Consistantly learning.........A positive Trading Journal

The pourpose of this journal is to:

1.Keep myself accountable and develop discipline

2.Give people an example of how a positive attitude will eventually lead to success in trading

3.Use a Fixed Ration Money management method that will provide the structure required to grow an account quickly while controlling periods of drawdown very well.



don't steal

Hi, drumdude.

Care to go into a little more detail on your method?

Do you have SL and TP set for your current open positions?

sure thing.....
SL were already mentioned above under "current trades"

In just a bit i will post a copy of my rules for the method, however i would like this to be more about attitude than anything. I feel that with the right attitude anyone can master anything they choose. What seems to be neglected most in trading methods is they already ASSUME you have the discipline to follow them and the correct attitude to execute them properly. The problem is rarely the method, most any method will work with proper MM attitude and discipline. That is why i would like this thread to be more about the attitude it takes to be successful at ANYTHING not just trading, as well as MM (the method we will use is described here..... http://blog.worldvillage.com/busines...anagement.html ) and discipline.

I still struggle with discipline, at this point it seems to be the only thing holding me back as a consistent trader. Through this thread I will let everyone know when I have failed to be disciplined.

It seems there is a process i go through:

-Make lots of pips on one trade.
-Spend my profits on more trades that do not meet criteria and LOSE IT all
-OR spend too long looking at charts and justifying my WRONG decision.

The way i plan to cope with these problems are to POST the rules on my wall and make a checklist to go through.

I will post a copy of the rules i have come up with so those who choose to may follow. I would like ANYONE who feels they lack discipline to join this thread and develop in to a successful trader with me.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I will do my very best to answer them.

PS: as i said earlier i will post a copy of the rules SOON I want to make sure i am happy with how they are set before i post. Will be done before the days end!

Make luck today guys!

Fair enough, dude.

I like the idea of posting rules and maintaining a checklist. I've got sticky notes floating around all over my workstation but I need to get them sorted out and compiled into a master list. Part of my problem is organization.

Yeah, attitude. I completely identify with the notion that I already possess the needed mental discipline to successfully trade long term, for a living. In my brief periods of honest and objective self-examination, I admit to myself I don't (and won't) have a clue until I go live and start trading real dough.

Looking forward to reading of your success!

Just came across something interesting!!!!

Reading another journal and someone made the point:

"success doesn't come without pain"

HOWEVER:
I feel that the way you deal with your pain is everything, successful people will learn from a negative experience in life and will take an objective look at what happened, correct the flaw if there was one, and typically will not repeat the same mistake that led to the negative experience. If you do not learn from a loss or bad experience it is very likely that you will do the exact same thing over and over......why not just learn as much as you can the first time and cut the cycle off loss immediately instead of doing the same thing over and over expecting DIFFERENT results each time......If you do the same thing how can you expect different results?

For me live trading has revealed all of my flaws......for the longest time when I was demo trading I could not understand what people meant when they said that trading will make you a better person and expose your weaknesses.

I have found my two largest struggles are as follows:
-Discipline
-Greed

Live trading exposed these flaws. One of the ways of addressing them for me was to start this thread. Not only do I have the potential to support others as they struggle, but i will also have an opportunity to step back from my own trading and examine choices i have made.

I enjoy the challange trading presents to me because I know that WHEN i am a successful trader I will also have made myself a more complete person and will have been forced to address flaws.

I am currently 25 Pips up on USD JPY and 10 pips up on USD CAD

Current Emotion:
Proud:
I feel proud that I have started a thread that I feel can help many traders out. And I also am happy that i have some Green on my Screen!!!!

Make luck!

So far the trades i placed seem rather iffy.

Yen Closed out - 10

Cad Made a 25 pip TP


I currently am in the USD CHF

SHORT: 1.1519
SL:1.1542
TP: 1.1467
Trailing stop:35

each of my earlier trades had a potential TP of around 40 pips.....My mistake was poor trade management!!!!! SO!! Here is the plan for this trade.....I will add a trailing stop to assure at least while I sleep that my profits will be secure. I had a small profit today. The current swiss trade is up 25 pips and before i go to bed i am going to set my trailing stop and see how we have done by morning!

My current emotion is:
Tired/Optimistic
I am amazingly tried right now.......studying for accounting is NOT fun!!! And drains me But who knows....maybe one day I will apply all of my fun accounting knowledge to fib numbers and come up with the greatest system ever made...... The current trade is exciting as i am trying out a new idea for managing the trade as i sleep to lock in profit. Depending on how this goes.....I may switch to an ATR value for SL....


Anyways enough for now, Night!

USD CHF turned out very nicely and hit my TP at +52

Currently I am watching the USD JPY for a Triangle that seems to be forming on the 4 HR

No trades right now though.

Alright some exciting trades are happening in the market right now, and I hope every one is capitalizing on the market moves!

Had some trades that i did not put on here due to lack of time.....gotta love school

AUD USD:
Long:.9273
SL:.9219
TP:.9318

TP:HIT +45

Current Trade:

USD JPY
short:114.52
TP:113.29
SL:Locked in +50 for the night it is set to trail at 25

Current Emotion:
Confident
I feel very solid about my trading decisions at this point, I am + 95 for the day and that is fine with me. If i had happened to LOSE 95 pips today I still would be confident about my future trading decisions. Why?!?! Because....

I feel this will illustrate what i am trying to say.

I used to wrestle in high school and still do mixed martial arts today. Our coach used to tell us that if we went out on the mat shaky and not believing in our self we are automatically giving our opponent points. It was so true, I loved when wrestlers looked under-confident, it gave me MORE confidence in my self and in turn I would wrestle better.

