I didn't trade this week until today. Market was slow and without opportunity when I was by the screen. Today I had one small trade, gain of 13 pips.


Market was falling in unusual way if watched on smaller time frames. I drew trend lines and had a plan of counter trend trade around lower trend lines if decline have a stop there, counting on some support. There was low for this week around that level and my trend lines.


I wasn't sure on first fast break, but on second test market was slow. I waited for uptick, not usual for me and entered on great level.




Exit was little premature but I remembered article from Dr. Brett about sabotage by thinking on two time frames. So I gave up on a swing trade and focused on scalping (well my entry was on 10 sec) and got out.

Dinosaur blogger

I found this new blogger Dinosaur Trader through One Bad Trade blog. He is trading NYSE for over 8 years, had good years and now he is fighting to survive in the hybrid system. I can say that he is really worth reading. You can get insight in his trading and learn some new trading tricks and he has great writing style especially when he is relating to other stuff not just the trades he made. Like the post about trader Zeke. So it's real refreshment to read some of his posts, like reading some interesting book like Martin Schwartz's - Pit Bull.



I would also like to mention great new blog worth checking out tradercowboy.

Week results

Some of the losses made in the beginning of the week were earned back. So total result is -137 pips. (-202 + 65)
It could go without the loss. In the end when I look back I can see that I didn't need to gain anything with bad trading practices. I could just take my losses and trade another day, no fighting, revenging, averaging. With just simple lose of about 20 pips X 2, in the end I would still be in plus. So this is lesson for the future don't fight, loses will be regained in good trades, no immediate need to gain them back instantly.

The positive side is that I like 5min charts and ability to ignore 1min.


I'm also glad that trader ZBS and NYSE scalper are back in tracks.

03/22/07

I shorted gbpusd after the news because there was no follow through in buying, just spike.To add more I chose gbpjpy for "clever" reason of it being to high.

It jumped up and I had to add to a loser, but just 1/4 of position more, just to be satisfied.
My thinking was that usdjpy won't go through 118 and I had strong conviction that gbpusd won't go up because of no strength showing.

I waited a long time by my standards, thanks to 5min charts I can wait longer. But when after this brake down it stopped I just had no more patience. To add to that I was exhausted by feeling of fear and need to get out that started 15 minutes before my exit. I fight with them, but usually after that if there is some more profit I just get out

I'm not proud by this exit and trade, because I waited a long time and in the end took small profit in relation to risk that I take. I didn't waited enough. Gbpusd didn't entered 670 zone.

What is the point of being right when you don't capitalize on that. When I'm wrong I lose, when I'm right I gain less. It's the common trait of human nature to cut profits short and let losers run, why it should be any different for me.
I think that is starting point for every trader, to be in position that human nature is main problem for him. From that point on is the path of learning to trade and override emotions, human nature. One step at the time.

gbpusd +22
gbpjpy +10

03/21/07

I shorted eur/usd in trying to go with the trend, it didn't start downtrend but rebounded.
Fast pace of aud/usd was looking like correction to me, and I shorted it. It's against trend so no good. I had really strong urge to short that uptrend. Funny are those urges, like I want to trade to fight and not trade to get money.
In the end I shorted gbp/usd, it's my old mentality. Two position little down and I add third. But I really had concept of general usd strength.

When usd/jpy started to fall I got out of everything because my idea was that usd will gain strength, if not get out.


Great thing is that I started to use 5min charts and didn't look at 1min at all. So I had patience to let gbp/usd run a little. If I instead watched 1min I would be out long time ago.

gbp/usd +30
aud/usd +3
eur/usd b/e

Disaster

I had another blow up. Monday and Tuesday I managed to lose about 10% of account. How? When a stop get hit I would get mad and open another trade at that price trying to get lost back. Than price would go against me some more and I would slowly add to loosing position. It's madness, but at that time there is nobody home in my head to stop that. Revenge trading, averaging, moving stops... One day I hope it will be over. I'm pretty tired of doing that. Like Dr. Brett Steenbarger says I'm getting disgust myself.

Chart's of those trades I really don't won't to post.

I'm realizing that to change my patterns I got to change style of trading. Try to be more trend following and much less picking reversals style. First change I'm going to made is to drop 1min time frame. From now on I want to learn trading on 5min charts and up.
Second change I'm going to drop 30 pip week target. It can be signpost of how I'm doing but it started to be a pressure, when I'm down I'm just thinking about that target and do crazy stuff to get it. It would be more wise just to trade as good as I can.

reminder

03/16/07

I hit my weekly target. Funny thing is that I wanted it so badly so I entered mediocre trade even by my reversal standards. Won about 6 pips with half of standard position size.I don't have a good feel to exploit trends, I'm sad about that, I hope that in the future I will develop that skill or abandon brakes that stop me in that.

