Just another post to remind myself

Not sure if its just me or it happen to everyone else...

Ok this is a story of the difference between what i want, what i expect and what will actually happen. Or rather, a little true story of greed and fear.

I believe most of us would have read stuff like having a system, or a set of rules to follow strictly to, be it online or books we grab off bookstore shelves... Yes, im just like the majority of self learning traders-wannabe out there.. i came out with a system that (i hope) suits to my style of trading.

Imma skip the part whereby we came up with that signal entry and exit thing. We all have our own different way of entry and exits. What im actually want to talk about... is the part where we set the stoploss and take profit level.

So generally, we all have a certain percentage of our account that we are willing to lose and also... not to mention, the best part.. the part where we plan how much we can rip from this trade. That is the profit part.
Ideally, profit should be bigger than the loss. We read stuff like 1:2 or at least a 1:1.5.. worst to worst... 1:1.. right? Well logically thinking, we wouldnt want to have our risk of loss higher than that of profit. Very safe i would say. Because that is what i am doing.

So there we are, entering a trade when the entry signal came, we try to set the parameters for SL and TP.

Subconsciously, i will have in mind where i want my TP to be... We all know that our system will give us an exit, like the last peak? Or at one of the major resistance level? But what if these level doesnt rip u the amount of pips you want? It could be like 10pips away to your ideal ratio of 1:2... Greed perhaps.. i will sometimes set my TP at the level where I WANT.. L O L... As im typing now, i know it is stupid... but in the midst of making that decision during trading... Emotions come in.

So well sometime my greed pays off.. but usually, there isnt any good ending.. HA HA

Not only did greed affects my decision. sometimes fear also makes me set my TP at safe level. So the ending is of cause, wasteful. I will waste a chunk of the profit due to my bad decision to be safe and not go for more. Amateur mistakes.

As for SL, discipline and past bad experience tells me that i should just set it at a point where its the amount of loss that im willing to risk. Simple as that.

Fortunately, that was the past me.. It seldom happen now. Occasionally i still have the itch to.. you know, get back to old self.

If you did what i did, and still doing what i did... You are not alone............ I know that feel bro. Keep resisting the temptation yea?

"This is John Connor. If you are listening to this,you are the RESISTANCE."


Regards,
Bottle

Bottle's crystal ball speaks

Did something pretty stupid earlier.. I set an order to BUY EURUSD pair, but instead... It became a SELL due to my carelessness.. Clicked wrongly i guessed, and without double checking... of course.

Order filled, price plummet about 50pips down... i thought to myself OMG.. what a bad entry... Couple of hours later the price went back up to my entry level. I check my trade again.. DAMMIT WHY IS IT A SELL??? Which means.. i was in +50pips earlier... Mother of goddddd.... If i had checked earlier, i would have close it and earn those accidental profits. MUhahAHAHAHhaha


Close my SELL trade and lose several pips. Did a BUY trade at a lousier price. Keep cursing at my carelessness while executing all these.

Went to sleep. And i dreamt that my BUY trade is still ongoing with +85 pips.. Exactly near where my TP is.

HMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmMMMmmMM

I entered 1.3050. TP at about 80 - 90 pips up. Will my dream come true??? Current price at 1.3070.

Stay tuned...

Bottle

My Friend the Trend

Did a guerilla counter-trending as you can see on the above image. My step by step thoughts on how i did the trade.

1. Identified the trend to be a down one.
2. Notice a shift in momemtum, a retracement is coming.
3. Get in trade and TP level at purple circle with stop loss 40pips away.

As time passes by, my desired result is not achieved yet.. Major market is opening and realize the ball isnt in my court anymore. It is taking too long. Felt uneasy as im going against my friend the trend. I entered the trade while major markets are closed. Market was quiet. But now the market has awaken and so is my friend... I backstabbed my friend the trend while he is asleep!

I felt guilty and exit my position with a +5pips.

After which, i went on to sell the pair right after my signal appears. Retracement over, time to go back into the supposingly downtrend that i think it is.

Entry on that red arrow... exit circled in green. Around that area which i cant rmb exactly where. Just rmb i got a tidy +60pips.

I hug my friend again~~~~

All my plannings and thinkings and assumptions of the market may not be right. It maybe laughed upon by the experts. But at least i do what i know and plan what i know. Im trading with a plan.

It rrrrreaaaaaalllyyy feels good to plan a trade, carry it out... best of all, end up with a profit.

Bottle
Trade to trade well.

Judgment Call

Gbp/Usd: Short trade.... long yellow lines are my imaginary support and resistance lines. Consolidating for a while and pooof.....

