You've just got to learn to trade slow markets that's all, fast markets of 2 - 3 weeks back was easy, just on a move, ride it, exit with profit, these days move starts, jump on, nooo it's stopped already. That's why I've been sucking, no +20's, not willing to take +6 hoping for more than straight to SL, especially as half of the +6 goes to spread and comm's. IF GBPCHF keeps move like it was last week ( hadn't looked at it before ), then I get my +20's if not +50's back, I can live with risking 8 with a good shot at making 20-50 New Month, news is all out of the way, likely have a good week or 2, be fine Real money, makes HOPE happen a lot more, as soon as it becomes not likely to work out, look for a cheaper exit, 5pts saved, means less to make next trade ( thought I had something better LOL )
February 26, 2015 frustration Today´s trading was full of mistakes and frustration. The markets are extremely slow which is not a natural environment for me. There is a very easy recipe to counter such conditions. You simply don't trade or you trade less and take just the best setups. I did the opposite and paid the price for it. T1 Aggresive entry from MID. The entry was not that bad but I couldn't manage it correctly and after I withstood the heat I killed the position at BE. -0 T2 Premature long. -7 A This was today's best trade. I identified it quite correctly and placed my long limit order. Unfortunately, I didn't get fill. T3 More aggresive entry for bad price. Managed to get out at -4 T4 Very stupid trade. Makes no sense and in addition I couldn't manage it. -13 T5 This was more guessed trade according to the structure of the market. Also very aggresive. +16 This was the point were I should have stopped trading for today, however I continued watching the market and trading. T6 Attempt from ORH. Didn't work at all. -9 T7 Short from ORH. I took the trade for very bad price and I was stopped out 2 ticks from high. -7 T8 I took this one too soon. Managed to get out at +2 T9 The stupidest trade of today. I took it couple of minutes before trading day close. I didn't believe that the market might actually move higher. And it didn't, it just moved high enough so it took my SL out exactly 2 ticks from high again. -12 Results:
February 27, 2015 comming back After yesterday's fiasco I traded much more carefully today. And it did pay off even when the markets have been dead again. T1 More aggresive short but still according to my plan. Thanx to good entry price I was able to close the trade at +8 ticks even when the market was rising. +8 T2 Long for a very nice entry price. However after the entry, the market became very chaotic and I didn't want to risk another stop loss at the end of the week. So I killed the position at +4 Results:
Weekly results: Week 9, lot of mistakes and frustration Extremely difficult week to trade, but the real reason why I ruined it was my own head. All I needed to do was not trading when the markets don´t move or have just tiny volume. I did exactly the opposite. I traded too much. The worst day was Thursday when I created -$200 drawdown. I started to recover from it on Friday with results which looks more like me (100% win with 2 trades). I take the whole period as a costly but good lesson. I need to slow down, take only the best setups and slowly recover financially but more important also mentally. I need to regain the confidence in myself and trust in my system. The next few weeks will show how I will be able to accomplish that. Statistics Since I switched to LIVE account I am totally $206.70 in loss. Win% is only 50%. I didn’t have such a bad statistics for a long time. During 7 trading sessions (since Thursday last week), I made 18 trades. Half of it on Thursday. It is difficult to evaluate current week and half of trading. Without Thursday I would be at break even which would be quite ok for a start in such a difficult market. The whole loss was created on Thursday. I need to pay attention for days like this. It is much easier to not create such a huge drawdown on a single day than to come back from it.
Volume is to be discarded as it is useless information. Volume has little or no discernible impact on price.
Volume has HUGE impact on how markets move. Usually low volume means low volatility as well. No volatility = no opportunity fo you to make money. But on the other hand market makers can do with the market almost anything during low volume because they don´t have to fight through all the limit orders. It is easy for them to move the market back and forth. This environment creates situation where when you enter the trade you risk a lot because of the strange quick movements caused by MMs and on the other hand the potential for your profit is low because of low volatility.
Although I would say low volume is more volatile, you pretty much said that after so i will agree with you. No volume is no real moves then spike around, knocking out tight Sls on both sides nasty.
Look at the tops on the daily, there is generally less movement/volatility when traders think of possible top bcs traders are not sure where its going next. They just wait for the next big move. Maybe that's why you lost, you should wait for the meat of the move(next direction) if volatility is what you are after at least expect it. anyway good luck