June 2008. results

Remember back in April I posted in my results section chart of my last 28 weeks of trading after big loss. It's been a 12 weeks since than and it's time for another chart.
So from low of -436 pips I managed to slowly build my profits to recent high of -90 pips. I got back in the middle of the range and now I'm stuck.



For me it's apparently all in psychology. I had a goal of getting back and I accomplished that. Best thing is that I found the most profitable way for me to trade. That's scalping.
Now without strong personal goal I'm drifting down. Let's call that cooling of and establishing a healthy base in my performance chart.


This month I'm down

- 43 pips
- 1.6 %

I was up at first and had my size back to previous levels, but when I started to lose again and fall beneath of opening for the month I again cut my size down.
I don't know how will I trade next month. For now I'm planing to go day by day. I'm fully aware of bad psychological setup when I have it. So, I will try to minimize that. I like to trade, I like to follow markets intraday. It's my passion. Like I said the other day in comment section I can see progress in my trading through time. If I'm now in break even part of trading education so be it. I was constantly losing before, slow and small, but losing. I go with the trend now, I try to trade break out it the right direction. Before I was all in fading and going against the trend. I still average down a lot but to defend myself on that ground I got to say that averaging always come after bad trade with bad intentions in the first place. Idea that I could pick the spot for home run out of the blue is so lame and really costly. I could maybe stay longer in the trade if it starts as nice scalp and I than leave it on protecting scalping part of profit with stop. I didn't have any such trades yet.

I learned that the most important thing in learning to trade is consider what is the most suitable style of trading for you as a person. Maybe it's different when you start with help and mentor from the start. Maybe mentoring could model you in any suitable way. I'm self thought in this trading business and I'm little inclined now to short term trading and extra short holding times. That thing developed over the years and now it's all I know. I remember I had small winner in aud/usd few years ago holding for few days and it was phenomenal. I couldn't believe how it was going up and every day up more. I would for certain like to be able to hold my winners long but right now when I dabble in that direction looking for swings I mess up all my trading.
Last few weeks I'm little slow in cutting my losses, it takes me in bad direction and bigger losses.

Uptrend turned into downtrend

First in the morning it was ready to break previous high so I entered. It fall back, I waited and decided to add another trade if we have successful b/o of 810 level. After it all happened I expected big and fast move, there wasn't one. So I took quick exit probably because I had two positions. Two minutes later I took my chance on failed b/o and got quick reaction, spike down. I took profit because it could as easy spike up.

Than I wasn't by the screen until about 10:30. I wasn't prepared for that new b/o of 820 level. Again I tried short because it was so slow in going up. I didn't expect much but small scalp. After I took profit I was looking for entry for next push up. First nothing, than I made mistake of not taking small stop loss. I leave losing trade on, averaged expecting 800 support. Well it only stop at 795 and I was deep in the red so I was more than happy with b/e on those two trades.

Again later was push down. I was still with my mind in uptrend and I didn't believe that it's not any more. I took two tries of looking for reversal. In the end I took scalps on both. Tricky market, big risk with averaging and small scalp profits.
+10 full size pips

One trade

One little trade. Again I didn't have my scalping instincts. I had scalping instinct to go long at 53 and b/o but I was afraid to pull the trigger. Shorting it was just betting with odds against me. I didn't want to close a trade when I had nice profit first. It's like having some kind of therapy, I feel good being in the trade. So I stay just to be focused. Later I did close it and got +6 full size pips.

Killing me

Not market, I'm killing myself. Why do I try those longer term trades because if they don't go my way I'm brainwashed. I don't know where would I go out. I average for the sake of saving myself making risk and losses even bigger. I don't have the answers. Maybe enough of this kind of losses will one day be enough to stick only with scalping.

