A worrying start to the week

I started at 6.49am and finished at 7.33am for +2 pips off 3 trades, 2 of which were sell trades and 1, a buy trade.

I am not at all happy with my trading today again! All three trades were way too long, especially the second trade which lasted over 12 minutes. All of them also went negative before eventually going positive and in the case of the second trade, at one point (I wish I never have to use that phrase again), I was -10 pips down before it came back to relive me for a -1 pip trade.

I thought about my forex trading last night, in fact I even logged on to have a look at the platform and this blog. And one of the thoughts that hit me yesterday is how I was worried about losing stupidly today, especially after pulling off +10 pips last week. I was anxious, that’s right, anxious and worried. Crazy isn’t it? All I want to do, as I have said so many times before, is be able to bag a couple of pips here and there and keep my losses down to a minimum.

So, tomorrow is another new day for me to practice my good habits and get on that road to mental recovery. What do I need to remember? Wait for strong correlation between the currencies and strong momentum. If I am even slightly in doubt after getting in because the trade hasn’t gone positive straight away, get the fuck out of it! And of course, if after getting in to the trade it goes positive straight away, get the fuck out as soon as soon as a couple of pips are in the bag or more importantly at the first sign of any doubt that the trade is going to stall or worse, reverse!

That’s it for me today, adios!

Not sure, but I think it was ok

Another early start at 6.38am today and an early finish too at 6.50am for +4 pips off one buy trade.

But a strange occurrence took place today whilst I was in the middle of my trade. But before I get on to that, I think today was an ok trade. I don’t recall the trade going negative apart from being at -2 pips from the point of getting in which is the spread, but it did take a while to go positive as the duration of the trade was 41 seconds, still too long in my opinion. So I need to spot better moves before actually getting into a trade.

Now for that strange occurrence......I checked what announcements were due today. There were a couple of all day events which had medium importance, one affecting the Euro and the other affecting all currencies. But the first announcement that actually had a time slot was at 11am affecting the Cable. So I thought I had free regain to trade this morning, and though there were a couple of all day events, 6.38am is still really early, so I was unlikely to experience any major volatility or the spreads increasing etc. Having said this, whilst I was in my buy trade, the Cable’s spread suddenly increased from 2 pips to 5 pips. Thankfully, I was already at a breakeven point when this happened and poised to GOWID (I think I was ready to GOWID anyway) if disaster struck, but low and behold, the Cable moved up to make me +1 pips when I exited, but by the time the system physically took me out, I was at +4 pips and of course, done for the day.

I am now done for the week as I have achieved my old target of 10 pips and here’s my weeks round up a day early for change;

Mon +1 pip

Tues +3 pips

Wed +2 pips

Thurs +4 pips

Grand Total for the week, +10 pips.

Risky again

Ok, I need to cut this shit out now, I’m going the down that wrong path again. And getting some false security while I am at it. I started today at 6.47am and finished at 6.59am for +2 pips off one sell trade.

But this trade was all wrong, there was some correlation between the currencies but was not strong correlation in my opinion. The Cable had downward momentum, which is what got me poised, but didn’t seem to have strong correlation with the other currencies. I resisted getting in on the first move down by the Cable as I thought that the Cable was acting on its own without correlation with the other currencies, but after watching it do it for the second time and the Cable now 20 pips lower that when I started watching, I thought this was going to happen again – there, that’s exactly where I am going wrong each and every time – I am anticipating a move, instead of getting in on a confirmed move! And that’s what I did, I got in on a sell trade and hoped and waited as the trade took me to -4 pips before coming back and going positive by +2 pips over a 3 minute and 30 second period.

The question is, at which point would I have GOWID if this hadn’t gone positive? I don’t think I have the literary skills to describe how I am blowing up within, but if I don’t curb these habits of mine pronto, I don’t think it will be very long before I spontaneously combust!

Quite Risky

I started at 6.53am and finished at 7.12am for +3 pips off one sell trade. However, this was quite a risky trade. Though I saw correlation and momentum looked good, the trade stalled and the Cable reversed shortly after getting in and I was at -3 pips at one point. Over the next 1 minute and 35 seconds which was the duration of the trade, it hovered between a loss of -3 and -1 pip before suddenly pushing down to give me my +3 pips profit, at which point I was relieved to get out.

