Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Mind games

It's interesting how suddenly when I changed my size in trading what last week were full size trades now are 1/3 size trades and I really feel they are. I'm not nervous when they are 15 pips against me because it's only 5 pips. Before I would rush to average at that place. When I'm looking to take profit I'm saying it's better to be 21 pips so it is 7 full size. Before I was ecstatic with 20 pips. What has changed? Nothing, just the way I interpret things.

This plays with gbp/usd were after the news with 1/3 size. Today eur/gbp is leading action on gbp/usd so they were based on it. At second trade I had opportunity to take same profit in 30 seconds after the entry but I give it space to go more down and it changed it's mind. When I was like 20 pips in loss I wasn't worried it's just 7 pips and I had previous profit to offset it partially. I guess anything up to -30 is ok because than I approach -10 full size pips and it's a lot, reason to throw in the towel. Best thing was that I didn't have a need to average, not a bit. That's great.
Later I shorted eur/usd with 1/3 approaching 3070 resistance but I just didn't like it. It could spike in whichever direction. I remember from the past this kind of plays when it's so ugly in uptrend that I can't find opportunity for going long and then I go short. Ugliness of the move is not a reason to go against it. Well later it did go my way but I was to nervous at that point so I just didn't want to hold that position and trade any more.

In days like this when I don't see opportunity for nice scalp I'm happy to trade opportunities that I don't like so much with 1/3 size.

+7 pips







4 comments:

Anonymous said...

good stuff man! i'm glad to see your relaxing a bit.

Anonymous said...

You are persistant, which is very good. It is always easier psychologically to trade smaller size, lower margin. At the same time returns are smaller which may not be satisfying. Key is to strike a balance, which is not known without some trial and error. You have to find it out on your own. I would start low, say 1:1 and after some time move higher and so on. For example if you have 10,000 in account, start trade 10,000 lots. After 10 or 20 trades, if all the stops and other rules were applied and you had no problems taking losses, move the size up to, say 15,000. Eventually you will find leverage that is right for both your risk tolerance and trading method potential. It might take some time (several weeks, few months?) to discover the best combination for you. Once you are there and your strategy proves a winning one, there are additional steps that can be taken to increase returns and while leaving risks the same. From my experience, you can't just guess the comfort of trading size. It must be discovered. The sooner it happens, the better. Makes things a lot easier in the long run.

FX said...

Hi Mike, it looks like everything is really in the head. We are trading ourselves and market is a medium to do so.

Anonymous said...

well put FX,

do you remember that Quote that was on my myspace page?

"We do not trade the markets, we trade our beliefs about the markets, However beliefs are not reality, they are only filters to reality."