average win: 11.51
average loss: -8.98
Average trading time per day: 1hr
days traded for the week: 5