First, I want to prove that this system works with real money in live market conditions.  Although some people may argue that this is almost like trading a demo account, I disagree.  Even having a small amount of money on the line is way more realistic than trading any demo account.

Second, I want to prove that beginners can start with a very small amount of money and only add more money when they are successful with the small account first.  This was Haji’s recommendation to beginners when I interviewed him and I think that it is very sound advice.  Starting small will be an integral part of my message on this blog.

Anyway, on the results.  It was a pretty good month…

January 2012 Results

The final result was +5.39% on the month. Yes, this will not make me rich, but it is a great start.  If you want to see all of my trades in this account in (almost) real time, check out my online Trading Report on MyFxBook.

I feel that I did a really good job of being patient and letting the trades come to me.  On the other hand, I did miss a couple of trade setups that would have been profitable.  But overall, I’m happy with the performance.

How was your trading in January?  Feel free to leave links to your trading reports on MyFxBook/MT4i, your YouTube trade reviews or your blog posts.  Let me know in the comments below…

I already have enough Viagra, thank you very much…I don’t need those links.

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I met Haji Warithu through a Forex trading course that we both went through and until this interview, I had only contacted him via email.  We have kept in touch here and there over the years and in a pretty short amount of time, he has managed to become a professional independent Forex Trader.

Before becoming a pro trader, Haji worked on an LNG (liquified natural gas) ship and was out to sea for months at a time.  Like many independent traders, he wanted to spend more time with has family and have more control of his life.

Haji lives in Brunei, so I had to be up a little early in the morning to get this interview, but it was totally worth it.  Haji will be coming out with a book on how to become a successful Forex Trader, so keep an eye out for that.  I will review it here as soon as it becomes available.

Many thanks to Haji to taking the time out to speak with me.  If you want to see what he is trading, check out his blog.

This is my first podcast and I already have a few more pro traders lined up, so stay tuned for the next episodes! I did this interview on Skype and the connection wasn’t the best, so there are pauses at times, but it is a great look at what it takes to trade for a living.

Let me know what you think.  If you know of a professional independent trader that you would like to see interviewed, please let me know in the comments below.

In this episode:

• The mentor that Haji attributes most of his success to.
• How he much money he believes you need to get started in Forex.
• What to look for when choosing an Islamic broker.
• The routine that he goes through to start his trading day.
• What Haji does while he is waiting for his trades to setup that prevents him from taking bad trades.
• His experience with teaching students and why he doesn’t do it anymore.
• We talk a little about his upcoming book and how he manages to find time to write it.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Click here to subscribe via iTunes

Click here to subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed)

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Since I was on the freeway, I could not turn around.  I had to keep going.

Combine that with the speed and the fact that I was on a motorcycle and that made it almost impossible to take a picture of…it was elusive.  Eventually, I saw it enough times that I had to get a picture of it, just because it was so weird.   So I stalked it and here is the picture:

It looks a lot bigger in real life!

Consistent trading profits are also elusive.  Yes, that is a huge stretch…trying to connect a giant stuffed panda to Forex trading.  But I’m trying…

Anyway, here is the trade:

The final result was a +0.61% on this trade.  To see all of my trades in (almost) real time, check out my trading log and click on the full report.

There is a lot of confusion out there amongst beginners not only about risk, but how leverage and interest factor into the calculation.

Needless to say, these forum posts end up being super long threads about how to calculate your leverage, then how to calculate your risk and some people even throw in an interest rollover calculation into the mix just to show you how smart they are.

Quite frankly, it isn’t that complicated.  I feel bad for the beginners who have to read through these long, drawn out forum posts when the solution is very simple.  If you are just getting started in Forex, here is how to calculate risk in Forex.

Easy, right?  I’m all about making things as simple as possible.

I’m using Oanda as an example because they are my broker, I do not get paid to promote them.  Check to see if your broker has a similar risk calculation on the order screen.  If not, you may consider switching to a broker that does.

The great thing is that you can try out demo accounts from almost all of the brokers out there and see how you like their platform.  So before you switch or even before you deposit real money, start demo trading and figure out which broker works best for you.

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If you have never heard of this movie, I would highly recommend that you check it out on Netflix.  I mentioned it before, but I never posted the video.  Or if you like to kick it old school, get the DVD.  I don’t find it inspirational because I want to do something crazy like this.  I find it inspirational because it shows us how far you can really take your passion.

Check out the trailer:

How far can we take our trading?  What is really possible?

Well, I was definitely walking the tightrope on this trade.  Here is the analysis:

The final result was a +1.03% gain on the trade.  As always, this was a strategy that was backtested and demo tested before ever risking real money.  You can check out the history of the process here.  The price action looked good and I should have let the final position run!  As I write this, I would have been up 252 pips, if I held on.

Oh well, this is why this blog is not called “Duh, Winning”.

But that’s not the right way to think.  I’m not going to should all over myself.  Lesson learned…bring on that next trade!

Hope you are trading well!

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Photo Credit

But I don’t feel too bad.  I have seen other trade reviews on the internet and most of them are equally as lame.  So I got to thinking…how can I actually make them interesting to read?  This is my first crack at it…

The Trade

Of course, since I am only trading the EURUSD Wallaby at the moment, that is what I traded.  Here is the video review.  It is short, so stay awake because there is a funny video after the trade review.