I closed the trade 10 pips short of my take-profit.. and one of those times my gamble is correct. The further it went was 5 pips short of my take-profit.

Orders for Aud/Usd at 1.0200 did not hit.

Very tired from work..

Black.

Lucky but Backside Itchy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cockteaser Part 2

Usd/Jpy current position.. another cockteaser which frustrates me a bit.. 5 pips away from take-profit and by the time I checked back it went far away. Manually trailing stop at the moment. 

Stop-lossed Eur/usd last week at -61 pips. Bad bad.

Might close out positions before NFP.

Black.

Cockteaser

5 pips shy from my take-profit and off it went, there goes my 100 pip profit. It happened when I was still busy in the office and did not realise, until the FOMC statement this week reversed the fate. Closing this position out at -30 pips.

Current position: short Eur/usd.

Gbp/Usd

Been watching the drop for a while but didn't have the confident to enter trade. Came back home "early" after knocking on Tuesday for U.S market. "Felt" the fall of this pair might reach it's "max", there long this pair and closed my position during Asian market today when it hit the 20 SMA. Took this trade & closed it out solely on daily timeframe. Bagged a +220 pips, so happy for a come-back trade!!

As you can see this pair is continuing to go up, which gives me an "urGhh.. what if I held!?!" feeling. But feels good to be back in action especially winning. Memories of previous trades were all losing lol.

Been away for quite some time as like I said previously, I'm still working in this brokerage firm. Working almost like 11-12 hours per day. I'm tired to the max after knocking off. Went home bath and slept. Basically there goes my trading days.

What to do, need to earn to make a living. Cost are rising, monies are depleting - part of the reason why some of us are here too. Time to turn in, have a good weekend people!!

Black.

They call Slim Shady...

..I'm back, I'm back.

Hell of a ride this gold trade. Been holding losses until election day saved my day. For a disastrous trade like this to turn into (even) a small win is fortunate enough. A double top formed, and the momentum looks towards USD, prompting me to close it. Further short this pair hoping the momentum continues. Also short Eur/Usd, which I'm hoping it continues its way to the next support (my target).

My new job has been super busy. Basically working 11 hours a day. Travel 2 hours a day. Well, basically home and I knocked out, in fact I'm feeling tired now that I think I make this a short post. Hope to squeeze out some time to continue updating this blog.

Good luck. And congrats to Obama!

Black.

Some Hope

Held this trade more than 2 days, bagging 145 pips to end the week. Went to 2 job interviews this week.

There is hope after all.

Black.

The Art of Trading

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

..another painful [sniper] stoploss. Tell me stop-hunting does not exist. It feels exactly like when in poker you flop the nuts and gettin' rivered.

Speechless.

Shut Up & Take My Money!

Its very tiring posting such things over and over again 8 out of 10 posts.

Either the price touches my stop loss exactly and retraced, or it comes 3 pips before my take profit and retrace.

Hey market, why don't you just..

Stop-Losses Prevail

Sniper Stop-loss

Last week's trade.. sniper stop-loss.

Very quiet market since London session, basically the whole day. It's Labour day in US, so it might continue to be like that. 

Currently on long Eur/Usd. 

Black.

Chicken Pox, Poker & Trading

It's been a month! So fast. Just a quick update on what's up with us. I am still jobless, spending hours every day job searching but outta luck (sad). I been on poker bug once again for the past month. I withdrawn most of my bankroll out of stars and left a bit for leisure grinding. But I still got stuck, busto and decided for the firstime in my poker career to go on a infinite hiatus. 

I been neglecting this site, trading and Bottle for some time.. leaving the lone spartan fighting against the armies of Xerxes himself. We still catch up every week, Bottle and I, he is still actively trading, but I caught chicken pox a week back and had been stuck at home miserably. Yeah, what an age to get infected. I'm sure most of you don't even remember the time when you had it. I've seen the western doctor and they gave me anti-viral pills and didn't mention about not eating anything. 

My mum, on the other hand, is a classic eastern style believer. During my days of infection, she said I was not allowed to eat chicken, beans, nuts, egg (yolks), and seafood!

Not sure how closely I obeyed, but I just tried. Can't wait to go to seafood buffet soon.

Anyway regarding poker, I think spreading my focus between trading and poker is not working out. Poker, recently to me has been tedious experience. Making it short and simply, the joy of winning could no longer compensate the pain of losing. When that happens, that's when I think it's time to move on from certain venture.

I have neglected many books and I am going to catch up with them too. We have recently stopped Diablo 3 for a while, but will be bringing ourselves back together soon. I have decided to take these time clearing my books. Some have already grown mold before I even started reading. Recently found an app TED.com, they have it on android and iOS devices, on many insightful talks from experts of many fields. Very interesting.

