hurvinek trading

Welcome to my trading journal. A little background information before I start posting actual trades:
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About me
I’ve been trading forex for about a year now. I started with 10000 USD, and I have lost about 50 percent of it. I consider this a great result, knowing that most people blow at least one account in a year . At least this is what I hear all the time.
I used to keep a trading journal on a Hungarian blog site (guess what, I am from Hungary), but I figured it’s going to be more fun to do it here, where public interest is significantly higher.<o>
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About this journal
I plan to keep track of my daily trades, and also to comment them for my own education. Knowing myself, it’s not always going to be easy, as I am not a very disciplined person. If you don’t see me posting, it can mean two things: I am either too lazy, or I have lost too much to admit in public. I’ll be posting my trades at the end of the day or next morning (GMT+1).<o>
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About my trading system
I am trading live. All trades I post here are real pains and real gains.
In the past one year I have tried a couple of trading systems, and to cut a long story short I am now at the stage of – guess what – keeping it simple. I don’t have a real system that I follow, I make discretionary trades based on some simple principles I keep fine tuning all the time. It includes both fundamental and technical analysis. More on that later. As you’ll notice, I’m a daytrader, usually doing 1-5 trades a day.

This is it for now. In the next post I’ll show you my trades from yesterday.

EURUSD short @ 1.2643 TP 1.2633 +10 pips
This was a classical 10-pip trade I normally do. It is not carved in stone, but this is what I go for most of the time. I am experimenting with extending this to 20-30 pips, but while I have (or would have, if I followed my own rules blindly) success most of the time with it, I tend to fail whenever I go for more. Just to give you an example: I had 11 trades in two days. 10 would have been profitable, if I had gotten out at 10 pips. I missed 3 of the 10 because of trying to go for more (stopped out at breakeven) . True, I had 20-50 pips on some of the others. So this is kind of work in progress.

EURUSD short @ 1.2552 SL 1.2552 0 pip
This was one of the zero games. Stopped out at BE.

USDJPY long @ 116.91 TP 117.1 +19 pips
This was an attempt to go for 20 instead of 10. Worked out nicely. Now I just have to figure out how I did it.

USDJPY long @ 117.18 SL 116.79 -39 pips
Another problem of my discretionary system. When it goes down, it goes down big time. But if I have smaller stops, I get stopped out. As I am working on making gains bigger slowly, I am also trying to make potential losses smaller. Later I'll explain how.

Result for the day: -36$

I mentioned that I post my trades after I have closed them. This means that I may have open trades running, but I will not post about them until they run out. At the moment for example I have two open positions. This means that a trade you see posted has an opening price out of the day's range. Well, this is the reason.

EURUSD long @ 1.2543 TP 1.2554 +11 pips
Just the usual 10 pip trade. I added another pip to compensate for the interest rate difference.

USDJPY long @ 117.00 TP 117.02 +2 pips
I was unsure about the direction before the PPI, so I got out around breakeven.

USDJPY long @ 116.91 TP 117.01 +10 pips
Another classical trade in my system. I reentered after the pullback was finished.

EURUSD long @ 1.2526 SL 1.2498 -28 pips
I expected a bigger pullback. Lesson learnt: enter with the trend.

USDJPY long @ 117.34 TP 117.44 +10 pips
And yet another 10 pip trade. I was expecting some more, but it came back from a 25 pip profit, and I wanted to get out with a profit, so I quit at 10 pips.

Total for the day: +60$

Welcome to the Forum.
Good luck and don't be afraid to ask for support, there are plenty of folk here to help and advise.
Your English is excellent, let me say.
Please feel free to delete this post if you wish.
Peter

Thank you for your kind words. I'll keep this post just like any other anybody wishes to add here.

One mistake can ruin a day.

EURUSD short @ 1.2500 TP 1.2490 +10 pips
A classic, well-behaving trade. I entered on a pullback of an intraday breakout, and exited 45 minutes before CPI.

USDJPY long @117.34 TP 117.54 +20 pips
This was a trade from yesterday. I didn't see much potential of it going higher and breaking through 117.60 resistance before the CPI, so again, I took the profit and ran. It did actually go higher before the CPI, but I couldn't have possibly expected that.