The final result was a +1.14% gain on the account.  To see the complete process of how I started trading the Wallaby, check out the Wallaby thread.  To see my complete trading results for the Wallaby going back to December of last year, view my trading record on MyFxBook.

I am currently trading live, but in a small account that was started with $100.  I am doing this to establish a real track record and demonstrate to beginners that they can start with very little money and take very little risk.

The Prank

What is the best way to get back at your “buddy” on the trading floor?  Find out in this video:

What do you think?  Does something like this make my trade reviews more interesting?  Let me know by leaving a comment below.

The reason that there are so many scams in this market is because Forex was unregulated for a long time.  Until very recently, you could manage other people’s money in the Forex market without a license.  Think about those possibilities.

Anyway, there is a certain individual that came up on my radar recently that is a perfect example of how Forex scams are set up.  Hopefully this post will help beginners avoid such unscrupulous individuals.

For people who take things literally, I’m not actually telling you to do this.  I hate people like this!  The following is my way of making fun of how badly some of these scams are set up.

Step 1: Create a fake name and back story

The first thing that you have to do is create a believable name and compelling life story.  In this case, I came across a “person” named Adrian Shiroma.  Luckily for Adrian, he is Japanese/Spanish, so most English speakers cannot understand his website enough to realize that it is BS.  I’m not even going to give the website the gratification of a direct link, so you can Google the name if you want to check it out.

Step 2: Setup a free blog

Yes, if you want to scam people out of millions of dollars, there is no need to spend $100 and get a real domain name and website hosting.  Just setup a free blog on Blogger or WordPress.  Nobody will know the difference.  If you Googled the name, you will see the blog that I am talking about.  He even uses a free Hotmail email account.

In all fairness, there was a very small chance that he is a real person, so I sent him an email.  After all, I have been known to be wrong in the past.  So this is what I said…

No surprise, but I didn’t get a reply.  Probably because he speaks Spanish…yeah right!

There is a “track record” on his homepage going back to November 2009.  But if you actually go back through his blog posts, they only show records going back to March 2011.  That is half-assing at it’s best.

The actual currency pair and prices are mysteriously blocked out and somehow the account always starts with $30,000 in it.

Hmmm….

In addition, there are is no account name or number on the statements that are posted.  It looks like a random report from Metatrader that could have been done in a demo account.

Step 3: Create buzz

Now go out and spam as many Forex blogs as possible.  Here are the comments that were left on my blog:

I left out the email address and IP addresses because I actually give a shit about privacy.  However, they were all from the same email and IP address.  But they were clever and used different names.  Important point there, be sure you are taking notes.

When looking around for proof that he won the Traders Marathon, I couldn’t find it.  No surprise there either.  Great idea though.

In addition, if you Google Adrian Shiroma, there are a bunch of “interviews” on different websites like Baby Pips and Forex Banks.  Well, actually it is the same interview, posted in different places.  Another key point, get the maximum mileage from your crappy broken-English interviews.

One funny thing is that if you look on his blog, he spams his own blog!  There are multiple comments that are exactly the same.

Apparently he had some videos too, but most have been taken down.  That is one area that you can improve on.  Be sure to make quality videos.

However, I did find one on YouTube and it is pretty funny.  I don’t know Japanese (in spite of my name and 6 years of Japanese School) or Spanish, but I’m pretty sure that she never says Shiroma at any time in the “broadcast.”  Look carefully at the subtitles…you will see Adrian Shiroma come up a couple of times, but she says “Yamanaka.”

The final thing to look for in the video is at about 0:53.  The name Adrian Shiroma comes up with the Japanese characters under it, but they are wrong.  If you do a quick search for the Kanji, this is what Shiroma should look like.  Hmm….

Step 4: Take the money

Now, this is the easy part.  Just get them to send you money.

I’m not exactly sure how he does it because I never got that far, but I’m sure it is pretty easy.

There you have it!  That is all it takes.  Pretty sad huh?

Why I posted this

Ordinarily, I would just ignore the spam comments on my blog.  But in this case, the scammers did put in a little effort into this, so I want this to show up in Google alongside the name.  Actually, I want this post to outrank him for his own name!

Of course, experienced traders will recognize this as a scam right off the bat.  But beginners may fall for it, so…

Avoid Adrian Shiroma!

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Photo: Matt From London via Flickr Creative Commons

Well, I didn’t have to wait long to get a trade setup this year.  Another trade setup in the Wallaby and I took it.  This trade was a little different from other Wallaby trades in that I actually added to the position because of what I saw.

Ordinarily, I would have called that gambling, but in this case, I had a really good reason based on the price action.  This raised the risk to more that my usual 1%, but not by much.

Enough writing….here is the video:

Results

The final result of this trade was a +2.15% gain on the trade.  To see all of my Wallaby trades since December 2011, check out my MyFxBook page. I have gone back to trading real money, but in a very small account.  This is to get around any potential demo trading restrictions and I am going to use this as example to beginning traders on how to get started.

If you want to see how I was doing before this, check out this post, where I show every single one of my demo trades.

I’m going to start my verifiable track record this year and stick to it.  Luckily, websites like MyFxBook make it easy to do.  Check out my tutorial on how to get started.  It is totally free to use.

Stay tuned for my goals in the next post…

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