And yet another bad day!

I started at 10.10am and finished at 10.38am for an embarrassing -26 pips off two buy trades and one sell trade. There’s nothing to say really apart from that I broke every rule in the book. There’s no point in me saying anymore today as I will just end up making a bad situation even worse for me.

Another bad day!

I’m so wound up right now, I can’t even find the words.........I started at 8.52am and finished at 9.15am due to an announcement that was due at 9.30am. No trades were entered into during this first session. I then sat down again at 9.42am, after the announcement, and finished at 10.29am for -13 pips off three sell trades. And again, apart from the first trade which was perfect, the remaining two were a complete waste of time and once again, only because I couldn’t GOWID!!!

Session 2

It’s becoming very obvious to me that the only reason I get a few perfect trades here and there is because they obviously do not go negative from outset – it’s clear that if the trades do go negative from outset, I don’t GOWID quickly as I should, I just sit there like an idiot waiting for them to go positive, but instead I rack up far bigger negatives than I should. For example, if I had simply GOWID at the first sign of doubt on trades two and three today, I would have finished today for around -4 pips in total. That’s a big difference from the -13 pips and the nasty taste in my mouth that I ended up with today.

Session 1

From a high to a low...

I lost it today. With all the self motivation, the advice from the people I met on the forum, I simply couldn’t GOWID when I should have today! I started late at 11.10am and finished at 12.24am for -8 pips off three buy trades.

Everything was going really well to begin with, I sat patiently watching because I kept reminding myself about moves such as those from last Friday and as there wasn’t anything that looked comfortable, I didn’t get in on any trades for over 50 minutes. But then I must have been impatient, so when I saw the Cable move up with some momentum, and though there wasn’t really any strong correlated support from the other two currencies – I jumped in on a buy trade. And of course, the move stalled, I hadn’t gone into profit yet and it began to fall – for the same old reason, I didn’t GOWID and only got out when I was -10 pips down. The remaining two trades went along the same lines off the back of revenge trading etc, etc, etc, etc.

Back to the drawing board.....

I couldn’t have asked for a better trade!

I am ecstatic today.......I started at 8.29am and finished at 8.30am for +7 pips today off one sell trade which lasted 11 seconds. What a feeling to finish the week on such a high!

When I was setting up the charts, putting in my usual datum lines, I could see in the background that there was some strong movement going on with the currencies and correlation was evident as well. The beauty of today’s trade is that it checked all the boxes. The Swissy had already started moving upwards with momentum, if I remember correctly, the Euro had also started its downward move with momentum as well and the Cable was starting its move down – so I jumped in, and it went positive straight away, well, over a period of 11 seconds, and as soon as the Cable halted, I jumped out to lock in my pips, though it can be seen that the Cable resumed its downward move while I was taking the screen shot.

I have to remember these moves as these are the kind of moves that are worth waiting for days without trading. Meaning, there’s no need for me to try so often for risky pips in situations such as yesterday, earlier in the week or, on numerous occasions in the past. I know from today and from past experience that these moves do happen – I’ve got in on these before. I have just been so busy getting in and out of the wrong moves so often and so quickly into my trading sessions, that I have not given myself a chance to see great moves such as today’s develop. These types of trades are low risk and are perfect examples of trades that I should be getting in on – they don’t even need to produce as much as 7 pips – quick 2 and 3 pip trades here and there, 5 or 6 times a week would be more than enough to fit in with my targets.

Speaking of targets, I hit my 10 pips for the week but with only 3 out of the 10 trades this week were rules following trades. Having said this, I’m so fucking over the moon with today’s trade, it’s unbelievable – I now just need to calm down and start on Monday again as though it’s a new day, a clean slate and with an abundance of patience!

My round up for the week;

Mon -5 pips

Tues +6 pips

Wed +3 pips

Thurs -1 pip

Fri +7 pips

Total for the week, 10 pips.

Coming away with something positive?

That is tough to do today. I started at 9.54am and finished at 10.46am for -1 pip off three buy trades. It’s very true when they say not to trade if your mind is not in a good place. And this resulted in me just not being able to GOWID appropriately in any of the trades.

I got into the first trade in the usual fashion, way too soon after I had sat to down for my trading session – just 4 minutes in. There was no way I could have got an idea of what was happening in the market in 4 minutes of observing, let alone allow  trade to develop. And I paid the price, I was -12 pips down at one point and stayed in this trade for 15 minutes before I was lucky again to come away with +1 pip.