I wouldn't enter this trade for only scalping reasons because I didn't have any signal. BOE members have some kind of testimony and I bet that market would be taken down. It was, I had nice profit but I didn't want to take it. When the b/e price came I didn't want to go out. I didn't have any stop.
It was so nice scalp opportunity on the upside when market came to 800 figure. But I was brainwashed.
Whenever I try those longer term ideas I get results like this. So stupid to try it, because my management skills are zero for those kind of trades. I get disconnected from reality. I don't have an answer but not to try that. But I do try anyway.

I feel pretty much stupid and ashamed when I post this kind of charts. So that's good thing. It helps to avoid that for no other reason but to avoid looking stupid on my blog. This time I did those stupid things and I'm happy to get loss on that. It's better to lose on bad trading than to save myself with averaging and b/e. That way you learn.

I don't have to say much in my defense but that I will try to avoid going for bigger gains if that is just idea not reality in good scalp. The problem is always how I start the trade, if it's for scalping reasons it's good. If I look for some kind of swing trade when I enter I'm wrong.
-27 full size pips

Market was joking with me today

Just check out my first three trades. I was out just before profit. The last trade with averaging I was happy to get out at b/e, if it didn't climbed I would bet and wait for news. I wasn't available later to trade the news.
b/e today

Active market and scalping

Motivation or no motivation scalping is what I like to do. Maybe it's not optimal to use all potential handed by the market but it's legitimate way of trading. Funny that today when I was in scalping mood, market was trendy and the best thing would be just stick in directional trade. It's better to whine now on missed profits but on losses when I try to swing trade and mess it up all.

First I entered eur/usd and gbp/usd short at the same time because it looked to me like heavy clouds ready to poor rain. Gbp/usd was fast with showing profit I made premature exit and also closed eur because it didn't move.

Second long in gbp/usd was bet that market moved to0 much too fast and that we could see little bounce after 40 pips in 8 min.

Crazy thing happened at the time of eur/usd news time at 10:30. I was ready on the sell button and market started to move fast. I shorted but the thing was that somehow sell of started 10 second before the time. In the time of my short spread was widen to 2.5 from 0.9 regular but I was in at spread 10. I didn't realise that things happened before time. I never enter on spread 10, I wait for it to come down. Now I was in the trade and market and my trade was at around my t/p green line around 530 (I always have t/p and s/l at +30 -30 just in case). It wasn't activated because spread was still 10 and it saved that buy order to cover from activation. I quickly move t/p level further down, I waited a little and took nice scalping profit.
Next two trades were attempts to get ahead on bounce. Eur/usd wasn't cooperating and gbp/usd was little slow because eur/usd was flying up and it wasn't catching so I didn't wait in it.
+13 full size pips



Besides this I would like to comment on little development on Oanda's trading platform. Now they changed they way of updating prices. It's much faster it's jumping around at times in 10sec 5 or 7 times up or down. Users on Oanda forum comment that it's now like ECN or DOM. It's "real time" feel. It's a blessing and u curse. For one I'm used on old way. I was watching it for years now and I could on the way it moves sometimes guessed strength. Now it's totally new and I got to used to that. But now you can in same 10 sec bar get a price that is let's say 3 pips better, if you catch it. When it's falling fast it's not jumping it's just like waterfall.
I'm still waiting for one click trading that they implemented on fx game platform. There was different opinions on that so now they postpone it on fx trade platform. It will be probably much easier without big order windows and it would be fixed that s/l and t/p orders are in pips and not price. They would move in real time, I wouldn't need to adjust them like now if my order window is open for longer time.

Lack of real motivation

When you trade without motivation you find a way how not to get profits. I think that is my main problem now.



I had long trade in eur and gbp b/o type. It fall down. I averaged gbp and when it came back it hesitated to go more up I made an exit in both. Gbp was just chop from that point but eur started trend.

Later when eur started breaking up again I enter just in gbp. It went little up but back down. So I said if it doesn't have strength to go up it's weak so let's short. So I exit my long and initiate short. It wasn't at first going nowhere. Than eur started to go in range and gbp up. I chose to average. I had one short in eur also but in the end it stayed there. I exit my gbp shorts with -20 full size pips, it was 30 pips better loss than at high point.
It did fall later more but I didn't wait.

