March 2008. results

-317 pips
-12%

:((((

Positive day

I over traded and I wasn't especially picky about the trades as usual in the morning. Very good thing is that I was totally committed to cut losses and I'm satisfied with that.
Second gbp/usd trade is trade that usually gives me the problem. I can see bigger potential but I don't want to risk just made profit.

Eur/gbp trade was the worst. I didn't know why I entered and I exit it with no real reason. That's the trade I shouldn't have in the first place. I didn't know how much to risk or where to put stop. Finally when gbp started to strengthen I took an exit just because I had exit in gbp/usd. That's why the swing trading is not my way. I always mess up things. That trade in retrospect I should put on b/e or b/e+few pips and leave it alone when it started to go in my direction.





Afternoon eur/gbp trade was nice by my rules. I was watching gbp/usd and eur/usd and it wasn't clear to me will they go up or down. Reversal or continuation. But eur/gbp look extended and if the majors continue down probably the euro would fall hard. On the other hand if they go up pound would have nice bounce. So I shorted eur/gbp. I was thinking of leaving it as swing trade. I need that sort of thinking to not exit me out at +3pips or so when it's so slow pair. But after all scalper wake up and I took +10. It was half position because eur/gbp have double value per pip than eur/usd.

+16 pips today




After bumpy start I tried to just watch and trade when I think that I'm sure. Off course that's no guarantee of anything but it's my best trading performance that I can show. It's not so easy to be patient like that and you forget that mental mode often but that's direction I want to go.
Cuting losses should also be my number one priority. P&L performance should be put behind and just try to trade as best as I can in boundaries of s/l and my current best picks.

I'm looking for an opinion from my readers

As you can all see an witness I'm doing bad lately. Let's put aside that all problems come from averaging and moving stops. The thing is that I'm mixing trading styles. If I look at my trading diary on this blog the best trades are small scalps. Small predefined risks usually 5-10 pips and fast exits 5-20 pips. Usually I get carried away with big moves that are happening all over the forex market and I want piece of that. But I'm not getting anything. No 50-100 pips wins for me but 100 pips losers. I'm just not good for that as much as I would like to be and think that it would be great to be.
So, I would appreciate comments about that. In particular about would it be good to just stick to scalping style for me? What do you think?
I'm pretty much biased to that idea, but I'm not sure. It seams that it's hard to decide to leave everything else in my head and in reality and stick to "small" trading whatever else is happening in the market.
Do you know any good scalpers that are doing just that and that they are satisfied with small winners? How do they ignore 10 times bigger moves than their profits that look like they are on the plate in front of them?

There is no much conversation on this blog, but now if you have anything to say please you are much welcomed to do so.

More losses

Today even more than yesterday. I lost about -11% in the last two days. I'm about -13% down for this year, and -20% down from account high at beginning of February.

I guess I need that to hit bottom, I never just lose much on one day, I got to have following loses. It's like earthquake.

The Lonely Trader is back

Go and check probably the best forex blog out there The Lonely Trader

Nothing new another big losing day

-110 pips today. Not in the mood for charts. On the other hand I'm taking those hits emotionally much lightly, maybe that's good sign.

Half size

I traded today with half of my current size. I decided that it's better to trade with half size, if I'm not sure but want to trade, than not to trade at all. Funny thing is that my morning trades I took at work with notebook so I wasn't in very good environment for trading at all. As usual reversal scalping. I'm trading action-reaction type of trades. It's a shame that I don't trade more in the direction of market, but wait for reversal.

+9 pips (current full size)

Scalping heaven

I was so mad about my first set of trades. Pivot s1 support was at 65, I couldn't wait and entered earlier. Than I started to average and couldn't wait for profit. It could be 10 pips on 3 position. I was cursing and yelling. Than I draw that trendline and saw how nice trend down was broken. I scalped some more, but now in real scalping mentality. I should take out much more but isn't that always the case.
Also it would be great if I don't have reversal bias. All my trades were from long side, scalping opportunities were from both sides.

