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go live or bust ... diary of an fx live-trader-wannabe

  • #961
  • Mar 25, 2009 5:59am Mar 25, 2009 5:59am
made an "assumption" about the market ... haha, i picked the top ... N0PE!! didn't take an obvious trade from a pullback. left 0.9% on the table.

net on the pullback/TL break trading for the nite is 0.9%. net for the 1-2-3 set-ups is 0.8%.

so, im done for the nite. tomorrow, i need to get back to basics ... didn't i say that on friday? anyway, focus on staying focused & patient, pulling the trigger, following thru ...

weekly net for the pullback/TL break trading is 3.6%.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #962
  • Mar 25, 2009 10:00pm Mar 25, 2009 10:00pm
missed this beauty by a few minutes (TL break via quad bottom). reason ... i once again was distracted by other things instead of paying attention to my charts during my trading hours (HK open thru aussie close) ... cost me 4% which would have put me past my weekly goal ... im not sure what subconscious, self-sabotaging demon continues to interfere w/ my success, but it's got to stop.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
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"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #963
  • Mar 26, 2009 3:16am Mar 26, 2009 3:16am
so far a frustrating session. 3 more trading opps completely spaced on (which would have been net gains), 1 scratch (pullback), 1 loss (TL break), 1 win (pullback), and 1 loss (TL break) ... net loss 0.9% ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #964
  • Edited 4:53am Mar 27, 2009 2:42am | Edited 4:53am
solidarity: "a union of interests or purposes or sympathies among members of a group"

http://www.earthhour.org

[for the 2 members that waste their time on my thread ... ]

btw, the above link is funky for some reason, but it's valid, there's a small bug when you direct click it from my post ... in the alternative, google "EARTH HOUR" ... i have no affiliation to it in any way.

thank you for caring.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #965
  • Mar 27, 2009 5:28pm Mar 27, 2009 5:28pm
Quoting fxgrinder
so far a frustrating session. 3 more trading opps completely spaced on (which would have been net gains), 1 scratch (pullback), 1 loss (TL break), 1 win (pullback), and 1 loss (TL break) ... net loss 0.9% ...
guess i didn't have the heart to report the final 3 trades were losses. net loss of 1.8% for those so 2.7% for my Thursday london session. got caught in the chop ... i finally figured it out & had enuf sense to shut it down ...

Thursday/Friday's session was a net 0.5% gain in 4 trades.

weekly net on the 1-2-3 trades was 0.8% (only traded them 2 days).

weekly net on the pullbacks/TL breaks was 1.6%

i still found myself losing focus while trading, becoming distracted by other things. this again proved t/b costly this week. i tried DIBS-style trading, but it was difficult to find set-ups, manage the trades, re-enter losers, etc. and focus on the 5min stuff. again, repeating the pattern of just not being satisfied w/ a positive, "Profit Factor" system ... this cost me several decent tradeable opps off the 5 min charts which definitely affected the weekly net. it's strange too b/c i cut my trading hours in half from when i first started getting serious w/ the intraday trading (going for the screen time).

the 1-2-3 stuff can be traded right off the 5 minute chart, but then i find myself jumping in off those signals & missing a stronger one from a simple pullback or TL break ...

anyway, as always, will spend time reviewing my written trading log & seeing where i went right where i went wrong ...

also, i think i finally found a decent filter for trade confirmation that should help me get into trades and stay out of bad ones. im fairly enthused about this one. had to figure out how to use it on my own as i couldn't find that much on it when i googled it or checked thru the forums. the neat thing about it is unlike the MACD, RSI, CCI, & my pet ADX is that it doesn't have inconsistent results (so far ...) for instance, the above indicators sometimes keep me out of bad trades, but more often they also keep me out of really good trades, or they are late to get me in which is not great on a 5 min chart where the profit expectancy is only 10-20 pips as it is.

still working on my max distance analysis (fixed target versus trailing optimizer) ... kind of a joke since the last time i took Statistics or any advanced math was in college ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #966
  • Mar 28, 2009 9:30pm Mar 28, 2009 9:30pm
Six months and a week since you've started your journal and still going strong. A thread relegated to the recycle bin. Led Zep in your siggy.

Rock...
  • #967
  • Mar 28, 2009 11:59pm Mar 28, 2009 11:59pm
Quoting opie999
Six months and a week since you've started your journal and still going strong. A thread relegated to the recycle bin. Led Zep in your siggy.

Rock...
and ... i survived one hour w/o electricity ... ... (the irony is the wind has picked up and we are probably going to lose all the power for the rest of the evening ... damnit!! now i cant kick my bf's ass at wii golf).

thanks for your fun post!

p.s. my journal has become a bit of a farse, but, it's sort of cathartic to have a reason to talk to myself!!
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #968
  • Edited 4:04am Mar 30, 2009 3:48am | Edited 4:04am
phew. typical sunday. market moving in slow steady progressions. net 2.3% for the nite. followed along w/ the boys over at sterling's site [see, http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...7#post2637107] & turns out E/U tracks fairly congruently w/ the G/U & his system finds very similar entry points to mine despite the differences in his trading method & my style.

new filter works really well, but one nite certainly is not a system-maker.

