I traded currencies for about 3 months just losing money. Was down about 10% by the end of the 3rd month.. Then I switched to commodities. Made back my 10% in the first week. Now I'm sitting at a 23% gain. For me, oil is about the largest money maker I can find. Although I'm still waiting for this mornings drop to level out.

Note: I'm using the same platform and broker to trade the commodities as I was the currency. (MT4 on Trading-Point.com)

So in your opinion Commodity trading is better than currency trading. You are saying this because commodity behavior is predictable. right?

I think I'm saying that Commodity trading suits me better as an investment platform, and you'll have to investigate yourself to see if it suits you. And yes, I find that the behaviour is much more predictable. Then again, I've only been doing it for 3 weeks. It may change on me. I'm still a newbie, that's why I only put $100 in my account. Never risk more than you can lose.

All I know is that at last post (2 days ago) I was 23% up, now I'm 55% up ($155 in my account now ). My goal is 5% per day trading 3 days a week. And so far I've hit it, but I understand that's probably not sustainable.

Congrats on such a good profit in just 2 days. Which commodity are you trading the most?

Keep it up

I was trading crude oil. But, I made about 4 newbie mistakes all on top of each other and got a margin call. So, I'm now at a 100% loss. Trying to decide if I can learn from my mistakes and get back in, or if I should leave it alone.

100% loss!!!!! If you learn from mistakes, it will make you a better trader. But the problem in forex trading is when we see a a big return, we take bigger risks. It makes us loose our money sometimes.

Yeah, I lost $100 (100%) of investment on one account, and $80 (80%) on another (was trying 2 brokers). Started with $100 accounts, smallest I could, just to play. 1) I used way more than 20% of my account for margin (was more like 50%+) 2) I didn't get out when I could have, because I got greedy for more profit 3) I didn't pay attention to the fundamentals. I was mostly trading oil, and I didn't pay enough attention to the Federal Oil Reserve news 4) I thought the market turning around was just a fluctuation and would go back up again. 5) I didn't have stop losses set 6) I held a position overnight (My trading style tends to be very scalperish, so I definately shouldn't be holding while not paying attention)

Hopefully other people can learn from my mistakes. Today I did better. Set stop losses, traded with the trend. Paid attention. 100% gain in 1 afternoon. Then lost 75% of my gain. 25% gain on my account total today. Still counting that a win for today.

Its a fun game at $100. Not sure I could handle being in for thousands of dollars or more.

:). You explained you mistakes very nicely. It will help other traders too. How much amount you use on average to open a trade?

I'm typically in for a .01 lots. Typically it costs me <$15 of margin to buy a lot. So, with a $100 account, I figure I should be buying only .01, maybe .02. When I got a margin call, I had .05 open. I kept "averaging down" my losses, which is a bad mistake.

I'm breaking that rule again now, but I only have a $29 account at the moment, so I don't have much of a choice. Still, I'm only in for 0.01 lots at all times now.