Monday, September 1, 2008

Good news & bad news

Good news is that I didn't average or moved stops today. That really mattered because I'm positive that loss would be much bigger if I did some averaging judging from the emotional state in which I was.

Bad news is that I had a loss and after it emotional trading that brought more losses.

Market was in the range in the morning and when there was nice spike up in eur/usd at 12:03 I went in gbp/usd long because I bet that if we have uptrend gbp will bounce strongly being so down after a gap down overnight. There was nice flag in eur/usd and I was still positive that we will have uptrend just waiting for break out.

When eur/usd started to fall at around 12:35 the gbp/usd didn't so I decided to stay long. In the end it was like failed b/o up for eur/usd and my gbp stop got hit. Well trade gone wrong way, stop hit, that's it.
Problem was that I became very angry and opened more trades because I couldn't believe that there will not be rally up. So I had some other trades, all long in downtrend and for all it's -62 pips.


Emotions. Good thing is that I was now without moving stops and averaging. I did adapt to that and opened so many trades so it's kind of averaging but technically not. My emotional state didn't change much from my big loss last month. Today I had opportunity to see it from another angle. Having stops helped me in that. I can describe it as a syndrome of angry little boy that is angry because things are not the way he wants. So he is angry on his mother and trying with anger to manipulate her in doing what he wants. Well maybe manipulation worked when I was a kid, but market is not my mom and don't give a s*it about my anger. Well that is problem with unconscious mental pattern that worked in the past and now you try it to use in absolutely unsuitable situation. It's absurd that I'm trying to manipulate market with my anger and revenge trading but I do it. I didn't learn to be wrong and go past that. I'm in denial.

After my third stop I closed eur/usd also and went to lunch. I felt anger and wanted to destroy my account, never to trade again and feel those bad emotions. That self destruction mode was on when I lost several hundred pips last month. I think that emotional pain and shake down is now in trading so big that I just want to run away from it. Well in that state you can learn and change because it's unbearable.

So trading bring from deep inside of us skeletons and ways that we deal with stress. It can be hazardous and if we don't change things that are not align with good trading there is guarantee that trading will not be successful






*Update
One more loss so total today -84 pips. I went for break down of 8000 and than there was 50 pips reversal. I didn't want to get out earlier or reverse because I'm unstable. I feel like poster boy for how not to trade.


4 comments:

4x For Life said...

That was hilarious, to funny i almost pissed myself. I am not judging i did the exact same deal a few years back, fighting the trend and just kept opening trades in the wrong direction.(Ok here comes the cod liver oil) Remember how we talked about trade plan? Why would you go long when it opened down 110 points? Now that was a gamble trying to get a bounce. Plus the market is flat? I am not busting your chops i truly want to help and so do so many others.

FX said...

I stay behind my first trade, I opened it because movement in eur/usd was indicating strong up at that time. Bad trading was after that.

Anonymous said...

To be perfectly honest FX, I don't think you had that bad of a day. Yes you may have lost money but you held your stops. The truth is even though you kept revenge trading, which in itself was bad, according to the charts you never had a chance to hold any of your trades and squeeze a profit out of them. Your timing could not have been worse on them though.

On volatile days you need to realize peoples stops are going to get hit... and when those stops are hit, most of the bigger players are using THAT price for an entry in the other direction. They know how to trade volatility. Why don't you try to be on the correct side of the trade when price approaches those stops. Such as your last trade, that was purely stops getting hit and traders reversing.

I see this kind of price action all the time at significant round numbers. Price will ALMOST hit it and retrace a bit. That is always a signal for me to begin trading in that direction at least temporarily because chances are those orders on the other side are about to be picked off.

Don't beat yourself up about 3 losers in a row, be upset that you took the trades for the wrong reason and broke your rules. Make your losses an acceptable amount for the day. Thats really all I can say about today... Get back on the horse.

FX said...

Well yes I don't consider it as failure because I did use stops and that is big for me. I had opportunity to see how does it feel to get so many -20 stops hit. I'm happy with my first and last trade entry, I would done it again. Managing wasn't that good. I didn't consider in the last trade possible reversal being emotionally shaken up, so just took stop.