Not sure what exactly I'm doing today, but apparently today is scalp day. Maybe I'm just feeling the new program out... not too sure. Remember, my goal is 14 pips PER WEEK on a standard account. If I get that 3 pips at a time... why should I care? Short EUR/USD 1.47724 Covered (about 30 seconds later) EUR/USD 1.47694 3 pips
Long EUR/USD - 1.47439 Covered EUR/USD - 1.47469 3 pips Pretty weaksauce, I know. Again, some patience would have yielded 6+ pips, which is only 2 off from my target... actually just hit the target plus the spread while I was typing. Oh well... so now I have no problem putting on trades, I just need to work on sticking with the plan - an issue for another day. Week 4 Day 3 (pick up where I left off, not counting down time) +52.5 pips 16/5/1
Busy day at schoolzzz, just fired up the trading platform ten minutes ago. Apparently I missed some massive moves. Funny thing is, I had a price alert set for AUD/USD this morning, the peak before the crash missed it by some fractional pips. I just chalked it up for a miss... what a move that would have been. Anywho... Long USD/JPY - 91.273 (just a few minutes ago) Sold USD/JPY - 91.329 5.6 pips
Took a couple less than stellar setups. One from last night that would have hit my 5 pip target, but in hind sight the risk/reward wasn't there. Thankfully got out without a loss. This was a bit of an over trading, revenege trade after failure to take the setup for the big move down. tisk tisk Short - USD/JPY 88.900 Covered - USD/JPY 88.892 0.8 pips Took this trade a little while ago, good call but about 10-15 minutes too early (down solidly now, a 20+ pip move), still had some upside to go. Didn't want to stick it out while it was tettering on the line and making higher lows so got out on a quick dip down. Thankfully, again, no loss. Short EUR/USD 1.46535 Covered EUR/USD 1.46530 0.5 pips Took this trade while still in the EUR short. CAD broke the trend line on the 15 min. I failed to look at the hourly until I after I put on the trade (bad idea). Turns out I shorted within a few pips of hourly support. Again, thankfully, the 15 min trend line break caused enough of a sell off that I was able to scoop up 6 pips. If there's one thing I've learned it's that if you play the 15 min (at least with my strategy), you MUST stay consistant with the trend of the hourly. Short USD/CAD 1.09165 Covered USD/CAD 1.09105 6 pips All-in-all, not so bad. I missed out on an 70+ pip move on USD/JPY last night because I hesitated. I'm using the 1k lots though, so it's apparently not the loss of money that makes me hesitate.
Should have waited to see what the CAD did with the hourly. Turns out it broke and I owned myself out of a good move. Hopefully as I build confidence with this new platform I'll give trades more time.
Nice gains but I must say I'm worried that your eventual stopout will easily wipeout any of these gains. You talk of missing 70+ point moves yet I rarely see you hold a trade for more than a few points or let a trade go much against you. While the fear of losing a few bucks on a stopout may not be affecting you (as you said, you're trading 1k), I think the fear of a LOSS (not the money, just the fact that a trade didn't work out) may be influencing you here. Just speaking from past experience, I too began with 1k lots. What do you think?
That IS my worry with having a loss. Not so much the actual monetary loss (which would be very small), but just the idea that my wins would be lost. As for not letting trades go again me enough, If you read the first half or so of the journal, I actually let many trades go 2-3x my profit against me. Nearly all of them DID pan out in the end, but I decided that isn't a sustainable way to trade. I suppose what I'm going through now is trying to find the happy medium. As for the large move I spoke of, that wouldn't have gone against me a single pip. It broke out a few pips. I hesitated to short for almost five minutes, then it proceeded to plunge nearly straight down. That's the type of move I'm looking for and how my system works best. I look to catch initial, reactionary moves, whether it be panic, euphoria, or stop sweeps. If something is struggling to get down (or up), I tend to time-stop myself out of it. The way I look at it is that the longer I'm in a sideways trade, the higher the risk of it blasting in the wrong direction. Either my initial call is right or it isn't. If it is, let's get on with the show. If it isn't, then I need out and I need out quick, and I'll get out BEFORE I allow it to confirm what I already know. Make sense? Maybe I'm wrong. I've found that it's relatively easy to make small profit if you don't get greedy (as evidenced by my 20/5 W/L), so I figured a few pips in the hand is worth 20 in the bush. lol What I need to work on is knowing when to gratefully take a few, and when to wait for more.