6 trades. 1 really decent trade. the rest either i bailed (saved me some, cost me some) or suffered very small losses ...

i am going to sit on my hands for one more hour & try to take only what appears to be higher prob set-up ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #969
  • Mar 30, 2009 5:19pm Mar 30, 2009 5:19pm
against my better judgment i took a trade during the kiwi session ... nothing else open ... dumb & un-disciplined. why? who knows. saw something that met the set-up rules (except for the no-trade-during-only-one-crappy-market-open-rule) ... bounced off the outer bands and a TL break and filter confirmed ... (no 1-2-3 however) ...

jumped in and the market went nowhere, then up ... took my licks & decided not to close it as a lesson to myself (giving back the hard-earned pips from last nite would be the consequence) ... price eventually shot down & i closed it for in the black for 0.6% gain ... i did not follow thru b/c i felt that in the event the market shoots down (and i believe it is going to do just that -- at least to 3170) for additional potential profits, i dont need t/b rewarding bad behaviour here ... and that will be further penalty for being such a ninkumpoop.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #970
  • Mar 30, 2009 9:23pm Mar 30, 2009 9:23pm
missed a nice little 1-2-3 from the outer bands while we were hiking ... oh well.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #971
  • Mar 31, 2009 4:18am Mar 31, 2009 4:18am
took 2 more trades for the session(s) ... (1) was a 1-2-3 ... i bailed at 0.6% gain ... left 1.6% on the table ... i dont even remember why i bailed, but i did; (2) was another 1-2-3 that i bailed on for a net gain of 1.3% ... (left 0.5% on the table) ...

aside from that, i left a ton more on the table today. this market was giving and giving and i was frozen, but ... i still netted 2.5% ... and i STOPPED TRADING ... this was a

GOOD THING!!!
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #972
  • Mar 31, 2009 4:19pm Mar 31, 2009 4:19pm
2 trades taken in sub 1 ... (did not want to break rules & trade in the goals account during off hours) ... 1st was a pullback, 2nd was a 1-2-3/FE ...net 2.1% ... essentially, i'd be done for the day ...

on the last trade, oanda didn't take out my TSL ... so i manually closed ... & then the thing shot down oh well, that's the way it goes.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #973
  • Mar 31, 2009 4:50pm Mar 31, 2009 4:50pm
Quoting fxgrinder
on the last trade, oanda didn't take out my TSL ... so i manually closed ... & then the thing shot down oh well, that's the way it goes.
turns out my % price retracement method for trailing stop would have kept me in & i'd still be in & locked in for an additional 9 pips ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #974
  • Apr 1, 2009 4:06am Apr 1, 2009 4:06am
zero trades taken today on my goals account. took a bunch of slop as papertrades only & that proved to be wise overall. could have taken 2 pullbacks that would have netted me 1.7%, but i was caught up in the mess of the market i was dealing w/ so i decided to stand aside.

my daily goal is 2% and my weekly is 5%. i am net positive 4.9% so i cant feel too bad the market didn't feel like giving me anything today.

maybe once the ADP stuff comes out tomorrow the market will settle for tomorrow's session ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #975
  • Apr 1, 2009 3:53pm Apr 1, 2009 3:53pm
boy did i totally f--- up today ... who knows what demons lurked while i slept, but i got up & failed to pull the trigger on a great trade, then proceeded to trade impulsively by taking one trade into a dead market and then another during a dead market ...

maybe after finding nothing to trade yesterday, im trying to overcompensate ... who the frick knows ... but it's not good whatever it is.

the failure to pull the trigger was a quick 0.6% and the 2 idiot trades were negative net 3.3%!!!!! ... net net for the mistakes 3.9% ...

there seems to be some psychological resistance level whenever my account grows by a certain amount. fibonacci is playing some trick on me perhaps ...
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #976
  • Apr 1, 2009 4:03pm Apr 1, 2009 4:03pm
Quoting fxgrinder
boy did i totally f--- up today ... who knows what demons lurked while i slept, but i got up & failed to pull the trigger on a great trade, then proceeded to trade impulsively by taking one trade into a dead market and then another during a dead market ...
oh ya, and the other little special thing that i did, which i never do was to MOVE MY STOP LOSS FURTHER AWAY!!!! lunacy.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #977
  • Edited 12:49pm Apr 2, 2009 12:27pm | Edited 12:49pm
Hi Grinder. Just stopping by for a visit. Haven't seen you in the 5 min thread in a while ...

Don't you hate those "user" errors?

I'm drastically reducing mine by doing one thing: On weekends, when I'm studying my week's trades, I create 3 totals:

1) Add up how many pips the "system" would have given if I traded perfectly (for inspiration).
2) Add up how many pips I actually made (to measure my progress).
3) Add up how many pips I LOST that were gone due to stupid mistakes. (I'm not talking about hindsight revelations... I'm talking about idiot moves, moves that I KNEW were idiotic at the time, but pulled the trigger anyways: trading 5 minutes before NFP, trading during dead hours out of boredom, trading against the trend with a trend following system, etc...)