The second trade which lasted nearly a minute and a half reversed in a split second and I did actually get out this time and locked in -8 pips. But just to be clear, I did not GOWID when I should have which would have kept my loss on this to -2/-3 pips.

The third trade, was identical to the first in that it lasted 15 minutes, went way down to -10 pips at one point and eventually came back to go positive by +6 pips which is when I got out, and as can be seen by the chart, it continued upwards by a further 4/5 pips. The point is, this trade along with the other two, was useless and I should be extremely thankful that I finished for -1 pip overall today.

So in answer to the question in my title, NO.

A good day!

I started at 7.35am and finished at 7.40am for +3 pips off one sell trade today. The trade did last 30 seconds, slightly too long in my opinion, but did not go more negative than the spread. I met some friends on the OANDA Forum which may have something to do with today, time will tell.

Keeping it short and sweet today, and staying positive as ever.....

One good trade!

One out of the two trades I executed today was done well – it’s a start. I started at 8.15am and finished at 8.35am for +6 pips off one buy trade and one sell trade.

The first buy trade wasn’t executed very well at all – it was one my old style trades where I was waiting and hoping for it to go positive. Though it yielded +5 pips it could easily have been -5 pips or worse......the errors made – 1) not waiting for a better entry point, i.e. not waiting long enough from the point of sitting down to see better trades develop and 2) lack of GOWID.

The second sell trade could be argued as a well executed trade for +1 pip. I had been watching the Cable jerk up and down between a range of 7 pips a few times and on each occasion there were correlated moves by the Euro and the Swissy. So at what turned out to be the beginning of a downward move, I got in on a sell trade, grabbed a pip and GOWID. This trade was quite risky, but the fact is, following the rules worked in my favour.

What do I say?

I started at 8.46am and finished at 9.11am for -5 pips off 3 sell trades. I ask myself, what do I say, because, I’m still not doing as I should. Since I have been beating myself up quite badly recently, I going to try and keep today’s post to the point and move on.

The first trade was ok, I got in on what I thought was a move and at the first sign I of doubt, I got out for 0 pips. So GOWID worked and the duration of the trade was respectable at 26 seconds.

The second and third trades however, were not that great at all. I lost 6 pips on the second trade because I didn’t GOWID and the last trade might as well have been a loss as well, because I didn’t GOWID at the right time again. I convinced myself that it was ok to stay in these trades until they goes positive – it’s just crazy how my mind is working these days.....

Since I have used up my trading slot for today and I promised myself that I wasn’t going to be ultra hard on myself, I’m going to leave it at that today and wait until tomorrow to exercise the rules correctly and feel good about myself – even if, I finish tomorrow for zero pips – I have one goal tomorrow and getting pips is not it, I simply want to finish the session feeling good, it ok if I don’t trade at all, it’s ok if the odd trade produces a -2 or -3 pip loss, it’s ok if at the end of the session my total is -2 or -3 pips – I just want to make sure that I don’t rush into anything and above all, follow the rules.

Foolish

This is the only explanation for today. I categorically stated in the blog yesterday that I was done with trading for the week – but I sat down again today at 11.11am and finished at 12.15am for -7 pips off two buys trades and one sell trade.

Why did I sit down to trade today? I wanted to prove that I could survive a full trading session without entering a trade if I wasn’t comfortable. And I wasn’t comfortable with entering a trade today for 37 minutes but then I dived in. Without going into all the detail, all three trades were executed purely. And my biggest issue is not being able to GOWID when I should. GOWID is the main tool I have to work on. Today is the perfect example of when that luck I have been living off ran out. Staying in trades that have gone negative and hoping for the trades to go positive is just wrong! It’s like Lien said, put the fire out early whilst it’s small!

In a way, I am glad that I traded today, because it shows without a doubt that my results prior to today were purely down to luck and not skill. But I have to stay positive or all of this will continue to eat me up inside. I now know for a fact that I severely beat myself up over my shortcomings and this has to stop. It doesn’t mean that I do not acknowledge my wrong doings, but it means that I have to simply learn from them and not repeat the same mistakes and curse myself for weeks on end.

I think that’s enough self analysis for one week, so I will finish with the update to my week’s roundup;

Mon +4 pips

Tues +9 pips

Wed +3 pips

Thurs +8 pips

Fri -7 pips

Total +17 pips and I am thankful for this.