I'm not angry at all because I see the pattern. I was all motivated and hyped up when I was recovering from 300 pips loss. Now that I'm at the same point like before I don't have motivation for winning. I simply wanted to recover and now I don't know what I want. It's not trading problem. It's problem of trading positioned in life. I don't know really what to do. If I continue to trade I will lose than recover, than lose again. It's fun and interesting voyage but it's not really my choice. I don't have definite solution right now, I just can state the situation as it is

Gambling

I found that gbp/usd wasn't strong as euro in the morning and I short it when it bounced. I was right for immediate scalping profit which I didn't take. I said let's wait it will go down more. From that point it was jumping around but without real strength. After 45 minutes of nothing I decided to go out and I went away from screen. Two minutes later it broke down. I was mad for that mistake when I found out.
In anger I started buying because it was now showing strength all over but it stop. I was averaging down and gambling. It wasn't really weak but it was falling. I was gambling with staying in through the news at 12. I'm not proud of that all, it was pure gambling under heavy emotions. Later when it reversed slowly I didn't have energy to stay. So I got out of three positions with acceptable loss. With first trade I was at +5 but finished day at -8 full size pips.



The sad thing is that I'm mostly right in my interpretation of market but I don't trade it well except if I just scalp. So every other day I'm fighting with the way I want to trade. I scalp to cut out the impact of emotions. When emotions overwhelm me it's not important how I interpret things because I tend to gamble.

Beautiful scalping

Maybe I'm exaggerating in the title but I'm pretty satisfied with my work today. First eur/usd scalp I didn't see it at the time of start of the move. When it started to tick down after pause I shorted and it was on the down tick because I went immediately into the loss. It's all in seconds so it's even hard to see it on 10sec chart. When my view got confirmed with down ticks again I added one more short. Well that's great for me because I rarely do that. I got out when I was at around 10 in plus but got little slippage back. It's scalping and I didn't want to test anything and wait, price was already 30 pips down in few short minutes.
Next was short in gbp/usd again I didn't see on time down development but I decided to go for a bounce if it materialize at around 90 level because it was some kind of pivot in my metatrader. Levels like that if they got some sort of reaction give nice chances for strong move for scalp. It doesn't meter what will develop in next 5 or 10 minutes in that moment momentum is strong for up.
Third scalp was again in eur/usd after the news at 11. I was little hesitant and when I finally push down the button I got around 10 or more pips slippage. I was in a shock, market was higher than 85 when I clicked and now I was in at 73 or so. Maybe my wireless internet connection was responsible for that moment in between. I was waiting to see what will develop and decided to get out if I got b/e chance. I got little profit on that trade also.

I was patient and deliberate today for the whole time. Not only in trades that I made but also in the one's that I thought about and skipped. This is performance that I want to have all the time.

+ 15 full size pips

Firefox 3 Download Day 2008

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Struggling

I started trading today but performance is far from spectacular. I had great swing trade idea in eur/jpy that went first -15 and when it got to b/e I made an exit at the time of scalp exit in eur/usd.

Than at afternoon I was so tempted to short strong eur/usd but I didn't after some news I went long. It was very slow on 10sec and I exit it and than later I shorted because it was slow and heavy. Short was going against me slowly but much in the end. I averaged and than I had to go and didn't want to leave position open so I closed and erased half of morning profit.

All in all poor. Fighting between swing trading and scalping. Entering swing and exit as a scalp. Getting out to soon without a reason in long eur/usd trade after the news, it wasn't even on b/e but at +2. Than missing that profit and shorting so strong uptrend without clear indication that it's over. Poor, poor. Not to mention that I can't recognize strong market when it's best just get in and leave trade open and let it with the flow. But when do I do that? Never.

