-1200 Pips and Break-Even

Forex

Its been some serious time since I last blogged. Was busy with school after work, and the lastime I told myself I am putting forex in hiatus, but then as you can see from the post title, its the main subject of my post.

Its really bad idea of mobile trading, if you don't have discipline. What had happened to me past two weeks was everything a trader should not be doing. Okay, here is what happened.

2 weeks back, was watching my usual pairs, Eur/Usd, Aud/Usd. Aud/Usd has been ranging for quite some time in the daily chart, with major resistance around 1.0200/50. I thought I would hold some position in Aud/Usd so that if it remains strong I could gain some rollover. But I decided to do this with add-in position, if aud/usd go up, I gain, if it goes down, I have better price for another position, because it has been ranging long term, SHOULDN'T BE going down too low... but nothing is absolute in trading.

So I added a relatively small position in 1.0200, and add a little position in resistance and double zeros. So I did that, and I held my positions longest time I ever had. After a few days, I got better and better prices lol. And that began to trouble me. Before I knew it, I had 11 positions in it, and I was down about -1136 pips in total. Thats not the worst. Most of my stop-losses were at 0.9800, thats the max I told myself. It just kept going down. It was post Japan-tsunami incident.

Why? This article by Kathy Lien may give an insight of Japan's economy in relative to the Aussie dollar.

So finally, came the day I wake up with all my trading positions closed. I was downed. Drawing down about 30% of my account. I watch my busto account eating my breakfast in the morning. That morning, the coffee was strangely tasteless, and the bread I usually have in the morning feels like sponge.

After that day, I continued watching the aussie, it went past my stop/loss of 0.9800, to about 0.9705, before it decided to go back it belong. My mistake didn't end there. At 0.9920, with buying seems to go up such strength, I added a full-sized long again. This time, I did so right before deleting the Oanda mobile app off my BlackBerry.

Let it run boy. Why is losing such an easy job but not winning? Aussie continue to push up. It was good. My take-profit of 1.0190 area. It was going strong, I pull up my stop/loss to break-even price so as to minimize my mistake. On the 6th day of this trade, it finally hit my take-profit! I know what I was doing was wrong, base on Expected Value (EV) of making such a suicidal trade is going to bring one to hell. And so, I made this trade and this is a serious time to go on a break. This time seriously. It was just lucky that this revenge trade made it. My account was recoup plus a little bit more of profits.

If you had followed our blog for some time, this isn't the first revenge trade I did. And this is the only time I made it through.

Trading and poker are so similar. In my own opinion, what you need is to know the rules, practice and practice and practice, but to master them, it depend on how you control yourself. This is my weakness. Overtrading, revenge trading etc. Learning how to detach your emotions from such a BIG challenge for emotional human beings.

Poker

Still haven't run well, and I'm tired of talking about it. I play micro-stakes SNG and I'm bothered at losses. I start and stop my day looking at the cashier, and see how my account depletes every time. Close friend of mine who play closely with me, said I'm too bothered with the money, should just aim to play well.

I couldn't agree more. Even my girlfriend says that my mood was bad after a losing day, despite it was just a dollar. Another emotional factor at play here. Makes me wonder, to become mechanical in trading and poker one day, is it really possible? Or is it in-born with people or it could be done? Maybe the key to it is the thoughts that is happening in our head at the time of trading/poker. Maybe thoughts like "I SUCK BIG TIME SHIT POKER EVERYTIME HAPPEN TO ME", "ARGH F*** TATS WHAT THE STUPID PIPS LIKE TO DO WHENEVER I TRADE ALWAYS GO DOWN".

Maybe.. maybe..

Anyway, Japan-tsunami disaster was very terrible. First was quake, tsunami, and then the nuclear reactor. I did a little donations myself and everyone willing to contribute do a little of their part.

Hail to the Fukushima 50.

Peace to the world.

Add on to Black's Blog Renamed...

Was kinda shock to see the latest topic posted by Black, i thought the recent downtrends in his adventures warrant such a big change. Well, good thing it didnt. Anyway, after reading this post of his... thoughts flooded my mind.

