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

i think i mentioned that my bf trades tick/seconds & when a friend of mine (who trades 5 min stuff too) & myself told him that when we were up 10 pips we moved our stops to b/e trying for more ... & how many times those 10 pips turned to b/e trades ... he started adding it up in his head & nearly puked. .... but, but, but ... we have to let our winners runnnnnnnnnn. (who knows ... i think this might apply more to swing trading than intraday trading off 5 min charts ...)

nevertheless, even when i was up 12, 15, 17 pips, my TSL tends to take me out at the 10 pip mark anyway ... so yesterday i decided im going back to taking my money & leaving the rest for some other fortunate soul ...

ah, the seesaw of my trading emotions. what fun.

screen shots from all the trades i took when the wheels started falling off (thank god this was my papertrade account & not my goals account) ... painful, but im going to do it anyway cuz otherwise, i'll lose the record since oanda only allows access to a limited chart. (the embarrassing part is this isn't all of them since some of them are already gone from my charting history ...)

[the 4 missing trades are (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) from the compiled list in written journal) ... see below for analysis]

1. no clue why i took this one; doesn't even resemble anything logical (didn't even qualify as a poor TL break trade); outside of my trading rules too
2. ditto for this one ... except it was closer to my trading hours (tokyo was open, 30 mins till HK opened) ... i think this is where i might have first drunk the "let's-trade-like-a-complete-idiot" kool-aid
3. bought here; prolly thought was a decent enuf pullback ... however, it hadn't really finished pulling back &/or i blindly traded the BEOB ... other reasons (see written journal)
4. looks like a TL break trade ... max distance was 9 pips; however, i took a pseudo-scratch on it (i paid oanda its ransom i believe)
5. i sold this i suspect was a 1-2-3 trade &/or TL break trade. actually made 10 pips on this using the FE to trail my stop; had i jumped in a later off the DBHLC (i managed to find an early entry) ... this trade would have netted 10 also
6. bought. cannot figure out what i was doing. managed to jump out somehow
7. sold. cannot figure out what possessed me to do it; even turning the chart upside down doesn't remedy the situation ... huge loss of 2% here.

net difference could have been a 1% gain

seems i was able to stop some of the bleeding here ... hahaha, probably cuz i wasn't at my computer!!

7. see above
8. not a sell. foolishness

today's lesson ... humility ...

1. (9) not my trading hours ... no clue how i managed to get lucky on this one
2. (10) squeezed 6 pips out of this buy; nothing too terribly wrong here; dont particularly care for those doji/IB's, but i cant say i wouldn't have taken this one except for the MA value being less than 6 maybe not so im not going to include for the "net difference" analysis; also at the end of an already sketchy run up
3. (11) not willing to let it go i guess ... tried another buy; MA value issues here too; not going to botther saying i wouldn't take it again due to the "price action", s/r, or whatever, b/c im just not very good at seeing that sort of thing live; MA's were getting squished so im going to rest on that laurel here & count myself out of this one
4. (12) not egregious, but trading in a choppy market; MA's are squished; count me out of these in the future (fingers crossed)
5. (13) i took a loss on this one; TL breakout i think i would spot & trade again; market shook me out b/f proceeding in my direction ... -0.6%

net difference is -0.6%

oh god ... i had no idea how bad it really was ... (it's a wonder i haven't blown up more than 3 live accounts ...)
there's 2 more from today (see 418F & 418G from written journal) ...

time to soak my head now ...

ready to tackle the final chart ...

1. (14) trying to go long, but price has already closed below both MA's at this point and the 6MA is clearly sloping down, not just a little turn or correction ... got slipped very badly on this one; not an A set-up or even a B set-up; going to give myself benefit of the doubt (i believe i've punished myself enuf by publicly flogging myself) ... and say i wouldn't have taken this one; this was nearly a 2% loss
2. (15) not a buy; prolly tried to get aggressive off the infamous pin at the outer BB's; poor trade, but actually went in my favour, but ended up cutting it short
3. (16) dope. the short was over. closed above both MA's
4. (17) great trade (i think this was after the kool-aid wore off); pullback; took my 10 pips & went to bed; this is one of those times when my TSL method would have booted me out as a scratch b/f turning right around & running up in my favour; there was a potential re-entry off the double IB & im trying to become more confident & familliar w/ these ...

net difference 1%

1st things first:

all of the trades taken, except for 418F & 418G (if memory serves me correctly) were all taken off a completely different template than the one that has served me so well prior to this latest disaster ... i.e., i altered my tried-and-true 6/12 MA settings & i was probably getting aggressive trading off outer bands ... i think i even abandoned my very basic TL break trade. why? all b/c i took 2 substantial losses (greater than 1% each) ... how did i incur these losses? TRADING IN VIOLATION OF MY RULES!! see the above post for the reasons ... (no need to rehash a bad memory) ... what happened after that? earthquake, after shock, tsunami ... im going to try and piece it together (my written journal is an utter mess --- usually fairly organized --- very telling).

since my written journal is so sloppy, i dont think im going to remember what possessed me to trade the way i did, so i will just assess whether, under my vanilla system that produces only 10 pip trades, i would have (should have) taken the signal ... (i wish there was a "go to" button on mt4 ...)