So all in all, not a good trade, the duration of the trade alone is a good indication of this being very risky. I’m not there yet in experience to enter trades such as today’s – I have to wait for the trades I know are solid and if trades such as today’s happen, I have to GOWID and take the small loss or as before, I am just practicing bad habits and setting myself up to fall over, over and over again.

Today also had early announcements due at 7am and 7.45am which was inconvenient. So when I sat down, I set out to not trade until 7.15am, but the spread on all the currencies had not changed before 7am and had still not changed by the time is was 7.05am. So I decided to trade, if an opportunity arose of course, and it did, or at least it looked as though it did at 7.10am which is when I got into my trade today. The intention was also to stop trading again at 7.30am, 15 minutes before the 7.45am announcement and recommence at 8am, 15 minutes after the announcement was over, but then I didn’t get that far.

Looking at tomorrow’s announcements, I have slots available to trade between 7.15am and 8.45am or between 9.45am and 2.45pm. I will be taking the first slot.

I’m fighting to stay confident and in control and I need all the help I can get financially. I need good, solid trading days under my belt to build my confidence to the levels I know I have been at before and turn this all into a profitable business in the long run.

A great early start to the week

I started very early today at 6.41am and finished at 7.45am for +1 pip off one sell trade which lasted 6 seconds. Ultimately, I was patient today as it has all hit home. I’m out of money now for day to day living and have been forced to get a job. So, this has to be got right if I am to live off Forex trading in the long run. I mean, there’s no point having fuck it days right?

I started this early to get used to how it will feels when I am working. I think I am going to need to get up earlier if I am to leave the house at 8am or earlier as it is 7.54am now. But for now, getting up at 5.45am will have to do, I’ve done it before and can do it again.

A long way to go.....

I started at 7.22am and finished at 8.02am for -17 pips off two trades, one sell and one buy. And no, I didn’t follow the rules again. I can barely keep my eyes open right now, I’m so tired.

It’s a big day today as well. There’s a lot of life changing planning ahead of me. I reviewed my financial status in some detail yesterday and it revealed big holes that need to be plugged every month. So I need to sit down today and work out a plan of action to plug these holes whilst I become a successful Forex Trader. I don’t know how I’m going to do this right now, but I’m sure I will come up with something.

Now on to this weeks round up;

Mon +2 pips

Tues +1 pip

Wed -23 pips

Thurs +1 pip

Fri -17 pips

Grand total for the week, -36 pips! Do I really need to say anymore, apart from the fact that I need to pull my finger out as usual! Plus, I’m so bloody tired, I just can’t be bothered to give myself a hard time today.......

How Not To Trade

I started at 11.10am and finished at 12.00pm for +1 pip in total off 3 trades, two buy trades and one sell trade. Pure, pure luck and I’m getting in plenty of practice in what not to do!

All three of these trades were examples of what not to do. The first trade lasted 4 minutes, the second 13 minutes and the third 7 minutes. I didn’t GOWID when I should have on any of them. All of them went badly negative, before breaking even or going positive.

The last trade was the most ridiculous – I had just finished the second trade feeling very relieved for it finished 1 pip up and I said to myself, ok, there’s no need to repeat that trade, stay cool and just wait for a good trade. I lasted 4 minutes of watching and went in on a sell trade because, wait for it, I felt that the Cable had peaked with its upward move and is now about to reverse. Let me just re-read that, I felt...........what the fuck has my feelings got to do with anything when deciding on the entry point of a trade? Anyway, after getting in on this perfect sell trade, what does the Cable do, it pushes upwards 10 pips, before, 7 minutes later, deciding to reverse, come back down to my entry point and letting me get out for 0 pips!

I am fucking crazy, that’s what it is, I was stressed out yesterday, worried about what I’m going to do about my finances, I’m still stressed today, but feel better than yesterday and because I finished today’s trading session positive (in pips at least), I’m taking some consolation in it – when I bloody well shouldn’t be!

