Hi all,

I am new to forex trading. I made a deposit of $250 into a live account (after 1 month of forward testing) through forex.com. What happened next was strange..the open trade plummeted to -300 or so for a few days and was closed later. Can someone explain why?

I talked to the guys at forex.com and they said it was liquidated because of insufficient margin...can someone please explain what this means? I was trading with 0.1 lots.

Thanks.

P.S Can someone suggest a broker who doesn't close trades like this?

Did you not use a stop loss?? Did you get into a trend going in the wrong direction?? Yes there were some large trends recently! You should of been stopped out if you were headed in the wrong direction which would of preserved some of your capital to play again.

It sounds as though you went in wide eyed $$ hoping to get rich, but what so commonly happens, the forex market ate your money and had no mercy on you. Many a person has lost thousands doing the same thing. To trade takes wisdom, knowledge and patience to have multiple indicators to confirm a direction and timing to enter. Also, if news comes out, you must have downside protection (stoploss) to protect you in case of what-if situations, like what you experienced.

Sorry to hear about you trade!

Dave
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Hi, the EA I'm using does not use stoploss. In the description it says SL is built-in.

How long did you forward test this EA before going live with it? Did you make the EA, or did someone promise to you that it would work?

Sorry to hear you jumped in and got taken for a ride.

Does the ea end in .mq4 or .ex4? If it ends in .mq4, please post it and I will review how the ea is supposed to work, and probably its limitations.

Dave
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Sorry to hear about you loses.

But the problem here is the margin requirement.

I assume you've opened you account the minimun that Forex.com accepts and the leverage used was 200:1.

FOREX.com > Trade > Account Types

That means for every mini lot you've used $50 for margin.

FOREX.com > Support > Trading Handbook

If your traded pair (example EURUSD) has become against you 200 pips your account is dead ($50 margin + $200 pips lost)=$250.

Every broker would kill your trades if you have a margin call. Forex is not like futures. 0 margin = 0 money to trade.

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Dave - the EA does not let you view the source. The EA is at ForexAutopilot.com

The problem is that forex.com automatically closed the open trade when it was at -300 and below for a few days. Do you know of any brokers that won't close it, or close it at a much lower amount than 300?

Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it!

EDIT: So which is better, a higher margin or a lower margin? Forex.com gives 0.5%, and Alpari gives 1% and I'm trying to decide between the two.

Lolpie

You might dislike what I have to say but they are nothing short of the facts and you need a real decent dose of reality.

This industry is not a 'game' and although no doubt you were led to believe the EA/Forex itself might be the easy path to riches, the hard truth is...IT IS THE TOUGHEST BUCK YOU WILL EVER EARN.
This is a serious profession with powerful players that run with no emotion behind a blind price chart pushing money to and fro not giving a damn whether you are sad you lost your crummy $250.00.

You broke cardinal rules when opening an account and trading live in the first place and unless you stop right now and educate yourself it will happen all over.

1) Trading (Forex or ANY Financial instrument) requires education. Driving a car which is a million times simpler requires training and yet you don't even know the basics of Forex (by what you have stated)
2) You don't know what margin is.
3) You obviously have no idea how brokers work.
4) You NEVER trade with someone elses system....NEVER!!
5) After years when you have learned something, PERHAPS built/designed an EA, then you forward test it on DEMO for at least 3-6 months before going live.
6) You NEVER trade with money you can't afford to lose. You are upset from your loss therefore obviously can't afford to lose it which leads me to the next point.
7) The largest reason why 99% of people who attempt trading fail (yes wake up! 99%) is because of psychological factors and failure to control emotions. You are a babe here.
8) You have no idea of Money Management which will also kill your account quick smart. 0.1 lots for a $250.00 account was 5-10 times what it should have been. Micro lots - 0.01....but I guess you were looking for quick riches. Inverse is speedy way to poor house.

Hell, I could keep going but perhaps your fragile psyche may not take it.

Whatever you do, do not fund the account and start trading again until you have read at least 3 books on tech analysis, 2 books on Trading Psychology, 1 book about successful traders, watched the market for 1 year (full time), traded demo for 1 and even then I doubt your chance for success.

All the best.

Pilot

While I do appreciate your insight, I'm not liking your condescending comments ("fragile psyche").

Thanks

don't feel bad most if not all trades learn from their loss

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