Alexbabwa's Forex Journal

I have been taking losses lately month after month. After reading books, trying different strategies and soaking up as much as I can in the Eur/Usd thread I am going to try a different approach. My hope is that just keeping a journal alone will deter me from making stupid trades.

The purpose of this journal is to invite constructive criticism and contrasting perspectives, so that I might better understand where I am going wrong. I will post my trades live (or as close as I can), try to explain my reasons for the trade, and disclose my trading account balance and trade size.

I am aware of the importance of not being over leveraged. However while my account size will be quite small I feel it is better to trade no smaller than 50p a pip, as anything below that and my trades would not reflect real trading. By this I mean it would be like trading a demo account, and while I may be up for the month, emotions influence trades on a live account and it all goes south.

Most of my focus will be on Eur/Usd. If I can not get that right then I see no reason to spread my losses over more currency pairs. If I do not see enough set ups I might branch out a bit though. Trading will be done around my part time job so some days will be more active than others.

Edit 28/2/11: £200 deposited in to trading account. Account balance at £206.67

currently scalping shorts around this trend line on the hourly

Edit: after looking at this longer i won't scalp but put a tight stop loss at 800. Looking for the lower trend line. As this is a counter trend trade im only in at 25p a pip.

Edit: stopped for - 8 pips. Will stand aside until it reaches near 860 or 700

Edit 09:27am: Short at 830 stop at 844, 50p a pip

Edit 09:59am: out +8 pips, looking to buy long at 820 and again at 800 (idea scrapped in light of slightly negative news for Euro, short position took instead at 823 50ppp) stopped - 15 pips

Edit 11:20am: long 836 stop 810. exited for +7 pips

Edit 12:14: sold at 841 with a stop of 865. out at about +10 pips

Ending the day with £206, pretty much exactly what I started with. Opened a swing trade in AUD/USD 10,183.5 short. Stop is 10,205, target at least 10,100. I am in this trade at £1 a pip.

Far too many trades today. While I managed to stay clear of revenge trades I still did not trade conservative enough. Tomorrow has to be different.

Good luck my friend !!!

Review your past trades is the key. Look at what went right and what went wrong. If one can't see one's mistake, it is very likely the same mistakes would be made all over again.

Don't worry about trading systems. I believe all system works great to a certain extent, just need some tweaking here and there, and knowing when to stay out of the market where the trading system is not catered for.

Cheers!

Just got back from gfs. Using my phone i widened my stop in aud/usd to 10,215 and added a little on a full retrace. Have not touched eur/usd as did not have access to my charts. Will post trades as i go..

Forgot to explain my aussie trade last night. Initially I got in the short position because of a rising wedge pattern on the hourly which got broke. Confirmation came from previous topping at around 10,200. There is now some bearish divergence and all this gave me the confidence to add another 50ppp (per point) to my short on the move back to 194. Stop is 5 pips above the upper channel line and two pips above the daily R1. Will probably move this stop even more if it comes close, as 5 pips from resistance is a bit tight.

14:15 just scalped a long on eur/usd for about 12 pips at £1pp. Its now gone a lot higher but im happy. Will not try to short it at 840 now... a mistake i have made many times.

Resisting urge to trade whilst bernanke speaking. But if it goes to 840 im shorting eur/usd with a tight stop
I shorted at 833 with a reverse stop at 860. Up 20 pips so far but as its only 50ppp im going to hold it. My thinking is the 840 - 60 area has been tested 4 times intra-day alone and most of yesterday, so a retrace is likely. Could be wrong, but if 860 breaks then i imagine a lot of stops would be broken and i could see 920 the same day, erasing the 28 pip stop and then some. Aussie taking time to break down... but im happy with how things are going. TP for aussie is no longer 100. Going to take a third off there and let the remaining 1ppp ride with TP open.

