Pilgrim of Babylon

Three weeks ago:

My collar is ruffled, my eyes are watery, and my head is spinning.

I’m at a loss. I’ve blown through $1700 in a week. Gone.

My account rapidly emptying further, trade after trade.

Now:

My ears are taking in the curious accent of Hector DeVille, a professional Currency Trader who has created a number of FX training programs available online. Hector Trader, his older program, has a comprehensive list of over 60 videos detailing an entire trading system.

A friend recommended his system, and I’ve been watching his video series for a few days now. Hector’s system is comprehensive, simple and easy to understand. However, I have yet to test his ideas in the field, although from looking at recent charts, I can definitely see what he is getting at. Over the coming weeks I will put it through the rigors and posting updates of my findings.

I’ve lost almost $1200 so far this week. Eek!

My trades have gone south, and been stopped out everytime just about. Getting desperate, I have turned like a frenzied gambler to fast minute by minute trades, with dangerously risky positions to try and recoup my losses.

I’ve managed to make a few hundred back, but I’m still down close to $800.

What am I taking from this? I’m realising I don’t have a clue. Twice now, my positions have been a few hundred up, and I have let them run, only to wake up the next day to the tardes completely wiped out. Do I take quick but small wins each day? Or do I hold my positions like I planned? The profits would be bigger, way bigger, yet my plans keep turning to ash.

Arghhh! But I also planned for this. I knew that it would take me a few thousand to get the hang of this. And I am definitely learning a lot about self control, breaking my own rules, recklessness, and also keeping a clear head and being present.

I’ll keep you posted.

For the next two weeks, I will be taking on Mission Critical status. That is, I will be applying Timothy Ferris’s Mission Critical time planning, wherein I only take on 1-2 items max per day, that are important, and not just urgent.

This is due to the overwhelming loss of power I seem to be having lately with no time. I seem to be busy but not productive. So I will be completing 1-2 productive items a day that really make a difference to my life. And then all the other urgent stuff…

Today’s Mission Critical:

I have started trading for real, putting $2000 into my eToro account. And I currently have around $1000 of that in active trades as I type this. I am playing to turn my $2000 to $4000 by next Friday 5 August.In my practice account to, I was up $450 also from 5 mins worth of trades last nite. Not bad. Not bad at all.

It’s been a while since I created some proper games, and so here, collated is what I am up to:

1. Building an online startup/filmmaking business.

2. Building an online eBook business.

3. Building an outsourced freelance business in graphic design, web design and copy writing using Ramit Sethi’s Earn 1K course.

4. Looking to buy an investment property in the next few months

5. Moving to Tokyo to live in late November teaching English.

6. Building a day-trading business to support my travels and rockstar adventures

——

It seems like a lot, and yes, I’m actually doing more including learning violin, completing the remaining 4 months of the Introduction Leaders Program with Landmark Education, finishing a Certificate IV in TESOL (English Teaching), as well as getting sleep in there somewhere.

I found a potential mentor today for my currency trading. She personally has amassed a small fortune and bought 14 investment properties from her part-time trading over the years. She also taught futures courses previously, so i’m keen to get learning. What I like most too, is that she mentioned she had a no bullsh*t, simple and systemised way of capturing profit after profit that speaks to me. As I am a bit tired of coming across Trading systems that require a thousand technical indicators to essentially guess if it is going up or down. I mean really. So this looks promising.

I also purchased a hardcopy of Tim Ferris’s Four Hour Work Week. I read this two years ago, and it blew my mind. However, while it transformed the way I see modern entrepreneurial pursuits, finance and life design, I haven’t properly followed the program in the book.

What I am taking on is adapting all of my existing businesses (with the exceptions of trading and my creative freelancing) to follow his Muse Model business model to a tee.

I’m also utilising Ferris’s friend Ramit Sethi’s Earn 1K course which is 8 weeks long (3 weeks in to it) to essentially build a profitable freelance business so I don’t have to work the next few months. This would free up more time everything else.

One concern though is that I will need to get a full-time job at some point to be loanable by the banks, as I am playing to have an investment property by December. I have a partner in a similar situation, and we both are setting up a joint venture with a property dealer, but I don’t wanna work 38+ hours a week with so much on. I’ve done it in my role as a project manager at an advertising studio, and I found I only had time for work and a bit extra. I am simply up to too much at the moment. But I am also playing to have it all, so any ideas or help would be appreciated.

Till tomorrow, stay classy San Diego!

Well, it’s about official. After recklessly trusting my finances with complete strangers for 5 days, I managed to turn $10,000 into $9112.46.

While this is a highly subjective experiment, I personally conclude that copying other traders is a treacherous and stupidly risky gambit.

I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but it appears I’m close to $2000 down after 4 days of letting complete strangers trade for me.

I’ve culled the lot.

Instead, I have chosen the top trader in each area, so the top trader this week, month, three, 6 and 12 months. Devoting a thousand dollars of money to each.

What I’m hoping to get from this, is that if i can find a few traders that are reasonably profitable over time, I can supplememnt my personal trading and copy around 10-30% of my funds to them, and to some extent, diversify my trading.

It’s risky, but this is an experiment afterall…

Not Happy Jan*.

*replace jan with one of the main and apparently profitable traders I am copying who has me down over $500 now. The same one from yesterday.

I am currently following 4 of the top ranked traders in the last month on OpenBook, and one of the highest ranked traders in the last week.

However as of going to bed last night, three of the four active traders were losing me money. Waking up this morning shows me that one has over $1200 of my paper money in a currency that is down over $500. Grrrrr.

In keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I am going to let this continue, in the hopes that this trader has a clue what they are doing going against the market so heavilly, and also to test just how risky trusting strangers with money in a market as dangerously volatile as the currencies markets are.

Okay, so as you can see, things aren’t going so good.

I’m currently down -$486.62, as one of the automated traders I am copying is long several losing positions. In English this means that I have several orders that currently are going against the direction of the market. These losses however are not locked in, and could swing back as profitable, at any time.

If this were real money, I probably would have closed the position out a little while ago as it has been bleeding losses all day.

In other news, I have bought Ramit Sethi’s Earn 1K program, and I am watching all the online modules to develop my own freelance and consultant services. I’ll keep you posted.

A friend and I are both competing this week using eToro’s online Forex Trading platform and their affiliate social networking site OpenBook. The man who makes the most in a week wins.

OpenBook has a new feature that allows you to setup automated trades that are linked to the highest performing traders on the site. This new feature means I can automatically copy their trades while I am away from the computer, and be playing hard and fast in the Markets.

While their are obvious risks to trusting someone else’s knowledge, especially a stranger, this is little different to that of many financial ‘professionals’. I can also limit the amount that is automatically traded, and alter the trade at any time.

Our mini competition starts today, Mon 18th, and will close this Saturday, 23rd.

I will not be trading personally, but will be relying entirely on the Copy function.

Opening Trading Amount $10,000.

I will update the tally each day till then. Game on.