Now what?

I don’t know what to say right now. I know I have been here before. I am embarrassed. My confidence is shot. I feel sick. Should this be the end to my Forex journey?

What can I say apart from that I have truly fucked up today! All that I thought had been put behind me came back and hit me hard! I lost over £800 today! Every rule I can think of was broken. I decided to sit down for an afternoon session and it all went wrong. A stop loss took me out of a trade, stop losses were moved, pip values changed, being hopeful with trades, entering too many trades – and everything else under the sun that should not have been done, was done!

I am right back where I started. I have now effectively lost almost £4k since originally investing £20k in September, an average of £2k per month, not bad huh? What am I going to do? My ultimatum from last week means this is it for me......however everything in me is saying I can still do this. But at what cost – the rest of my capital? The bad habits that I have got into are ingrained in me now – I fear that the steps I have to take to get back on the straight and narrow are so far ahead of me, I might never reach them. Am I simply deluding myself into thinking everything will be ok?

Sid at Forex Training Works warned us all that once you start down the wrong path, turning back becomes very difficult. He was right. The stories about others who had strayed now apply to me. I am one of the statistics. And what worries me, is that I don’t recall hearing any stories about those who strayed and came back........

If I am going to continue with my Forex dream, I need a plan and have to stick to the plan, so I am going to put something down now;

-          I’ve just reduced my pip value to 25p per pip.

-          This pip value will not be increased until one full week of good trading is achieved. If this is achieved weekly, I will double the value weekly. If I don’t follow the rules for even one day in a given week, the next move will be back to demo trading. I have to right?

-          GOWID must be exercised at all times.

-          I will improve my trade entry points. This will involve me being a lot more patient than I have and ensuring that there is strong correlation between the currencies before trading. Not doing this is probably the biggest contributing factor for why I have been going wrong.

-          No more than 3 trades will be entered into per day. At least until I have systematically worked my way up to the £40 per pip level – this now being the appropriate pip value based on the capital I have left. Executing numerous trades in one day or session is another reason for my fuck ups – Sid used to call it revenge trading.

-          The maximum duration of each session will not be more than 2 hours.

I think that’s it.

If I was a reader of this blog, I would be cringing right now. How many times does one need to learn from their mistakes? I hope this is the last time, I couldn’t take this again – could you? I use this blog because I can no longer speak to anyone about this, it would be too embarrassing. I am finding it hard enough to continue with this blog with all that has happened so far.....

More Good than Bad

I’m going straight into the results today, I started at 8.11am today, entered 9 trades that yielded the following and finished at 8.49am:

Trade 1 – Sell for -6 pips

Trade 2 – Sell for +1 pip

Trade 3 – Sell for -4 pips

Trade 4 – Sell for -2 pips

Trade 5 – Sell for +9 pips

Trade 6 – Buy for -6 pips

Trade 7 – Sell for -6 pips

Trade 8 – Sell for +10 pips

Trade 8 – Sell for +5 pips

The bad news is that my negatives are clearly too high, and way too many trades were executed.

The good news is, not one of my trades got kicked out by my stop loss – granted getting kicked out by the stop loss is difficult for normal traders, but in my case, I seemed to be at the mercy of the stop loss with relative ease in the recent past. So this must mean, that GOWID, to a certain degree is working for me, though the 4 out of the 5 negative trades today were too high. This simply means that I was using a combination of GOWID and HOPE, and I know all too well what HOPE can lead to in this type of trading. The last piece of good news today is I finished overall for +1 pip.

I’ll leave it like that for today!

Perfect start to the week!

I couldn’t have asked for a better start to this week. I finished today for +3 pips off one sell trade which lasted 36 seconds and the whole trading session lasted 6 minutes.

