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Yet another trading journal

  • #1
  • First Post: Feb 11, 2012 7:35pm Feb 11, 2012 7:35pm
Hello, and welcome to this thread.
The title say it all, yet another trading journal. I've decided to open a trading journal thread here on ff, as it may hopefully help me in overcome some problems that arise constantly during my trading "career".

What's the purpose of this thread:
Basically the problem with my trading are all about overconfidence. I do trade for a living, and trading is my only source of income, however i constantly blow up accounts. How it happen, is simple, as i start making profits (i constantly withdraw them) everytime after a while the account grow untill the point that it is considered a "free money" account, and it is at this point that overconfidence comes in play.
What we have is a streak of winning trades, a "freemoney" account to play with, the control on the returns expectations is lost, and i found myself going to make 10-20,50% daily, with the accuont growing exponentially untill the point of the simply crazy trading (trades with 100-200-400x leverage) and you can imagine what happen.
So.. it happen frequently that 90% of the hardly earned profit is given back to the market, due to a totally uncontrollable trading discipline.

And.. after analyzing this pattern repeating again and again during the course of years, i thought that maybe having a public journal on a public forum where i publish in realtime (as most as i can) every trade i take (every trade! not even a single trade should be excepted), charts images with entries, thoughts about every setup, lotsize, etc. can in some way calm down my ego as i would somehow sound ridiculous if posting a trade like "we're going to buy using 100x leverage", hopefully a public journal can keep me from loosing the control.
I know it can sound stupid such problem, but belive me it happen to me all the time, at the beginning i'm confortable making 1-2% daily, after a while i feel literally not satisfied if the day is going to finish with less than 20-30% profit, and this need of profits grow as the account grow, it's like a voice inside the head that say "i need more, i need more".
  • #2
  • Feb 11, 2012 7:36pm Feb 11, 2012 7:36pm
And now, after my funny/sad confession, some informations about my trading strategy.
Is mostly accumulation/distribution trading, we try to buy low when market accumulate buys (when largetraders sell to commercials), and sell high when market accumulate sells (when largetraders buy from commercials).
Most of our trades will consist in multiple entries, this mean we're going to buy or sell on multiple points and close all the trades on a single one.
So it is basically countertrend trading, the good news is that we're going to trade with the trend, so we'll buy the dips during uptrends and sell the rallies during downtrends.
  • #3
  • Feb 11, 2012 7:37pm Feb 11, 2012 7:37pm
The golden rules that i've learned during the years, basically every big loss teach us something, what i've learned from my losses are the following principles, they are very simple but everytime my trading is in trouble you can bet the reason is the breaking of one or more of the following principles:

1) Don't trade against the trend.
2) Don't overleverage.
3) Don't trade no liquid pairs. (I found out that many times the "normal" technical analysis principles don't work very well in non-liquid pairs, so we're going to stuck with the majors)

The last annotation: i don't use stoplosses, here's why the lotsize/exposure is soo important in my trading, a wrong trade with the wrong exposure can be fatal. On the other hand, a wrong trade with a moderate exposure may result on a little loss or mostly a breakeven exit, and a good trade with a wrong (big) exposure.. may result in a "bad" profit (a "bad" profit is such a big profit that comes from a "bad discipline trade", and is usually the beginning of the end, if you know what i mean).
  • #4
  • Feb 11, 2012 7:38pm Feb 11, 2012 7:38pm
A few words about the rules of the thread:
No real rules here (i've not such a big threading experience), you are free to post any comment about my little story, about my trades, about a particular setup, you can write down critics about any trading ideas or trade setups i may post, i mean anything that can give a good contribution to the thread is highly appreciated.
For example, if you read that i'm going to buy or sell a particular currency with incredible lotsizes because i'm sure it will act in a way or another (it may happen after a streak of 50 winning trades for example, where my confidence is above anything on the universe), i would really appreciated any post that say something like "hey you're loosing control, get back into yourself!!!"

