So many trades, it’s time I start recording my trades. I took 5 trades so close together, that it is hard to remember what happen with each one. For evaluation purposes, that is not good. I ended up with 9 trade total: +1.6, -5.1, +13.3, -4.4, +9.6, -3, -3.4, -2.9, + 16.8 for a total of 22.5 pips.
Good day for practice but I think I over-traded. One thing throughout the trades is I wasn’t trading to get my money back, but because the setup was there. This is a big accomplishment for me.
I had meetings this morning then I took some trades. I felt really good about the trades until one of them kept going in my direction after I bailed. I even considered re-entering the trade close to my previous entry after closing and locking in 11 pips. Over-all, I made 14 pips so I am not going to complain.
I’m not sure if I have indicated that I only trade GBP/USD or the Cable Pair. It moves enough to scalp, yet not too fast like more volatile pairs like GBP/JPY. The majority of my trades are fades, taking the trade in the opposite direction after so many candle and hitting a support/resistance lines. The trades can be in the direction of the momentum/trend of the week or against the momentum/trend. I base my trades on the 10 minute candle chart.
Below is the daily chart and the 10 min candle chart with my trades for the day. On the second trade, I put lines where entered and exited going long. As you can see I missed about 25 pips, because I am still a work in progress after 8 years of trading!
I made some major mistakes the last week and a half with my trading after experiencing almost two months of perfect trading. With the Swiss Franc CHF, Eurodollar EUD problem, the market turned very volatile. The volatility was affecting all the currency pairs including GBP/USD.
Prior to this week, I had been trading the range like a master. Not getting greedy, not revenge trading or trading to get my money back. I was on a roll.
But then Thursday came and the huge swings with the Cable pair. Instead of waiting on the sidelines, I decided to jump in and trade.
This would not have been a problem if I would have stuck to my fixed profit objective. The pair was declining, but would retrace for a candle and that’s when I tried to fade. If I would have closed once my profit was hit, I would be up and not writing this post. But, based on the past, I tried to get a lot more pips and then lost what I had gained. Before the volatility, you could stay in a few 10 minute candles and would continue to get more pips. But the market changed but my approach didn’t.
After a few losses I started to trade to get my money back, and lost more. So I guess the lesson learned is you can’t always let your winners run, because the market is too volatile.
Below some positive trades I had on Friday and today.
Need a good trading clock with seconds for trading/scalping the Forex Currency market? Check out the one I created for my trading. I use it because need to know where price is every minute of the 10 minute candle.
Window 8 no longer has gadgets so I open this webpage and re-size it to fit in the corner of my screen. As a scalper, time and seconds are critical for me.
Here is the link to the clock. Trade Clock With Seconds
I started trading in October 2007 and I have entered every Forex currency trade into a journal, give or take a few that I forgot to take screenshots of. (I still entered the trade details for those trades.) Journaling my trades is something I became obsessive about when I first started trading six years ago.
Being a database designer in FileMaker Pro, I decided to make a database that would store and show my trade screenshots along with all the trade details, so I could go back and analyze my progress.
My thoughts on journaling your trades are, if you’re not doing it you’re not treating your trading like a business, and are probably just gambling your money away. Why? Because in any endeavor you try to master, you have to have some information/feedback showing what you did, and what you are doing right or wrong. Without a journal/diary, how can you accomplish this?
Some professional traders say that it is not as important to journal once you become proficient at trading. I disagree because you should always be evaluating your progress, beginner or professional.
So what should you journal? I think a good journal should allow you to archive screenshots of your trades. Enter all of the trade details, such as enter and exit prices, time entered and time exited, gain or loss amount, etc. Most important, there should also be a place to enter how you felt during the trade and why you placed the trade.
You could use an Excel spreadsheet to accomplish this, but you are not going to be able to store the screenshots with each trade. My journal, The4xJournal, can archive screenshots and even archive videos of your trades. It can hold up to 8 terabytes of trades per database and a field can hold 2 GB of information.
You could also save your broker reports, but they will be lacking a lot of important information about each trade.
I hate to end this blog post with a sales pitch, but I want you to give my Forex Journal a try. It took me over 3 years to make and 6 years to perfect as I added features that users requested. Users from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, and several other countries have purchased The4xJournal.