I gotta tell ya: seeing the lost pips in bold red numbers will stop you from making stupid trades really fast!
Money missed is better than money lost
  • #978
  • Apr 2, 2009 1:50pm Apr 2, 2009 1:50pm
Quoting Dahlia
Hi Grinder. Just stopping by for a visit. Haven't seen you in the 5 min thread in a while ...

Don't you hate those "user" errors?

I'm drastically reducing mine by doing one thing: On weekends, when I'm studying my week's trades, I create 3 totals:

1) Add up how many pips the "system" would have given if I traded perfectly (for inspiration).
2) Add up how many pips I actually made (to measure my progress).
3) Add up how many pips I LOST that were gone due to stupid mistakes. (I'm not talking about hindsight revelations... I'm talking...
thanks for stopping by. see you have taken some really good trades lately.

funny that you and i would do the same thing ... i spend about 2-3 hours going over my trades meticulously & the week in general in almost the identical way.

the one thing i continue to struggle w/ is the constant second-guessing of myself/my system/the patterns & always wondering how i could have caught this move or that move ... then, i start monkeying w/ things (which is how i got caught up in the fiasco above ... and that was only the tip of the iceberg of how badly i f'd up this week) ... most of what i did was trade off 2 MA's that i never use & some other crap ... real mess.

especially in this funky market (NFP week and the G20 meeting, etc.) im always changing things up ... or get back to the faulty thinking it must be the TF im trading, the system, blah blah blah. same old tired record being played in my head ...

anyway, im hoping the "all i need is 10 pips so only take HP trades" thinking will come back to me. b/c while i was mourning the loss of my senses, i quickly scanned the week & i saw some very no-brainer pullbacks that could have been traded during the hours that i trade that were good for 10 pips.

the other thing that seems to have messed w/ my trading "chi" is the "let profits run" mantra ... you know, having gone over my results, i have ended up leaving double digits percentages on the table on the scratch trades & all for very few "home runs" ... i found a little way to measure how far EURUSD will travel after pullbacks from swing to swing (very elementary for a non-computer-programming geek like me) and there are probably only 10-15% of the time the EURUSD will travel more than 25 pips in one swing w/o correcting by some amount ... (i have done very crude comparisons b/w it & the GBPUSD as they travel the same, but focus on the E/U due to spread & continuity of movement, etc). when i was jumping into a good set-up ... even a B set-up instead of A & just taking my 5 & 10 pips here & there, i compounded my account by 50% in less than 2 months ... what did i do? decided i needed to switch things up ... find a way to let my profits run ... what happened? my results have plateaued ...

what's really gross is after a loss or a non-meet-the-goals-week or a friend or whatever saying they made 100 pips on this & 100 pips over there ... then the wheels really come off for me ...

TMI.haha, i ran on and on again ... well, at least it's in my own blog & not clogging up your PM box this time.
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #979
  • Apr 2, 2009 1:56pm Apr 2, 2009 1:56pm
Quoting fxgrinder
the other thing that seems to have messed w/ my trading "chi" is the "let profits run" mantra ... you know, having gone over my results, i have ended up leaving double digits percentages on the table on the scratch trades & all for very few "home runs" ... i found a little way to measure how far EURUSD will travel after pullbacks from swing to swing (very elementary for a non-computer-programming geek like me) and there are probably only 10-15% of the time the EURUSD will travel more than 25 pips in one swing w/o correcting by some amount...
also, philip nel is a smart guy. i mean why would he say move stop to b/e at 6 and take your money at 10 pips? really ... am i so arrogant to think he just plucked this from air? doubtful ...

HA!! as i typed this i "plucked" 10 pips from the market on a seem-less no-brainer pullback ... finally!!
"Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see." Proverb
  • #980
  • Apr 2, 2009 2:30pm Apr 2, 2009 2:30pm
Quoting fxgrinder
see you have taken some really good trades lately.
Thanks! Ha ha! Don't worry, I plan on increasing my size soon (due to the modest improvement in my trading). When that happens, watch the idiot trades roll in. They say that for every trader, there's a position size above which reduces him/her to a complete trading moron. Apparently, my threshold is anything more than .001% risk per trade.

Quoting fxgrinder
... the other thing that seems to have messed w/ my trading "chi" is the "let profits run" mantra ... i have ended up leaving double digits percentages on the table on the scratch trades & all for very few "home runs" ... there are probably only 10-15% of the time the EURUSD will travel more than 25 pips in one swing w/o correcting by some amount ...

also, philip nel is a smart guy. i mean why would he say move stop to b/e at 6 and take your money at 10 pips? really ... am i so arrogant to think he just plucked this from air? doubtful ......
Don't beat yourself up over this one. I'm sure that Phillip Nel is a master when it comes to trading. I wouldn't spend so much time on his thread studying his system day and night if I didn't. However, remember that the original rules of his system came out in January of 2007, BEFORE all this crazy volatility started. If I stuck with the original 10/6 TP and SL, I'm sure I'd be bald from pulling my hair out from frustration this last year and a half. A 6 pip SL in this market?? I know I can't do it...
Money missed is better than money lost
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