Greg's Forex Journal

After reviewing some of my old posts and some other sources, I think I finally understand the nature of my problem.

Honestly I think what happened was that I haven't been trying as hard to improve my trading as I used to. I spend just as much if not more time on market work (and I still work hard), but my trading has still suffered.

Let me explain - since last December and the first several months of the year, I was very focused on solving my initial mental problems, developing my concepts on the market through research, and learning to apply those concepts and ones I learned from others. Over time it worked, and it worked well.

Unfortunately after that kind of gave up on my progress. I thought I was finished the bulk of my research, and that mental progress would come to me after I just casually log more and more hours into the market.

(This is best shown by my charts on the Russell 2000 - I've actually believed that I have little enough left to learn with my current analysis method that one of the best uses of my time was watching the Russell 2000. Perhaps not the worst idea ever, but enough to question my intelligence).

Over time I was only working on minor mental concepts, money management, and TA (I know more about wide range bars than any normal person should ever know), and I lost enough focus on maintaining and continuing my real progress and development that I now make all my old mental mistakes again when trading.

What made me realize this was reading over a thread in which someone told me they spend 60 hours a week on trading, and I started remembering all the people that have told me they work 12 and 16 hour days on the market. So I thought: what do they know that I don't? The answer of course is: they know everything I don't!

I don't have that kind of discipline, but I'm realizing now that the difference between decent traders and great traders may be that the decent trader might plop an indicator on his chart with the default settings, do 3 hours of research, and learn things by just casually watching it over time. This is what I did. On the other hand, the great trader is likely putting that indicator on hundreds or thousands of charts to know its in and outs, researching it and analyzing it on end for 16 hour days, experimenting with it on different settings, and probably backtesting it versus others as well.

Now everything has always come easy to me before this and I've always lacked both the discipline and attention span to work 16 hour days 6 days per week. I also have a lot of flaws like overseeing things, I'm a slow learner, make a lot of stupid mistakes, and lack of attention to detail. As a result I clearly understand that I will never be one of the greatest traders who ever walked, nor has that ever been my goal.

However I fully realize now what is between me and being truly successful at this, and it is persistently hard, focused work.

Attachment: something I found interesting today. This actually occurred immediately before the 75 pip rally or whatever it was

 

Traded today for a bit but stopped early to play golf.

I'm starting to realize that trading isn't one of my priorities right now, and I seem to not truly be enjoying the time I set aside to trade.

It's definitely a combination of factors

- working full time and wanting to go out or rest on my days off

- feeling a higher priority to go out, have fun and meet people in a new city (rather than staying couped up with my computer)

- negative expectations, including a high probability of hitting my daily drawdown if I traded too long (it's very tight at 2x risk, but if I were doing well I would never hit it)

Overall I just feel like I could turn things around again with some hard work, but trading is not my priority right now and I feel like there are other things I would enjoy more.

Now let's be honest I can't stay away so I'll be getting some study time in here and there, but my newest rule is no trading until at least July 8th. If nothing else, I just need a break.

Attachment: I think it's important to look at the market from different perspectives to understand different concepts. This was one of my plans to improve my trade selection by looking through the lens of s/r with R:R for every potential move. I have to go back and improve it's probably one of my better charts in a while. I think it's also a nice defense against chop.

Note: the chart was a 133T I think looking for areas where the signal to the target showed an R:R of 1:1, assuming that s/r plays have a greater than 50% chance of success.

 

You're 18, maybe 19 now? You should be banging anything that moves. Really. Get it while you can. Believe me, nobody lays on their deathbed wishing they had WORKED more.
While you're at it, grab some cocaine and a decent bourbon, the trashy chicks love it. Make sure the women are a little older than yourself, trust me, you'll appreciate that.
Ok. Let me know how you make out! Go get'em tiger!

 

Wrote this in my journal the other day and wanted to post it because I seem slightly more committed that way:

Davidmaria - lol the thing is that I moved to a new city and don't really know people around here. My initial plan was to work my ass off on trading at home with a part time job but now I rather just want to have fun for the most part. I'm not banging everything that moves, but I'm having a lot of fun.

Journal entry: I’m starting to think that in order to enjoy my time my best route to trading is by looking at charts and slowly picking up patterns like I have been, not studying things like others do. I don’t need to be that great, and I’ve learned so much about myself and life that it really doesn’t matter if I end up not becoming a trader. The parts I really enjoy and miss about trading is understanding more things about myself, about the world, and about life. Screw computer science and programming, screw working more than 40 hours/week on trading, and as far as I’m concerned screw my trading background’s role in my future career. As I do with, the rest of my life now, I’m going to do what I like and work towards creating a good quality of life for myself. That doesn’t involve much “screen time.” Of course I will give up some money and success, but I know now that neither of those are important to me (the second one took a while to realize, however). For now on I trade only for enjoyment.

