Monday, November 10, 2008

Long ride

I got myself into position and after it was half an hour in profit I got married for it so I didn't want to let her go. I would stop myself out if top around 930 was broken to the upside. Reversal came and I was sitting tight, but after news I got shaken out and missed the ride toward 800.
All in all this let's say swing trading isn't for me. It's boring and I always get out too soon or too late. It was half size trade and it felt small to take 10-15 profit when I had it in first 10 minutes.
Well I'm better trader for taking just 10 pips than more but I always convince myself otherwise. It's easier for me not to be in the trade, so I can think more clearly. With this position on I was hypnotized for the whole move.

+10 full size pips


Friday, November 7, 2008

Good news and bad news

Bad news is that I lost today, good news is that I was disciplined and trading inside of set rules.

Just when I wrote this I broke my rules by having one more trade in which I get punished very, very fast. Still I'm going to stay with headline and will not kick myself over that. Before that last trade I was -18 full size pips and now -30 full size pips. The thing that I recognize now that it's important to accept the rules and that I broke them but that I'm not going now on revenge mission throwing all away.

OK, I had this triangle drawn, but I have something against TA because when it start to go as it suppose to I don't believe it. So I didn't short the brake, but I said to myself I will short the test of the line. But to get it short price got to go up there, so let's have a long scalp up to that line. Well as you can see my logic doesn't have firm foundation in this case. To make things worse, I lost all perspective of broken triangle and what is going on, I was just reversing my trades as momentum dictated me. But that whipsawed me a lot. Red lines are losing trades and blue is winning.
So that all eur/usd was half size and was in boundaries of my plan with -18.
Than I put momentum long on gbp/usd and got a nice loser very fast. Well I'm glad, because that trade didn't have a room to be put on with 4 pips spread on gbp/usd, I was breaking my trading plan. Better that I got punished than rewarded on that.

The best thing is that I recognize broken rules and will not now make things worse. That is nice rule also.
I kept cool and I like that.

In day like today when I trade really wrong it's great that I have decision of closing all when I lose my 40 half size chips. There is far more probability that I can do bigger damage than remedy things if I keep trading.
Also I can see that I feel pretty ok when I lose small half size trades and that I should go for more opportunities. Not only like today when I got stuck in bad mind frame to trade so much.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Finally some new trading

I had two sets of trades, small loss in eur/usd and nice win with add on trade in eur/jpy.

I get back to trading with half size lot's but got leverage up a bit. Half size because I feel comfortable when I'm losing on half size trade. I can better grasp what is going on and decide do I want to take a loss or leave it some more on. If it's going my way than I can add another trade easily. That's especially handy now with big ranges. Leverage is now around 7 for full size position. As I like structured trading I decided to start a day with 40 half size chips available to spend. It's like going to casino, you can lose as much as you take from home but not more. So I have 40 available pips to lose each day. On the other side I cap my winnings at 80 half size pips. For me it's far more appropriate not to go after more because in my trading history I never really get any big days. But many times I'm trading like I aim for big gain and usually I lose at that time big. That is a range of -1.5% to + 3% a day which is ok with me. I want to feel comfortable losing those 40 pips and want to be safe that when I have nice day like today that I hold to my winnings.

I'm still little afraid of trading and losing because of my last very bad days so lets start slowly.

Today +38 full size pips. I could stay in eur/jpy longer but it gave me just before my exit 25-30 pips in a spike and I was around my daily target so I just took the profit.



Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Trades today II

Add to today -52 pips more, yes I can see that I was shorting strong uptrend. This is not good scalping nor trading. It looks like I'm just testing me in regards stops. I lost near 100 pips today. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself not to have stops and sabotaging myself with awful trading. Whatever.

Or maybe there is no difference how I lose, with averaging or like today, I lose.

I'm not in a mood to think about that all, I'm just documenting how it is.

Trades today

First long I entered because I saw bullish action on 10 sec pushing higher and consolidating before the run up. It didn't happen, I had one more long with very close stop in a case that I was just shaken out.
Gbp short I entered because of that 50 pips drop in 3 minutes, that idea also didn't work.

Bright spot were stops. Pure trading with defined stops. It's hard market to trade especially when it's in rangy mood. It's not so brilliant to learn disciplined trading in such mess of market movements. I don't have an edge and that's why I don't trade this days, today I tried and got burned.