Finally break my losing streak (8 straight losses) with a very small win. Nevertheless, still a win. Booking a small win during losing streak is a necessity to slowly build back your confidence and focus. I have to admit the previous trades were reckless. There are many habits of me that does not fit a trader, I'm sure I'm not alone, and that is what we are trying to change.

And that habit, comes from your mind. Whatever you punch into your keyboard, the words, the lot size, your take-profit and stop-loss, whatever you think the market is doing, comes from your mind. You think you should execute the trade now, you think you should book the win, cut the loss, the let loss run (familiar) because closing it means surrendering and admitting your defeat.

From my experiences of trading, gambling or poker (there are similarities and difference between them in certain aspect though), trying to win every single hand/trades (battle) ironically, causes the (overall) defeat in our war. I am a very good example. 

Previously, I can't go to bed with a loss (sometimes even now). I don't stop trading until I have a win. And 8 out of 10 times I drag even more losses trying to do it. And ironically, the 2 out of 10 times you succeed in trying so, spells the doom to your next trades. Because you think that since you succeed in trying to force a win, you can do it again. And every 10 times you do it, you will fail most of the time trying to do it, but your mind keeps flashing back to that only few times you succeeded. So you keep doing it, still. Just like a lottery.

As I always have the [loser] habit of abandoning my trade journal during losing streak, I now plan to write more regularly and simply add into the comment section of myfxbook.com for every single trades. I still love the detailed and service myfxbook provides and its free. I'm not endorsing it, but I think it provides more extensive information than any brokers' statement themselves. Usually for such service in the poker industry costs you money. 

It's Friday now, last trading day of the week. Good luck if you're trading, if not, happy weekend!

Black

Crazy Week

Ok where do i start... Crazy week as a title sounds more like having alot of fun during that week... Doing crazy stuff you never imagined before and totally enjoy it. But no, not for me...

Almost every trade this week goes AWAY from me, followed my setups but keep hitting stop losses... And those setups that i missed(cos of work or other commitments), travel nicely to TP(had i spot the setup and went in trade). This is crazy, all the stop losses are hit within the next 2 candles while i used to wait for TPs to be hit overnight. Looks like all long thick juicy candles that came up this week are all intended to stop me out.

This is madness, i experienced this shit before, yes.. But this week's is much worst. EVERY SINGLE TRADE. Feel so lost, where did i go wrong... Luck? Timing? I know that no setup guarantees a 100% hit. But what are the chances that i got in all the losing ones and missed out all the winning ones?? hmmmmmm i suspect someone put a curse on me.. But a curse that can move the market against me?? hhmMMmmmm.... Doubt so...

Hopes shattered... Confidence rock bottom, went underground and reach the core of the earth. ArghhhhhhHHHhhH MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssss....

F*** it.. im gg to sleep.. not gg to look at the f***ing chart. fcukkucufhdfufkcckufckkcufkcfcufck

Faith put to the test



Bottle

Devastation

Aud/usd

 Eur/usd.

Gbp/usd

Black.

Trade No.2

A little recoup from last night trade when price break cloud, cloud support held and strong buying momentum in Eur/usd and I went long. Only made-up yesterday's loss.

Looking to put buy-stops for Aud/Usd once resistance is broken.  

Black.

Ill-Disciplined

Thoughts to myself in italics, logic in bold..

hmm.. momentum is good.. going down. should go back to support at cloud 1.5490 area...

what about your indicators?

what about the indicator?

dafuq I just read? price is still above blue (kijun-sen) line!

ooo.. i think it will move back towards the cloud..

*SOLD*

...ugh!

doing good.... you see-

-we'll see.

hmm.. should I protect my wins? set trailing stop?

*CALL BOTTLE* 

Black: Do u set trailing stops to protect ur position?

Bottle: Yep, my usual practice.

Black: How much usually?

Bottle: From my typical trade and take profit, 30 pips usually.

Black: Ok. sounds great.

+28 pips now.. should I set it now? probably a little more...

price has approached kijun-sen zone and beginning to bounce back up!

*CALL BOTTLE*

Black: (rant) see it always happen to me.

Bottle: I feel for u, that SUX!

holy fuck.. closing up to break-even maybe I should manually close it..

..

..

..maybe not.

price hovering, bounce from kijun-sen line second time and spike up towards...

*STOP-LOSS*

..countless rookie flaws for someone who traded close to 3 years. Let's keep focus on the process and system in the next trade. I'm still too determined to give up, although my account hasn't shown much improvement. 

Discipline Discipline Discipline.

Black.