Everything to Nothing to get Everything?

Hello, everyone. I thought I would start a trade journal for anyone to follow. I will post my trades here with charts along with a "mindset" of either why I opened that particular trade and what I expect out of it.

My thread is titled the way it is because I lost everything in the 2008 recession after being laid off (didn't trade then). About 2013, things finally began to look up and I want to see where it takes me.

My interest in forex occurred as a quest to learn how to trade stocks. I was had no money to hang out as a student, I out of curiosity wanted to see if there was a "way" the stock market could have given signals before it tanked the way it did. Some people profited massively shorting stocks so I thought clues could be found and possibly I could avoiding loosing everything as I did in 2008. I was referred to babypips and instead of going into stocks, I decided to do forex.

I am a manual trader with a strict focus on S&R trading on the lower TF using but make use higher TF trends as a guide. I do pay attention to the news as well but those are skeptical entries. I got the rate change right for AUD (down to 2%) but not on the chart, haha. I have a small live account with money I can afford to gamble with.

My journal isn't to seek correct trades but to learn how to learn to "cap" my losses. Strange but its what I need to work on so here we go! So most of my time is studying when I should "get out" of a trade or when I should "cut" my losses.

I had a huge loss a day or two ago so the goal is to recover it first.

The best feeling in my timezone is getting the trailing stop loss going in your favor at bedtime. Even if I am stopped out... its fine. Some profit is better than none!

Aud/Usd M15. I run into this issue too many times. The chances of it going down to my target seems likely but a retrace will likely occur and might get too close to my trailing sl. Should I let the winning trade continue and risk the sl being hit? Should I close my short and open a "tight" trailing long? Most of my winning trades run into this situation. After I learn how to "cut" my losses properly... this is my next area to work on.

Made some changes. I used the hourly to define my entry. Now the 4hr TF seems to be bearing so I extended my tp. I also tightened my sl in case if its it sharply retraces up. If it retraces and breaks the resistance, it will have room to retrace, so I want to protect what I earned.

I do hope that retrace occurs about the "s2" support level instead of the "s1" resistance level.

I re entered short earlier this evening. So far so good but I suspect a possible retrace for tonight. My sl is in effect so I rather just leave it (locked profits vs opening a new trade). Possibly it can provide a buffer for the retrace before going down some more. The 4HR just entered bear territory so its allowing me to make a risk of loosing my pips.

I am back. I had to rethink how I go about my losses. I spent the few months researching other strategies and even though they are promising, I come back to my own simply because it feels "natural" to me. So the way I will handle losses is that I will simply cut any trade that goes -50. It will be simple as that.

So let me re-start my quest....

USD/JPY

My interest in forex occurred as a quest to learn how to trade stocks. I was had no money to hang out as a student, I out of curiosity wanted to see if there was a "way" the stock market could have given signals before it tanked the way it did. Some people profited massively shorting stocks so I thought clues could be found and possibly I could avoiding loosing everything as I did in 2008. I was referred to babypips and instead of going into stocks, I decided to do forex.