Kim Krompass, founder of Price Action Traders Institute, recently sent out an email asking traders “Why do you trade forex?”  I didn’t respond to her email because I believed (correctly) that she was compiling statistical results, and my answer wouldn’t fit into any statistical “buckets”.  But, more importantly, I didn’t respond because my answer was too complicated to write down in a few sentences.

Even now, after a summer hiatus and as we prepare to start the fall trading season, I have trouble clearly explaining it.  But I want to give it a try.

First of all, I am what some would refer to as a “person of faith.” I am a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ, and I strive to live every aspect of my life under his sovereign Lordship. Some years go (seven if I remember right), while seeking to get a handle on what he wanted me to be doing (what some would call my “calling”), I became convinced that he wanted me to use forex trading as a mechanism to generate income in order to be able to invest in Christian work. The reasoning that led me to that conclusion was this:  I had heard it said in numerous articles that a good forex trader can average one-half of one percent per trading day.  If I was able to learn to do that successfully and consistently, and let the gains compound (which, for the record, Kim does not recommend), it would result in more than tripling my account each year.  That would result in turning a $20,000 starting account into half a million in five years – enough to do some serious good.

And so I set out to do that, seeking God’s guidance, and trying, as best I could, to trust in him. I tried a couple different approaches. I had a forex robot that took an account of about $18,000 to almost $40,000 in about 9 months – and then lost most of it virtually overnight (I literally went out to dinner one night and came home to find my account down over $10,000!). Then I tried trading with a trading room for about a year and a half, and found their methodology too hard to follow and not yielding results.  Then I stumbled on the Price Action Traders Institute. And have been trading following Kim’s methodology and criteria for about 4 years now (I think – I lose track!). And no, I have not had any great success.  I’ve been trading mostly demo accounts, but usually end up losing 20-40% on those accounts in a year or so, then I start over. But I have learned a lot from Kim.  As she has said repeatedly – “The consistency you seek is not in the markets, but within yourself.” I recognize that the problems in my trading are almost entirely in my trading psychology, principally in fear – fear of missing out (FOMO) and fear of loss. I will get a small gain, and book the profits on it  because I’m afraid of losing it.  In that way, I cut myself off from the larger gains that are necessary to cover the inevitable losses. On the other hand, I’ll run up a large gain, and then continue trading and watch it all disappear into a string of losses.

I have a good friend that I get together with regularly who challenges me with this question: “Don’t you think that if God had really called you to this that you would be seeing some results after all this time?” And my answer has been, Maybe, and that needs to be considered.  But measurable results are not the only touchstone of God’s calling.  I recently read an article (sent to me by that same friend) called “10 Things God Wants More Than Our Success“.

I have been semi-retired since the end of January, and devoted considerable time to trading since I no longer had to show up for a nine-to-five job.  But I still didn’t get anywhere. Then, in June, I thought I had a new job lined up which would keep me from trading, so I stopped.  The job fell through, but I decided to take the rest of the summer off from trading anyway, and see if I can regain some perspective.

I began doing some trading again in August, partly to get my feet wet again, and partly to exercise and debug the latest edition of the PATI Trading Assistant. I was still on a demo account, of course, but I found myself able to approach the trading with a new detachment.  I was able to take a loss, or even a major losing day, in stride, and I was able to let my winning trades run until there was a logical place to take them off. I didn’t trade every day, but the days I traded I found my results pretty much in line with Kim’s.

So I’m prepared to give it another go.  I’ve opened a new demo account , and intend to trade until the Christmas break and see what my result are. I am setting very modest goals – 4% per month, equivalent to about 100 pips, give or take, which is more than I’m going to get in any savings account or mutual fund.  If I can achieve that over the whole time span, then I may start with a small live account after the New Year.