The Vortex Trader

The word vortex has special meaning this morning , boy was I lucky in so many ways but mostly I used my experience of price action to end up as a break even day. So I should be greatful and yet my emotional experience is one of angst to say the least. I did not follow my rules for a trade and had to use the 23% retracement trade as my safety net. I hate that.

Gory details - went short the Audjpy with a larger lot size than I like because I was on my laptop. I then turned off my laptop to move from the cafe I was trading in and came home because the service went down right after my order so I did't put in a stop loss - yikes - perials of trading in cafe's. Anyway by the time I got set up again I was down huge so I did what I had to do - went short again and prayed - price eventually got me back to break even and I took it instead of hoping for a profit. Truthfully I hate doing that kind of trading and it is also one of the reasons I trade the later part of the New york market - I count on a retracement.

So now that my body is relaxing and my mind is looking for the atta boy and my being is back to a relaxed place I can begin to rebuild my confidence again. My plays work use them.

Ok my first trade and only trade for the day was GBPUSD B at 147.10 on an inside bar break closed trade at 147.44 because price was close to 50 and its Friday. I am happy to stop for the week.

So what did I learn this week. I have a hard time being very disciplined, my set ups work, I trade the later part of the New Yor Market for a fundamental reason- price goes back towards the daily open at some point. Fast moving markets create a great counter trade and mostly I learned that keeping this journal alive and up to date has helped with my trading.

My intention next week is to trade my trading plan and stay away from the mental trades that get in head. So what is the root cause of my bad trades? Trying to be smarter than the market. I see the possibility and want to be a trading hero. The real hero in trading is the trader who works his methodology to perfection every day, accepts the limitations of his system, works on his ability to stay focused on his plan and stops wondering around looking for a trade.

Basic stuff said in a many different ways on this forum.

My internet is not working well this morning so I have closed my one trade - the Buy GBPEUR on an inside bar break. I also entered a sell on the Cad by mistake and closed it for a loss. So I am basically even for the day. Now I have to move to another location so will be back shortly. I like getting out of the house and this is one of the things I have to learn to deal with.

My focus for the week is to improve my money management skills and to stick to my trading plan - inside bars, 21 DNA cross and slingshot on a 30 min chart. I am also following shakes journal and looking at practicing during the asian market. No orders until I can prove I can make pips on a demo after 25 trades.

Am up and running again - Have a potential B USDJPY at 9179 on a 21 DNA Crossm Sell the USD CAD at 1.2179 on an inside bar break

My CAD order just kicked in. I see that I have a few inside bar trades coming up at the bottm of the hour. shall see if the set up holds

Ok a couple of inside Bar trades B EURUSD 1.3081, B USDJPY 9171, B EURJPY 119.85

I am struggling with the CAD trade - Took half my position off the and moved my stop loss and forgot to change my position size and of course got to tight on the stop loss and found myself going the wrong direction - what a bone head move on my part. The cure - don;t change the plan.

I am in the EurUSD trade ont he break out my stop is at 1.3048 which is a stop and reverse trade because it would be a break of the inside bar in the other direction. I am waiting for the close of this candle to put in pending order on the GBP on an inside bar trade as well. If the JPY close on the other side of the 21DNA I will take off the JPY trades.

I am done for the day - not a very good day - so what did I learn - pay attention to what I am doing. I am so anxius to trade - I look at too many charts so how do I correct that - limit my charts and the number of pairs I am watching. Done

Next trust my plan. My little fearfull mind likes to see lots of worst case scenarios and I have yet to learn how to listen and not act on what it says.

Next do a complete job of a top down analysis of the market. Part of what was happening this morning was my internet service was not working so I was taking shortcuts to get a trade in.

the best I can say for today is that I stayed out of big trouble by only taking the right entries and not over trading. I also stuck to my hours for trading. I quit before I got into the gotta make it back mid set. That is certain disaster.

Would it be nice to close on a possitive trade yes and that is not happening unless I break a rule. Its fun to watch my mind as the little me tries to justify action.

With that I am done for the day - head between my tail, feeling the pain of a losing day. When I take a step back and look at price movement - today was not a good day for my methodology. You can tell I am trying to make today ok so that can feel good. I can feel good without having done well in the market. Its just a mind change.

Later and good trading.

I have not gone away - been busy learning a scalping technique for those times when I am waiting for a set up on the 30 min charts - this is very intense work requireing more than I imagined - mostly mindless quick reflex's, when one gets down to a lower time frame its amazing how much price moves and and how fast.