EURUSD short @ 1.2483 SL 1.2553 -70 pips
I entered 15 minutes after the CPI on a pullback. It would have worked out perfectly, but along came Mr. Bernanke. I thought the direction is given for the day, and I didn't take the necessary precaution. I stayed in the trade during his speech, and saw it going into a loss quickly. The funny thing is, I could have gotten out with the usual 10 pip profit before the speech, but I was too sure of myself and the market direction. Lesson learnt: get out before any major news. Get in when the dust settles.
On the other hand I am a little bit proud of myself because of my exit. I waited for a pullback to the critical level of 1.2550, and exited there, saving 30-50 pips. Taking a loss is really painful, emotions and adrenaline run high, so it is the most difficult to time it properly. This time I managed.

EURUSD long @ 1.2553 TP 1.2563 +10 pips
If my system says it is a good point to exit a losing trade on a pullback, it implies that it's also a good point to enter in the other direction in a freshly trending market. So at the same time I exited my short position with a loss, I entered long. Took a quick 10 pip profit to finish the day.

Total for the day: -165$

An exceptionally good day today. No losses. Some luck, and some discipline. I reevaluated my short term view, and went short on the dollar. There were no major news releases today, so there was no temptation to enter before. I could also resist entering against the trend. Sometimes it looks to me that forex trading is only about discipline and some really simple technical and fundamental rules. I hope I am not oversimplifying.

USDJPY short @ 116.83 TP 116.73 +10 pips
This trade is still from yesterday. Was a risky one, as I entered a bit late, but there was still room for my small profit.

EURUSD long @ 1.2602 TP 1.2642 +40 pips
This morning we bounced back from the Asian session low, and I entered in the direction of the trend. I let it run, but we couldn't get through 1.2650, not even after a couple of tries, so when we were up for about the third time, I quit.

USDJPY short @ 116.87 TP 116.76 +11 pips
During the day USDJPY was in a tight range, the yen could not really benefit from dollar weakness. I assumed though, that the topic of the day is dollar weakness, and it would be strange for any major currency to lose against the greenback. So I reentered USDJPY short around the top of the range. 117.00 was a strong resistance, it came bouncing back, and on one occasion my limit was hit. A classic trade.

EURUSD long @ 1.2633 TP 1.2644 +11 pips
Yet another classic at the end of the day. Waited for a pullback, then for the reversal, and entered for a limit below the day's high. Was hit soon afterwards.

Total for the day: +345$

Another promising day. It was actually so smooth, and at the end I had such a big gain, that I started to feel uncomfortable in my positions. I believe I did the right thing then: I closed them.

USDJPY short @ 116.83 TP 116.22 +61 pips
This was a trade from two days ago. I entered after the Bernanke speech to compensate for the big loss. Took two days to mature. It is much longer than my usual trading timeframe, but sometimes trades like this happen. I quit when we reached a resistance level.

EURUSD long @ 1.2630 TP 1.2644 +14 pips
A simple trade on a pullback, for slightly more than 10 pips.

EURUSD long @ 1.2637 TP 1.2685 +48 pips
After the next pullback I reentered planning 10 pips, but we broke through the 1.2650 resistance, and I let it run. When I can watch my trades, I often make discretionary decisions instead of using predefined limit or stop orders. I found that I often have a good chance to get out from a losing trade on a pullback. The risk is of course that there is no pullback. I only use this method in quiet market conditions (meaning no news releases). But it's still risky, and one day I may have to reconsider it after a significant loss.

USDJPY short @ 116.18 TP 116.16 +2 pips
This one was a bit of an awkward trade. I already wanted to get out, pack for the weekend, I was happy with the gains I had. I had 20-30 pips potential profit, but along came a pullback, and I didn't want to risk ending the week with a loss or with a stuck trade. So I pulled the trigger just before breakeven.

Total for the day: +581$

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Evaluation of the week:
It was a very good start for my trading journal. I made some mistakes, but overall my plan to go for more than 10-pip gains seems to work out nicely. I believe this is due to moving from breakout trades to pullback trades, and sticking to trading in the direction of the trend.
I made 21 trades (2 breakevens, 3 losses, 16 winners) with over 75 percent winning ratio. Won altogether 785$, which is 22 percent of my account balance from the beginning of the week. I need the weekend to digest this, trying to stay humble but still keeping the same self-confidence in next week trading. Let's see if this is only luck, or my trading skills are actually developing.