Why can’t I just follow the rules? For every day I keep breaking rules, I am prolonging my training period and getting further and further away from achieving my financial goals. As you can see from my blog to date, I have tried everything – from giving myself a really hard time to telling myself it wasn’t the end of the world (after fucking up) – I have patted myself on the back during those brief moments of clarity (when everything has gone well and correctly), but nothing seems to be working for me right now. Snap out of it I keep saying, but I’m not snapping out of it. I am finding it tough to get out of bed in the morning these days as well – classic signs of me dipping into depression – something that I have fought hard to stay away from over the years.

I would love to be able to tell myself and my friends that I am now trading for a living and successfully bringing in a decent income from it to cover bills, my lifestyle and everything else that has a cost to it – but I’m miles away from doing this. I really don’t want this to be something that I tried and gave up on. I keep hearing of people who have become successful in their own businesses or employed roles, purely due to them wanting it bad enough, well I want to trade really, really badly and be good at it. I’m an intelligent enough guy, I know you probably saying, no you’re not, you are a thick fuck, based on my blog, but seriously, I know I am intelligent enough to do this. I know I’m not very patient, which is probably the biggest reason behind my failure at the moment, but that can be overcome right? I have to overcome it, along with any other issue that needs to be overcome.

I have rattled on enough today, probably the most amount of rattling I have done since beginning this blog, so I will stop now and hopefully, with some focus, I will be able to post something positive tomorrow. According to the announcements scheduled for tomorrow, I have a decent slot available between 7am and 8.45am, I’m gonna get myself into bed early tonight.......

If I had a penny for every time I fucked up..........

I started, or I should say, set up at 10am with a view to watching until 10.15am which is when I could officially start trading after the 10am announcement. There was a 4 pip spread on the Cable, which meant that there was some sentiment that people could try and turn a quick profit off the back of the announcement, so I stayed clear as per the rules. The spread then reduced down to the usual 2 pips on the Cable, so I got prepared for my opportunity to arise.

Before I get into my fuck up, or if I can be bothered to, I finished trading at 10.25am for -23 pips off one sell trade and had another opportunity to witness the glorious stop loss kick in for me.

If you look at the charts and my entry point, isn’t it just great how I got in on a sell trade right at the end of the downward trend? I mean, I couldn’t have picked the lowest possible point to get in on a sell trade, and then watch the candle reverse its direction immediately after I got in.

But instead of feeling sorry for myself, I should just focus on what I did wrong. So – I picked a bad entry point after watching the Cable happily go down 20 or so pips, but if GOWID was exercised, which is it wasn’t at all, it would have limited my loss on this trade to around -3 or -4 pips. Stating the very obvious here has not made me feel any better, but at least that was my mistake today.

My anxiety resulting from my financial situation is making me fail at Forex. If I was being honest, before sitting down to trade today, I was considering increasing my pip value from 5p to the £40 level which corresponds to the capital I have. But when I sat down, a small amount of sense that I have, made me stick to the current 5p. Else, I would be enjoying a £800 loss right now, instead of the £1.15 loss that I have incurred. The other bizarre point is that I kept saying to myself that I will only get in on a trade if I felt 100% confident about it – but clearly I forgot to say to myself that if I fucked it up, falsely thought I was 100% confident and got in – also remember to fucking GOWID!

Risky

I sat down for an afternoon session again today at 1.21pm and finished at 1.49pm for +1 pip off two trades. The thinking behind this was that I will be more relaxed and more awake to trade at this time. But my issues are, I haven’t mastered GOWID yet and I’m not waiting for good entry points.

My first trade, which was a sell, was pure luck. The duration of this trade was just under 5 minutes. It did not go positive straight away, in fact it didn’t go positive at all and thankfully, I got out when the losses had reduced to -2 pips instead of -7 or -8 that it reached at one point.

I then immediately jumped into a buy trade as I felt that the Cable was going to reverse, and it did, but very slowly. The duration of this trade was just over 1 minute, still way too long for what I should be going for. This trade produced a lucky +3 pips.

I watched for another 5 minutes or so and decided to call it a day as announcements were due at 2pm and the rules state, no trading 15 minutes before or after announcements right?