-45 pips


Thursday, October 23, 2008

Practice of taking stops

First trade, not so much clever but I used it to follow my emotions. I was feeling bad and wanted to avoid being stopped out. Because of that I didn't want to get out on any price before my max set stop. I was hoping whole time that it will come back. Finally stop took me out and I felt misery. Really funny now when I wright about that. So I was in misery and I had urge to go back in, trade, get the money back. Ugly emotions, luckily I was just noticing them. When I think about it, too bad that I didn't start long before giving attention to those feelings after stop.
I cool down a little and my thoughts were that I got to lose identification with all of that emotional garbage.

I was writing blog entry and market started pushing again so I had second trade which was profitable.

-10 pips for a day

I think that I just get to go in that direction to get rid off bad stuff. Not so much attention at is every trade profitable or not, put emotions under control, especially those regarding stops. Emotions under control is when you have them but don't have to act on them forcefully. So I'm glad that I got stopped out and felt all the bad that I do. If that is the worst thing, it's not so bad and I can get custom to it. I feel little ashamed writing about it now after so many years of trading. It's such basic stuff. You get bad emotions when taking stops. So what, move on.

I will probably now pay less attention am I trading profitably or not overall, but more to execution and all surrounding each trade.


Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Reasons behind the trades

I was looking at all pairs, there was bounce from the lows today. Gbp was very strong, I was looking in getting good spot to go long on it or eur. At that time there was spike down in chf at second chart. So in tight congestion of 20 pips break out came with price quick return back. There wasn't such thing on other pairs but my idea was that now is obvious that there is strong enough support for the dollar. So I shorted gbp. It was slow and I made exit, premature because half hour later price is down 90 pips after my exit.






Euro trade came because sudden move came as result of eur/jpy falling and going for break
127 level third time today. There was break but price wasn't falling so strong and when it stooped I hoped for snap back. So I went long eur/usd because of smaller spread. I was in little bounce positive and my internet connection brake and didn't want to reconnect. That didn't happen to me for a very long time, maybe years. So I restarted pc and it worked than, I logged on platform an I was like 8 pips positive.
I didn't get out but I was waiting. When there came b/e, and -11 points that I gain in previous trade I was just frozen. I couldn't get out. There was stop at -20 and I didn't move it but I wasn't able to get out sooner also. My reasons for the trade didn't work. There wasn't snap back on eur/jpy and here I was with trade opposite of the trend getting in bigger lose for me. Still I couldn't get out.
This discipline thing is going to be hard, I have such strong emotions in those moments that I just can't override. Only time and repetition can maybe "cure" me. I need to have stop in because when I froze it can take me out if I don't move it.


Bad thing today was that I changed my mind so quickly. Idea on chf and gbp was working after my exit. So that was also valid for eur so that bet with eur/jpy snap back wasn't so good.
I usually do that, when I exit prematurely I start to look for the trade in the opposite direction, but the trend just started, it's hard to go back in, hard to stay out and fullish to go opposite.

+24 pips

Monday, October 20, 2008

So what happened today? II

I changed my mind I want to put on charts. If you missed there is post number one below this one about today.

There are two things that I want to take from today.

First death spiral of moving stops, not having stops, averaging is experience that I had too many times for my taste. If for anything I want to take max of -20 pips on full position just not to experience death spiral again. There are two kinds of freedom, freedom for and freedom from. Stop loss is freedom from death spiral.

Second I want to play around with stop line on chart trailing it from time to time. Just to get the habit of trailing my stop. I never trail, usually there is no point in trailing, but if I don't have a habit of doing it ever than I'm missing on something important. My first trade today was at the top of 400 pips downtrend.


Full size trade, first short, got 27 pips on it. Premature exit, reasonable as a scalp because at the time of exit eur started to go up, so I expected gbp to follow.


Gbp trades were half size and eur full size. I was trading with discipline on. I was trying to scalp picking the bottom, didn't get it on gbp, but did on eur.


Whole day. Death spiral after long trade in gbp, in few minutes it was -100 pips and than I realized that it's full size trade. I wasn't prepared for half size loss of that size, but full position...
After -170 pips I started heavy averaging going full margin in it, didn't get a bounce but more pain.

So what happened today?

I was trading well, no moving stops, taking stops, letting profits run for some time, scalping and I was at +43 pips. In the morning I had 7 trades, of that 2 losses.

Than later I took a half size trade, didn't want to take 10 pips profit on it. Didn't get out at b/e, I was counting that I have a room. I moved stop and it free fall. Than I realized that by mistake it wasn't half size trade but full size. I lost it in my head and went directly in panic save me mode, disaster mode. Some averaging and I finished day at -207 pips.

I don't want to put charts because it doesn't have anything with reason, my trades. Now I feel mixed. Again big loss, again averaging and all usual. On the other hand I was trading well in the morning, taking stops, waiting for good setup and all. I should feel down because I had -10% loss but I look at it that it will only take little longer to come back.

