eToro – Forex Trading Forum

[Tropezienne]

Yesterday I opened several positions between 18.30 and 21.00 French time. I last checked my active trading log at 22h and was happy to see that all positions were positive - even a dubious one was showing a profit of 8 USD. I estimated an overall profit of approx. 200 - 250 USD over 10 positions which I planned to close down over the next couple of hours starting at 22.30h.

I gave the dogs a quick walk. There was a refreshing breeze- very welcome after a hot and humid day here on the Gulf of St Tropez. I poured a glass of wine and sat, Midas-like, at my computer, to start closing down my positions, tot up my profits and calculate my pips - BUT MY INTERNET CONNECTION WAS DOWN !!!!

I calmly went the rough the routine to re-establish the connection. By the third attempt I couldn’t speak - screaming worked. Dogs scrambled under beds, daughter brought me another glass of wine and retired to the terrace with the bottle and her iPod.

The internet refused to connect. By 23h I admitted defeat - and settled down to Watch a DVD of The Notebook (a weepy) and do some knitting - the perfect escape from the frantic world of forex trading.

All I can say is ‘thank the ' **** ' that I’m still trading on the demo.

I managed to reconnect this morning - to find that I had lost almost 200 of my virtual dollars.

What if I had been trading for real - as I will be doing one day - in such a situation I would have to call eToro. But did I have their phone number to hand? Not a chance.

My advice - make a note of the number, program it into your mobile phone, and write it down somewhere. Give a copy of it to your daughter, hide a copy of it in the collars of your dogs, etch it every bottle of wine that you bring into your house and knit it onto a designer sweater !

The eToro Customer Support Hours are Monday till Friday, 06:00 and 22:00 GMT. I’m not sure what we’d do if we had a disastrous trading situation during the night.

Meanwhile you can call eToro free of charge from :

Australia 1-800-185-506
Canada 1-866-922-0433
United Kingdom 8081011395

Or call direct :
International: + 357 25 025046
Fax: + 44 203 031 1342
Email: support@etoro.com

I emailed Customer Support to see if there is a 24 hour emergency number. There isn't but eToro will compensate any losses if the losses are caused by their system. I'm going to follow this up with eToro because I believe that an emergency number is necessary should the internet fail us, or our computers crash.

What do you all think?

[BlueinGreen]

Hey there,

there is a little something called a Stop Loss order.

And if you are trading for real, than you should always have an active Stop Loss order which will take your position out of the market automatically in case you are not around to do it yourself.

this is important especially if you are planing to be in the market only for a short period of time- like a day or two.

some of my long term positions do not have a stop loss order (positions i keep for more than a week) but all the once that i open and close at the same day must have an active Stop Loss order
why?

1.because every time you open a trade you must know in advance how much you are ready to risk for this trade, and adjust your S/L order accordingly- if you say to your self “ well, ill decide later where to close the position if all goes wrong” chances are that if the market do goes against you, you are going to risk much more than you planed for in the beginning by thinking it will eventually go back and not closing the position, this is a mistake bad traders and beginners often do.
they cut their profits short- and let their losses run -a big no no

2. when there is a technical problem and you can not access your trading
then you are still safe as the broker can see you order and dues can easily compensate you if there was ever any problem.

3. humans have a problem admitting they are wrong- so when the market goes against them they refuse to accept the fact they made a mistake and that the market is not moving in the way they have predicted. in return they are getting into a fight with the market taking big risks for this one position – sometimes they do not even remember why they entered the position in the first place- but still they are ready to risk a lot to prove they are right-
Use a stop loss as a sign that tells you when you are wrong – you made a bad call get out of the position now!

[Tropezienne]

Hi there Bluein Green, thank you for your response and advice.

I normally always use 'that little thing' a STOP LOSS because I am a self-confessed novice at forex. I am well aware of risk-management and have written about SL and TP elsewhere on this forum.

As I said in my post, I was trading on my demo account last night did have SL on some of the positions in question, not on others - I am experimenting with forex at the moment (hence use of demo account only) and a strategy that I have been studying gives certain times for certain trades - it might be a crap system, and I'll find out by trying it on my demo account.

I think that my advice to make a note of phone numbers that are available via the eToro site is good advice - can't get hold of the phne numbers if you can't connect to the internet.

I still feel that there should be a 24 hour emergency phone number - other brokers offer it. I have contacted an eToro partner to discuss the matter further and hope that there will be such a systel in situ before I start trading for real. The eToro support staff told me that they will compensate if the fault is caused by their system. If I cannot connect to the internet, or my computer breaks down, I would like to be able to call my broker (whether I have SL or not).

BTW - and this indicates how lowly a novice I am - your 'short period of time' for trades of a 'day or two' - seem long to me. My trades are usually only a few hours - when you talk about more than a week.....well, that is just totally beyond me for now.

Thanks again

Julie the (extreme) newbie

[annet1983]

internet connection can be a disaster, iam dealing with it, thats why i have a back up system, may be u should buy an wireless adapter, that way if your cable connection is out, adapter will search a wireless internet for u , that way u can comeback yo your trading and close positions in no time, i do that always.