The story that taught me how to trade
Gagik Gevorgyan, 27 years old, Armenia. Since 2004 has been managing investor accounts. Prefers working with futures.
Рассказ в рамках конкурса «A day in the life of a trader«
It was night, 4:00 a.m., I was sitting in front of my monitor, intently watching the price in the ID System, and it all started when I opened 3 lots deal on euro/dollar.
Сразу скажу, толкнула меня к этому моя интуиция. Депозит был на грани потери; плохо было и то, что я находился в интернет клубе аж с 10:00 утра и не ел нечего. В клубе остались я и оператор – все посетители давно ушли. Состояние было ужасное — я не понимал, что происходит со мной, единственное, о чем я думал, это о своей ошибке, которую так внезапно совершил. Я без основания открыл крупную сделку. Хотя в первые минуты я пошел в плюс, но когда цена показала убыток в размере спреда, то я не осмелился закрывать его. Что-то остановило меня, и теперь мой убыток не -120$, а целых -4.000$, а ведь мой депозит был всего 5200$.
At one point I decided to leave the transaction and go home, as I did not feel well. Gathering all my strength, I closed the terminal, got up from the chair, went to the operator, paid almost 30$ and went home. How I got there, I do not remember, in the morning, when I opened my eyes, it was already 12:00.
It seemed like it was all a dream, and I wanted to sleep more to dull my senses, but I couldn't. I got up and realized that I wasn't sleeping in my bed, but in the living room on the couch.
After cleaning myself up, I went back to the internet club. There was already a young guy sitting in my seat, and I asked him to change seats and give me way. As I clicked on the dollar icon (the one the ID System had), I prayed that all would be well and that the price would return to its place. The tension was so great that when the terminal was open, I covered the quotes, the chart and the balance with an A4 sheet, so as not to see the result at once. When I dared, I started to slowly open the balance line...
At first I found that my balance was the same as what I had left the night before. The first thing I thought about was that I was still at a loss. I continued to open, and when I saw the minus sign, my whole body began to shake. Finally, I could not stand it and tore off the sheet from the screen, which said "-220$". I have instantly closed the transaction, after that I sat for a long time and could not do anything.
A little later I got up, went to the operator, paid for the time used, went home and went to bed. After that, I did not go near the terminal and Haven't traded in 4 months.
It was the worst day of my career as a trader!
After that incident, I vowed never again to open a trade without a valid reason, not to open a trade more than 1% of the account, vowed to always use protective stop orders.
Со временем я понял одну истину: не надо торопиться в торговле, это было моей самой большой ошибкой — я хотел сразу и много заработать, я играл без стоп-приказов, не следил за своим здоровьем, садился перед экраном в любом настроении.
It could have ended with the loss of the deposit. I hope that other traders will learn a lesson from my story and not repeat my mistakes. Take care of yourself, your health, your mood, always play with a protective stop, trade with the minimum lot and never, never risk more than 1% of deposit in one trade.