Getting the monkey of my back!

Pants Pants Pants Pants Pants........

Awful day yet again

Woohoo finally. A geyser today and good gains made from most of my trades.

Still not celebrating too hard until positions have closed but I am leaving them open for now.

I have slightly tweaked my strategy... and only very slightly. Still needs a little work to decide the optimum for opening and closing timings so thats something I need to think about.

Heres hoping for another good day tomorrow.

Well its been a so-so few days. I still feel rather downbeat due to lots of losses, but there are positives given that I have quite a few winners in positive equity. I still havent got my equity above the previous high from before the US election, but the movement seems more positive recently.

I'm just waiting for some of these to fly a bit. The yen seems on the turn too so I think there will be a few positions opening on those crosses soon.

All things considered great stuff how many people's got your record?
The hardest part is to let go of the motions and don't feel up and down, regardless if you are up or down, eh?

Thanks Stratic.

Yes, maybe I do need a bit of a reality check. My return so far has massively outstripped the return I could get anywhere else. And I'm in positive territory, which is better than many investors here on Forex Factory.

Its difficult watching the numbers go up, getting excited, then the numbers go down again. Particularly as I have kept each risk at 5% in order to try and grow my capital. Thats part of why I started this journal, to try and rationalise the emotions....... its difficult!

However.....
I've still managed 28% return on my closed trades, since 1st September. Just coming up to the three month anniversary. Also, barring disasters, thats 3 months with a positive return in each.

Yes, I guess looking back its not a bad start, I need to remember that.

Well there you go.. barring disaster... typical!!!!

So another day where the trading gods have conspired against me. The decision by OPEC and the continuing rally of the USD have both completely destroyed my positions today. In the last few days I have lost nearly 25% of my capital, and am nearly 40% below my previous high.

Really low, not sure what to do now

Ok.... So I've had a pretty bad few weeks. I'm sure every trader has gone through weeks like this, and I certainly havent been losing a stupid amount of money, just a few hundreds.

I've taken the last couple of days to rest, reflect and think about what has happened. I've also take the time to read a load of threads and other resources around the web.

I think the biggest probelm I have faced, and what happens to many of us smaller traders, is that I have focused on maximising the profits and neglected to minimise the losses.
I read a great phrase somewhere, unfortunately I cant rememeber where, that real traders minimise losses, and any profits are simply a by-product of that.

The largest of my negative thoughts recently are from trades that have been significantly in profit, only to turn and hit my stop-loss due to one piece of news that happened while I was at work. The point of trading daily for me is that it is a set-and-forget system that allows me to carry on with my day job. I need the security to not worry about my trades while I am at work.

Yes, yes, I know losses are inevitable, but I need to minimise them.

So a slight change to my system, in that from now on whenever I am in an amount of profit which is half my risk I'll move my stop to BE. Yes I will probably miss out on some profits, but I think I would rather that happen than be in the situation of losing money which I dont need to. I need to protect the capital.

Hi.nice tread
I use sma 5. No. 2 candle down at support crossing..then long. And opposite. Look up bk8 and see his system. All the best.