I know it works great, because I use it. I start out every new year with a new journal and archive the previous years.
The price is less than a good trading book, only $19.95. There is a free trial you can download (30 trade entry limit with no time expiration). Just click on the image or link below to give it a try.
The other day I took an afternoon trade (Asian market) that quickly hit my stop, then reversed in the direction I thought the market was going. I was so angry because it seemed that my dealer, FXCM, had purposely stop hunted my trade.
I never should have been in the trade because of the announcement that was released during the trade. I forgot to check the afternoon announcements.
Although I shouldn’t have been in the trade (because of the announcement), I couldn’t believe the price hit my stop without going farther, then went in the direction I picked based on my trading style.
So I decided to replay the trade using NinjaTrader. (See my article on practicing with NinjaTrader.) I’m glad I did, because it gave me more confidence in my broker, FXCM. When replaying the trade, NinjaTrader’s data feed did exactly what my trade did with FXCM. Price hit my stop level, triggered my stop, then went the direction I thought the market would go.
I’m not happy I lost pips and profit, but I am more confident in talking trades with FXCM.
I am convinced, based on my method of trading, that to be successful I need to trade full-time.
The other day I started out with a losing trade but ended the day with some positive trades.Today, after a week and a half of trading well, (some wins and losses) I had a losing day. The day wasn’t any different than the day mentioned above, except I had a loss from the start, then entered another trade too late because I hesitated. That trade turned into a loss also. After the second loss, I had to quit trading and go to my day job.The two scenarios were the same with one exception, I had time later on in the day (had the day off) to make the money back. In other words, trading part-time is very difficult. Trading is a full-time endeavor.
Maybe that’s why so many people fail at trading.
I’ve read and heard many traders describe their path to success. I download and listen to the Money Show’s Trader Talk Podcast with traders interviewed by Tim Bourquin. He interviews different traders about their experiences, and I glean something from each one, even if the person is not a Forex trader.
With each trader who is interviewed, I’ve always wondered why it is so hard for them to answer the question of how long it has taken them to become a successful/profitable trader. When they are asked and answer, they give a vague reply. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the traders he interviews are selling something and I think if they would truly reveal how long it took them to be successful, they would never sell their programs/services.
I had a former student (I’m a full-time high school teacher) text me the other day about starting to trade the Forex and making money. We exchanged a few texts about it, then I sent him a text indicating it is a very difficult endeavor, and it would take him hours and hours of practice and several years to become successful. He never responded to that last text.
This coming October 2012, will mark 5 years of trading for me. I consider myself part-time because I trade every morning 5:30 am to 6:45 am. Besides the trading time, I have put many more hours into learning the skill. I am still not successful, winning and losing trades–losing more than winning. I get frustrated and angry with myself, wanting to quit. But when studying successful people I have found that in most cases, it’s not some magical talent they have that makes them successful. No, in most cases they have paid the price of practicing for hours at their endeavor, not giving up when they failed.
I guess to sum this post up, although I am not where I want to be in trading, I’m not going to let failure ruin my chances of success. I have committed to making trading a life-long endeavor and I know I will eventually succeed.
Practice make perfect is the old cliche. Trading is a competitive activity like sports. Some great trading psychologists/coaches are former sports psychologist. So if both activities are related, how can we practice trading like the great athletes do before they compete in their sport?
You can demo trade, which is sort of practicing, but not quite the same experience. The best way to practice trading would be in simulation mode. So what’s out there to help a Forex trader practice?
You could invest in the Forex Tester, which currently is on sale for $149.00. I have tried the demo and it has some great features. For my style of trading, what it lacked, is seconds on the trade clock; very important for a scalper. After writing to them, they did say they could create a script or plugin to add seconds. But then there is a monthly fee if you need historical tick data, $22 – $37 a month.
Let me offer you a free program that I use that can help with trade simulation. I am not getting any compensation for recommending this program. It is a great tool that every trader should have. The program is NinjaTrader and can be downloaded at www.ninjatrader.com. It’s a little tricky to figure out and use at first, but once you have played with it a few times, you will experience the benefits of simulation (practice) trading. Below is a quick video tutorial to get you started.
