Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Talk me about swings

As always I'm even more eager to trade when I lose like this then when I win. I don't regret my entry in gbp/usd so high. It was after the news and all was aligned to break new high. I couldn't get out with a small loss either because pair just made 50 pips move so some kind of retracement or spike can't be ruled out. Then I averaged, gbp/usd bounced back, that is my usual modus operandi. When it started braking down again it was a place where I should get out.
Then there were swings between 50 and 80, 60 and 80 I didn't get out.
I'm too static when I'm in a loss. I just stay still. I really need to learn how to get out or always just let trade get stopped out.

I put too much emphasis on avoiding of making a loss, like it's something bad. Bad is staying in market while it's going against you. My trades need to be more fluid. Not so rigid.

In my personal belief system I have strong belief that losing money is bad or wrong. In highly stressful situation like today I go with my core belief. So I don't lose money (at the moment where I should get stopped out) and get myself open to losing more money. It's illogical, but the truth is that it's hard for me to loss money to prevent losing even more money. Because of belief that losing is bad. People can say it's human nature, it is, but it's stronger or weaker from person to person.
Many times I take profit too soon, I don't trail stop. Why? Because I find open profit as money, my money and then I try not to lose it. Again belief that losing is very bad. In this situation I prevent myself from making more money because losing any part of open profit is bad.
It's unconscious belief and with stating it here I didn't get rid of it yet. I know I didn't because I still strongly believe that losing is bad.


I tried to go long in eur/usd but again I'm frozen when it goes against me.

Later I had to recover some and trade some more. I did win something back, but in pretty much bad trading. With letting loser run and taking profit asap.
-73 full size pips



4 comments:

Rob said...

Hi FX,
Sorry to hear about your loss today.

Can I ask your reason for going long at around 1.6660 on the gbp 1 min chart?

Thanks.
Rob

FX said...

Hi Rob,
reason was because after news time at 10:30 eur and gbp started gaining strength against usd. Attack on the gbp/usd previous highs around 660 was on as far my judgment was telling me. I like those kind of trades when market is going after previous high or low. I don't like to enter after the break out because it's usually the spike and it can spike back also and it's hard to get in at the good price. So I enter before break out.

Problems started at 10:39 as it can be easier seen on eur/usd. Until then I believed that it's just retracement back and that it will continue up.
My fault off course was not reacting appropriately after that.

Jules said...

FX,
not wanting to lose money is not illogical. Wanting to keep profits before they vaporize is totally human. Gurus make it sound easy: cut losers, hold winners. They are either not human, or are swing traders/investors. The latter has a lot of time to make logical decisions. The lower timeframe you use, the less time you have to get pass your primal instinct to do what's "logical". Also, because intraday charts have so many spikes and chops, and you've gotten so used to seeing them, you'll tend to assume that price will quickly come back after going against you, and so you hold, and then add, now trading a reversion to mean scenario. On those rare occasions that price doesn't go back to mean - those will be the D-days. Been there. Nightmarish. Helps to at least have a "max pain" kind of mental stop to minimize damages on such days.

FX said...

Jules you put it nicely. Even calming. I like that info about having less time to get by my primal instinct when trading on short time frame. I never thought about it, thanks.