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.....

Poor trading

It was a late start again today. I did sit down for 8.30am, but there were various announcements due this morning and the first clear slot for me was from 10.15am onwards. So I watched for a little while and then decided to do some other work until 10.15am.

I eventually sat down again at 10.11am and ended up performing very poorly again today. If it wasn’t for luck which allowed me to finish today for +3 pips off one buy trade and two sell trades, I would have finished today with some hefty negatives.

My first buy trade had duration of almost 17 minutes. That should be enough to illustrate that this trade was executed all wrong right? At one point I was -8 or -9 pips down on this trade and I happily sat there watching, hoping and waiting for it to reverse and yield a profit. When it did, I luckily got out at its highest point to yield the +2 pips it produced. This trade has nothing at all in it for me to be proud of – it is so important that I realise this and not go on thinking that it is okay as long as I break even or make a pip or two.

Trade two, the sell trade which again I was in for just over a minute and a half produced a loss of -3 pips. As with the previous trade, the duration of this trade alone is enough to illustrate that this was executed all wrong. I jumped into this when I saw the Cable jerk down by over 10 pips – I didn’t really look for confirmation from the supporting currencies, I didn’t see any sustained correlation or strong momentum in all three currencies, so again, this is a trade that was executed very poorly, I should not have even got into this trade in the first place. Thankfully, I didn’t just sit there and wait for it to go positive, though it did after I got out – but I can’t think like that as if I had stay in I would just be breaking more rules. So, if I am to walk away with something positive from this trade, though I was not quick enough in doing so, I did exercise GOWID, which is the correct thing to do.

Trade three, another sell trade which had duration of one minute – still too long in my opinion which again boils down to not waiting for all the criteria before getting in. But if I remember correctly, this trade did not go negative at any point, instead it inched down slowly until there was around 1 pip left before it cleared the spread to break even. There was correlation between the currencies, but there wasn’t much momentum, hence the reason for the prolonged duration of the trade. But then, without warning, the Cable suddenly jerked down to clear the spread and produce the +4 pip profit. And I exercised GOWID straight after. I did notice the Cable had moved down by a further pip while I was taking the screen shot, so to avoid me wondering if I should have, could have, stayed in the trade, I closed down the platform before any more movement was visible to me. As much as this last trade was okay, not perfect but okay, having re-read the events that transpired, and knowing what level of trading expertise I have, this is another trade that I should not have got into.

Ultimately – not exercising GOWID and not waiting more patiently for better entry points are my biggest problems – so do I feel any better than yesterday or after last Friday’s session? The answer is NO!

Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day.