03/13/07 III

All trades were 1/4 of standard L5X lot.
First trades around 21.56 in gbp/jpy resulted in +8,+2 pips.
Than around 22.17 gbp/jpy trades ended with -1,+14. Usd/jpy were +2, +9 pips.

Second set of trades I entered because I expected to see price drop stalling after minor bottom of earlier trade was violently violated. But it was too early so I was scared with first having looser trades from the start and exited shortly after some gain was made.
It was obviously too early exit.

Funny looking place to start trading. I wasn't at home for all that fall, luckily because I would probably started calling bottom much earlier.

Than again for the third time there was another lower low and stalling in the fall.
Gbp/jpy +13pips, usd/jpy +4,+11 pips.




Early exit is always because of fear of violent pullback like here.

I should really stick to that trade and press my luck. It's painful to see what potential was missed. Maybe it's illusion that such short scalps can get bigger trades with big pip profits because when you scalp you are in one kind of mental state and you can't just change it, there is some rhythm in entering and exiting, stops and profits.

It would be great if I could take not 13 but 100 pip profit on gbp/jpy but I didn't.


In the end my campaign was a real fun and intense experience with lots of fear and thinking. All in all about +62 pips, or +13 standard pips.

03/13/07 II

Usd/jpy in the background started to flat out I entered 1/4 of position, than another 1/4 in gbp/jpy.
After +23, +19 pips and some slowing down I made an exit. Profit +9 pips standard lot.

It was another reversal in a big trend trade.

03/13/07

L 5X , +3pipMarket went nowhere, after gbpusd news started to go up, but than reversed briefly enough for me to get out.
Reason to enter was possibility that retracement of yesterdays trend is ending.
In hindsight it looks like it would be great if I stick to it not only to 170 but much more. But around 11 there was news so it would be flip the coin bet.

03/12/07

I entered with 1/4 of position slowly checking water after big loss and not trading for about a week. I got about 11 pips equals about 3 pip of a standard L 5X lot.

Entering and exiting reversals requires instinct and experience and lots of screen time. Trading reversals is fear based trading, but if that's only way to make a good trade so be it.

I wasn't by the screen from the start, but it look ridiculous to profit in the end of trend on reversal in such strong market.

Here is a reason to enter the reversal in first place.

Journal

When I started this blog I didn't have intention to make it some sort of journal. But as days go by I can see that there is not much to post about if I don't post trades. Trading in the end is not so exciting and fresh after some time. When you know all you want to know about various chart patterns, trading styles, trading setups, etc. it's all just repetition. Reading other blogs rarely I find article that is new information and of greater interest for me, if I do I put it in my del.icio.us links. But reading about various trades it's always interesting.
Reading about NYSE Scalper recent problems and Trader ZBS catastrophic days this and last week was like reading some hot book in sequels. Boogster also have roller coaster rides. I enjoy reading all in a good day or a bad day because it's all trading and I can relate to it.

So now I will start and try to be consistent in putting charts of my trades in this blog. Even some of my trades when I look back on them have no head or tail, just a blink in universe without purpose and rationality. I hope that posting in journal like way will prevent me of having blowout days like two weeks ago when I started small, average down, change stops and put myself in position when loss is "too big" to take it and that usually mean that it will just get bigger and that I would very soon be happy if I could still have a chance of taking that "too big" loss because it's catastrophic by that time. But I'm too ashamed to talk about that loss, size of a loss and post ugly looking charts of it.

Before month or so I decided to structure trading around goals. I put on purpose reasonably small goal of 30 pips a week with leverage 5X, so it equals in about 6% a month and compounded about 100% a year. When trading it's very easy to be not satisfied with your results. But if someone asks me is 100% a year big to me I would say YEAH! But if I trade and get 30 pips it's small even in a day for my mind. So to prevent overtrading and have some structure with only aim of achieving those 30 pips a week than I know what to do. There is less urge to take any trade that I see that could be developing and trade like crazy monkey hitting keys on keyboard. With having target on my mind trading becomes more like a job to do, less a fun video game. It totally changes how I see things on my charts and I like that state of mind. Also there is that great feeling of achievement when I hit my target as small the target is.

So I got myself 2 week's with accomplishing my goal, than came Sunday 11. March and big gbp/jpy fall and I trade that in "wrong" direction and after that big loss I didn't trade for a rest of a week. But this week I again traded and now I'm on 1-2 pips of achieving my "big" weekly 30 pips target.

For this week I don't know will I pressure myself to get that 1 pip, because I put on the line 29 of them. I also didn't yet decided will I stop trading when I hit target or what.

everything is possible