Unfortunately not everything was as rosy at it might sound. My trading platform was set to simulation mode instead of real trading mode. I'm not sure how this happened but I should have noticed it before I started trading. My trading platform colors the background differently when you're in simulation or real mode so that you can tell. Unfortunately I'd become accustomed to the colors and they are both subtle and easy on the eye colors. As such, I didn't notice the switch and my profits were pure paper and nothing more than that. Had I lost money yesterday I would have been very happy about the inadvertent switch in trading modes.
This brings me to a couple of points:
- If I had been calling out my trades in real time (I don't do this at the moment) then I would have been telling everyone that I was running these real positions - which I wasn't. I could get into trouble for this from the CFTC if I didn't carry the disclaimer in my Terms and Conditions saying that trades that I call out may be simulated or real. If you are subscribing to a trade calling service then you should check their T&C's to see if they include that clause. If you are calling out trades that you are taking (or at least think that you are taking) you should include this clause in case (like me yesterday) your system switches itself to simulation mode and you aren't really taking those trades.
- There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you're trading and more often than not they do not go wrong in your favor. Trading is a very difficult profession without the curve balls that you're not expecting. Your computer crashing, DSL going down, personal and family emergencies etc. You have to do everything in your power to make sure that your surroundings are conducive to allowing you to focus on trading and not worry about the surroundings. Switch off the phone or put a filter on it for emergency calls. Create a check list to go through each day before trading to make sure that everything is in order. I use an Excel spreadsheet and have a list of items that I check before I start trading. In the left column is a number which orders the items. If I need to add a new item to this list I can add it at the bottom and add where in the order it fits and then just resort the list and it appears in the right place. The second column has the item I need to perform and the third column is used to enter a check mark once it's been done. The check mark is useful because sometimes there's something that prevents you from doing that task and so you can leave it unchecked and do the other tasks and come back to that. I now have "check trading mode on trading platform" in my list of task.