***English is not my first language , i'm Italian so sorry for the mistakes i'll do, i hope you'll understand what i'm going to say in this blogpost***

 

Here we are ! My 1st month of trading is over , i started on 2nd October when i made my first trade ever in the penny stocks' market. I started with $1600 using SureTrader as my broker because I'm italian and it is the only broker that i can use. At the beginning i tried EquityFeed but i didn't like it so i bought a StocksToTrade subscription and I'm really happy about this software even it doesn't work well when you have a low wi-fi signal. I decided to be a TimAlerts subscriber and I'm really satisfied. The chatroom is amazing and Michael Goode and the other veteran traders help you a lot explaining how this industry works. Another advantages of being a TimAlerts subscriber is the watchlist and all the video lessons that you must watch because they speed up a lot your education. But now let's talk about trading ... the vast majority of my trades are losses , someone because i was too greedy , someone because i didn't cut the losses and someone because i was unlucky but there's some win too, like the $MJNA trade where i made over 18%(you can see it here on Profit.ly but it's a loss... SureTrader customer service gave me a $89.10 refund but Profit.ly doesn't see it) and something else. I started trading thinking "Before Christmas i'll buy an Audi"... NONONONO! 

Now, thanks to this month of trading i understood a lot of think:

1. YOU MUST CUT LOSSES QUICKLY, this is the 1st rule and if you don't respect your risk you will lose a lot of money. It's hard to say "I'm wrong, i'll take a small loss" because there is a part of you that says "The price will turn and you will make money". That strategy is called hold and hope and it is not a strategy , it's the right way to blow your account!

2. YOU WON'T MAKE ANY MONEY AT THE BEGINNING because you've to understand what you are better at and what's the strategy that works best for you

3. DON'T GET GREEDY, everyone wants to take more money he can and that's natural but if you take the meat of the move you'll make more money in the long run because you're reducing your risk , i was up over $130 on $LEI (it's a nice profit for a small $1600 account) but i didn't take the profit thinking that i'll be making more money and the stock dropped and i lost $120. That trade helps me a lot... now i think i understood the lesson

So guys, what i want to say to the newbies like me is that you mustn't start trading if you are not prepared enough , read books, watch video lessons, DVDs , share your ideas, talk with traders better than you and when you're learning something remember that emotions are involved a lot and can destroy you. For example, when i was studying Tim's DVDs i heard a lot of time Tim saying "Cut losses quickly is the #1 rule" and i was like "Ok ok when i'll be a trader i'll cut losses quickly" but it's not so easy because emotions are dangerous in this business .

I hope you'll succeed in your trading career and never quit because all this hard work will pay one day!!!