+16 pips

Problem with obvious

Look at that second trade in eur/usd. I don't believe in obvious. I'm afraid that I will look like a fool if I follow it and it goes other way. My bad, I impose ego stuff on sound trading rules. Usually as in this example I fade not the market but my fear of being foolish and enter the trade in other direction. How foolish is that?
In that second eur/usd trade I also overstayed regarding the stop, it did come back some and I took -3 pips exit.

I'm good at finding good place to have a trade but I'm bad from that point on. Be it fading the direction, deciding when to exit (just a scalp or bigger swing) or taking a reasonable stop.

+12 pips today

3 x 5

I was scalping nice today. I had pretty good read what's going on. Off course it would be much better if I stayed in my last eur/usd trade. It was breaking out so slow that I didn't want to test it. It's up 50 pips from my entry while I write this, but the good thing is that I didn't short it because it's too high as I usually do.
As far as scalping, that's it. First two trades eur/usd and usd/jpy where R profits, second eur/usd probably little less. It's good when my attention is on what's going on and when I base trades on that. If I don't do that I wonder off and got burned.
+15 pips

Know your place

I was hesitant to trade in the morning and than when I got bored I started to trade. I had profit on gbp/jpy 20 pips or so but I was greedy and didn't took it. It's the situation when I want more when I read all good, made good trade and than don't want to take exit. Even if it's profit exit. I don't know where is my place, I'm not satisfied being a scalper. My fault, I paid for that.
Gby/jpy trades were half size. I'm good for scalping and nothing else and I should stick to that. I didn't have courage to hold my trades when things reversed and took -72 pips loss. -70 sounded great when I was -170 few minutes ago. So why do I even bother trading that way when I'm not going to profit when there is opportunity. I don't even bother to explain my averaging habit, it's known.

Later I got wiser and took two scalps in gbp/usd for +5 and eur/usd for +19 pips. So today -48 pips.

Eur/usd trade is nice example what is tempting to not only take scalping profit. But for me it's always better to leave early. I can add my small winnings nicely and I should just abandon any attempt to trade for bigger profits.

Nice little channel

I draw this channel while market was heading down in leg before my entry. I didn't have patience to wait for eur/usd to touch it so I entered first trade few pips before the channel. I'm trading smaller size so it's more natural to add to position. I didn't want to wait much, it was a scalp that can go wherever so I took +13 pips.

Market is nice for trading my style today, not fast, not slow with nice reactions to the trend. I'm still recovering mentally and feel satisfied with trade and profit, so I will log of from Oanda.

Limping back

I have cut my size again so I will need 115 pips to come back from where I fell. Got +10 pips today but still in not good shape for trading.

Sisyphean task

I lost 90 pips today, I was more than double that in red 3 minutes before my exit. Insane leverage and averaging for no important reason. It's like I sometimes decide let's fool around. Let's short the trend up, let's not get out of position that it's in small profit but not moving. Let's not get out at b/e. Let's not get out at s/l. Let's average and move all the stops. Let's average until there is no more margin to average more. Let's swing a loss of 5% to 10% than back to 5% in few minutes and exit, and be happy about the fun trip that I just had.

I don't want to show charts. I feel less stupid just talking about it and not showing how does it look in reality.

Well I'm trading for few years now, I learned a lot and I'm trading better. I can see good opportunities and bad stuff. I'm much more conscious about all that trading stuff. But from day one I didn't move a bit in some aspect that is about being successful. It's totally psychological issue, because nobody can tell me that one day I know how to trade at least scalp and other day I just let it all go away trading totally opposite of all the rules.
It's hard, it's "Sisyphean task". It's not problem in trading actions, I know how to win or to lose. But I can't answer the question why I sometimes choose to lose, to lose big. Than I start all over again.
I have polarity, I want success and I don't want it or I'm afraid of it of all it brings. It's not trading problem. It could happen in any aspect of life or any other business. Trading is here, I do that and that problem shows here.

In my defense I can say that I have worked on solving that problem, I didn't ignore it totally. But I didn't break out through that resistance. It's starting to become boring to gain, gain, gain small than lose all and than some and start all over again.