Positive pips but not quite there yet

I had an early start today and was only 10 minutes later than planned. I started at 7.10am and finished at 7.40am for +8 pips off one buy trade.

However, this trade was not as good as it sounds. Again, I’m not going to play this down too much as it did produce +8 pips. But the question is still, would I have GOWID if I needed to? The issue with today is that it was a very risky trade. The spread was 4 pips from the time I sat down to trade and only reduced to 3 pips after I had entered the trade. The worrying aspect is that from the point I entered the trade I was between -5 pips and -6 pips including the spread so really speaking I should have GOWID then as I was not 100% sure the trade would go positive straight away, which it didn’t, and acceptable losses on a trade is between -2 or -3 pips maximum. But I waited for nearly 4½ minutes before the Cable and the Euro shot up and I GOWID for the +8 pips.

It was a strange day though. As seen on the charts all three candles were quite large and green, so where was the correlation one might ask. The truth is there was some correlation, but not much. I noticed on two occasions, once at the beginning and more prominently towards the end of my session, that when the Swissy was moving up, so did the Euro and Cable – with momentum as well – so this means that there wasn’t any visible correlation and in those situations trading is risky. It’s clear that my trade today was only on the back of momentum, but the horrifying aspect of today, is that in the same fashion that the Cable (and Euro) shot up to give me my pips, the reverse could have happened and even if I had GOWID, the loss would have been high considering I was holding between -5 and -6 pips for over 4 minutes before it shot up to go positive.

Between the duration of today’s trade and the behaviour of the candles, the trade as I said was very risky and I was lucky to have ended up with positive pips – I have to learn to avoid trades such as today’s however tempting it might be.

I’m not going to trade anymore this week as my target of 10 pips per week has been achieved and perhaps I do need some time off from trading now until Monday. I may have really high expectations for my trading, and some may argue that I did well today – but my gut feeling is that I haven’t. I did some calculations yesterday to determine when I would be at the correct pip value of £40 if I followed my rule of doubling the pip value (which is currently at 5p) every week but only if I successfully complete each full week of trading within the rules and finishing on positive pips for the whole week – it worked out that I would be at the £40 level in 11 weeks – that’s my target. This week does not qualify, so I will be on 5p for another week. The approach I will be attempting next week is one of patience and the one daily goal of finishing each session feeling good in that I followed all the rules and if that means that I do not enter a single trade all week, so be it. I have also just put in a reminder to read this blog entry again before sitting down for my session on Monday to remind myself of these goals for the week.

So to finish off a week in the usual fashion, the round up;

Mon +4 pips

Tues +9 pips

Wed +3 pips

Thurs +8 pips

Total for the week, +24 pips.

A good day at last

I started today at 10.13am and finished at 10.38am for +3 pips off three sell trades. And I am pleased to say that all three trades were executed quite well.

The first trade lasted 9 seconds to produce +1 pip. The second trade lasted 54 seconds to produce +1 pip and the last trade lasted 25 seconds to produce +1 pip.

Whilst I was writing the above, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have GOWID for a small loss if these trades had gone negative, or would I have waited allowing large losses and hoping they would reverse again. The answer is I don’t know for sure. But I need to hold on to the feeling after these rare good days of trading and have to be confident that I would GOWID if a trade goes bad and keep the losses small.

I found an article yesterday in City A.M. titled Forex traders should tread carefully to avoid mistakes and they talked about three major mistakes that we should be wary of. I thought two of these had quite a bit of relevance to me. The first was about Boredom Trading and the other was about Being a Possum. I noticed that I have in the past resorted to trade, in fact, I did it yesterday, to give me a bit of boost – the lady behind these concepts, Kathy Lien warns this simply should not be done as it can go drastically wrong. Being a Possum on the other hand is all about GOWID or a lack of GOWID, and I have done this many times in the past as well, the last time I did this was last week, Lien captured this concept really well when she describes it as: Trading is a game of survival and closing your eyes, hoping the fire will put itself out, is not the right decision. If it is a small fire, it is smarter to put it out before it even comes close to burning down the house; if it is large one, it is better to abandon your home and call in the fire-fighters. In trading, if the reason for the trade is no longer valid, then get out before the losses grow – sounds familiar to me.

I think today was a result of reasonably good entry points and as long as I am ready to GOWID, I will make progress.

A second session

Ok, I’m not going to be too hard on myself this time as I noticed that the emotional impact on me as a result was quite detrimental. So I am going to write about this second trading session for today as positively as I can.

