My father is a “day trader”. Officially I think he prefers “Technical Analyst” in reference to the market trends of foreign currencies and a few select indexes.

That probably sounds super confusing because it is. Its a lot of money-talk. Fortunately for myself I’m learning to speak money. I shouldn’t have to explain myself here, you guys know that there are tons of time when having some extra cash would sure ease some stress–but that’s a story for a different day.

Back in the day when I was working for Target I didn’t have many expenses and so I was just banking my checks [especially once I got direct deposit set up]. Anyways, I got enough to open a small trading account. That was like a year ago, today I used it for the first time. It started when I didn’t have to be to school until noon, so I took the morning to try my hand at this “day trading”. I’d tell you the long-story-short version but the real thing is much funnier.

I work with my dad for a little bit picking his brain about a set up. I decide on what I’m looking for and wait for it. The phone rings and its one of my dad’s friends from San Diego [I think] and they start talking. I see the market [USD/JPY] approaching my target and so I pull the trigger and enter myself into a trade. The feeling is exhilarating. I encounter a small hick-up when I mistakenly change the volume from 1.0 to .002 [which means that for every tick that the market moves I make/lose 2 cents]. In the end this probably wasn’t bad since it was my first time.

Anyways, what happened next was a rush. I have this trade on, and everything is going well enough, the market is climbing and I’m raking in the dough [I think at this point I was up about 19 cents]. I see that some ticks ahead the market is going to encounter some resistance and so I begin to look for my exit [to get out of the trade].

I can’t find it.

I’m looking and looking. My dad is on the phone [long distance] and so I don’t really want to bother him. I continue to look but I can see that the market isn’t waiting for me at all and its getting closer and closer to where I think I should get out. Finally I ask my dad all non-shelant like [I don’t know how to spell that word], “When you get a chance can you show me how to close an order?”

He was like, “Yeah… Wait, are you in a live trade?”

From there he ended his call and we both searched frantically for the answer. Neither of us knew and so as he typed away to online support I dug through the help files. Just when I thought it was too late I learned that it was a window I had had opened the entire time but it had been resized so I couldn’t see it. That was where I closed it. Anyways, I got out with 6 cents to the good. So all in all it was a profitable day.

Andrew Nemeth