Monday, March 31, 2008

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.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i've been doing very sporadic trading as well. but been very unlucky (or stupid) in my choices. and when I make a few good (profitable) trades, I get greedy and double the sizes of the contracts and end up losing big time. i think it's quite impt. to put in place a very disciplined strategy to trade. i haven't found a good one yet though. care to share your techniques?

FX said...

My technique is based mainly on my screen time on short time frames. Pretty much discretionary trading. I've been watching and trading small time frames for long time. So I can sometimes easily recognize what is going on. If I don't have such "fight the trend - reversal" bias everything would be fine.

On small time frames I'm using much trend lines and support resistance levels from previous price action.

I like to go in to momentum type of trades where price will move immediately. It's usually some kind of break out through sup/res level or bounce away from it.

Easy method for someone on short time frame would be to pick trend that is started to develop already and than enter when price start getting in direction of the trend after small correction. Or just jump in in the direction of the trend with small predefined stop loss.

On small t/f stop loss levels should be really small 5-15 pips. If more is needed it's than other kind of trading. If my trade doesn't work now it will not work after 20 or more pips against me.

Exits are bit tricky and they are mostly based on psychological make up of an individual. I can't stand big oscillations when being in profit so I exit after first straight swing in my direction.

Averaging and moving stops are big problems in trading because they are so sweet when they work. Many mistakes can be corrected throe them. But there will come a day when using them I lose 100s of pips. In that particular moment I'm so intoxicated with emotions that there is no getting out with small damage. So those two should be expelled from trading.

If you have some other more detailed question be free to ask or send me an email.