I sat down again at 3.38pm and finished at 3.46pm for +5 pips off one buy trade. The trade wasn’t great due to the duration being nearly 5 minutes in length and I know the consequences of such a trade going wrong. The trade held at -3 pips for quite some time before eventually going positive. And I am more than aware of getting used to saying it’s ok to repeat trades like this – it will stop.

I just needed something to feel better, I know the market was kind to me again with this trade but I do feel better for it. I won’t be sitting down to trade again today, that’s for sure. The next session I have available is for tomorrow between 7.15am and 9.15am and if I miss that, the next slot is between 10.15am 12.15pm. I am looking forward to trading tomorrow, hopefully my mindset will have improved more by then and I can begin my path to recovery slowly.

Getting out of the hole

This blog is meant to be a tool to chart my road to success in Forex trading or the rags to riches story as the title states. Instead it’s has turned into a psychological tool whereby I’m venting my frustrations, being extraordinarily hard on myself and digging a hole deeper and deeper for myself.

So how do I turn this around – I being practical now – I have embarrassingly just shed some tears and it’s time to pick myself up. I need some inspiration. None of my peers are available to speak to on the phone and they all have their own problems, so talking to me doesn’t help them and talking to them doesn’t help me.

The biggest driver behind my despair is my financial situation. If this is plugged I would be fine. I have my Forex trading, but this does not use up all my time and is in fact better served if I can be in a sound state of mind when trading. I am certainly not of a sound state of mind these days. I am looking for job whilst not wanting to work for someone so it’s no wonder that I am being engulfed by these emotional states – all of which are not conducive to being productive. I am also aware that the goals I have for Forex are long term and cannot be rushed – so it’s simple, stop rushing. The good news is that I haven’t repeated some of my scary mistakes in Forex for quite some time, that being I haven’t lost my patience to such a degree and gone ahead and increased the pip value to £40 – I have stuck to the 5p per pip figure for quite some time, so long in fact that I can’t remember. The point is, and the good news is, that’s one lesson that I have learnt so far and I am sure there are several more, if I think about it.

I have to find something else that will help me. Ultimately, the one thing that would make me happy is not working for someone else and generating revenue through my own doing. So looking for a job is probably not helping. I have to find a business that I want to embark on and make a success of it. I have been on to entrepreneur.com today with the hope of getting this inspiration I need to stay on the straight and narrow, not get stressed or panic, and simply find a calm solution to what it is I am after. I have to remind myself that, in starting a business, it really doesn’t have to be something new, there are several tried and tested models that produce revenue, but finding the model that works for me needs focus and patience. I have been using words and phrases such as at one point, should have, could have and so on in many posts in this blog, when I should be using descriptions such as stayed focus, being patient paid off, my entry points today were great, frequently. It all sounds so simple in theory, but in practice, it needs work and more work until it is all second nature – and I know, I have said this to myself before as well.

I was just chatting to my partner a few minutes ago and what I have been talking about here keeps coming up – FOCUS, that is what is needed and that is what I will do. It’s not all going to turn around overnight, I know, but it will over time, focus and PATIENCE are key.

I will continue to use this blog to help me change my life around and one day look back on my posts and laugh thinking – I MADE IT!

A lost cause

I am seriously beating myself up now for fucking up, but doing nothing to stop fucking up! The pre trading blog entry? Getting my thoughts and frustrations out before trading? Did fuck all to help. I started as planned for 10.13am and finished at 10.30am for +4 pips off two buys trades.

And low and behold – they were both shit trades. Trade one, last 42 seconds and went negative by 1 pip before going positive for +1 pip, which is when I GTFO. But by the time the system physically exited the trade, it had reversed to break even. By the duration of the trade and the fact that it went negative at one point, once again means that I am simply not using GOWID as I should.

Trade two was worse than the first. Though it produced +4 pips, the trade lasted nearly 3 minutes and went negative by as much as -7 or -8 pips at one point – I could jump out of a window! I’m losing my fucking mind!

I cannot do this, I am fed up, everything I want to say to myself, I have said before – on numerous occasions. I just don’t know anymore, I just don’t know. They say putting down your thoughts on paper helps, it’s not helping me. I vent and vent and vent, but nothing is improving. I am losing hope and sinking into oblivion. Enough of the dramatics? This is not drama, I’m really fucking stuck.

Taking time off from trading hasn’t help. Reminding myself of the rules hasn’t helped. Kicking myself up the arse hasn’t helped. Talking positively about the fucking world hasn’t helped. What more can I do to get out of this fucking hole?