And that's all for now, more will come soon.
  • #5
  • Feb 11, 2012 7:59pm Feb 11, 2012 7:59pm
should be interesting tunera. I am so unsure about not having a SL, i used to trade without one, why? because i was tired of seeing my stop hit only for it to reverse into profit. however, without a SL i lack discipline. it only takes one trade go against you, you tell yourself 'it'll come back'. next your account can't cover your leverage. end of.
  • #6
  • Feb 11, 2012 8:34pm Feb 11, 2012 8:34pm
Quoting kraven
should be interesting tunera. I am so unsure about not having a SL, i used to trade without one, why? because i was tired of seeing my stop hit only for it to reverse into profit. however, without a SL i lack discipline. it only takes one trade go against you, you tell yourself 'it'll come back'. next your account can't cover your leverage. end of.
Thank you for reading my long posts! You are absolutely right, trade without sl is a lack of discipline itself.
However i just not explained the SL thing clearly, i don't use SL mainly because most of my trades would have the stoploss at far distance from the market price, and if the market act in a way that change my plans, i would just exit the trades prematurely at a minor takeprofit point or a breakeven point or a loss point or wathever, however i would not wait untill the SL is hitten. So at this point, i just stopped using SL.
Oh yeah when i find myself telling "it will come back" it mean that it's time to take the loss eheh It happen rarely but when it happen i know it's time to close all trades as fast as possible!
I think it will be an interesting journal, i will do my best to share and explain as most as possible about my trades, and hopefully learn something new from the contribution of other traders.
  • #7
  • Edited 2:48pm Feb 12, 2012 2:28pm | Edited 2:48pm
tunera, remember pic's say a 1000 words, try to make the 'live' as posible.

to get started what TF and paires do you trade? do you uses indi's or price action etc...i came across one of your threads before explaining the 1-2-3 entry system is this still your main strategy? if you can explain these things first it'll give a brief heads up to your future posts.i'll read with interest.
  • #8
  • Feb 12, 2012 6:40pm Feb 12, 2012 6:40pm
Quoting kraven
tunera, remember pic's say a 1000 words, try to make the 'live' as posible.

to get started what TF and paires do you trade? do you uses indi's or price action etc...i came across one of your threads before explaining the 1-2-3 entry system is this still your main strategy? if you can explain these things first it'll give a brief heads up to your future posts.i'll read with interest.
That's great, my current strategy is not a mechanical strategy anymore, in some way it is as we still use the chart to understand when and where buy or sell a particular currency pair, but there is no a entrysignal anymore, we just start opening positions as price enter in retrace mode and close them (or put the stop to b/e) when trend resume.
It is basically price action trading, or level-trading.
About the timeframes, i like to trade mainly intraday, but as we don't use indicators timeframes don't make a huge difference (the chart is the same on every timeframe), an example with the eurusd activity of the past month.
(you see the last 2 buy opportunities i've put a different color on them, as the trend looks a little bit weak to me right now and i would not bet my house on it's continuation)
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  • #9
  • Feb 12, 2012 7:25pm Feb 12, 2012 7:25pm
Quoting tunera
That's great, my current strategy is not a mechanical strategy anymore, in some way it is as we still use the chart to understand when and where buy or sell a particular currency pair, but there is no a entrysignal anymore, we just start opening positions as price enter in retrace mode and close them (or put the stop to b/e) when trend resume.
do you not mean the other way round, according to your picture it looks like you are re-entering when the price continues the trend. if you were entering on retracement the arrows would be at the top of the pullback
  • #10
  • Feb 12, 2012 8:01pm Feb 12, 2012 8:01pm
Quoting kraven
do you not mean the other way round, according to your picture it looks like you are re-entering when the price continues the trend. if you were entering on retracement the arrows would be at the top of the pullback
I'm not really sure about what you mean, but what i mean is, we just enter (buy in the previous image-example) when price is doing a retracement/pullback/correction, and of course what we try to do is enter in the market when there are high probability that the price is on the lowest area of a correction (in a buy-scenario), i just put the arrows below the entry zones to show better where those entry zones are, i made another example images (this time the timeframe is 4h, and the trend we're taking as example is the down one happened in the past months).
As you see this is nothing "new", always the same old trading principles.
Realtime trades will be more interesting to post, and everything will be more clear i hope.
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  • #11
  • Feb 12, 2012 8:15pm Feb 12, 2012 8:15pm
no i understood your picture, just not how you worded it (kind of contradicted the pics). your entering when the trend resumes or when you believe the retracement has went too far and is about to resume (where a previous high or low was). selling into a long term down trend..buying in an uptrend after a pullback
  • #12
  • Feb 12, 2012 8:28pm Feb 12, 2012 8:28pm
i understand your concept and am looking forwards to some live examples. i'm not a fan of indi's, people don't seem to understand they can't work due to too many variations. good luck with the thread
  • #13
  • Feb 12, 2012 8:31pm Feb 12, 2012 8:31pm
Quoting kraven
no i understood your picture, just not how you worded it (kind of contradicted the pics). your entering when the trend resumes or when you believe the retracement has went too far and is about to resume (where a previous high or low was).
Ok now i got it, i enter when price is on a retracement zone (where a previous high or low was).
I enter before the trend resumes, so usually when the trend resume all the positions are already in profit, and they can be closed or remain opened and "run" (i usually close them as soon as trend resume, many times happen that trend resume and just to reverse soon after, so closing them on the resume keep me out of many bad situations, on the other hand.. when the trend is strong and continue pretty well, many pips are left on the table eheh).
Thank you for your interventions, i really appreciate!
  • #14
  • Feb 12, 2012 9:02pm Feb 12, 2012 9:02pm
....now you have confused me.