1. (i) not a sell signal. potential that i might have decided to buy ... not the best trade, but would have netted 10 pips ...
2. (ii) i made a few pips on this one. decent enuf pullback ... net was 7 pips; made it to the 10+ pip mark (but just barely), however, rule break cuz during NY & move had already exhausted itself
3. (iii) this was the 1-2-3 trade that actually worked out; under the right circumstances, i might still take this trade & given the fizzle of the long, it was a decent trade ... however, again, traded against my trading hours rule so i will not add/subtract for this post-mortem
4. (iv) this trade was actually a nice little TL break trade; unfortunately, my TSL created a scratch trade from a positive 10 pips trade; no matter tho, b/c another rule break by trading outside of my trading hours ...

net for following the rules ... positive 1%

may be time for one more b/f time to workout.

took 2 trades during the NY session today. one for loss, one for gain. b/e. not my trading hours so rule break.

so, the net result of all this madness was 2.4% gain instead of the 3.3% hit i took to the 4.9% net i had accumulated by monday on my goals account & the abominable loss of 5.3% i took to the papertrade account. at least i had a little self-preservation in me to stop trading on the goals account & save the 1.6% that was left there ...

turns out it wasn't the market to blame for my losses ... go figure.

how about this for irony ... i scan thru hourly charts & find a bunch of pairs that are at key levels of support/resistance ... i dont screw w/ trying to enter at some optimal level ... simply hit buy/sell based on the feel i got from looking at the bare charts ... et voila ... all went into the black & up 160 pips all at once ...

i feel like im on the Price Is Right & i just spun the wheel & hit 90 on the first spin ... oh crap! do i spin again?

You definitely have your head on your shoulders, but I can identify one problem...impatience. Even trading off of the 5min charts, you seem to be a bit impatient! Relax, and let the good trades come to you instead of having to go to them!

thank you for stopping by.

ru sure about your opinion? cuz last week --- my head was not screwed on very tightly.

... can you write me an EA for that?

anyway, it definitely it is that. after 3 years & much trial and error from trading daily charts all the way down to the 5 min ... the trouble lies w/ patience, err, my lack of it ... it's not the TF, or b/c im not trading w/ the trend or at key levels of s/r ... it's just me me me that gets in the way ... i have made much progress in the last few months (since i switched from daily charts to 5 min charts), but there's still that missing link b/w my ability to exercise patience, my philosophy about trading successfully & my method for trading the markets.

i've had some further revelations this weekend (just got back from a long hike where i discussed this w/ the old man too) ... and next week is a new week ... at least i can say my account balance is finally either rising or staying flat instead of taking the huge nose dive i have seen it do time & again ...

CHART NO. 1 (DAILY)

CHART NO. 2 (H1)

CHART NO. 3 (15M)

CHART NO. 4 (5M)

CHART NO. 5 (H1)

SUNDAY SET-UP, EURGBP

EURGBP ENTRY (5M)

[note to self: oanda did not honor my order re the 1:1 for the free trade (usual day-to-day, cost-of-doing-business-with-oanda-b.s. so i have to fade the correction w/ full lots]

make that 4 separate times price reached the price of my buy order that oanda didn't honor the stop ...

yup, that was its nonsense "price overlay" b.s. .... the other thing was i SAW the price reach my target on the order terminal ... i wasn't even referring to the chart ... whatever. due to these oanda shenanigans, i trailed my stop once more, reduced risk to 3 pips & was stopped out during the spike at 11pm (which, once again i had no way to anticipate as it didn't appear t/b related to any economic release) ...

i re-entered as the set-up held regardless ... my trade reached 1:1, oanda filled the buy order reducing my position & i am now in a free trade (mostly -- see above) trying for 9000. good luck to me.

papertrades: (i screwed up the interpretation of the entries so instead of chasing them around, i just did it this way)

USDCHF ... short at 1290; SL 1312; in free trade status; target 1000
USDCAD ... short at 2267; SL 2285; in free trade status; target 2000