My trading slots for tomorrow are 7.00am to 8.45am or 10.15am to 12pm or 1.45pm to 3.15pm. There are no sessions outside of these times.

Another New Start

I started at 1.29pm and finished at 1.41pm today for +2 pips off the back of two sell trades. A big difference to last weeks performance!

I got up late today, not really wanting to trade. Bu then I got on with some other work and decided to sit down for a session in the afternoon. It paid off I suppose.

The Cable has moved a hell of a lot since last week, its getting close to the 1.6000 mark – it’s moved up nearly 200 pips since my last session on Thursday. Isn’t it funny, that I’m only after a couple of pips here and there every day and there are movements of 100 pip magnitudes in less than a week?

I’m still on 5p per pip since last weeks fuck ups and will be keeping at this level until consistency in my trading is apparent.

I feel a bit better now, but need sessions such as today to repeat themselves day in day out. I also need to keep reminding myself that short sessions such as today don’t always present themselves and I have to be prepared for the long haul.

What a waste of time this week huh?

Well, I chose not to trade today, I didn’t even open the platform. I am very aware of my ridiculous antics this week, so thought I will keep this very brief, do my weeks round up, though it very embarrassing and start again fresh next week at 5p per pip.

The round up for the week;

Mon -9 pips

Tues -9 pips

Wed -52 pips

Thurs -57 pips

Total -127 pips, hurrah!

Messing around

That’s all I did today. I started at 8.49am and finished at 9.29am for, wait for it, -57 pips in total today. I basically repeated what I did yesterday. Bar the first trade which was bollocks anyway, I left the remaining two trades running while I did something else, and low and behold, the stop loss kicked in on both of them.

I did do one sensible thing today, and that was to change my pip value to 5p, down from the 10p I was on.

I will leave the screen shot with you to have a good laugh at and I’m off to go and kill myself.

A waste of time!

Started at 7.49am and finished at 9.37am. I decided in the middle of the first trade to play silly buggers today and just left the trades running to do what they wanted. I got on with something else and occasionally checked back in to see what had happened.

The first trade, I actually exited myself – then next two trades, well the activity window is self explanatory......

Total today, a glorious -52 pips – a joke!

Still recovering

I started at 7.55am and finished at 8.07am for -9 pips in total again today. I must still be recovering from yesterday. As my third trade was a complete repetition of my old habits – being hopeful, thinking the trade must come back, blah, blah, blah – enough said. The first and second trade were relatively controlled, but at the same time lucky, as if they had gone the wrong way, GOWID may not have worked for on these trades either.

I hadn’t felt like I did yesterday in a very long time, but I’m not going to dwell on it. I am going to have to start back on the path to recovery in exactly the same way I did towards the end of last year, that is, very slowly. It’s clear that impatience has taken over since yesterday’s events. I know there’s no point sitting down to trade with the intention of recovering prior losses, that kind of approach just does not work. As can be seen, more losses are incurred instead.

So, as I said, time for baby steps again. A slow and steady approach and if no trades are available on a given session, I have to be prepared to sit through that whole session without trading at all. This is what I want to do for a living after all – so I better fucking be serious about it right?

Pissed Off!

-9 fucking pips! That‘s my overall total for today! I broke all the rules, simply because I got greedy and hopeful. There isn’t any other explanation. I started at 7.59am and sat through two announcement periods until around 8.25am and from that point it all went wrong.

Without spending time going through all 4 of my trades today – yes 4 trades, another rule broken there. To sum up, from around 8.30am, the Cable began to grow a red candle. By 8.50am, which is when I finished, the candle had moved down 70 pips and I was -9 pips worse off than when I started. How the fuck can that happen you wonder? Fucking easily!

I am more pissed off today with the fact that this is going to push me back again. I now have to reduce my trade size to 10p per pip again. The good work I achieved in the last couple of weeks has been wiped out. All because I got hopeful and the excitement of a large red candle making me a gamble.

I have been here so many fucking times now, I hate it. I am such a fucking slow learner it’s unbelievable. I know I might be going overboard today and giving myself a proper hard time, but I deserve it! I just CANNOT go on like this. I have to get this out of my system here on the blog or it is really going to affect the rest of my day and I will be moping around like a moody bastard upsetting everyone around me!