19:35 eur/usd now at 790 ish, closing the position for 44 pips. Aud/Usd starting to break down will keep an eye on it to hopefully take 1/3 of it off before 12.30 news

20:10 cheeky scalp long off trend line 50ppp.
20:35 took 4 pips, bored of waiting.

I am happy with today's trading. I was much more conservative and was patient with the Aussie. Came up past my entry twice which was concerning. Will look at charts to see how Aussie reacts the the news, I am hoping I will have taken off a third by then just in case it goes back up.

At the time of writing equity is up to £311.64 and when you deduct the Aussie trade to entry the balance is £246. Not bad for the first two days, just need to keep it.

Oh and thanks for the encouraging words thus far

When i woke up this morning i checked prices on my phone to see Aussie below 100, so i took a third off 100 pretty much. SL has now been moved to 180 (about BE) and will look to short higher if this stop is triggered. My eye is on eur/usd today.

11.26 shorted 50ppp euro usd at 836, will add as it goes up with a reversal stop at 865
12.27 stop at BE, target 38% daily retracement around 804. Will go long near the daily pivot
13.34 added to short at 818ish, averaging 1ppp at 827.5. SL at 830. And stopped out...
13.41 short 33 8ppp.

Wow, i messed that up. Shorted twice more on its way up then tried to reverse the position at 865. Bias is long now plan to buy all the way down to daily R1 any lower and i will cut my losses.

Don't like PA, i was clearly wrong. took a short. This is a problem, my mind should not change so quickly...

17.18 And i was right the first time... reading the eur/usd thread didn't help. Makes sense that 860 would now act as intraday support. So i covered my short around 865 and went long... but im long £2pp. I justified the high leverage with a tight stop of 850

19.17 stopped out. Damage is done, fighting the urge to revenge trade. Done with the euro for the day, pending long on assie and stop below daily pivot. Tomorrow is another day...

A new day... i am already bias short for the Euro, as a rate hike was already taken in to the charts on the rumour. Todays starting balance is about 170 pounds.

Well that went bad. Despite interest rates not being increased the market sentiment was still positive. What was i thinking trying to trade the news, in hindsight i must have been stupid. Account down to £28 and despite a small long position i will probably be wiped out on the retrace... wiped out in the first 3 days of the month, blows my mind.

Should have taken profits on aussie short after 50 pips...

Should not have counter trend traded at all...

Should never have doubled up a position..

Hi Alexbabwa,

Need to take care on your money management. That loss seems to be ~16% of your equity in one trade. That's alot!!!

Losses are norm, but need to be managed. It is how the losses are managed, that the winning trades could succeed in putting the P&L into the blacks.

Anyway, Good Luck on your coming trades now that the NFP is behind us all

cheers dude.

Right so been at work and gfs a lot and not had a chance to update. I got as low as 14 pounds or something like that. At 1/4 of the stake I got up to £28 by going long on the euro. Then at 1/2 stakes went short and got around £50. Today i went long at work using my mobile (remembering that 840 - 860 is good support/resistance) at £1 a point and am now up to £82.

I have been given a second chance.. tomorrow i intend not to blow it.

Wat a lucky man .... lots of girlfriends

My one and only gf has been converted to a wife ...hahaha

Good Trading Mate !!! It is not often u get a 2nd chance

ha I wish

First trade of today is a long on the Euro/dollar at 874 50ppp. Will add close to 860 but stop is 840. Took this trade after I saw a double bottom form on the 1 hour, perhaps the end of the retracement? Target open for now...

11.25am looking good so far, didn't get my second entry point but up 40 + pips. Price has move past today's high and pierced the pivot. Likely to close above it on the hourly I am thinking... will hold this trade past 1400.

11.39am cheeky long on the eur/jpy as it exceeded the days high. This pair has recently broke out of a daily wedge with much clarity.

12.14pm out eur/jpy with 1.7 pips. What was I thinking? direction is good but timing means my stop would be too big... have to accept I missed that entry.

12.24pm stop for euro dollar moved to 897

13.54 stopped out for +23 pips. Balance now at £101.37. If this is all I get today I will be satisfied.

