Now It's Time to Make Some Money!

The account balance reads $100,655.18!

I did it. I finally got my account balance back in the positive. All it took was two trades this morning.

I'm still in "sell mode" on the EUR/USD, and sticking with the Bollinger Band two-touch strategy has worked well.

Not every trade is successful though. I lost sight of the RSI divergence, and I actually put in a sell trade yesterday evening when I should have opted out of trading at all. At that point, I was so close to reaching $100,000, I was devastated at taking a step back again.

I learned my lesson though and have since avoided that mistake.

Now I'm looking forward to earning some money!!

Approaching $100,000

No doubt I need to refine my exits and entries for this new strategy.

But even still, my account balance reads $99,736.76!

Will I make it to back to the start sometime today?

Let's see if I can avoid screwing this up ...

Building Wealth From Very Little

I hope to one day be wealthy. I'm not inclined to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I can't imagine dropping more than $100 on a dress. I don't dream of buying nice cars. Just can't see myself driving something luxurious through an In-N-Out.

But I do aspire to wealth because of the relative security of it. Figuring out how to get there from where I am has been frustrating.

So much of the information on finances is geared either toward guiding those out of debt and helping those will massive sums of money create more massive sums of money.

Don't get me wrong. Getting out of debt is crucial. I avoid debt like it's the plague. I legitimately fear my parents would disown me if I accrued anything more than $100 in debt. (They're big saving and "live beneath your means" kind of people.)

But at the moment, I'm in no serious danger of going into debt and I'm nowhere close to having massive amounts of money that can be invested in real estate, business ventures, etc.

So how do I begin building wealth with only $4,000 or so to my name? Many web users have posed this question on Bing, Yahoo Ask, etc. The only viable option put forth is to save money until you reach "the massive amounts of money" phase.

For someone like me, in the writing and editing business, it will take me until retirement to get there.

In my subtitle to the "Samantha Learns ... Forex" blog, I state that my objective is to supplement my (meager) income.

I'm beginning to rethink that objective.

Building wealth is important to me. I'm single, don't want to rely on a man or my parents for support, and I have dreams and goals (to be discussed later) that might require some steady cash flow.

It is with all that in mind that I pursue FOREX trading. Clearly, I will need to save some money (real money!) to get things going. But I hope and aspire to become comfortable enough with my trading strategy that I will be able to grow my meager savings into something substantial.

I once heard J.K. Rowling tell a group of college graduates that rock bottom is a great foundation on which to build your life. I'm nowhere near rock bottom, but I hope whatever foundation I'm laying now is good enough for the life I want.

A New Strategy--Bollinger Band Two Touch

Forget what I said about sticking to a strategy until it works. I'm into something new ... and I'm excited about it.

I'm still using the same indicators: RSI, Bollinger Bands, and the EMA 100.

Here's what I'm doing. On the 1-hour chart, if the price action is below the EMA 100, I prepare to go into what I call "sell mode." Then, I switch over to the 5-minute chart. When the price touches the lower Bollinger Band for the second time and the price and RSI are lower than when it crossed the first time, I place a sell order.

I pull out of the trade when there is an RSI divergence. If I anticipate being away from my computer, I place a "take profit" order at 15 pips below my entry price. My stop loss ("parachute") is 20 pips above my entry price.

We'll see how it goes ...

Almost Back to Even ... With the FOREX Account

My account balance now reads $99,049.35! That $100,000 is in reach.

I'm tempted to try a few short trades to see if I can inch my way forward. Patience is key though. I don't want excitement to overrun my strategy and send me further down into the hole.

Taking It to the Stocks

Tried the EMA breakout strategy with some hypothetical trades in the stock market.

I'm not losing hope, but so far I don't seem to have any winners.

I "purchased" JMBA at 2.02 this morning. It now sits at 2.01. I was hoping for another big move up. Everything about the setup looked so promising. On the day timeframe, the price crossed the 100 EMA, and it was hugging the upper Bollinger Band. Perhaps today was merely a correction from yesterday's big gain and tomorrow I'll wake up to some good news!

I also "purchased" a stock called CIGX. It had the same setup as JMBA, except the price was not hugging the upper Bollinger Band. I entered at 3.56, and it currently sits at 3.40. I go back and forth on what I should do with the stock. I'm not confident it's poised for huge breakout, so more than likely I place a sell order for a meager 2%-3% gain.

Almost Back to Even

I closed out of the EUR/USD shortly before 1 p.m. PST. I originally sold on Sunday evening, only to go deep in the hole before finally posting a gain. I added $2,000+ from that trade, which brings my balance to $99,844.57. Almost back to even!!

Looking at the various time frames, it's hard to tell if the EUR/USD will continue going down or whether it will have a rebound and then go down.

The Bollinger Bands are starting to chanel downward on the day time frame, which is a sight for sore eyes after the horizontal trend of the past week. I simply don't trade well in range.

I placed another sell (short) order for the EUR/USD. If it drops below its previously low of  1.2911, I'm in!