I have been wanting to trade forex as there are a lot of potentials in this market.  I enrolled online, read articles, and basically got familiarized on how to trade currencies.  I was searching for a group (on FB) where people discuss forex trading but did not see any group.  I wanted to ask if there are brokers that are based in the Philippines because all the brokers I saw have foreign bank accounts and depositing funds should be made thru wire transfer or credit card.

I tried demo accounts with two online brokers.  With the second one, I tried opening a real account and funded it using my credit card.

So, here’s my first day of trading real money.

Yes, I lost dollars on my first day.  But this taught me valuable lessons in trading.

Key Takeaways:

1. Start small

Start with the smallest volume that you can trade so that you will only lose small amount. But you will also have small profit.  Not bad for a beginner.  I started trading with 0.05 lot then tried 0.01 after.

2.  Patience is a virtue

Do not close the order just because it’s been so long and you are not gaining any profit.  Yeah, guilty there.  So when my balance has started to deplete, I tried this technique of waiting for my order to gain profit.  Well, the platform has rules so I got two margin calls and my orders were closed by the system at a loss.

3.  Protect your margin

What is a margin? As per FXCM, they define margin as:

“Margin can be thought of as a good faith deposit required to maintain open positions. This is not a fee or a transaction cost, it is simply a portion of your account equity set aside and allocated as a margin deposit. Margin requirements (per 1k lot) are determined by taking a percentage of the notional trade size plus a small cushion. A cushion is added to help alleviate daily/weekly fluctuations. See FXCM’sMargin Requirements.

Trading on margin can both positively and negatively affect your trading experience as both profits and losses can be dramatically amplified.”

So, currently, I have an open order at a loss and there are times that I get alerts on my margin.  Meaning, my balance is decreasing because of the possible loss.  So what I do, I open another order and make sure it will gain profit so that my margin will be protected by adding profit to my balance/equity.

There you go. I may have lost a lot today but this will not discourage me from trading currencies.  Just hoping for the best. 🙂