G'Day from Ozzie

[Ozzie]

I have moved from Sydney (Australia) to the San Diego in US.
I am a noob. I recently started a demo account and started trading and making my time more useful.

I would definitely learn a lot from this forum and the trading gurus.

Thanks

[Jim]

Hi Ozzie,

Welcome to the Trading Gurus community!

Given your recent places of residence, you're not by any chance a surfer are you?

Are you currently only demo trading manually, or are you looking into automated trading as well?

Cheers,

Jim

[Ozzie]

Hi Jim,
I used to surf but now I watch my children surf and body board.

I am trading manually at the moment using a demo account. I am about to open up a real account with FXCM for manual trading and then I will venture into the automated trading with Instaforex.

I find a combination of Slope Direction Line (1 hr) with MACD work well for an automate trading. Most likely I will use the Martingale with the SDL - adjusting it manually as I trade.

Any advise or thought is most welcome.

Ozzie

[Jim]

Hi Ozzie,

Fortunately I do still manage to get wet from time to time, although these days it's far more likely to be on my belly instead of stood up!

I know we talk about Martingale money management on here a fair bit, but only in terms of experimenting with it on a demo account. Learning about the pros and cons of different sorts of money management is a really good idea, but I certainly don't recommend using Martingale on a live account. Here's one good reason why not. That shows an account that starts off looking quite good for a month or two, but then blows up in spectacular fashion.

Particularly when you're starting out you need to use money management that ensures you can never blow your entire account, so that you can always "live to fight another day". The use of multiple currencies on that account disguises the tell tale Martingale equity curve somewhat, but it's good to learn how to recognize such things. Then make sure you avoid them!

Cheers,

Jim