Pre Trading

I will be sitting down to trade at 10.15am today and since I have a few minutes, I thought I’d make an entry before trading today to see if it will make any difference to my mindset and in turn help me trade well today. I’m not sure what planet I am on at the moment but whatever planet it is, it is making me feel pretty shit at the moment. I can’t seem to shake off this feeling and it is beginning to frustrate me to no end.

So how do I make changes to combat this lull that I am in? I’m not waking up early anymore, maybe that should be my starting point – concentrate on waking up early and getting started with my day – step one in a series of steps. This is all very embarrassing for me let alone the embarrassment of telling the world about this place that I am in. It’s clear that I am all over the place by simply just reading my post so far today. This is all very tough, especially when I know that in the past I have been at such highs and wondered back then how I could ever be in such a low place as I am in now and have been in the past. It’s like I am revisiting my childhood when on reflection now, I was clearly very depressed and no one was available to spot this in me and help me make changes back then – and I have been in that place on numerous occasions over the years. It’s actually sickening me to think like this – as I have said before, there are people out there far less capable than I am who are doing very well so why am I making it so tough for myself?

I keep thinking that something will change and all will be ok, actually I haven’t thought like that for a while, but I used to. I also know the infamous saying – I am the only one who can make a difference to my life – I’m quite sure that I have fooled myself into a false sense of security, thinking that I want to do something for myself is what I want to do and as long as I focus on that it will happen – but what has actually taken place is that I have had that notion in mind but not taken any real action to achieve it. And now that my back is against the wall and financial turmoil is around the corner, I am panicking and retreating into a hole to hide.

I better change soon – or I am just going to implode in that hole that I am in!

No Improvement at all

With all that happened last week I start this week repeating the same mistakes. However, due the markets being kind and me being lucky again today, I started at 8.31am and finished at 8.48am for +4 pips off 3 buy trades. Though this time I can’t even find any consolation in one trade being executed well, all three trades were shit.

Trade one had a duration of over 40 seconds and went negative momentarily before going positive for +1 pip. Too long as usual and I am clearly unable to GOWID when a trade is going the wrong way or if I am in doubt.

Trade two was fucking terrible. The trade lasted over 6 minutes to produce another +1 pip. The duration being over 6 minutes – this was the perfect old recipe for disaster. I was extremely, extremely lucky that this trade went positive as at one point I was at -6 pips down.

The third trade, on the other hand.............no, as I said, there’s no – on the other hand – this trade was equally as bad as the others. With a duration of over a minute, I continued to stay in the trade even when I was in doubt at around -1 pip and luck was the only reason for this eventually finishing for +2 pips.

I just don’t know how I am going to get out of this rut – GOWID is the one rule that should protect you and I am not using it. Waiting patiently for good entry points is another rule that gives you a good chance of getting pips, I’m not patient. It’s all well and good that I am recognising my faults, but why the hell am I not learning from them. How many times have I cursed myself for breaking a rule? Today’s results are simply not acceptable – this has to sink in. I keep drumming it into myself – learn from my mistakes – most other people do, why can’t I?

More of the same old shit!

It was another late start for me – getting out of bed is just tough these days. I started at 10.00am and finished at 10.10am for +6 pips off two sell trades.

The first trade was a waste of time again – the duration was over 2 minutes, the trade went negative at one point by as much as -4 or -5 pips – I think that is enough said on that.

The second trade was better, but as I am still feeling like a dick after my performance to date – it’s simply just difficult to feel good about anything let alone a trade that ticks all the boxes – which this did with a duration of 20 seconds.

I’m also quite fed up with writing about how shit I feel all the fucking time so I am going to finish off with my weeks actual round up, though I know all too well that this week could have been much, much worse and it was only luck that has saved me;

Mon +6 pips

Tues +3 pips

Wed +3 pips

Thurs -12 pips

Fri +6 pips

Total +6 pips

IF I AM GOING END THIS POST WITH ANYTHING USEFUL – I WOULD SAY THAT I NEED TO GET IT INTO MY HEAD THAT THOUGH I FINISHED ON +6 PIPS FOR THE WEEK – THIS MEAN NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL IN TERMS OF MAKING PROGRESS!!!

The disaster continues

I’m not going to spend too much time on my post today, other than to simply state it was a complete and utter disaster. Started at 9.36am and finished at 11.52am for -12 pips off two buy trades, both executed terribly. I wasn’t even watching for most of the second trade – that should illustrate the kind of place I was in today. The rest can be seen from the screen shot.