As for my trading poorly it seems due to my method and slower learning process that probably 80% of what I know about the market is theory. It will likely take me another year or so before I can finish processing what I know currently into active trading, and of course by that time I will have more theory.

It’s actually kind of funny because it seems like me constantly adding new material to study on my plate is actually a result of me figuring new things out but having trouble learning and applying them in real time. This is both due to me learning slowly and not being able to pay attention to that many things at one time! I actually really enjoy this realization because these are qualities of mine I believed were going to be a burden from the beginning and it just means I know myself well.

Attachment: I enjoy learning from charts a lot more than studying, and this is one of my reasons why.

This pattern is similar to the dragon and double bottom, except it is much more lenient. It requires a few things:

1. A strong trend.
2. The completion of a scallop. The more "organized" and consistent the countertrend is, the better (I imagine most traders know what I mean here).
3. a breakdown of the countertrend move (completing the scallop), followed by an accelerating trend continuation (curved vertically).
4. Failure of the continuation before a strong wave is formed, noted by the rise above the trendline (longs).

This pattern is different from the dragon because it has nothing to do with retracements, although the later bull flag seems evident in many patterns. The actual price reach of the second "bottom" (as in 1-2-3, double b, 2b, or decent continuation beyond 2b) doesn't seem to matter much as long as the other parts are in place. These patterns are literally everywhere.

Doesn't it look like you're catching a fish?

 

Thought I would teach you all something today. I drew this trendline in December and haven't looked at it since (until now). I call them leaning bars.

 

Didn't get laid?

 

LOL nothing to brag about since I said I was taking a break but I'm working on it.

It's actually funny you mention it. I've only traded once all month and only put in a bit of time maybe once or twice a week. -- I work with a lot of hotties from El Salvador and I've spent more time at Latin night clubs than looking at a chart!

I'm here now because I just want to throw some money around swinging the daily to two-day charts to keep the hobby.

Still plenty of time for the bachata.

 

Care to spare some time for someone to actually teach you something? I would not waste my time otherwise but you are 18 and invest your time on the stuff you have posted here so far? Dude, your comments on working less than 40hrs/week on your endevour are misplaced. If you want to enjoy life then you better invest a fair amount of your youth in learning and getting a proper education.

Dont forget we all want to just lie around (more or less) and enjoy life but thats not how it works. To enjoy life you first gotta deliver, meaning work your ass off. You come across as not being the most driven guy on the block. No issue with that its just I want to urge you to keep in mind that you dont want to end up on the bottom 10% of the ladder. "Work hard...play hard" has always served me well. You sound like you may wanna boost the "work" part a little more...just a dose of advise.

 

I'm happy to hear your view, asiaprop.

Are you a philosophical man? I can tell you a million things about why I'm driven and why I'm not, but to really understand what you're targeting I'll ask a few questions.

My posts so far - it seems you are saying that I should be working and not typing away, is that right? Or is it the content?

Working now and enjoying life later - is this in a monetary view? As for education I have a 3.93 in college.

I ask about the money because it seems that, contrary to davidmaria's opinion, you don't seem to agree that chasing girls is a worthy pursuit.

Oh and are you suggesting I put that effort into trading, or just life in general?

 

- i think chasing girls is a very worthy pursuit. I mentioned that "playing hard" comes with "working hard"
- how much you posts is nobody else's business, so its not mine either, I was not referring to that.

I was referring to the analyses you ran on your setup. Rather than being content with drawing some support and resistance lines you ought to strive for some higher goals. The road is littered with people who thought that all there is that separates them from the riches is some "lazy TA analysis" and I strongly disagree with that. Its ok to experiment on the side but keep your goals in mind and work towards them. If it has to be trading than make it your goal to get a job at one of the professional buy or sell side outlets, nothing less.

My post, by the way, was meant to encourage you, sorry it did not come across as such, I am clearly not a human resource guy and as such do not wrap my comments into candy gift paper ;-)

All I was saying is do not throw away your life like so many here who thought trading does not come along with hard work and sophisticated strategies. Oversimplified MA or other TA strategies simply do not work over time, you will be amazed how many people here disagree with me and I claim they dont have a whole lot to back up their claims....