I haven’t explained what the white and yellow lines in my graphics mean before, so let me attempt to do so now. As you can see in my snap shot today, the white datum lines show my starting point today, this is when I sat down to watch after my setup of the charts. The yellow datum lines within the Cable chart are approximately 30 pips either side of my white datum line which I aim to match against the top and bottom of wicks off prior Cable 1 hour candles in the same day. This helps me gauge the range of the currency’s movement, without having to watch the actual price every second. This also provides an indication of points when the currency might break through a previous high or low. I never used consistently use these datum lines before, but have been for several weeks now and it certainly helps.

Now that I have explained what my datum lines are, just look at how great today was. You can see the price of the Cable when I sat down and that there was a 20 pip (there abouts) red candle on the Cable already. Before entering by sell trade today, the currencies seemed to be correlated, but were not moving in one direction with any kind of momentum in order for me to enter a sell or buy trade. But then, out of the blue, the Swissy began to push up with momentum, the Euro began to push down with some momentum, but the Cable, at this point, wasn’t doing much. Then the Cable decided to jump down around 4 pips from 1.5617 to 1.5613 to catch up with the movement of the other currencies. Then, the Cable gradually reversed again, back up to 1.5617, along with some respective correlated gains and losses by the Euro and Swissy. If I remember correctly, this happened in both directions a couple of times, when after a couple of minutes, the Swissy decided to push up further, the Euro push down further, to the point that there was no wick at the bottom of the Euro – and I was lucky enough at this point, to enter a sell trade on the Cable at 1.5614, before the Cable had started its corresponding correlated movement. The Cable held at 1.5614 for a few seconds, then cleared the spread and held for a few seconds, went positive by +1 pip but quickly went back down to break even and hold for a few seconds, it then moved up by +2 pips, which is when I exited the trade. But by the time the system took a split second to close the trade, it had moved to +3 pips.

I hope I’m not jumping ahead of myself as it is still early days, but something is different compared to the last few weeks. I feel a lot more relaxed. I think I have finally got it clear in my head that when a trade looks good in terms of criteria and I decide to jump in, I just have to be ready to GOWID, not just when such a trade has gone positive, but even if it stalls right at the beginning even before clearing a spread. This way, I am limiting myself to small negatives as opposed to the negatives that you have seen me do in the past. But the equally important aspect of this type of trading is that I have to wait for good criteria before actually entering a trade, this is key to avoiding lots of small negatives resulting from me exercising GOWID well, but not getting the entry points right.

As I said in one of my posts last week, I think I am getting there – slowly but steadily – but one thing is for sure, I feed great today!

I’ll be back tomorrow.....

Distracted

Today’s session was a prime example of when not to trade. I was quite rushed off my feet this morning before sitting down to trade, and I brought this attitude with me when I sat down to trade at 8.48am.

GOWID, to a certain degree, kept me relatively safe, but there was a lot of luck involved again today. So to keep it short and sweet – 5 trades today, yes I know, way too many – results were, +1, -5, -4, +7 (this was an old style crazy hopeful trade, so shouldn’t count really) and +3 pips. Leaving me +2 pips up for the day. But I reckon it was around 50% rule following and 50% luck today.

So, the weeks round up;

Monday:                      -30 pips

Tuesday:                      +2 pips

Wednesday:                +3 pips

Thursday:                    +2 pips

Friday:                         +2 pips

Total for the week:      -21 pips

I’m not going to dwell on this week, I think the penny is beginning to drop, even after the events of this week.

I’ll be here again on Monday to report on my results.

A good day – but not perfect

Started at 8.47am, two sell trades, +1 pip each and I am done for today. I think I am beginning to recognise the difference between a good trade and a not so good trade. For example, my first trade was iffy, at one point I was -3 pips down, the trade lasted just over a minute and strictly speaking if I was following the rules to the letter, I think you can guess what the results should have been – correct, GOWID for -3 pips.

My second trade on the other hand, was perfect, it lasted 13 seconds to yield a 1 pip profit and I GOWID.