I now really want to trade with stops, I want to scalp because if anywhere I have an edge than it's in scalping. No matter will I be positive or negative, let's put that behind.
I guess this is struggle inside of me in moving away from bad discipline. It definitely isn't easy and mistakes are so costly. I don't see any sense in moving stops and averaging. I just can say to me that I forgive myself doing that today. It's pure addiction withdrawal.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Note to my feed subscribers

I added subscribe to comments option on the top of my blog. There is sometimes much discussion in comments section. I recommend subscribing to that also, so you don't miss sometimes most interesting part of this blog.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

When you don't want to take a loss you take a big loss

It all started nice with me trading with half size. I pick a spot that gave me nice profit at first, looking like the uptrend is failing. Then suddenly it turned and fly higher and I didn't get out. I add another half size short. Than I was sitting and counting ticks of losing trades. I re shorted with full size, double down. It went more up. Than slowly down, but eur was strong in comparison to gbp at that time so I took around -23 x 2 loss.
Than I decided to be clever and went long double size, well now market started to go down slowly and not up to test a high. I even add another long trade with double size so in the end I was trading 8x bigger than I started with my first trade. My idea of being conservative.

Well it was going happen sooner or later with the way I trade. I only learn in such situations because I get a kick. If I got b/e or small profit, I would do it all again. Now, I have a chance to learn. It's not disaster if I don't, one day I will learn.

So I lost -114 full size pips. Also this week my positions were 20% bigger than before.

To rub a salt little more down you can see a chart what happened later.


Monday, October 13, 2008

Swing trading practice

I approached today market with swing trading and half size trades. Before Europe trading there was strong trend up in eur/usd, after that in early EU range developed. When that range broke to the downside I decided to dip my toe on idea that it's retracement and trend up will come again at least back to the highs. First trade I abandoned too early but in the end it showed as ok decision. Second trade was based on idea that quick drop was just clearing first longs and after it bounced from some fibb level I got in again.
Now I was in territory not familiar to me and that is holding the trade. I had great entry and for my swing trading idea I should just hold through swings. At 13:05 price approached previous lows and I felt it will be resistance. But I was in swing trade so let's hold on. Well from that point I fell in emotional depression as market slowly ticked down more and more. I was very depressed holding that trade and not taking profit. It was really bad emotional state and I usually do things in the market just to get myself out of emotions. My trade was still positive but I was depressed and sad. Then there was pause around the lows, I was still in bad feelings. Then it suddenly started ticking up again, I was contemplating adding to the trade but I didn't. Quick trend cleared resistance at the previous morning support. My plan from the beginning of the trade was to take profit at around 660. Than I simply closed the trade without much technical reason. I guess that I was just relieved after being depressed and didn't want to risk another cycle of depression with market going down. So I cut my profit short I just couldn't hold it any longer. I wanted out of emotional roller coaster.
Well I could have used some trail stop, but no, I wanted to finish with whole swing adventure. Now while I write this market hit 680 and my swing idea proved right. It's still in uptrend and some good trailing could keep swing traders long for more.

Trades were half size so it's +26 full size pips


I guess that for me some kind of trading around swing idea would prove easier. Like looking in hindsight taking trade of the table around 13:05 when there was resistance, all with idea of establishing long position again when reaction start to slow down. Than again holding through next trend up new position with decision of taking it off when I notice again reversal tendencies. Opening again new position when reaction fades away. It's not trading in scalping manner because you can be off in new trades but let them be in loss on account of previous trend wins.
If I see correctly that like today 570 is low and we will probably touch high of 670 I have core idea. Than I should scalp in the direction of that idea until it's proving right. All the scalps count as one big long trade with me being out of it on occasions and back in. Easier than just hold, at least for me. It's true that sometimes you can be wrong and take off the trade that continues but it's all in practice.
I'm satisfied with profit today and my practice of swing trading just to see what problems do I face that way.

Original content can be found at Forex Intraday Trading website

Friday, October 10, 2008

Manic market

Well I will pass today as trading day. I like profit I made this week and let's cool things down and keep it.


For your entertainment this weekend I want to share with you one of the most funniest journal threads on Elite Trader forum.

It's especially nice to read it in this manic market.

Read through few pages and you will be hooked to see what destiny will be in cards for lead character of this comedy. Most laughs in past few weeks came from this piece. It for certain touches part of my character that averages and make silly risks in trading.

