April 2010. results

+103 pips

+10 %

I'm calling end of month little early. After big loss at the beginning of month with bigger size I took size back down and made around 250 pips run up. Now I want to settle down a bit and lose big swings mentality.

Confusion

Playing with too much size.
Counting on averaging before I chose to close trade that is clear loser.
Addictive behavior of trading with big size that can lead to big win which brings emotion of exhilaration.


+18 pips

Profitable but questionable

Here I go again line up three positions. This really can't be called averaging because spacing is so small. It's bad because it's not in my plan and if things go against me I freeze. In the end I didn't even capitalize on it properly. At the bottom same thing. I guess it's greed, I want a big trade and big profit. I don't feel comfortable to enter in the first place with that size but I do it anyway when price goes against me. It's a case where I'm not prepared on bigger financial risk but I want bigger gain. I know that I'm not doing it right but it's difficult to stop and change things. I'm trying.

+35 pips

Monday

I fall into mine own trap on my second trade. I guessed that up potential is limited and had nice first scalp. Then I got suckered in long. Big position with averaging and I failed to take small profit or b/e that I had. After I reversed short I got instant 10 pips run against me, then very hard move lower. I was positive for a day after exit but foolishly I didn't want to quit. So I had disastrous trading in eur/usd with four positions later. Reversal trade of same size cut my loss to manageable one.
All in all not well. After I surpassed level from big loss at the beginning of the month I again have tendency for big size. Then bigger size made very bad day. Now I average non stop and ride too big positions. I need to cool down with it.
Also when I trade like this I miss on opportunities for scalping. Eur/usd had beautiful trend and I missed all tied in gbp/usd.

-18 pips

Friday

Today I was around five hours in front of charts for a change. Nothing much can be said from those charts below but that swing trading would be much better option for today.

+18 pips

Thursday

It's annoying that whenever I enter trade it goes straight against me lately. Market is different and I trade it on same way looking for breakouts and stop hunts. It's maybe ok for 5min time frame trading but from my point of view it's just jumping around and you can't know where is it going next.

+26 pips

Wednesday

Poor market for trading and similar performance, lol.

+4 pips

Messing around

I don't prefer trading like this. It's big win or big loss, loss is usually bigger. Also when there is big loss it can mess my head for following days or longer.

My plan at least for that third full size trade was to close it at b/e if it didn't go my way. I should have done that when it kept going down again after 11:00 news. I simply forgot or it was too fast.
Problematic is also that I don't want to get size lighter when I'm in a black. Greed kicks in and I want all profits from big position, small then isn't enough. On first three trades b/e price was 386, I had many opportunities to take profit without exposing myself to big risk any more. After last trade b/e was 380. It's crazy how I don't wan't to close around b/e even tough just two minutes before I was 40 pips of standard size in red on my whole position.

+43 pips

Don't try this at home

Big gap down for gbp/usd. So I chose down side, but market wasn't in a fast mode where I can interpret easily when is signal for my trade. So I went with half size and keep adding. I didn't expect that big bounce up but once when you are part of it it's hard to close. At b/e 238 I was contemplating of taking half of the position down because it was double and market could easily snap back. It did continue down but gbp was much stronger then eur which broke to the new low so there wasn't extension in gbp/usd in big way.
I really shouldn't trade when I don't see opportunity that I like and which I can trade with style that suits me.

+34 pips

(It's not marked on chart but all positions were 1/2 size)

Nice day for trading

Very nice market for all kinds of trading. Eur/usd is always problematic for me because it moves too little in straight line on sub 1min tf in comparison to gbp/usd. So I take profits whatever they are before they evaporate.

I don't like eur/jpy, too much losses on that pair. I simply read it wrong. So I chose today to go for trades against the trend in it. Half size to make things easier on my emotions.



More big moves came after I was finished with this trades. Well my concentration was over. I do have regret in a sense that I would like to trade more, but I know that it's better not to. Also I simply feel exhausted and fed up with trading for today. So in this state it would be just wrong to trade.
It's all probably because I watch every tick. Then come period when I'm in a trade so emotions are heightened. Then again out but watching every tick. Constantly judging do I see a move in front of me. That sequence of things burns me out. Maybe it's my prejudice that I should do it different and this is just fine.

+21 pips

Tuesday

First couple of trades in eur/usd ended poorly. Market didn't move and my actions were clumsy. I went short in the first place because it was mini break down and I expected to catch some downside action if I'm fast.
Gbp/usd trading was based on good fundamental news at 10:30 but without much action initially. Size was halved because you never know what can play out in such situation when things are not fast and directional. My add on was when price broke morning highs but it just stop there. Me being me didn't want to close while second entry was in a loss from spread. Luckily it did move slightly but there wasn't any move of strength in eur/usd at the time to take it all up.
In the end some more eur/usd trading after Greek auction. It's pretty much hard to go short after such strong up break out. You just wait when will it pick up itself and surge higher again. Short trade in the end was my usual when there is break of previous lows it couldn't be missed. Those eur/usd trades were also with half size because I wasn't concentrated so much any more.

+16 pips

Monday

Very short trade in a day that is more suitable for swing trading then scalping.

+5 pips

Going with the trend

I'm not so proud that my healing come from trading that is borderline to bad trading that made my problems in the first place. Today initial trades needed average trades to give sense to all of it. If I stopped them when they were in a loss I would be in a deep hole. If I waited for them to turn my profit would be much smaller in relation to risk. Maybe the answer should be that I trade with half size in the first place, but then if things went in my direction immediately it would be too small profit. So that's why averaging is usual choice and somehow feel the best considering alternatives. Yes, it can burn me also but risk reward today is around 1:1 in this. The biggest problem is if I lose my head in the process and don't want to exit big loss with two trades on going against me.

Interesting thing to note is that I went over my scribbles and found a passage that I wrote just before my latest good run. There I said that my problem is trading with size too big for me to feel comfortable with it. This is then true for wins and losses. I cut my size after that and run about 50% on my account. Then I bumped up the size and immediately felt the pain. Well problems started two weeks ago when I started contemplating of a need to make my size bigger.
So now my size is back to old one. That doesn't mean that I will not have problems but I have to say that I felt pretty much ok today when I was in a loss. Day before loss made me panic. I don't know why are those subtle differences so big, but better for me to just accept it.

Also I would like to note that I'm grateful for learning to trade in the direction of the trend. As I stated before it was real problem for me in first couple of years when I started trading. I just couldn't pull the trigger in the direction of the trend, only opposite. Today trend saved me from my not so good entries and gave me profit without too much heat.

+55 pips

(smaller size pips, around 36 pips of the size day before. So it's not half of loss that is recovered but third)

Worst possible choices

My first short was prior to continuation of down side. Then average and long minutes of range. Then I abandon my short side and reverse two minutes to reversal. After it's too late to assess risk, I just stick to losing trade in fast market. In the end one little desperate long that lost some more.

History repeats itself. After long profitable string I hit the wall and fall out of rhythm and find the way to lose a lot. I don't blame so much trading or bad trading for it. It's something "in me" that makes me suddenly uncomfortable because of recent gains. I don't want to start with psychobabble because I can't explain it yet so what's the point.

I wasn't so emotional and I was very close at some points in that range to call it and have small or medium loss day. I predicted while I was short that I could lose maximum of 50 pips if things go. It's more than double.


Add to all that my position size is 50% bigger from the start of the month. So it's more that 150 pips loss of last months pips.



-108 pips

Tuesday

I didn't have much time for trading today. Market was slow and I was happy that this trade closed in profit because long side started to look more promising as time passed and down side hold it's levels.

+5 pips