Samuel J. Rae - Diary of a Currency Trader: A Simple Strategy for Foreign Exchange Trading and How It Is Used in Practice

One thing that always interests me is how other people trade. Be it stocks, options or currencies, everyone has their own style, methods and approach. It amazes me what sparse literature is available that covers these things in any depth and this is my attempt to redress the balance.

If you have spent any amount of time immersed in the trading world, or perhaps even if you havent, you will have seen a huge number of books titled This Winning Strategy, or That Winning Strategy. I myself have probably read 20 different books of this type, under different guises, and at the end of each one I am always left thinking, Well, show me then! Having written Diary of a Currency Trader, I now know why many authors choose to tell people about their strategy but not show it in action.

If Im being honest, when I sat down to write this book I had no idea what I was getting into. The trading itself was of course normal to me. The reflection on each trade, again, was normal. Putting it all down on paper in a way that somebody else might understand, on the other hand, was not something I was accustomed to.

A strategy that you follow every day can seem relatively simple in your head, but when it comes to deconstructing it and presenting it to someone else it ceases to be so. On top of this, sitting at your computer and writing about your winners is an enjoyable task, but doing the same with your losers is not.

I also had to work hard not to let the thought that I was going to be writing my diary each evening affect my trading decisions. One of the things I talk about a little later on in the book is how you shouldnt let the outcome of one trade influence another, but this is a very difficult thing to do if after a string of losers you know you will be sitting down and dissecting the trades, writing them up for others to read about!

Anyway, I got through it, and this is the finished piece. My aim was to write a book that would illustrate what it is like to trade, and what one particular trader goes through on a daily basis. I think I have succeeded.

If you take just one thing away with you I hope its that retail foreign exchange trading is difficult and emotionally taxing, but doable. You do not need God-given talent, nor do you need expensive mentorship or sophisticated computer programs. With the availability of mini lot trading you dont even need vast capital resources. All you need is time, hard work and a sound grasp of risk management principles. In reverse order.

Enjoy.