Today, believe it or not, was actually better still. I made +$441.77 (+13.9%).

That's up $796.70 in just two days with a starting balance of only $2,382.57 that's an increase of 33.44% in only 2 days.

I think tomorrow is going to be my last trading day for a little more than a week, because my wife and I are going on a vacation.

It certainly is refreshing to see my trades making money again. Actually, the humbling experience of loosing more than 1/2 my bank-role had a beneficial outcome in forcing me to investigate a better, more reliable and logical means of analyzing the charts and planning when to enter and exit a trade well in advance of actually putting money in. I now wait for a trade to develop instead of trying to fish for a trade and hope. The hope game almost wiped me out.

As for the differences between live and demo accounts, I agree, I certainly took much more risk on the demo account than on the live account. I actually was nearly paralyzed at the though to wagering real, hard-earned cash on my first trades. Forcing myself to put money into the market, I believe, contributed to the loosing, trade and pray method of last week. Then, after loosing money on a trade, the gambling strategy would kick in and I would double my risk capital and re-enter the trade, hoping to make my loss back. Throwing good money after bad was definitely a failure of a technique. Day trading is not gambling, armed with a logical thought process, technical analysis tools and a patient demeanor, I am confident that my profitable trading record will continue. Technical analysis is looking like an insanely superior technique.

Today was a true test of my new technical analysis methodology. I actually watched as I was down 25 pips (>$100) and felt confident in entering another trade in the same direction as the first, only to watch in amazement as the market falls into the expected cycle. The mistake made my initial $50 expected return into nearly a $200 return. Although it was a winning trade, I did learn from it. I entered a trade WAY too early in a down cycle, expecting it to rebound 1/2 way through the down-cycle with almost zero logic as to why I was entering a trade there instead of waiting for the expected cycle to complete. Interesting how one can learn from success as well as failure eh. Second major lesson leaned and reinforced today was patience. If you believe the logic behind your analysis is valid, have the confidence to be patient as the market falls into the expected cycle. Only exit the trade if it starts to fall outside of the expected cycle. I ALMOST back out of what turned out to be big return trades because the market wasn't running through the cycle that my technical analysis predicted. Although the limits of my analysis proved to be accurate, the amount of time it took to traverse a cycle seemed too long, but with some patience, it all worked out.

Week 2
Trading Day	Mon, Aug 3, 09	Tue, Aug 4, 09	Wed, Aug 5, 09	Thu, Aug 6, 09	Fri, Aug 7, 09
Opening Balance	$2,382.57	$2,737.50
2% Risk	$47.65	$54.75
5% Increase	$125.32	$143.99
Actual increase	$354.93	$441.77
Closing Balance	$2,737.50	$3,179.27
Daily Increase	12.97%	13.90%
Total Increase	-45.14%	-36.29%