Started today with a short at 50ppp eur dollar 847. Stop above today's S1, the open hour candle, and the 840 - 860 support (now resistance?) zone. SL 875.

I am hoping before weeks end we will reach 740 support. This is where I plan to buy and hold for a continuation above 1436. SL would be below the 50% fib of most recent daily swing and previous downwards TL on the daily. SL 670 initially.

As i have work Friday and part of Monday i will put an order in now to buy at 750. I will be able to keep track and monitor SL from my phone.

11.16 Stop reduced to 865. Didn't notice that the daily low bounced perfectly off the 38% fib. Retracement could be over already? losing confidence in this short.

14.48 stop move to BE.

16.01 Earlier before i went hair dressers i doubled up on my position. So at £1pp from 840ish. Going to reverse under 800...

16.03 closed position, waiting for 790 - 780 for first long position

16.08 Have gone long at 800 £1pp. I plan to hold this now past 1400 and add another 1ppp in the low 700's given the opportunity (although my margin wouldn't tolerate it so would have to add funds)

At this point before my long the balance is at £141.96. Crazy to think I was down to something like £14 from £200 and now back up to £142

So the current balance is around £142. I see 730 as the ideal long set up based on the fib pull back and the hourly upper trend line. However I am losing confidence in this set up as the previous high bounced right off the weekly down trend line, at the same time Greece was downgraded 3 notches. Now Spain has been downgraded also... I find it difficult to believe a 50% or even 61% fib will hold.

If anyone would like to criticise this long idea, or the long position I took this afternoon, I would be happy to read.

Got scared out of my long so out +32 pips. Went short just below the daily pivot, stop above the downwards trend line on the hourly. Balance £176

So my short got stopped out, bad times. Worse than that, the big gap missed my stop and put me at -£76. The frustrating thing is, my own plan was to go with the trend and go long on technical support. Had I done that I would have been well in the money. I am embarrassed to say I changed my bias because I listened to respected traders on the Eur/Usd thread.

From now on I will try to have the discipline to follow my own plan and bias and not be influenced by others, regardless of reputation or experience. An important lesson learned and kick in the teeth taken.

£200 deposited putting me at £124. But as far as this journal goes I am £376 down. Tomorrow I will focus on being conservative, only going with the trend and taking profits in chunks so as not to get profits reversed at the end of the day.

Live trading it live trading. You need to see your balance as a % gain or loss and not a small or large figure. What MM do you have in place. To go from 14 up to 142 in a day is either a HUGE shift in the market and over leverage, or just HUGE over leverage in my opinion.

Not a dig, I'm not a pro trader, but that is just how I see it based on your posts.

no that was over days not hours, and I never went over £1 a point. As I explained in my first post I see no point live trading with anything less than 50p as I would treat it like a demo account. I am over leveraged, but better to lose a few hundred a month whilst learning, instead of depositing a few thousand in the future to reduce leverage. I may be wrong, but that is what I have decided to do.

Anywhos, up to £140 after shorting some of the gap last night, on my second short now with stop above yesterdays high. Looking for 860-50

Again not had a chance to update, but as I remember I got stopped out of my last short. Then I took a long on the break of the previous high and got stopped on that too. Balance is close to zero. As I have taken a £400 loss this month which is my limit, I will not make another deposit until the start of April.

Emphasis now is on studying. I intend to finish reading 'Technical Analysis Of The Financial Markets' by John J Murphy. After that I would like to complete this forex school thing I got a glimpse of on babypips.com

About to start April and im feeling positive. I will aim to be far more conservative with the number of trades I make. However I am eyeing up a short on aud/usd straight away. Eur/usd seems in the middle of a bullish channel with no major support or resistance nearby, so will stand aside for now (1.4420 looking good for a short though).

Deposit of £200 made. Balance £200.

Sold £1 pp aud/usd at 396 SL 430

Stop moved to break-even