Hi,
So I decided I'm going to do a trading journal (more of a daily consolidation of my trades and thoughts). I will sum up my trades for the day here as well as any random musings/ramblings I might have. This is more for my own reference, something neat to look back on over the weekends and re-organise my thought processes because the MT4 trading journal is such a pain to look at. If anyone is actually interested enough to read what I pen down, feel free to contribute or engage in some banter - trading is a really lonely profession so it would be nice to have some conversations while waiting for market entries.
I will update this log only once a day - live calls and discussions/opinions will be posted on the 'EURUSD Only' discussion thread opened by Ata-Turkoglu (an excellent trader to learn from, by the way): https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=699860
About Me
I'm 23 this year and I've been trading since I was 15 on a demo account. I went live the moment I turned 21 and could open with a proper broker, and I've never looked back since. I now do this full-time for a living and I really love what I do. I tried my hand at both starting a business as well as corporate life working under someone, but nothing gave me the thrills and rush as trading does. That, and trading gives me a fatter wallet.
Off-screen I used to play water polo before an ACL tear took me out. I picked up bodybuilding, joined a couple of competitions, and next to trading it is now another one of my main sources of therapy. Trading gives me the flexibility of time to pursue these hobbies, as well as spend more time with my family/friends/girlfriend. If I stayed as a corporate slave, I'd never have the energy nor financial fluidity to enjoy myself fully.
Trading Style
I trade only the EURUSD.
My trading style is mostly based on technical analysis, although I do pay close attention to fundamentals to get a feel of the trend.
The main indicators I use:
Volume Spread Analysis
Accumulation/Distribution
Any RSI (any default settings will do - I only use it as a rough gauge)
54 Linear Weighted Moving Average
Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD: 3/15/7)
Trading Psychology & Over-Leveraging (Capital Availability vs Capital In Account)
I start each day with $250 to $500 in my account (hence the clickbait thread title - $250 for a Ferrari) and start my trades with 1 standard lot (about $230 on margin given my broker's 1:500 leverage) and for the rest of the day I scale my lot sizes up and down accordingly. This forces me to be very accurate (and OCD) with my trade entries - the moment I get a confirmation on H1 and M15, I scale down to M5 and M1 to 'snipe' my entries. I follow with a very tight stop-loss, typically 3 to 7 pips and I try to move my stop-loss to break-even or break-even +1 pip as soon as I can. This way, there's little to no risk to me, and if I do get stopped out I can always re-enter either at a couple ticks better or at the same position.
At the end of each day before I sleep, I withdraw all my profits leaving behind $250 to start the new day. If I have consecutive losses and my equity goes down to a 2-digit sum, I treat the rest of the day as practice to work on my analytical skills and to just get my head back in the game, given that my lot sizes would have been scaled down to micro-lots. Either way, I'm only risking $250 for every trading day.
I'm lucky enough that I haven't actually got to a point where my equity has hit a 2-digit sum (*fingers crossed*, hopefully never), but in terms of psychology, I do find this method much more efficient in terms of risk management. If I were to subscribe to the conventional view of only entering lot sizes that equal to 0.5%/1%/2% of my total equity, I'd have to have an arbitrary $100,000 or more tied up in my account balance. That's over $99,750 locked up that could be put into better use - car instalments, mortgage payments, etc. From a psychological standpoint, having such a huge buffer also opens me up to revenge trading and clouds my judgement. If a trade does go 7 pips against me, chances are I can re-enter from a better position (and make that 7 pips or more back), or I read the trend wrong and I'd be screwed anyway even with a bigger stop-loss. With a huge buffer in my equity, I'd open myself up to revenge trading, either leaving the trade open and hoping it will reverse in my favour (which never happens 99% of the time
) or worse, start stacking on more positions. Stopping out forces me to re-evaluate my analysis and if I am right, I take a new position from a better entry point.
As you can see, I'm not a big fan of the 'risk only 1% of your account' cliche.