Quoting tunera
Ok now i got it, i enter when price is on a retracement zone (where a previous high or low was).
I enter before the trend resumes, so usually when the trend resume all the positions are already in profit, and they can be closed or remain opened and "run" (i usually close them as soon as trend resume, many times happen that trend resume and just to reverse soon after, so closing them on the resume keep me out of many bad situations, on the other hand.. when the trend is strong and continue pretty well, many pips are left on the table eheh).
Thank...
i though you waited for a pullback, entered when you believe the pullback is exhausted and you enter in the trends direction....so how do you make a profit if you close your positions as soon as a trend resumes???

or do you wait for the pullback to pass a recent SR area then enter in the direction of the pullback?? hoping that the pullback becomes a complete market reversal???
  • #15
  • Feb 12, 2012 9:10pm Feb 12, 2012 9:10pm
Quoting kraven
....now you have confused me.



i though you waited for a pullback, entered when you believe the pullback is exhausted and you enter in the trends direction....so how do you make a profit if you close your positions as soon as a trend resumes???

or do you wait for the pullback to pass a recent SR area then enter in the direction of the pullback?? hoping that the pullback becomes a complete market reversal???
Sorry to confuse you, i made another example image that show clearly entry area (pullback/retrace) and exit area (trend resume).
You see in this example, trend resumed but didn't go far away, instead it went back soon after resume (would had be good to take the profits at the exit-area instead of let the trades run).
Hope it help
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
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  • #16
  • Feb 13, 2012 8:19pm Feb 13, 2012 8:19pm
ok tunera lets see you in action buddy.
  • #17
  • Edited 7:39pm Feb 15, 2012 6:53pm | Edited 7:39pm
Hello, we're here in the asian session, and the market is in an interesting point.

We have eurusd, that is actually doing an extended retrace (soo extended that the idea of a retrace become reverse is very acceptable now), however retrace or reverse, a fact is that the price is very oversold at the moment, and i guess it may make some kind of correction before continue it's natural move (up or down, at this point we don't care).

So, we've started accumulating from the second half-hour of asian session, and for now the buys are enough (16x leverage).
- 18x now
- 20x now, we're not going to buy anymore on this level.

As a target, we're targeting the last little resistance hitten yesterday before market close, and is 1.3100.

More updates to comes.
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  • #18
  • Edited 8:29pm Feb 15, 2012 8:02pm | Edited 8:29pm
A little modify on the trading plan, actually whenever if price is going to hit 1.31 there are chances to see 1.32 too, so what are we doing:

The target has been moved to 1.32 (between yesterday and the day before yesterday highs).
Now, once price will break 1.30983 point (let's call this the action point) (the little resistance we was originally targeting), the stoploss of the open positions will be moved at 1.3055, we're not looking to exit at 3055, this is just a routine operation.

So, yes the situation remain monitorized and actions may be taken in any moment, however for now i don't expect to take any major action as long as price stay below the action point, more to comes!


Update:
Ok, we've taken off the 2 previous weeks support, plans not change for now, more buys added.
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  • #19
  • Feb 15, 2012 8:52pm Feb 15, 2012 8:52pm
hey tunera thought you'd given up before you started.
your and mine are the only threads i keep looking at lol.

questions:
do you only use 30m charts?

what happens if price just keeps going down? even if it goes down further and pulls back to your entry position do you get out or leave it to rise further?


also why didn't you enter here (yellow box) as it's also in a major pullback area?
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  • #20
  • Feb 15, 2012 9:08pm Feb 15, 2012 9:08pm
Quoting kraven
hey tunera thought you'd given up before you started.
your and mine are the only threads i keep looking at lol.
questions: do you only use 30m charts

also why didn't you enter here (yellow box) as it's also in a major pullback area
Hey, nice to hear from you!
Actually i was waiting my deposit to arrive in the broker's bank, that's why i didn't make any trade untill now.
I don't use only 30min charts, i just made the screenshots with the 30m chart as it cover the right amount of data for this trades (almost 1 month of chart).
The area you evidenced (your yellow box) was a pretty good enter, interestingly the price just continued it's down bias without really not resuming the trend, so now it finally broke the 1.3026 level and looks like it's the point it was targeting with this downwaves, let's see if we find new support here!
I didn't know u have a thread too, i will give a look now!
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