The key is to of course find the right entry point, but that does not mean the trade will go positive as anything can happen, a plane might have just crashed into Buckingham Palace and the currency markets go crazy, so most importantly, being ready to GOWID in a split second is a must.

I think am I getting there, a few more trades like my second trade today and I reckon the anxiety I feel just before trading will be gone too. The feeling after a day like this is great though. As soon as I know I have finished for the day in profit, I can’t wait to close down the platform and report the results in my blog, I’ve had a scan through my posts to date and the scales are clearly tipped for the worse – this has to change, I want to be able to scan through prior posts and really have to look hard to find a bad day.....

It’s Friday tomorrow, the last day for the week, I was going to say, I hope tomorrows session finishes on a good note – what I should be saying is that it will finish on a good note, the worst case scenario should be a couple of small negative trades.....small meaning between -1 and -3 pips. Whereas the best case scenario is my first trade takes off and produces a double digit pip profit and I’m done for the day!!

See you tomorrow....

Rules, Rules, Rules!

The rules saved me today – my first trade was almost a repeat of my bad habits and could have been far worse if it was not for GOWID!

Kick off was at 8.38am today. When I was setting up, the 8am candle on the Cable was already over 50 pips down and had no wick at the bottom. By the time I had set up my charts however, the Cable had reversed by around 10 pips and I began to watch for an opportunity.

My first sell trade was a disaster and like I said, could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t GOWID, I ended up with -5 pips. What annoys me about myself on this trade is that, when I was 1 pip down at one point, I was in doubt and I didn’t GOWID. I need to remember this or I am going to come a cropper again and my ultimatum dictates that I hang my trading shoes up for good if I fuck up again like I have in the past.

The second sell trade, better, finished on +1 pip and made good use of GOWID. The duration of the trade was longer than it should be, but I’m quite confident I was ready to GOWID from beginning to end on this one.

Trade three, a buy, much better in terms of pips, it yielded +4 pips and good use of GOWID. The duration wasn’t too bad either, just under a minute.

My last trade for the day, another sell, is the perfect example of the type of trade to enter. The trade lasted 6 seconds, yielded +3 pips and I GOWID! A perfect end to the day.

On rereading the above, it’s evident that I’m revenge trading aren’t I? Another attribute that’s not within the rules. I had broke even after trade number three, so to finish up for the day I got into a fourth trade – risky business – the question is, would I have continued trading if the fourth trade hadn’t produced the goods? Either way, in my opinion, one too many trades for my level of experience. I wonder – having broken all the rules for such a long time must have made breaking the rules second nature for me – this has to change, I need to reverse this trend, following the rules has to become second nature and instinct for me.

I am feeling good with today’s overall results though – you could say that three out of four trades ranged from being ok to perfect, so it’s all good!

Tomorrow is another day......

A marked improvement!

There some hope after today’s results. It feels like it has been a long time since I felt this good after a session of trading. There’s quite a bit of relief as well, but overall, the feeling today is pretty good.

I started at 9.05am and entered the first at 9.18am. It was a buy trade and it looked good, there was some momentum between the currencies, and correlation was evident. The trade lasted just over 1 minute, but I was watching like a hawk and ready to GOWID. The spread took a while to clear, but importantly, the trade didn’t go more negative, it held, cleared the spread, held again, went positive by 1 pip and I GOWID – Hurrah! My first decent trade! It felt good!

The second trade which was a sell was dicey. It lasted just over 2 minutes and did not do as expected, however, the good news is, I GOWID! And got out to break even. I actually GOWID in a trade such as this, that’s a huge improvement in my eyes!

The third and last trade for the day, a sell again, lasted under a minute, yielded another 1 pip and I GOWID again. Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah! What was scary however – by the time I took the screen shot, the Cable had reversed by almost 10 pips – isn’t GOWID great?

I have finished for the day after 3 trades to be ahead by a couple of pips for this session, no looking back, onwards and upwards. Here’s to tomorrow............................