I even forgot to turn on the historical trade option on the charts before taking the screen shot so the little triangles can further emphasis my fuck ups today.

Oh, I’m so pissed off, I could punch the wall next to me.

Ok, how do I calm down? How can I put this behind me so I can make the rest of the day productive and I also sit down to trade again tomorrow morning without feeling the way I do right now? The answer is, I don’t fucking know or care right now.

I think I’ll go for a walk and come back. The time now is 9.15am.

10.06am, I’ve just got back from my walk – 45 minutes, a few cigarettes later and I still feel like shit. I’m trying to reconcile why I have broken the rules again and I am coming up blank. I’m livid at the moment and can’t think straight.

Ok, ok, I got into 4 trades today. All of them were shit. The first was for 0 pips, but could have been -2 pips as it did go negative before breaking even. The second trade was for +1 pip, but again could have been -6 or -7 pips, as it did go negative before going into profit. The third and fourth trades were also executed badly but I suppose GOWID minimised my losses to a certain degree. But however I cut it, nothing was done properly today.

I don’t think I can actually justify any of my actions to make myself feel better. I will just have to leave today for what it was, me being a complete and utter dick head, there you go!

An ok finish to the week

I started early as planned at 7.24am and finished quite early at 8.07am for an overall 0 pips off one sell trade and two buy trade.

The first trade at 7.59am, after just over 30 minutes of watching, was a bit of a gamble. I watched the Cable move up with some correlation and momentum to 1.5439 and then reverse to around 1.5435 three or four times in a row. So I decided to get in on a sell trade, if or, the next time it reached back up to 1.5439. And when it did, I jumped in, by the time the system had executed the trade my entry point was at 1.5437 and 21 seconds later was 4 pips in profit, so I jumped out using GOWID.

As soon as I had exited the above trade, the Cable reversed dramatically, and shot back upwards by 20 pips. I was still quite dazed by the 4 pips that I got off the last trade and without really thinking got into another trade, this time a buy – clearly hoping to get some of the momentum on the Cable’s upward move. This trade was definitely a poor decision and I was slow to GOWID leaving me with -4 pips, negating the gains made on the previous trade.

I stepped back now. I didn’t want a repetition of the last trade and so started watching carefully for the criteria I need. It wasn’t long before another buy opportunity presented itself. So in I went, but GOWID for 0 pips.

The weeks round up then;

Mon -3 pips

Tues +4 pips

Wed -7 pips

Thurs +2 pips

Fri 0 pips

Total for the week, -4 pips.

I’m not going to give myself too hard a time for this week, though my actions on Wednesday and Friday could have been that much better. I am going to push forward but keep my pip value at 20p per pip for next week as well until I learn to remain patient on days like Wednesday and Friday of this week where my patience levels were somewhat lacking.

The second and last session for the day

I made the decision to go for the second session without interruptions due to announcements. I sat down at 11.13am and finished at 12.58pm. The session was very hard going as there was nothing going on – hardly any movement, the Cable was doing its own thing without correlation with the other currencies, I could barely keep my eyes open and I found no opportunity to trade throughout the whole period.

But I am proud to report that I maintained my discipline, found a couple of pips this morning and continued to preserve my capital for the rest of the day, so the system is working!

I have checked the announcement schedule for tomorrow and if I am to get an uninterrupted session, I need to sit down for 7.15am at the latest and stop at 8.45am as there is a relatively important announcement due at 9am.

Here’s to tomorrow.........

Being Sensible

I setup today at 9.03am and finished at 9.14am for +2 pips off one buy trade. I was late getting out of bed today as I genuinely forgot to set the alarm today so was kind of on a back foot again.

I was checking the announcement times during set and noticed that announcements affecting the Cable and Euro were due at 9.30am, 10am and 11am. The rules are that I should not be trading at least 15 minutes before or after announcements. I didn’t want a repetition of yesterday where I was sitting and watching during the announcement period so decided to close the platform after the first trade that happen to come along just before 9.15am, the time when you are not meant to be trading because of announcements.

