A Losing Week

Quoting Bemac

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If you lose [ later you might add Gain] '$x' within that timeframe, You Are Finished Trading For Twice That Time Frame. Sounds harsh, I know, but if you are forced, by self discipline, to watch the market while being effectivly barred from trading, it's amazing how quickly you will get back into sync.

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Quoting ForexWinnie

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The past week was volatile but it remained profitable for me as well and cable was a winner. I'm pretty sure a lot of it was due to luck. One losing week shouldn't be too bad. We shouldn't let occasional failures discourage us. Neither should we be too overjoyed with short term success.

The strategy mentioned by americanteek above is worth considering. I've been using it for a while and it worked nicely. However, I normally do it with correlated pairs (not the same pair) since I use Oanda and sometimes I don't want to have my losing positions closed. I realize that this is highly risky (I'm actually pretty risk adverse) but I don't believe that losses should be assumed too easily. Since I live in the Pacific Std time zone and have a job, I'm forced to trade bigger timeframes and it's not easy coming up with a good SL strategy. As I'm still a novice, I'd rather trade shorter timeframes. But there's still a lot for me to be read, learned and absorbed.

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Quoting Bemac

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Pick a time frame. It doesn't really matter what it is, that's up to you. 1 Day, 3 days or two hours. If you lose [ later you might add Gain] '$x' within that timeframe, You Are Finished Trading For Twice That Time Frame. Sounds harsh, I know, but if you are forced, by self discipline, to watch the market while being effectivly barred from trading, it's amazing how quickly you will get back into sync.
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Quoting americanteek

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For this example lets say Im trading GBPUSD and I go short from 1.8900 and the price moves against me up to a resistance of 1.8980. In your case, you would have hit S/L and closed trades and LOST hard earned money. When I open that first trade I would also set a limit buy (yes going long) position about 25 pips above my first trade, in this case 1.8925. This way, even though the price moves against me, The most I am going to be down is a maximum of 25 pips, or the difference between the 2 trades (this is my version of S/L). Now, when the price finds resistance and shows signs of a reversal you open another short position. This moves your short entry average up (thus is called averaging up) to 1.8940. When the price reverses you can now take profit 40 pips away from where you entered the market poorly. Not to mention your hedge position which you could close for enough pips to make yourself happy until your shorts close. Especially trading GBPUSD, there is so much volitility that this kind of a strategy really works. Of course like I already said you can't do this if you are putting in a large % of your account on the first trade. Trade small - pick up lots of pips - build build build.
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Quoting Bemac

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"Friends don't let friends hate Hate."

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Quoting Mr Trend

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I don't know about any of you guys that are consistently profitable, but I've had a poor week. Not only did my intraday strategy that I trade not do well, my swing trades were even worse. And most of it because I made two or three mistakes that ended up causing me to front-run and I ended up being wrong.


Losses are a part of the game, but for those of you who are consistent, and then have that loss, if you're like me, you instantly feel like you've been humbled...

I expect down weeks, but not like the one I had this week when I tried to force the market to do my bidding.

It's these times that I have to remember the words from Boris' blog:

Ben Mezrich, the author of the book - a terrific writer – notes, "No matter the count the cards could go bad. Over time winning was inevitable. But in the short run the game could either way. Even math left room for luck." I love that last line because as traders it should always help us to remember that we are nether as good nor as bad as our last trade would indicate.

Don’t let the losses shake you.

Amen.<!-- / message -->

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Quoting aparsai

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Bemac,

Thanks for the post. Could you explain the paragraph in more detail?

Thanks,
Al

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Quoting Bemac

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Hi Al,

First thing to remember is this technique is not related to your Account Percent Risk Allotment [2%, 3% or whatever]. If you Only lose 2% per Day [Trading Full Lots], that will take a $5,000.00 account to less than $700.00 in 100 Trading Days [~ 4 months]. You will never bust the account but it will deplete to a point where it is ineffective as a Trade Account. 2% or 3% APRA is designed to Keep You In The Game long enough to hopefully get an education.

This is about effectively treating a Series of Major Wounds to the point of amputation to Preserve The Account.

Take the above $5,000.00 Account as an example. How many people, after having suffered 99 losses in a row would actually place that 100th order... Right. I agree. [I think]. So this is about defining at what point in the 99 [even better,Trades:$$$$ ratio] your failsafe should kick in.

There is an unknown variable in this equation. Your personal tolerance.
When do You feel Angry at the Market. Maybe it's Not when you are down $100.00 [Trade # 1].
Maybe it's not even when you are down $500.00 [Trade # 5]. But maybe if you were down $500.00 in 5 Hours, then maybe you would be Angry at the Market.
Stop. Arrete. Não Entr. Do Nicht Enter. Arresto

[ later you might add Gain]
In a previous job I had, while training "The New Guys" at a Commodities Trading Desk, I would give them a $300.00 a day Desk Limit. Hit $300.00 either way and your done for the day. Win it or Lose it. If you Win it, you can go home or golfing or whatever you like. If you lose it, let's see if we can figure out why.
Very seldom did the winners take the rest of the day off. They were too excited and wanted to watch the charts for the rest of the day. That's why they were cut off [barred] from trading for the rest of the day. Being too Excited to Trade is just as dangerous as being too Angry to Trade.
Whenever "Joe" did start taking afternoons off on a semi regular basis, guess what Joe, Your Desk Limit just went to $500.00 On The Win Side Only.
btw. this was real money. I don't know if there has ever been a Commodities Trading Demo.

I know it's not the mathematical equation you were probably hoping for but hopefully you get the gist of it.
You alone know when you are feeling beat up. You just have to put something in place that defines it for you AND has a remedy attached.

What is a reasonable Daily Target?
50% of my current [last] Day Job Daily wage? 75% or 150%.

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Quoting Turveyd

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Some peoples bad week is others Best week

This week was my best week 245pips of profit, 14 trades only 3 losers

Ofcourse, the week before I bought into fake run after fake run, leaving myself totally on the wrong side 4 times in a row and really hurt the account LOL

Calmed down, realised my error and moved on, bad days happen, don't immediately think your doomed.


Nearly trippled my account since the 19/07 £110 to £316, keeping my lots low to give me more learning time though, as might just of been a lucky fluke LOL

Keep it up all.


Turveyd ( First post LOL )

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