Same thing applies to trading.....when you place orders....it is important to be SURE of yourself in every decision you make at the time. This way you do not waste pips opening and closing trades 999,242,151,000 times a day and depleting your account by closing out trades prematurely. Set your goal and let the trade move towards it. As you have consecutive losses make sure you keep yourself motivated to trade and keep your positive attitude. Think of this:

In the next 10 years IF you stick with ANYTHING consistently and approach it with the correct attitude and mind set you will succeed!! How can you fail something you put enough effort in to? Is that even possible? Successful people are successful in just about everything they do from what i have noticed. WHY? Are they just lucky? NO, they put the time and effort in to make them selves be successful. They create what people may perceive to be luck.

anyways, i am tired time for some accounting then sleep

Make Luck!!!!

Alright, I ended up with the +50 TP on the JPY USD......my stop did not provide enough breathing room for the trade to continue

When i woke up a Doji had just formed on the 4 hr. the candle after the Doji began moving down again, i took the new trade

USD JPY:
Short:113.13
SL:113.43
TP: 112.03


If we break the 112.97 resistance there won't be any hold-backs.....

Only concern is that I may have just sold at the bottom!
We will see

Nice going so far and I like your attitude to trading - great motivation

Hey thanks man, I want this journal to prove to anyone who doubts that trading can be mastered that with the right attitude everyone can master what ever they want.

If someone else is a great trader.....why can't you be one?
It all comes down to motivation and attitude.

Anyways I'm still working on getting what i feel to be my "strategy" in a postable form. I want to make sure I include my MM ideas. Anyways the last trade ended up as follows:

USD JPY:
Trailing stop hit for +60 Great fun right guys!!!?! That trade went very smoothly I found a Doji, placed my stop above the wick and then let the price action tell me what the market was going to do. 60 pips later, I found i had been right in my prediction!<----Eat your greens


Current trade:
AUD USD:
Long:.9287
Stop:.9256
TP:.9309

AUD USD:
Stop loss his:-30


What did i learn here? WELL!!!!

I didn't check for news at forex factory haahaha and sure enough i entered RIGHT at news time.....and the news was way below expected and it caused a sudden drop......silly trading error :

The good thing here is that my loss is much less than my gains have been!! As long as I keep that up I will always be in profit!

Currently i am trading
USD JPY:
Short:112.41
SL:112.80
Trailing Stop:30
TP:111.69

Current Emotion:
satisfied
For the week I am GREEN, and that is what the plan is right? Stay Green. A loss is something to gain from. Think about that.....if you gained an understanding of why something happend and take steps to try and avoid the loss in the future......is it really a loss?

Hey!! haven't had time to update in a while

Ended up +60 on my last trade!

The markets seem to be trending at the moment and that is exciting!

I have been messing around a bit with auslanco's momentum system and it seems to have some Interesting features in it.......if you haven't checked it out....take a look!!


I am hoping the USD JPY will break 108.............how fun will that be.....Maybe will go all the way to 104ish!!! what will hold it back? Look at the monthly charts......slap a normal setting Bollinger bands on there.......what is happening.....it has been consolidating....now it is starting to trend.....I am very excited to see what will happen!!!!


Current Emotion:
Party:
Alright so it isn't exactly an emotion....but I am having so much fun trying to understand the market.....

If anyone has anything to add on what they see in the markets I would love to discus it with you!!!!



Greens are good for you!!!!

Alright my week started off rather bumpy.....not due to bad trade calls.....but POOR trade management.....I was chart watching :!! Went -80 because i closed trades out prematurely. I let emotions control my trades instead of my logic.


Everyone....the lesson to be learned here is to TRUST your calls....if you don't trust your calls why are you trading?


Needless to say, I took an objective look at what I was doing and put an immediate stop to it.


The results? Watching a trade go -60 against me turn in to over +390 for me..... notice the losses are smaller than the profit in my writing hahahaha



Trading can put you through emotional highs and lows if you look at it as a LIFE OR DEATH situation.....but the fact is.....this is supposed to be fun right? Exciting? That doesn't mean you always win!!! It doesn't mean you always make good calls!!!! IT IS A GAME, and if you view it like that I feel you may be more successful (happy to be proven wrong though ) View your profits as Points....pips are just points....how many points can you get? NOT "if this one goes against me I will change my views about the market"


All we are doing is making educated guesses about what we think a chart will do....thats it. Don't make it some elaborate thing, the more elaborate of a story you make each trade (sitting and thinking about it all day and night) the less fun you will have with it. The reason I trade is for fun and wanting to master something new. The profit just happens to be a perk


Why do you trade? I would like to hear what you all want to achieve!!!!!




Current Emotions:
Fun!!!!
Why fun?!?! Well earlier this week I had some challenges presented to me by my own charachter flaws.....and then......I over came them!!! It was a rewarding experience. I just asked my self....well what is the worst that will happen....."I will not have a profitable trade".....OK that is fine, but I knew i couldn't possibly have a profitable trade if I didn't let my stop-loss do its' job!!!!!!! I place my stops at levels I do not expect to be broken....and if they ARE broken then I do not want to be in the trade.....however the lesson learned was that there is NO NEED to get out of a trade because it goes __ pips against you.....let your stops go to work for you!

NICE JOURNAL, DUDE!

thanks man! If you got anything awesome and amazing to add.....feel free

Hey Drumdude,

I got your PM but something has been messed up with my account so I cannot reply. As soon as it is fixed, I will drop you a line.


Many Pips

Long
EUR USD- AO and stochs agree
Enter: 1.5279 Stop: 1.5177 +100 Closed
GBP USD- AO and AC agree
Enter: 1.9920 Stop:1.9815 +160 Closed

USD CAD
Short: .9846 +100 closed
SL:.9953

CHF JPY
Long: 100.46 -35 Closed
SL:.99.43