Is it worth me even talking about?

NO!

Playing with fire.......

.......is exactly what I am doing. I decided to go for another session today at 2.14pm and finished at 2.35pm for +1 pip off one sell trade. The trade was shit as it did go negative by -3 pips at one point so I simply feel worse than I did after this morning session. This trade lasted over 3 minutes – fucking ridiculous. I should have GOWID for 0 or -1 pips really – so this trade has done absolutely nothing to my -18 pip total today, in fact, if I had GOWID as I should have on this last trade, my overall result for today would be -19 pips.

I am just not fuck learning am I? Why does it not sink in that losses such as those from today mean big money wiped off my capital, over £700 lost in the real world had I been on the correct pip value. I have to force myself to see it this way, else this is all just a game and I am in demo trading thinking it's ok to make more in losses than in profits.

My life is in turmoil, if I am not careful I am going to finish this week on a major low and will end up extending my road to recovery further my months....

One gigantic fuck up!

I started very late today at 11.26am and finished at 12.07pm for -1 pip off 3 buy trades. I had such a shitty night last night wondering about various shit and got up this morning feeling like shit. A prime example of a day where Sid used to say don’t trade. But I did! Breaking the rules again.

During the session today, well, at least before I got into the second trade of today, I was conscious of everything I had said to myself in yesterdays blog entry – waiting for those perfect entry points until it’s second nature and what not. However, I only managed to do that in my first trade and jut about, in the third trade today.

But my second trade was a gigantic fuck up. I will try and explain now what happened so that perhaps I could actually get a further fucking understanding as to why I behaved the way I did.

I waited patiently after sitting down to trade, watching a large red candle on the Swissy, a large green candle on the Euro but a relatively small green candle on the Cable. The currencies hovered around 1 or 2 pips either side of the starting white datum line I had inserted in each of the charts until around 11.44am when the Swissy started to move down with quite a bit of momentum. But the Euro and the Cable were static to begin with, so I waited for a few seconds, which in this game always feels like an eternity and then the Euro and the Cable began their upward movement with momentum, so I jumped in and managed to GOWID to secure +2 pips.

Not even a minute went by, when the Cable & the Euro suddenly jerked up further through 10 to 20 pips, within a couple of seconds and I jumped in, but it turned out to be at the end of its move, and within a few seconds, it reversed and I was at a loss of around -5 pips. I didn’t GOWID however – the old bastard of a habit of waiting and hoping for a turnaround kicked in instead – I stayed in the trade for 17 minutes – at one point – I was -14 pips down and I still stayed in. I was so damn lucky that this trade eventually reversed it direction back up again to allow me to GTFO for -6 pips. Completely the wrong way to execute a trade. I was kicking myself to no end during the trade but still didn’t GOWID for 17 minutes. I went through the usual motions – if I get out now I will wipe out all the pips I have this week etc, etc. What a fuck up! Just when there was a small part of me thinking that I was slowly getting back on the right path. After this trade, I might as well have been taken out by a stop loss. That’s right, I should think of this trade as a -23 pip trade, which is what being taken out by the stop loss would have produced. So really speaking I finished today for an overall -18 pips if you take into account the results of trade 3.

I also know for a fact, that the reason I continued with the session after the second trade, is because I was revenge trading another fucking rule breaker. Thankfully, the last buy trade wasn’t a total disaster. The duration was around three times as long as it should have been, it lasted 30 seconds, but the trade never went more negative than the spread from the point of getting in and then eventually went positive to produce +3 pips.

So after reviewing my efforts again today, only one trade out of three was executed as it should have been. The rest was a waste of fucking time.

Slightly better

It was another later start for me today. I think I might be having trouble getting out of bed these days. I sat down to trade at 8.26am and finished at 8.45am for +3 pips off two sell trades.

My first trade wasn’t great. And again I’m using the duration of the trade which was just over 40 seconds as my gauge for this observation. The good news is that the trade did not go negative at any point, but it did take it’s time to clear the spread and then go positive for +2 pips. So once again, I think this was slightly too risky in terms of time. The Cable did push down further after I had GOWID, which gave me some satisfaction that this trade wasn’t altogether bad, but ultimately, I need to feel good about a trade afterwards, and this one just didn’t quite do it for me.