My first set up is a slingshot trade on the Chf - I am in a fog with my trading right now - been focused on learning a new methodology so My mind is warpped - for the next hour I am just going to relax and just trade the 30 min chart. My slingshot trade on the chf just activated so I have 30 mins to relax and read the paper while it works itself out.

Chf Trade was fine - Next set up is a sell on the GBP at 14189 inside bar break, watching the Eur for a possible slingshot trade at 1.2759 may not get it and also looking at the Chf for a slingshot trade b at 1.1694 and the JPY for a slingshot at S 90.47 A little late in the candle. So the Trade will only be on for a about 10 minutes

First I did get out of my jpy trade -small profit - went down to the tic chart and saw resistance at 90.70 so I added to my short position and got out with a 3 pip profit - the reason I have been working on scalping technique to get me out of trouble or to cut my losses and move on - at least I have a chance to turn a loss into a BE. Right now I have two possible trade B USDCHF 1.1673 and Sell EURUSD 1.2773

I have been following shakesfx journal thread and working at his scalping method. My Feed won't let me duplicate the results nor does my brain see the trades as fast as he does. What has helped me though is really watching how price moves up and down working itself one way then another over and over. I had my hiccups at first and what I am seeing is that I am getting better every hour I trade. I have made a few modifications that work for me.

So today I am a happy trader. Made pips - am learning more about the market, and figuring out who I am as a trader so I can personalize it even more.

A little mental cleaning tonight. I won't be trading because I am tired. I also won't be trading for the following reasons:

I am afraid to trade tonight because I will lose.
I can't trade tonight because I am changing how I trade and I will lose.
I want my thinking to stay out of my trading and it won't
My mind should stay on the sidelines gaining unconcious knowledge instead of doing my trading
I need my mind to stop thinking about gauranteed trades and fooling me into reckless trading habits.
I think my mind gets in the way, is slow, a poor decision maker, untrained, lazy, undisciplined, wishful, hopeful, in the future, in the past, scared, stupid and greedy.
I don't ever want my mind to control my trading.

I went through this excercise so I can see what thoughts are getting in my way and find a way to look forward to them being in my head where I can say interesting thought, thank you for sharing and bless you for being concerned for my financial well being and then release it so it doesn't become a course of action.

For me right now, my trading path is to look at my thoughts and train my mind to act on market information. This will free me to trade confidently thereby increasing my trading account.

the next step in my process is to really look at my judgements and turn them around so my mind can see there is more than one way to judge what is happening in the market.

Its an interesting process retraining the mind.

With a bank holiday and all I am in a "not sure I want to trade mode" - I find during US bank Holiday's the market can have a lot of spikes because of low volume.

What am I working on this week. Over the weekend I was looking at how my mind trades. What I am seeing is that I have this little voice that loves to get involved in the action and yet has a terrible record because it will usually proceed a trade with a qualifier like, I should get in now, better get in here, something of that nature. So this week I am going to pay attention to what I say before a trade to see if I can discern a pattern in my thinking process and my trading results. this will be an interesting endeavor to say the least. the key to effortless trading is to have a quiet mind. Now I know my little voive (ego - self - what ever one wants to call it) must have its voice so I will need to find a job for it. That will develop as I gather more information and maybe I will find a way for it to support my intuitive voice. That would be really cool.

Right now I am in a short on the CHF at 1.1588 based on a daily entry, not sure I like the trade because of how quiet the market is so I may close it for a small loss and come back tommorrow. The I may close it for a small loss and come back tommorrow is being overridden by my little voice saying give it a chance - stick around - average cost so you can get out with a profit, don't leave so soon. Intersting actuallly hearing how it works.

With that I will stay true to the play and leave for a while since I am in a state of confusion with this conversation about the little voice. This is a reminder why I really don't like daily trades - I feel like I have very little control over them.

I am short the USDJPY at 92.00 on a slingshot trade - this morning I am staying focused on one trade at a time instead of now going off looking for another set up- I find when I get into a couple of trades, my risk increases and my emotions take over. So today I am staying relaxed and just allowing what the market does to be what the market does. If I get in a Break even position on this trade then I will look for another trade. That way I will not feel the pressure.

The JPy trae did not go well so I am now looking for the next trade set up. May be a short of Jpy after this move. If I get a double top on a smaller time frame then I will go short

The short trade on the yen went well. Now in a slingshot on the yen short at 9242.

A little late in posting this tradeShort the Eur Usd t 1.2584 on a slingshot trade got out at 2575 - late in the day so was being cautious also have a meeting to go to in a few minutes so didn't want anything on my mind