My plan was to sit back down for a proper session at 11.15am when the announcement schedule confirmed that I would have an uninterrupted 1hr 45min session, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll see how I am set come the time as I have quite a bit of other work to do today.

The good news is that I felt good after my one trade today. And most importantly, all the rules were followed.

Lacking in patience

It was a long and tough session today. Started at 9.23am and finished at 11.03am. The overall results for today, -7 pips off one sell and 2 buy trades.

My late start obviously didn’t help as there were announcements that affected the Cable and Euro at 9.30am and 10.00am respectively. So officially, there was no trading allowed from the point I started until 10.15am. During the 9.30am announcement the spread on the Cable fluctuated between 5, 10 and 20 pips. It also stayed on a 5 pip spread until 10.47am. But then I couldn’t really start trading as there was an announcement due at 10am, so the waiting for 40 minutes watching and not trading didn’t help me stay disciplined in being patient. Especially when the Cable moved down during the no trade period through 30 pips with reasonable momentum but because there was a 5 pip spread and I was still within the announcement no trade period I didn’t trade.

So everything points to lack of patience and in turn errors being made as a result, an all too familiar trait that requires immediate quashing – there done! Hindsight as always is a wonderful thing and tells me that I should not have traded at all today.

GOWID did keep me relatively intact, but still, quite a high loss today, not to be repeated again.

A Great Day of Trading!

An early morning start at 7.26am and an early finish at 7.49am today for +4 pips off one sell trade!

When I initially sat down, I thought the currencies were doing’s it’s anti-correlation stuff again. The Swissy was pushing up, the Euro was pushing up and the Cable was pushing up. So it was a matter of waiting and watching until an opportunity arose. And since it was an early start for me today, it was tough just watching, in fact, it was tough keeping my eyes open.

However, after waiting and watching for just over 20 minutes, a perfect move did arise. The Cable pushed down with momentum, whilst the Swissy pushed up and the Euro pushed down. So I jumped into a sell trade, it lasted 8 seconds and yielded my +4 pips. Even after I got out to lock in my pips, it continued down, but I can practice picking up those extra pips another time. I’m aiming for rule following and consistency for now.

I feel absolutely great today, but stay grounded is what I’m saying to myself, it’s easy to get carried away. Here’s to tomorrow.......

An OK start to the New Year

I started at 8.34am and finished at 9.16am, so less than 45 minutes today, you could say, a short session in comparison to last week. Today’s session produced a total of -3 pips off three trades, 2 buy trades and 1 sell trade.

My general feeling for today as a whole is good, though there is a small niggling feeling that I could have been more patient. This may be due to the fact the session was relatively short in comparison to the average duration of last week’s sessions, but nevertheless, patience was somewhat lacking today.

I am happy to say that GOWID is functioning well though, as the first 2 trades today produced 0 and -2 pips respectively. Ironically, both of these trades went positive after I had got out, but then if I was in doubt, I have to get out, this keeps me in check. If I had stayed in these trades and finished each trade for positive pips, I would have been writing about them with my infamous line, at one point I was at -2 pips etc. In fact the third trade is a perfect example of GOWID protecting me. This third and final trade lasted 17 seconds, I started to doubt the trade when the Cable was holding for longer than I envisaged, but it eventually cleared the spread to break even and then began to hold again. When the Euro indicated that the Cable should begin to fall any second, I got out. By the time the platform exited this trade, I was at -1 pips and by the time I had taken the screen shot for the blog, and if I had stayed in, I would have been at -3 pips. So GOWID worked exactly as it should in this last trade.

I also increased my pip value for this week from 10p to 20p due to the fact that I followed all the rules last week and finished with positive pips. A step I haven’t taken for as long as I have been writing this blog. With focus and some luck, these increments will continue in the weeks to come and at some point this year, I will be trading at the pip value that matches the capital that I have.

The main result of today is that my losses were kept small, just as Sid used to say during the course. I’m sure I will be a lot more patient tomorrow and will only enter a trade if I am confident that one, it will go positive straight away and of course, two, if correlation between the currencies is present with strong momentum.

Dare I say it...........onwards and upwards!