Looking for a break out

Yesterday's analysis on my new blog was todays main theme for trading. I wanted gbp/chf to make break out up and I was looking for possible scalp entries. I was so mad after first exit that I let myself shaken out so easily. On second trade things looked to me that they will fall so I took scalping profit. Last trade I got 4 pips slippage in time from my order to entry so I wasn't happy about it. I wanted to get better price than two times before but I got the same. Around US open there was no scheduled news but prices start to fly all around. I was happy when I saw that chf is loosing ground on usd, but gbp/usd started to follow down. Than I hit the exit. No break out up, it's still the range.
+17 pips

I must admit that even trying to stay in trades long term and in the direction of the trend like the first trade is highly unusual for me. I didn't take profit there when I was 15 pips up. I was mad that I got shaken out and not that I missed scalp money. So I'm happy about that more than about my todays forex profit.

Check out my new blog

I opened another blog with purpose to make long term technical analysis in it. This is my trading blog, my journal. I wanted to have clean blog only for TA of longer time frames. With this blog I found out that blogging is very nice motivational tool. So now, I hope that I will have more motivation for some homework type analysis. I probably will not trade on that, but why not to try and sharpen my skills. Maybe open new field for discussion.

I won't post there probably but once in a week or two weeks.

So there it is check it out, subscribe it, comment in it ForexTA

Wrong frame of mind

I decided to play around with 102 level when it was breached and retested. There was no such follow through on the down side, I was thinking. Just an idea, but as soon as I was in the red I realized that I will not exit on stop loss. I was in my biggest enemy in trading frame of mind "I don't want to lose". I know that there is no point of resisting, or trying to get out on stop forcing myself out. If I have that frame of mind in the first place, that is the problem.
So I played slow, added two times 1/3 position and made exit around b/e as soon as I got it.

Generally usd/jpy isn't my pair.


Than I decided to end it for a week. I don't want to mess around any more today with loser mentality.




I wasn't by the screen yesterday and it's quite disturbing when I see the big move that happened and I was trading around the bottom of it. I know that I'm scalping and that I wouldn't stick around any way. But in times like this I wonder how it would be to swing trade. It would be best to turn scalps in swing trades but it's only wishful thinking for now.

Is 1R enough?

First trade in gbp/usd was unbelievable. While eur/usd and usd/chf headed in the direction of dollar weakness gbp/usd was so still that it was funny. So I exited that trade with spread loss. After that I had two trades in eur/usd with no luck. Finally I was again in gbp/usd but this time short because it looked to me that there is resistance above 800 and that it's not easy for gbp/usd to go in that direction. I had profit on that trade to finish day positive with +5 pips.

Other think that I would like to mention is that any of those 4 trades would get 1R if I stayed in them until and took profit at 1R.
I don't know is it always good to wait for -R or +R. First in gbp/usd was 12, than in first eur/usd trade it was 4 but I didn't take the profit at 4. Second eur/usd trade had 5 for R and I exit it earlier for -3. At last gbp/usd I took +10 but it would come to +12.

I don't know maybe I should look only for R on any side. I definitely have tendency to take profits early and cut them. Regarding the exits it would be great to have only R loss without averaging and moving stops.

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Too early exit

Usd/chf movement was trigger for eur/usd trade. Eur/usd was more reluctant to go than usd/chf that was nicely ticking down. I exit for R of +8 pips, evidently to soon. I was thinking than that maybe it's spike that will come back so I started shorting it. Second averaging short was 1/3 size. Probably I was just angry because I didn't stay and for that reasons shorts came.

Later I made one more small scalp.

+12 pips today

New month

Forex market was slow in the morning, too slow. I was scalping a little but didn't make as much profits as I could. Last trade in eur/usd and usd/chf pairs went much farther. The thing was that I entered usd/chf trade too early and it looked like it will become loser. I entered eur/usd trade like some kind of averaging for usd/chf. I was happy to take them out around break even. I wasn't thinking when I entered the trade nor when I made an exit.

Gbp/jpy trade was best today. It was looking like there will be more to the upside although it slowed a little. It is usually spot where I short uptrend and get burned, so this time I was going in the direction of the trend. In one minute all was over.

+17 pips for trades