5% - 10% profit per day trading

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Half size

Spread is big, market is funny, trades were half size.
First I found nice scalp in eur/jpy.
Than I tried to pick up bottom in eur/usd because all the weakens was based on jpy pairs movement. I let it loosely counting on profit from earlier trade. Finally when I get bottom I exit prematurely.
+13 full size pips



Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Tough market

First I got caught in spike up that I thought that will be start of trend up. I didn't want to exit with stop, probably bad decision. Watching other pairs it was all in range. Averaged and took small profit.
Other trade was pure momentum scalp. I could stay more in it.

+26 pips



Monday, October 6, 2008

!?



Swing in scalp out

It's nearly impossible to scalp this market the way I do usually so I got to use swing trading ideas for my entry. I did exit in scalp manner because I'm not used to carry positions with various swings. Overall it was very good day profit wise.

I bet on finding some support on eur against usd and jpy. At that time eur/jpy was more than 500 pips lower than Friday close, with gap down and selling through Asia session. It's risky idea but I'm not capable to go in direction of the trend like that into support. So I chose to go for bounce.

In my second set of trades I add to eur/jpy long because it reacted from the lows. From that point usd was falling and eur was in range against jpy. I wish that I had position in eur/usd also but I didn't.

My scalps exits were generally ok securing me majority of moves so far in those trades. I didn't expect so big fall after my last exit in eur/jpy. I go out on my trades against the trend where other people trading the trend initiate new positions.
Later eur/jpy broke 140 all the way to 143.80, than there was big recovery to 141.

I have the time but I chose not to trade US session because of risk of so many sudden news all over the world. It's spiky and unpredictable.

+58 pips



Original content on Forex Intraday Trading

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Euro trade

Euro was in retracement from yesterday fall and I bet that it will fail to go further at that point.

+18 pips

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

September 2008. results

I had big down day this month and since than I was recovering it after a brake. So not many trading days.

+41 pips

+1.7 %

Lesson from this month is that how deep hole you dig you will eventually get out of it. So there is no need for a drama. Just trade as good or as bad as you can and that's it. There is no holy grail, no realization that will change you for good.

Monday, September 29, 2008

What a day

First I had nice scalp after gbp/usd news time and I got 20 pips out of it. From Monday Asia open gbp/usd was -400 pips at that time.


Than on the wings of my gain I decided again to take a long after it fell back. Well I got caught unprepared. After few pips in my direction it started to fall and it didn't look back. I freeze. I started to average on every bounce. After trade number three there was bottom. Now I was in situation down around 56 pips X 3. After few minutes I decided that I don't know on which side it will go, back or in reversal. So, the best thing would be to reverse my position if it started to fall again. So from that point I was in frenzy of reversing 3 positions long and short. I wasn't so crafty in that, it was mess. It would be better if I stayed just long in the end, but if market reversed back down hard it would save my skin. Also I wanted to make some money, not just to get b/e. It didn't go that way, I got only 7 pips for all 3 positions, I was hoping 10x3.



After all of that I was in good emotional state and I was prepared to trade more. Which is great and improvement. I don't get so emotionally drained as before. So I had two more scalps with regular size position and got 10 pips on eur/usd and 15 pips on gbp/usd.

There is nothing clever that I can say about my averaging session but I'm showing it here just as it was. It's funny how big need is not to have a loss and what stupid things can you do to accomplish that. I'm just glad that I can find little bit more hunger to make a profit than before and a little bit less emotional impact of trading and swings in p&l.

+ 52 pips today



Original content can be found on Forex Intraday Trading

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Aiming for higher profits

I'm very heavy on exiting losing positions. Third trade had after -15 loss +10 profit, I didn't take it. I left it to slide down and seek bottom. It's hard when most of the movements are somehow based on jpy pairs development. I averaged in that loser only because there was 15 pips spike from the bottom in one second, I entered second trade just behind that spike bounce. Than there was fight around 10:50 below previous low resistance. At that point I had b/e on those two trades but I didn't want to take it. I like that fact in my trading, previous I was just "give me b/e and I'm out". Than there was again slide down. Finally it started to shape like 3B. The problem is that when I go in profit with the position I lose
consciousness about what is going on. Previous to that I can see that if there will be reversal it will be real one of 3B pattern. After 1.4712 price level I'm just wondering what is going on, will it go further and I'm risk averse and want to take profit. So I did after +10 pips for two positions.

Well on my second position I also wanted to stay more at 9:55, because whole move happen in one minute. So after 750 level is rejected there will be more downside, but no, I'm fast on my exit.

On that third trade, losing trade, I was prepared to hedge it with gbp/usd trade in other direction but there just wasn't usd rally so I didn't hedge nor exit and than came bounce so I add one more long.