My second trade on the other hand deserves some credit. The duration of the trade was 10 seconds, which to me is more like what it should be when a trade is executed well. I felt correlation and sufficient momentum was evident between the currencies before getting, another plus. And not to get carried away, but I also didn’t hang around to GOWID and finished this trade for +1 pip. Based on what happened after I GOWID – the currencies reversed direction – makes me feel even better about this one.

I am more than aware that this is only one day where I feel marginally better about my trading session and I am hoping to continue with this trend. The one thing that I am somewhat pissed off about today, is that I told myself last night to read yesterdays blog entry before trading today to give myself a bit of reminder of the do’s and don’ts – but I didn’t do this today. I did remind myself during the trading session today about waiting for that perfect opportunity before entering a trade and perhaps that is what helped me achieve today’s results – but until it is second nature for me to wait for these perfect opportunities, I have to use something to hammer it in to me and there’s no better tool than my blog posts of my trading sessions where I have seriously fucked up!

Still not confident

I had planned to sit down for 7.45am but due to laziness, didn’t manage to sit down until 8.49am. There was a low impact announcement due at 9.30am that would affect the Euro, so this meant that I should have stopped trading at 9.15am, but I didn’t really stop until 9.24am. I then should have sat down again at 9.45am, 15 minutes after the announcement, but I sat down 7 minutes earlier at 9.38am. I have used the term should have twice already haven’t I? Moving on – I eventually finished for the day at 9.46am for +6 pips off three buy trades.

+6 pips is probably the best result I have had in any one trading session, but these pips were not obtained in the manner they should have been.

For example, my first trade should have yielded +1 pip instead of -2 pips. The duration of the trade was a minute and a half, too long, and it went positive at one point during the period. But, I was greedy, thinking it would go further into the black, when in actual fact I was in doubt and when in doubt the rule is GTFO (get the fuck out – the new term I have coined). I didn’t – though thankfully I had the sense to the GOWID for -2 pips.

The second trade was better, and I suppose I should give myself some credit for this trade. The duration was 22 seconds and the trade produced +4 pips. Now I don’t know if I have just got used to giving myself a hard time, but I still don’t feel confident about this trade. I am quite sure that this trade did not go positive straight away. I think I waited the full 22 seconds to see the trade go positive and then exercise GOWID. But if I am to feel good about something today, it would be about this trade as the others were quite poor.

The third trade is another example of luck being on my side as opposed to it being a well executed trade. The duration of the trade is the biggest indicator of this being a poor trade – it lasted just under 2 minutes. This trade held its position at -2 pips (yet to clear the spread) for quite some time – so really speaking this could have  reversed to produce a loss of more than -2 pips very easily and would I have GOWID to minimise my losses is another question. The Swissy and the Euro were not moving in their respective directions with any momentum either, in fact the Euro dropped a pip here and there before eventually pushing up. So all in all, a risky trade. No brownie points for this one.

I had said to myself that in today’s trading session I will wait for that perfect trade to reveal itself or no trades will be entered into. That point before entering a trade when I feel really confident – I have had been in these situations that have led to perfect trades before, so I know what these types of trades look like. They have occurred rarely for me, so being able to spot the build up of such a trade easily needs more experience. So that was my plan for today – but I didn’t follow my own advice when it actually came to the trading. I instead carried on practicing the bad habits I have got used to. Tomorrow – I will change, less is more as Sid used to say, also, why unnecessarily stress myself out doing anything but what I should! It’s just not healthy!

Uncalled for Afternoon session

Not sure why in the hell I sat down to trade this afternoon – bit I was lucky enough to scrape +3 pips of one buy trade between 2.08pm and 2.30pm. This is in no way me condoning the fact that I sat down to trade again today.

I’m just in a crazy place at the moment and needed something to give me a boost – thankfully a trade came along – this wasn’t a very good trade, in that it didn’t go positive straight away, in fact I was at -3 pips at one point, but then it pushed through to go positive quite nicely. I should say I had confidence in this one because the Swissy and Euro were doing what they were meant to do in a correlated move, but the one thing that was lacking was the strong momentum in order to allow me to grab some pips quickly. This trade took just over 40 seconds, which isn’t too bad, but could have gone bad and my inability at the moment to GOWID when I should, could have yielded me that all too familiar negative trade.

But this is me definitely done for the day and week, I’ll be back on Monday, if I’m alive after the weekend that it is.

From a very poor start...

I started slightly earlier than planned today for 8.11am, 4 minutes earlier than I should have really as there was an 8.00am announcement, and I finished at 8.23am for +3 pips off two sell trades.