Here is a little summary of the weekly numbers:

Trades: 21
Winning trades: 16
Losing trades: 3
Breakeven trades: 2*
Winning ratio: 76%

Total P/L: +785$
Account balance increase/decrease: +22.4%


* I consider the 2-pip winner a breakeven. Strictly speaking I had 17 winning trades.

In this post I will collect my thoughts over the weekend. I try to keep this not too long, so I limit myself to thoughts about forex trading . I am doing it to properly evaluate the week's results, and to mentally prepare for the next week.
In my previous post I summed up my trades, but sleeping over it I realised there is something missing. The numbers don't tell everything about how I really performed. 76 percent winning ratio suggests that I was doing something right overall, but I know I made some typical mistakes. Some of these mistakes resulted in losses, but with some I had luck.
Although it is not uncommon with my system to have far more profitable trades than losers, I tend to run into big losses when I cannot maintain discipline. Also my average loss is usually bigger than my average win. At least it used to be. I hope that with the latest tweak of my system this will be more balanced. I also hope, that I will have less breakeven trades.
To give you an example, from mid-May to mid-June I made 101 trades. 26 of them were losers. 28 breakevens (or close to breakeven), and 47 winners. Still, I made only 145 dollars, because of the losers being heavier than the winners.
This week, with the tweak, it seemed to work better. I reduced the ratio of breakevens, kept the ratio of winners and losers, and could let the winners run further than before, while my losses didn't grow proportionally. These are all good signs, however I need to analyze further:

I made two mistakes I already talked about (entering against the trend, staying in a trade during Bernanke's speech). With both trades I could successfully limit my losses applying the same technique for exits as I now use for entries. I waited for a pullback, and exited when I felt it's reaching a bottom.
Now this technique (as probably all techniques) has its flaws. When entering on a pullback, you always risk that you actually enter on a trend reversal, and you are in for a loss. The trick here for me is to find the balance between exiting when the reversal is confirmed, but at the same time keeping losses inside my risk tolerance level. This week I managed to wait for a reversal confirmation, then a pullback, and exit there. I am aware that it is not always going to work. Actually with the Bernanke speech I felt really uncomfortable when I was in a 100 pip minus, and I was very close to throwing in the towel.
There is another mistake I made which is not obvious from the numbers, because I was lucky with it. The mistake was a classic one: I wanted to take revenge on the market, compensate for the big loss. That's how I entered USDJPY at 116.83. Although it worked out nicely, took 10 pips on half of the trade, and 61 (that's a lot in my system) on the other half, the entry was actually a mistake.

So to sum up the mistakes from a purely mental point of view:
- Entering against the trend.
- Staying in a trade during news time.
- Trying to compensate for a loss.

To be fair to myself I would also like to point out the things I did right:
- Staying calm when having to take a loss, using good exit strategy.
- Quick reaction to trend change (after the Bernanke speech; this by the way was key to have a successful week).
- Well defined support and resistance areas. I used them cleverly both when anticipating ranging market and also when letting trades run when price broke through.

One last, very important comment, and a warning to myself:
Although 76 percent of my trades were winners, I turned the week really profitable on the last two days. This is far away from being consistently right, and is mainly due to recognising the trend and going with it. I was in a kind of a mental harmony with the market, and I have to be aware that it will not always be so.

Good journal you have here. I like your avatar too.

Yardie, thanks for your comment. Hope you'll enjoy coming back and reading about my daily trades. Although I am Hungarian, my avatar is a Czech puppet figure.

On Monday the market was in a kind of hibernation, at least by the time I woke up. Funny enough the action happened during the Asian hours. Then in the European and American session there wasn't much going on. I only made one trade, a simple breakout trade in the early European session, and could close it with profit luckily in the Asian session while I was asleep.
I am quite uncertain about the direction of the market, so I am being very cautious with entries. I'll stick to range trading until some direction develops.