Black is into trading n pokering while im not, i suppose the amount of temptations n discipline needed to sustain and do well in both is quite alot, hence not easy. For me, im more the pussified kinda person/trader... i prefer to excel in one before jumping into the other. Quite often im tempted to put money into a live poker account. Now, i only do pokering on my iphone with fake money. Its ok to show hand since its not real money, and if i needed more, i would just upload a hot chick's picture n ask for $$ from some unsuspecting dudes... hur hur hur... Bottomline, no stress.

Stress, havent been able to totally eliminate it from my tradings. Sleepless nights when trade is going on, having nightmares of lost trades... Drawdowns... It is just so natural.

Even after like 2+++years of trading, i still feel that the market is out to hurt me!! Well many of u will agree with me! I know i sound stupid to say this but, the market for more than i can remember, go against me the moment i enter trade.. And these happens not once or twice but thrice in a row! How many times have i got my Stop Loss hit and immediately went back up to my Take Profit. How many times have i woke up in the morning to see a long candlestick with a long shadow that pierce my SL and its body ending up on my TP?? Seriously...

Not to mention the numerous times when the price is just a pip or 2 away from my TP, and the old granny panty story u heard so many times before retold... "aiya~~~ Miss TP 1pip price shoot down back hit SL ah..." No amount of Aiya is going to save us from this... curse or wateva u call it... Its a trader's nightmare..

Yes, maybe there is something wrong with my TP and Sl settings, but i've did countermeasures. Still all these happen, its like somebody delibrately set me up... HA!

Ok enough ranting n whining, its good to let it out... I've always been more "take it easy" kinda person. But consecutive lost makes me wanna punch a hole in my wardrobe. Lol, but like Black mention... Giving up is never a option, lose a trade, wake up and try another day. But not uninstalling all those trading apps and platforms.. Its good that we've got each other give encouragement to... shoulder to cry on... (Hair standing....) wahaahahahahahaha!

Best of luck Fellow Traders,
Bottle

Blog Renamed - 101 Things Not To Do In Investments

Didnt had much time to update past week, wanted to do a weekly weekend update but I find myself squeezing at the only free time I had into holdem.

I had traded since mid 2009 and I had all the ups and down. I started off badly, tilting a lot, then good streak with consistency, then suddenly blasted a hole in my account, then consistent again, then another blast, till I'm very tired. Getting the hang of it, but its trendin down.

My poker ran super badly for past 2 weeks. From the post before this, I had the even worst run. This is exactly like the start of my trading journey. The never ending struggle. I used to think about some traders who started off by saying "hey lets give trading a try, maybe about 3 years, if I can't do it I'll take it as getting a lesson in the college or something and move on". My thought about this thought is "hell, why would they even think about quiting? shouldnt they try their best instead of thinking about giving up?"

I used to think I was strong becuz no matter what catastrophe me and Bottle went thru' (and is going thru' for me), I never had "give-up" in my dictionary. But recent bad runs was driving me to the edge. I read De' Trader's blog today and I felt how he felt, of course he's a bigger scale as he is trading full time, but I can understand he going thru a tough time right now. Some times we all need a break, pick ourselves up, re-collect our thoughts and then pick up the sword and fight again.

I probably need a break, my stars account is drying up. I had a few trades today and none of them works out. My Oanda is back to red and thats just me.

My bad runs were grinding multi-table full ring cash games. My fall I supposed was too loose, calling a lot of cards playing too much starter cards (juz like overtrading?). then I lost streak in tourneys (SNGs). and then I went to play heads-up and lost. I didn't know which one to proceed from here? should I practice my full-ring cash games? stick to touneys? or focus on HUs? or should I uninstall pokerstars/metatrader and hit the books and study? Maybe I should juz wrap a towel over my neck and juz plant the crops and feed some pigs or fish, so that I have better sleeps at night.

My head get heated up easily like how I lose in trading. I go tilt and bang bang bang. I almost punch a hole in my window beside me last Saturday afternoon for bad beats. I can't control myself I am not fit to do these. We are humans, we are bound by emotions, we can't control so we should unleash it. Unleash my anger. Im changing to wireless mouse so that I can throw it out the door. I take trading/holdem too personally as I lost every dollar for every dollar. It makes it even tougher looking at result in terms of dollar.

Gonna take it slowly for now.. and we'll see how it goes.

This is a short update, I'll do weekly updates and for friends there feel free to follow us on twitter @blacknbottle !

gl guys!

Black.