Disheartened? Hmmmm....

(My son Harry, who walks,
runs and causes mischief)

It's a bit tough. I haven't been going long and already my bank is reduced to half.

The initial thought was, "screw this!" and the urge was to empty the account and never let thoughts of bet exchanges darken my door again. Then I remembered, how many things, that I had just started, was I an instant master at? Pretty much none.

I remember watching my little boy learning to walk. He spent most of the time teetering, stumbling and falling on his butt. If he had given up learning to walk, after hitting a few set backs, then then he wouldn't be running round, chasing the cats and generally causing mischief now. I want to be causing bet exchange mischief, so I need to get my head together and see what I have done wrong or just accept that I was unlucky. Some advice from the "New market Wizards" book was on looking to the long term. In the short term the market can turn against you but it's the overall position that you need to focus on. I'm going to focus on that.

I have decided that my current bank is my training bank, with the actual £100 to 100K starting after my honeymoon. That takes the pressure off and gives me a chance to determine my overall plan. One thing I am going to try, again influenced by the Market Wizards book, is to flip my mentality about trading around. I had been taking a risk when trades began to turn against me and giving them a few ticks lee-way and then panicking to get out, but as soon as I realised a small profit, I took it. In the short term this looked like it was working but short term evaluations can be misleading. i am going to try and be brave and aim to flip this around. Today I am going to bail out as soon as it looks like a loss could happen, aiming to get out even or take a tiny loss and let any profit potential ride. This may mean a number of scratch trades but the potential upside is a number of winners. Need to think about when to take profit when the opportunity arises, but that's a pleasant thing to think about.