So I decided I'm going to do a trading journal (more of a daily consolidation of my trades and thoughts). I will sum up my trades for the day here as well as any random musings/ramblings I might have. This is more for my own reference, something neat to look back on over the weekends and re-organise my thought processes because the MT4 trading journal is such a pain to look at. If anyone is actually interested enough to read what I pen down, feel free to contribute or engage in some banter - trading is a really lonely profession so it would be nice to have some conversations while waiting for market entries.
I will update this log only once a day - live calls and discussions/opinions will be posted on the 'EURUSD Only' discussion thread opened by Ata-Turkoglu (an excellent trader to learn from, by the way): https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=699860
About Me
I'm 23 this year and I've been trading since I was 15 on a demo account. I went live the moment I turned 21 and could open with a proper broker, and I've never looked back since. I now do this full-time for a living and I really love what I do. I tried my hand at both starting a business as well as corporate life working under someone, but nothing gave me the thrills and rush as trading does. That, and trading gives me a fatter wallet.
Off-screen I used to play water polo before an ACL tear took me out. I picked up bodybuilding, joined a couple of competitions, and next to trading it is now another one of my main sources of therapy. Trading gives me the flexibility of time to pursue these hobbies, as well as spend more time with my family/friends/girlfriend. If I stayed as a corporate slave, I'd never have the energy nor financial fluidity to enjoy myself fully.
Trading Style
I trade only the EURUSD.
My trading style is mostly based on technical analysis, although I do pay close attention to fundamentals to get a feel of the trend.
The main indicators I use:
Volume Spread Analysis
Accumulation/Distribution
Any RSI (any default settings will do - I only use it as a rough gauge)
54 Linear Weighted Moving Average
Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD: 3/15/7)
Trading Psychology & Over-Leveraging (Capital Availability vs Capital In Account)
I start each day with $250 to $500 in my account (hence the clickbait thread title - $250 for a Ferrari) and start my trades with 1 standard lot (about $230 on margin given my broker's 1:500 leverage) and for the rest of the day I scale my lot sizes up and down accordingly. This forces me to be very accurate (and OCD) with my trade entries - the moment I get a confirmation on H1 and M15, I scale down to M5 and M1 to 'snipe' my entries. I follow with a very tight stop-loss, typically 3 to 7 pips and I try to move my stop-loss to break-even or break-even +1 pip as soon as I can. This way, there's little to no risk to me, and if I do get stopped out I can always re-enter either at a couple ticks better or at the same position.
At the end of each day before I sleep, I withdraw all my profits leaving behind $250 to start the new day. If I have consecutive losses and my equity goes down to a 2-digit sum, I treat the rest of the day as practice to work on my analytical skills and to just get my head back in the game, given that my lot sizes would have been scaled down to micro-lots. Either way, I'm only risking $250 for every trading day.
I'm lucky enough that I haven't actually got to a point where my equity has hit a 2-digit sum (*fingers crossed*, hopefully never), but in terms of psychology, I do find this method much more efficient in terms of risk management. If I were to subscribe to the conventional view of only entering lot sizes that equal to 0.5%/1%/2% of my total equity, I'd have to have an arbitrary $100,000 or more tied up in my account balance. That's over $99,750 locked up that could be put into better use - car instalments, mortgage payments, etc. From a psychological standpoint, having such a huge buffer also opens me up to revenge trading and clouds my judgement. If a trade does go 7 pips against me, chances are I can re-enter from a better position (and make that 7 pips or more back), or I read the trend wrong and I'd be screwed anyway even with a bigger stop-loss. With a huge buffer in my equity, I'd open myself up to revenge trading, either leaving the trade open and hoping it will reverse in my favour (which never happens 99% of the time
) or worse, start stacking on more positions. Stopping out forces me to re-evaluate my analysis and if I am right, I take a new position from a better entry point. As you can see, I'm not a big fan of the 'risk only 1% of your account' cliche.
You hesitate, you masturbate.