EURUSD short @ 1.2624 TP 1.2614 +10 pips
There was a breakout from the Asian range, but no follow-up. We soon came back to the range, and I watched an uneventful day pass by with me being in a 20 pip loss most of the time. In the next Asian session we tested the previous lows, and it was enough for my limit order to get executed.

Total for the day: $50

Finished the day early, got a healthy bite from the big move after the news releases (Existing Home Sales, Consumer Confidence). They came as a positive surprise for the dollar, you could see it immediately when they were published. It took two minutes for me to evaluate, and then I entered. Took app. half of the move, which I consider decent. The other trade of the day was a loss, but altogether I can't complain.

USDJPY long @ 116.70 SL 116.60 -10 pips
Entered in the early European session on a rebound from the Asian session bottom expecting range trading until the news releases. Went up almost to my predefined exit, but turned back just missing it. I waited until the last 5 minutes before the news releases, and then exited with a 10 pip loss. Went back up right after the news. No real mistake here, things like this happen.

EURUSD short @ 1.2644 TP 1.2594 +50 pips
A perfectly executed news trade. Both numbers were in favor of the dollar, took the market by surprise. I take this as a dollar bullish sign until the next news, and will enter my next trades accordingly. Closed with 50 pips profit, making it another profitable day.

Total for the day: +$164

What happened to Speibl? Is he still alive?

A nice second trade for 50 pips...

Thanks, milan47. I guess the old man, Speibl is all right. Don't see him much these days. Grew up, moved out, you know.

What a rollercoaster day!

I was wrong about the dollar, and it cost me quite a lot of money. Started out as a boring day. Nothing happened until late afternoon (GMT+2), the dollar was drifting down, but it wasn't really convincing. And then, out of nowhere, it started to fall. I had to change my bias during the day again. Did it just in time to recover my losses.

EURUSD short @ 1.2580 TP 1.2570 +10 pips
I expected some further dollar strength, as I said, so I entered short towards the top of the narrow Asian range. Could still take 10 pips on it.

USDJPY long @ 116.80 TP 116.90 +10 pips
The yen was quite weak during most of the day, even weaker than the dollar, as EURJPY bull was one of the hot topics. Slightly weak dollar versus heavily weak yen resulted in painfully slow 10 pips profit. I didn't want to wait for a breakout, I put my limit order at the top of the range. It broke through for a spike above 117 before going south.

EURUSD short @ 1.2576 SL 1.2630 -54 pips
The big loss of the day. I reentered after the first successful 10-pip trade, still expecting further dollar strength. I gave up when we clearly broke through the double fib level around 1.2615. There was nothing really wrong with the trade, I entered on a sound belief that the dollar will strengthen further, and I exited when I made sure of the new direction. Dared to pull the trigger when the trade became a clear loser.

EURUSD short @ 1.2610 SL 1.2630 -20 pips
A questionable trade. I already had a position in this direction, but I thought we'll bounce back from the double fibo level. I entered too early without making sure what the market wanted to do, and I added some more to my losses. Lessons learnt: Don't add to a losing position. Wait for a trend reversal confirmation before entering.
My exit was fine, did it together with the previous trade.

EURUSD long @ 1.2630 TP 1.2697 +67 pips
After a bit of hesitation the price took out the double fibo at 1.2615, and I considered it a short term trend reversal. Acted on it properly, and right after closing the two short trades, I immediately entered long. I watched it go up till 1.2660, then I had to leave, so I set a TP just below 1.2700, another fibo level and a previous high. I expected the Beige Book would boost the pair, as it had a high chance to repeat the rhetoric of Bernanke. By the time I came back from a pleasant dinner with my wife, my limit was hit, and the day was saved. Hollywood ending.

Total for the day: +$66

Seemingly I had a good day. But I am in two trades that look painfully bad. More about them when they are closed. Probably on Friday.

EURUSD long @ 1.2710 TP 1.2740 +30 pips
The only closed trade today. I expected the euro rise further, so before going to bed on Wednesday, I placed an order to enter on pullback to the fibo level around 1.2710. Could catch it nicely, and exited an hour before the news (Durable Goods).