The thing is probably that everything against the plan was bad today. So swing trade I should never initiate because I don't have staying power and can get burnt. Scalps in eur/usd in morning were ok. Trading at afternoon would be better to skip because I'm not fresh and my decisions are mediocre. +5 full size pips

I've lost it

As you all can probably see my trading started to slide down. Well today I hit hard so I finally got reality check. Friday loss wasn't enough for me. Yesterday I was just lucky. Today I started scalping but I averaged losses just not to lose and didn't want to face reality that it's going one way. Just typical gambling behavior. I covered at some point at -4 but it wasn't enough. So I started to trade loser way again and lost total of about -40 full size pips.
Now I cut the size so it will be even more to go back. I will also make a break and try to found what's missing.

It wasn't especially tricky market. I was just stubborn and overwhelmed with emotions. If I was sane and scalping everything would be fine, but I wasn't. It's not something new to me but it's always hard to prevent it on time. Well for certain I would lose much more from this point on if I don't face the problem.
I'll show the charts but I don't have the mood to point the sizes and trades.

Back to scalping

This are my small scalping profits of +8 full size pips for today. I'm going to be happy with them and quit trading for today. I got to build my confidence with my usual scalps. I don't know why I ever try to do something else.

I was looking to go long my first trade but I was watching other pairs and they where also just ready for b/o but than backed away. So I shorted instead, eur/usd didn't have in mind going down so I took small loss and immediately reversed. I took too quick exit but that's probably to cover just made loss. Than I was scalping some more based on movements on 10sec chart and other pairs.

I payed for mistake

I made mistake today and I payed for it. Sometimes it's good to pay because than you learn. I done same mistake yesterday twice but I didn't pay so I made it again today. I became addicted to profits and I open trades not because I see something but because some idea pops in my mind. With that idea I want profits. It's ok to get profits when you notice something and get paid because it was good call. But just wanting profits because you are addicted to good feeling of having profit and than producing some ideas absolutely not based on anything is wrong.

So I had idea that euro will sell of and that I will best get it from eur/jpy was just opposite of what happened. I averaged and than didn't have the nerve to wait for b/e and I closed early. Also I had few revenge trades after, so I lost total of -20 full size pips. More than 2/3 of this week profit. I feel like I needed loss like this to get push on my "reset button". Before few months I needed few hundred pips of loss to get reset. After that I'm now at 10th positive week. That kind of development get you of the track. So maybe this is good and not bad thing. I got my positive week but not with 28 but 8 pips lol and a lesson. Lessons usually do me good. I got to regroup again see where I am, what I want. Take a break if I need it, whatever.

Business of picking crumbs

In the morning was first flat line. I was attempting to scalp. Than I got caught in wrong direction but got out at b/e. After the brake I made some more scalps. Than I made big mistake. I shorted gbp/usd because of greed. After the news things started to tick down and I thought that gbp/usd will brake. From +5 for a day I put myself at -6 full size pips. I was mad and angry on myself. From that point I was directed with the urge to make it back. Mad scalping started first in gbp/usd than after the news in eur/usd. I got my loss to b/e first and than slowly day ended at +8 full size pips.

You could say that it's ridiculous to miss that 200 move, but I'm happy that I didn't lose on it as I usually do when there are so strong trends. I gave up hope that I will make anything on moves like this, I never did. So it wasn't hard for me to watch it and trade against it. It's me and I except that. In the end I got positive day after 16 or 17 trades lol. Another proof of scalping as my way. Probably I could scalp in the direction of the trend if I was fresh and without emotional burden from trading in the morning. I don't think that my scalping was good today. It was over trading, but emotions were in charge. I'm not at the level yet to stop trading when emotions prevail. Advancement is that with emotions I didn't lose my head completely like before. I was cutting losses and trading small. I'm satisfied.

The worst trade of the day was big loss in gbp/usd where I didn't exit on time. I didn't average it also which is good read. Everything else was my ingrained scalping.

Well everybody get what they want, I wanted small scalp profit for the day and I got it. I really mean that. Small profits is all I need.

Range and sloppy trading

Not much to talk about. Many second or third grade trades and choppy market. +1 pip