I can see that there is so more room for improvement. On taking loss easier, staying with the proven idea more, trail stops etc..

While I was writing this I noticed great level for eur/usd rally to stop so I shorted and got 9 pips more.

Well there is much room for improvement but in the end I got today exactly 50 pips of profit, which isn't bad. I decided to work more on number of trades that I can do in the day and a profit. It looks to me that I'm satisfied with smaller number than I should be. I'm most days happy with 20 pips of profit but why wouldn't I aim for 50 if it's attainable for me.

+ 50 pips





Original content can be found on Forex Intraday Trading

Monday, September 22, 2008

Friday, September 19, 2008

Flip coin market

On some trades lately I get out very quickly if it's not going my way, but when I stuck in losing position I don't want to take a loss or small loss. That thing got it's price so if I'm willing to pay than ok. Good thing today I think was that I didn't want to take b/e price, so I got paid if it goes in my direction in the end. Well after hour it did come my way. I took profit too early but good thing that I didn't take it even more early.

+19



Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Trades 091708

Bottom picking in gbp and try of break down in eur that finished as b/e.
+18




Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Bitter profit

What can I say, nothing changed. Today I had first some news trades with extra big risk aversion on my side. Some loss in eur, after it I closed profitable gbp trade to cover it. Than I got excited and opened trade against trend in eur. Move the stop in that trade and averaged when I was on -40. When it started to show signs of possible reversal I add one more trade in gbp. Closed last three trades in profit.
It's bitter profit because I can see how I got it. I'm not going to bitch about it to much because I can see that I'm trying to get hold on things, maybe on a bad course of action but I'm trying. I was whole morning waiting for b/o from the range and when it occur I trade against it. I think that loss in eur got me in bad mental state. I let that trade too much room in the first place, it came back and I hoped for nice b/o but it reversed on me again.
Currently I have bad trading and good trading going on at the same time. Maybe process of learning how to trade and ditching bad trading goes that way, slow and painful. Maybe not, but what can I do I'm where I am with all my good and bad traits and have this journal to show it all.
Oanda was acting funny today with not showing my losing trade in eur on chart, so I draw a lines myself.

+29



Monday, September 15, 2008

Update

I've been really having a break, I didn't even check markets last week. Been busy with buying new computer and installing everything because old one got really old and slow. I bought 24" monitor so it's now fun to have big desktop with chart setup that I always wanted, plus I have one of my old monitors for six more charts of other pairs.




I didn't have much thought about my lack of discipline and irrational trading when I hit a loss. Because as I said it's not so much trading problem, but problem reflected in trading field. I did make some progress regarding that so we will see how will it go.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Serious

My problems in the trading are more serious than I thought. I gambled today because I got angry of taking profit too early and from net positive I lost about 100 pips.
Well I'm also not open for discussion about that all so I will not participate in conversation via comments. I appreciate help but I clearly don't know where I stand right now so can't take advices or coherent decisions. It's little beyond me how I can trade o.k. for few days and than get too emotional even without good reason.
I will gladly hear what you think but I just don't feel good to talk about it. I have nothing to say.

My hint is that my life in general is reflecting in my trading and that it isn't trading problem. I got to make clear some general view about things in life. Simply making decisions how to trade or how not to trade will not change anything. My scalping is working nicely sometimes and I can't judge is it alone enough and net positive. Because my losses are so emotionally driven and big that they are not telling whole story about scalping and my trading methods.

If I make some trades or have some fresh info, I will post it as usually.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Kdice.com

If you got extra time to kill and want to be more in touch with your fear and greed emotions I have recommendation for you. Kdice.com is online multiplayer strategy game based on simplified version of Risk. Each game last for 5-10 minutes and it's very intense. People get very angry sometimes, you can see bad decisions, risk management, waiting for good moment for attack. It's all very much like trading. I think that it's more useful to play Kdice than paper trade. Give it a shot.
You can practice first against computer at Dicewars, but against 6 other persons it's a real deal.




Two trades

First trade it wasn't usd weakness so much but some yen pairs development so there wasn't much up potential. On second trade it would be better if I stayed little longer because the bounce where I exit wasn't big after all.
+21 pips


Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Nice scalping

I was little greedy after my first trade and add one more position. Bad thing was that I didn't close that one when it didn't advance rapidly as expected. I was lucky because it was downtrend so there was push again after bounce. Those two trades were at point of braking previous low from the early morning.
Third trade was all nice except that I didn't wait more. I did for that whole consolidation but than after it broke 400 it wasn't fast so as expected and I was than afraid off steep spike back so I took profit.
+27 pips today