Total for the day: +$150

A good day for staying humble and keeping on learning. I went into some significant loss with the trades I opened on Thursday, even added to them. I was trying to force my will on the market, and that never works. Luckily again, I caught the GDP move, and added to the trade gradually, so I could recover my losses. Technically this was a losing day, but that's only because I left two trades open for the weekend in the hope that the euro will go even higher next week.

EURUSD long @ 1.2750 SL 1.2689 -61 pips
EURUSD long @ 1.2719 SL 1.2669 -50 pips
I handle these two trades together, because the story is the same. I entered both on Thursday, after the unusual reaction to the dollar positive Durable Goods Orders report. The euro shot high, and the divergence between data and market reaction pointed into the direction of furher euro strength. My evaluation was completely wrong, I have to admit. Dollar longs were only waiting for the New Home Sales data one and a half hours later before entering. Since there was no dollar buying on the positive Durable Goods news, there was a false breakout upwards. But after New Home Sales everything was back in order, real money entered the market, and went long on the dollar after evaluating both news. This is what I should have done.
To double the mistakes I made that day, I added to a losing trade after seeing a short pullback.
With the exit I was trying to wait for a reversal, but all in all they were losing trades. I gave up next day as the GDP data was due.

USDJPY short @ 115.46 SL 115.76 -30 pips
The mistake again was to go against the dollar when it was clearly risky. The price came back from the 50% fibo line, but only to pull back a bit, and then turned against me. I put my stop above the range, and it was hit soon afterwards.

EURUSD short @ 1.2669 TP 1.2664 +5 pips
I did not have much time to move before the GDP, but I reversed my positions at the same time I exited with the second EURUSD loss.
With the exit I did the right thing: closed my position before the GDP release.

EURUSD long @ 1.2685 TP 1.2760 +75 pips
EURUSD long @ 1.2708 TP 1.2760 +52 pips
Again two trades that belong together. First I put an OCO order 1 minute before the news to enter if we break the short term range in any direction. My broker was fast and reliable this time, I got filled almost immediately. I also added to the position less than a minute later, after seeing how disappointing the data is for the dollar. Again, I was filled immediately.
I let the trades run, and added another two on pullbacks, so I was heavily invested by the end of the day. I quit these positions around 10 pm (CET), to cash in some profit, but left the other half for the weekend. That's why the day is a loss only in a technical sense (just like Thursday was a win only technically).

Total for the day: -$50

Evaluation of week #2:
Had some pretty tough moments, but altogether I am still satisfied. I made some mistakes, even repeated some of my old mistakes, but if I keep telling myself in this journal I should be more careful, sooner or later I'll manage hopefully.
The good thing is that there was only one day (Friday) that I ended with a loss. The bad thing is that I had moments when I had really big losses. This I want to avoid, because it hurts me mentally, and I can easily forget about discipline when I am upset. On the other hand it is a good practice to overcome these feelings and try to act calmly.
My plan to move for bigger gains seems to work out, especially in volatile markets. I have to be careful though when market is slow.
The next task is to reduce losses. I am fine with the current ratio of wins/losses, but I'd like to find a way to exit losing trades earlier. The problem has two sides: one is the entry, and the other is the exit. With breakout trades the risk is generally higher, because the bottom of the range is further away, and that's where I want to put my stops. So I should normally prefer trades on a pullback, or at the far edge of the range. This may help to reduce my stops. When it comes to exits, the dilemma is that I want to leave enough room for the trade to breathe, and don't want to get out of a trade in a loss, when it still has a chance to bring profit. False breakouts in a slow market makes me increase my stop loss, so that I don't get whipsawed. I have to work on balancing this, but at the moment I feel that I somehow have to consider the speed of the market. More on this after some experiments.

Results of week #2
Trades: 15
Winning trades: 9
Losing trades: 6
Breakeven trades: 0
Winning ratio: 60%

P/L: +$380
Initial account balance increase/decrease: +10.86%

Cumulated results since 17/07/2006 (2 weeks)
Trades: 34
Winning trades: 23
Losing trades: 9
Breakeven trades: 2
Winning ratio: 67.6%

P/L : +$1165
Initial account balance increase/decrease: +33.29%

good job man thats a nice return