It is with great regret to inform those of you who have been following my adventures with GalleonFX’s manged account offering that as of today January 23’rd, 2008 I have decided to revoke the LPOA (limited power of attorney) and stop all trading of my account by GalleonFX. I really hoped it would not have ended up this way, but the drawdown was just too big for me to stomach. Starting from December trading results started to dive south, and now in January something has hit the fan as they say. Today nearly 10% of my account went down the drain in one hour! Such is the “living on the edge” world of Forex trading you may say, but I believe that if GalleonFX’s managed account offering was traded by a human instead of by a robot most likely that person would have noticed the breakneck volatility and stayed out until thing calmed down a bit, or maybe would’ve went into “scalping” mode.
So here is my account recap, both the high and lows. I started with a tiny test account of $1100 (taking advantage of the $1k minimum to see what the fuss is all about) and now my account sits at $704. It soared as high as $1540 and dipped as low as $680. Basically I’ve lost 40% of my account.
So, what lesson have I learned. Well, don’t get me wrong I still recommend GalleonFX, but it is not for the faint of heart, and especially not for $1000 accounts. I know a member who had a much bigger account and even he was not able to stomach the wild swings in equity. It all depends on your risk profile. So, you make your own decision as I won’t try to influence you to close your account too or whatever. I am glad that at least I did not lose the entire account.
For now I’ll stay on the sidelines, maybe I’ll find something better, maybe not, and if I do decide to have GalleonFX trade my account again it will be a much bigger one and I will be implementing a “take profits before they give it to the market ” type of strategy. Had I known what I know now about the way GalleonFX’s system trades I would’ve taken out say $400 when my account was soaring on eagle’s wings as they say, and would’ve kept on doing this with every new profit beyond my original account deposit size. But, I guess that’s what test accounts are for.
So I wish those of you who are still “holding down the fort” the best of luck and I hope that GalleonFX fattens your accounts. For now I will move the money that’s left into a self-traded FXCM account and try to trade my account back to my original deposit and see how I fare out.
I have a thread started on my blog’s forum about GalleonFX and I’d really appreciate it if those of you who are still with them would share their experiences. At the very least if the account turns around and performs in a stellar fashion you can taunt me and tell me how much of a chicken I was 🙂 lol. Here is the link to the forum:
http://alansmoneyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=1549.0
Take care everyone, and best of luck to you all!