blew most of yesterday's gains shorting the yen from 107.31.... Made 21 pips shorting EUR from 1.5552 (prog entry) to 1.5531(manual exit), got out wayy too early. Its kindof funny to look at my screen with a -1000 UPNL loss on USDJPY and think to myself, how the hell did this happen, not only do I think its gonna skyrocket in my face (i think the rise is gonna turn parabolic to 113 next week as dollar finally starts gaining heavily). But the position I was after (short EUR) I no longer have. Case study in holding losers and cutting winners like a freakin noob. I am looking for a retracement to bail out of this JPY. I actually held onto my position from 105.10 for -300 pips so far. When the hell did 300 pip losers and 20 pip winners start becoming the norm I dont know. I need just 100-150 retracement and I am out. Pnl about 3200 i think Blotter to come.
Alright I decided to end the stupidity here and now. I got out of my JPY position at an incredible loss and it feels great. I can finally turn my attention to the EUR and make back my losses. I realize my biggest mistake was trying to hedge myself in the first place. I tend to look at the big bicture and look for overbought and over sold conditions on large time scales and I trade accordingly, so i am comfortable sitting on losses such as in the EUR as long as the fundamental picture is still intact (it is). Obviously I was right to stay in that trade even though it went against my rules. However, the JPY was a different story, I attempted the same type of trading when the big picture was going against me. I am fundamentally dollar bullish, big time, so I shouldnt not have been holding on to the position after my EUR position was covered. I guess I didnt want to look like an idiot holding on to my naked EUR position, but I look like a bigger idiot by putting on a position that goes against every trend and every indicator i use. Honestly I only hedged myself with JPY because I was reading reports all day from Lehman about how the JPY was the most undervalued currency. However, anyone with two more than two brain cells looking at the chart can tell that USJPY is a rocketship to 113+. Anyway enough with the whining, I got money to make back. PnL is about 3030.
I have reduced size on EUR trading back down to 25K and I am still waiting for the updated version of the prog for the beginning of next week. I doubt i will place any trades tomorrow as I will try and take it easy and compose myself after all the BS that happened. Happy Fri the 13th to all, Time to hit the bottle and clubs in that order.
Hello, thaking into account the goal of your thread how exactly you think you will reach it (keep you focused)? We see some figures we don't really understand what is going on. If this journal is only for yourself to read and understand, why then you make it public?
Its not just for me, I have some friends keeping tabs on my trading. As for monthly goals I still think they are doable, obviously not this month tho, but I have done it before and I can do it again. The thing is not so much that I am not focused, its that I like trying new things and improving my methods and sometimes I gain new insight and other times I fail miserably. If you look at the past entries, I tried working with pivot points, i didnt post but i was using RSI to help me gauge some moves succesfully, i aslo did some gap trading, as well as the infamous "hedging" that I did. Even as I write this I am reading Lehman reports on their G10 Portfolio which got me thinking about possibly developing a Portfolio of currencies with weightings based on overbought and oversold indicators. I am not at all concerned about the few hundred dollars I might make or lose, I have been trading for almost a year with barely a 3K loss. What I am concerned about is perfecting methodologies so that I can confidently step up my trading on 25K or 50K to live off of. Usually most months I repeat the cycle you all saw here. I gain with discipline then I basically squander the profits either trying new strategies or simply getting bored of small profits and increasing risk. I will try to focus more next week. Most likely I will not trade the first few days because the program looks like it may enter drawdown mode since between last Thurday and today I had signals generating 300+ pips of which I prob captured about 20. The next phase will probably be drawdown which I dont wanna be in. I am also thinking of posting actual screens of my system. I think my paranoia isnt really warranted lol.
Sorry I have been away from my computer all weekend. Turned on the ATS last night again, 2 trades on EURUSD, -30 pips and +58 or so. I will post when I get home. However, I have some bad news, my account may be shut down because of the stupid SEC and compliance regulations over broker/dealers. Since I am using my series 7 for my new job my firm doesnt wanna let me keep any outside accounts. I am incredibly pissed off, what does the SEC even accomplish with all these regulations? Are the markets any safer from manipulation and insider trading? I think not. Enough ranting gotta talk to Branch managers and VP's and plead I for my account, the one thing I care about.
Here i stoday's blotter: I Closed +28 pips on EURUSD and I am currently short and in the black. So Here is my Summery for the past few weeks returns: Week 1: 0% Week 2: 3.5% Week 3: -10.2% Week 4: .7% Total (to today)= -4.5% or about $145 I had a gain of about 15% on Thurs of the 3rd week, but all my gains were wiped out in one losing in USDJPY that cost me about $800 that had nothing to do with my program. Currently started week 5. I was debating putting up pics of my actual signals but after talking to some fellow traders who discouraged even posting results online I have decided to hold off on that.