Color of Money

I decided earlier this AM to start a journal.. Not sure right now the exact direction this will take, outside of a commitment to posting as I have the opportunity.
Most likely most posts will be something like this:
Today my activities consisted of hanging out w/ my dogs and listening to music. Just finished reading "Currency Wars" last week and am in the middle of "Laws of Imitation".

I read a lot and have a rather large physical book library, 100's of PDF's i read on my 'Nook' when traveling. I listen to hypnosis CD's that run the gamut on the subjects they are designed to reorient mentally. Nothing is to unusual for me to try if the possibility of improvement is promised. I consider myself the trader in need of the most improvement and do not anticipate that ever changing. I don't watch TV.

My trade platform is Oanda and i use several mt4 instances for charting. My method is discretionary and i believe trading to be as much of an art as science.

I traded very infrequently in August. At this moment i am not in a trade. I guess you could say I am "long cash". Not sure but it appears i may not take a trade til Thursday, - I am in no hurry to take a trade.

I used to use excel spread sheets and other methods to journal my trades, but that has evolved to a simple notebook that i record my trades and thoughts. In fact I now do everything in a much simplified manner. My charts have only a few 'points of interest' marked. I have in the past traded many diff methodologies, am a 'candlestick' junkie' and do not regret any of the paths I have taken before - cause they have taught me much.

This should be interesting. I like discretionary traders; do you have some rules of thumb? Like total number of positions, maximum exposure, stuff like that.
Why do you have multiple instances of MT4? Don't like profiles for chart grouping?

From Liveforex.com
September 4, 2012 at 06:23 GMT
EUR/USD: Offers 1.2630/50 ahead of 1.2650 barrier option interest. Buy stops above there . Tech res/offers 1.2660/80. Bids 1.2600/10 and 1.2570/80 (100 day MA 1.2573), possible sell stops through 1.2560

IFRMarkets
Level
Technical Significance
1.2693
Daily High Jun 29
1.2663
50% of 1.3284-1.2042
1.2641
30-Day Upper Bollinger
1.2638
Daily High Aug 31
1.2617
07:50 GMT TUE 04 SEP
1.2581
Session Low Sep 4
1.2550
Daily Low Sep 3
1.2548
10-Day MA
1.2500
Psychological Level p, li { white-space: pre-wrap
09/04/12 03:06 am
Have initiated Long EUR/USD postiion @1.2616 w/ 1.2700 target. Will add to position as price moves thru each layer, w/ full position on if we get a break of 1.2650.

Hi Spekitox:
I have a slackware box as my main PC. Duel monitor w/ Oanda pinned to one desktop (monitor) and firefox and numerous other items on the 2nd screen (other desktops). On the win PC I have two instances of mt4 because i have two monitors and I do not like to stretch the mt4 window across the two.

I do not have rules of thumbs, such things lead to rigidity.

09/04/12 09:54 pm
As if i struck a bell to start the sell off. currently are 1.2538; a -79 PIP position.
Interesting - i find i am loath to close this one just yet. Lets see how it plays out.
I have noticed in other threads that folks that post a call don't want to close them. Seen some folks run a trade right to the ground. I think I understand that now. Interesting that posting a call makes one hold longer than intended. I honestly felt i should have closed when price got to 1.2610, but thought - that was silly - i had just opened it. If i hadn't of posted the trade- I wonder if I would have listened to my inner voice- and closed it. I love stuff like this. The position isn't large enough to hurt me - but it is making me think. I am still confident of the direction - but my timing is off - which I don't like.

p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; } 09/05/12 03:34 am
That was tragically predictable. Have closed the trade at 1.2514 for a 2.06% loss. Very interesting experience this making a public call. I'll need to think about if I want to do that again.