The first sell trade was a disaster in the usual fashion. I hadn’t even sat down for a minute into the session when I decided to jump in as the Cable looked like it was moving down with momentum. But there wasn’t any proper correlation with the other currencies, namely the Swissy – the Swissy was also moving down instead of up. Though I know that correlation could still be present when this sort of thing is happening, I should be staying well clear in these unknown or unclear situations. What was I thinking? I hadn’t even given myself time to understand what was going on this morning or get a feel for the kind of movement that was taking place. Thankfully I GOWID for -5 pips rather than wait any longer.

The bizarre thing however, was the Cable did continue to go down, but so did the Swissy. The Euro did have a downward movement, but not much momentum. And again, where I should have stayed out, I jumped in on my next and final sell trade for the day. This time, the trade didn’t really go negative, but nor did it go positive straight away. It took its time to move down a fraction at a time, then hold, then move down another fraction, until it suddenly went positive by around 3 pips, it then did it’s fractional downward movements again, then shifted further down again by another 2 or 3 pips and this pattern continued for just over 5 minutes, which was the duration of this trade until I finally decided to get out to lock in +8 pips. The Candle did of course continue with its downward move after I was out as can be seen in the screen shot, but I was thankful to have finished for the day by now and though this trade finished on a positive, it was all wrong.

Unfortunately there isn’t really anything to be proud of today. I was just lucky again. The first trade is more like what could have actually happened in the second trade as well so I’m not patting myself on the back for today’s performance. A 5 minute trade? That’s not what I’m supposed to do is it? Another rather important point that I have forgotten over the last few months is that I should be picturing that I am trading with the true pip value that reflects my capital even though I am currently trading pennies per pip at the moment – perhaps then I would be a lot more picky with my entry points out of fear of losing my capital – who knows. I’m going to leave it as luck for today and I have done enough of beating myself up as well. Lets hope my actions will be much better next week.

Moving on to this week’s round up..........

Mon +4 pips – the only good day of trading today.

Tues +3 pips

Wed +1 pip

Thurs – didn’t trade

Fri +3 pips

Total +11 pips

No time

This is a bit of a late entry for today but it’s the first time I have had a chance to get on the web. I was quite slack this morning and ended up waking up late. I had a couple of morning appointments scheduled and ended up out of the office all day – as a result I did not find an opportunity to trade all day.

But I will be sitting down tomorrow morning hopefully for a decent session before 8am.

From a very poor start...

I started off today at 8.44am knowing that I had to stop trading at 9.15am due to announcements. In the usual fashion I wrongly jumped into a buy trade in this session which lasted over 12 minutes. Of course, this trade went negative at one point, that goes without saying. Fortunately, due to luck, this trade eventually produced +1 pip at the end of the 12 minutes. And I stopped trading at 9.16am with a view to sitting down again at 10.15am after which point no announcements were due again until 12.15pm.

This first trade is a clear sign of me not realising the fact that it is just wrong to stay in a trade and watch it go deep into the negative and hope for it to come back and go positive. I know this is completely wrong – so why have I repeated this wrong again? It can only be because I have traded like this and come away with positive trades or trades that have broken even in the recent past and subconsciously, I must be saying to myself that it is okay to carry on trading this way. Well this is me stating again in this blog, purely for my benefit, I have to stop fucking around, I will never come out of this whole that I am in if I don’t.

Moving on – come 10.09am, I sat down again for my announcement free slot of trading. This time my behaviour was better. I waited patiently. If you look at the hour candles of the Cable, you must be wondering how an earth I couldn’t scrape a couple of positive pips today with such large green candle being available. Well, having fucked up this morning, I was determined not to do it again. However, at around 10.42am I entered, or I should say, tried to get in on a buy trade, but the platform froze and eventually notified me that I hadn’t even got in – if the platform hadn’t frozen, I may have fucked up again in the usual fashion, or come away with a 0 to +2 pip trade. I am basing this theory on what the candle appeared to have had done after I eventually restarted the platform over the next 15 minutes – but who knows what I would have really done. Once I got the platform up and running, I started watching again, but did not find another opportunity that I was comfortable with to trade and at 12.01pm decided to call it a day.

In trying to stay positive today, bar the fuck up first thing, I think I showed the first signs of being patient and waiting for solid entry points before entering trades today. As they say, practice makes perfect right? I will have to wait and see if that applies to me.....