In terms of pips I'm up for Feb. The first week of Feb was my best week but I was only trading at 10 cents per pip. The rest of Feb wasn't as good as the first week and I was trading at 50 cents per pip the last 3 weeks.
Whatever. All I really care about at this point is that I'm becoming a better trader. +42 pips is a good sign even though its only a small sign.
Congrats to The Forexbird - He had a great month. Obviously allot of practice and hard work has gotten him to where he is at. He's been posting regularly since Oct 2007. His consistency, as well as others, motivate me to keep at it.
+2 pips = +$1.00
02.26.10
So much opportunity missed today because I refused to believe that price would keep going up.
So much opportunity missed today because I refused to believe that price would keep going up.
4 Negative Days
I'm currently still positive this month. I've had 4 negative days and unfortunately they've been large compared to my winning days.
I've looked at the 4 negative days (8th, 9th, 19th & 23rd) to see what I can learn from them.
Every day I make some type of error. Some days I over come the mistakes and some days I don't.
I think the main theme of my mistakes is forcing trades. Its safe to say that at least half my losses were avoidable had I not forced a trade.
Now I need to find a way to implement this into my thought process when identifying trades.
I've looked at the 4 negative days (8th, 9th, 19th & 23rd) to see what I can learn from them.
Every day I make some type of error. Some days I over come the mistakes and some days I don't.
I think the main theme of my mistakes is forcing trades. Its safe to say that at least half my losses were avoidable had I not forced a trade.
Now I need to find a way to implement this into my thought process when identifying trades.
+19 pips = +$9.70
02.23.10
I was able to get a good read on price movement today so I traded full size at 50 cents per pip as I continued to scale out of trades.
I was able to get a good read on price movement today so I traded full size at 50 cents per pip as I continued to scale out of trades.
+0 pips = +5 cents
02.18.10
I didn't flow well with the market movement today and was still able to come out break even. I hope this is a small sign that I'm becoming a better trader.
I didn't flow well with the market movement today and was still able to come out break even. I hope this is a small sign that I'm becoming a better trader.
+10 pips = +$5.10
02.17.10
Today I could have done allot better but at this point I'm not going to get too frustrated with any day that ends positive.
Today I could have done allot better but at this point I'm not going to get too frustrated with any day that ends positive.
+4 pips = +$2.00
02.16.10
Didn't trade very well today. I should have netted some decent pips during that move up.
Didn't trade very well today. I should have netted some decent pips during that move up.
+14 pips = $7.20
02.12.10
I scaled out of every trade today. Technically the amount of pips I earned is greater than 14. But for now I'm going to continue to calculating the number of pips per day by taking total profit or loss then divide by what I'm considering full size. Currently full size is 50 cents per pip.
I scaled out of every trade today. Technically the amount of pips I earned is greater than 14. But for now I'm going to continue to calculating the number of pips per day by taking total profit or loss then divide by what I'm considering full size. Currently full size is 50 cents per pip.
+17 pips = +$8.25
02.11.10
Today I scaled out of most of my trades. I never consistently tried scaling out before but now I'm willing to give it a try.
Today I scaled out of most of my trades. I never consistently tried scaling out before but now I'm willing to give it a try.
+3 pips = +$1.71
02.10.10
Made a bunch of trades. Some trades I took off half at a time. Ended the day with +3 full size pips.
Made a bunch of trades. Some trades I took off half at a time. Ended the day with +3 full size pips.
-11 pips = -$5.55
02.09.10
18 Trades
9W - 9L
Crazy day. At one point I was down -55 pips then up +5 pips and then back down to end the day at -11 pips. I made allot of mistakes today. My results today should have been +60 pips.
18 Trades
9W - 9L
Crazy day. At one point I was down -55 pips then up +5 pips and then back down to end the day at -11 pips. I made allot of mistakes today. My results today should have been +60 pips.
-32 pips = -$16.86
02.08.10
4 Trades
2W - 2L
This commercial easily gets my vote as the funniest Super Bowl ad.
4 Trades
2W - 2L
This commercial easily gets my vote as the funniest Super Bowl ad.
+19 pips = +$1.92
02.04.10
3 Trades
3W - 0L
My first two trades were basically stopped out at BE. The first trade I was going for a home run and I ended up giving a +16 pip winner back to the market. The second trade I was looking to add to the home run but I quickly exited as price didn't explode to the downside as I was anticipating. The third trade was an almost immediate re-entry. The trailing stop of my first trade had just been hit to the tick & price still looked like it was heading downward so I re-entered. This time however I decided to book a solid trade as a win instead of giving the market an opportunity to come back up and hit my trailing stop. Additionally, up to this point, I was able to keep my mind centered and my emotions were balanced.
After I completed the 3 trades in this sequence I could feel a little bit of euphoria setting in. I was very pleased that after the trailing stop was hit I was able to keep a balanced mind and focus on additional opportunities the market would be presenting. But with euphoria setting in because I was happy I decently executed a trade sequence I recognized that I was at an ever increasing risk of making a poor decision. So I stopped for the day.
The only reason euphoria set in is because it's not often enough that I'm executing trades smoothly. As I progress my goal is to execute trade sequences very well more often than I don't. Trading well will become the normal thing for me to do and I won't have to be as concerned with good feelings adversely affecting my results.
If you want to know why I'm so focused on my emotional state of mind while I'm trading then look back a few posts and see the entry I titled Emotional Decision Making.
3 Trades
3W - 0L
My first two trades were basically stopped out at BE. The first trade I was going for a home run and I ended up giving a +16 pip winner back to the market. The second trade I was looking to add to the home run but I quickly exited as price didn't explode to the downside as I was anticipating. The third trade was an almost immediate re-entry. The trailing stop of my first trade had just been hit to the tick & price still looked like it was heading downward so I re-entered. This time however I decided to book a solid trade as a win instead of giving the market an opportunity to come back up and hit my trailing stop. Additionally, up to this point, I was able to keep my mind centered and my emotions were balanced.
After I completed the 3 trades in this sequence I could feel a little bit of euphoria setting in. I was very pleased that after the trailing stop was hit I was able to keep a balanced mind and focus on additional opportunities the market would be presenting. But with euphoria setting in because I was happy I decently executed a trade sequence I recognized that I was at an ever increasing risk of making a poor decision. So I stopped for the day.
The only reason euphoria set in is because it's not often enough that I'm executing trades smoothly. As I progress my goal is to execute trade sequences very well more often than I don't. Trading well will become the normal thing for me to do and I won't have to be as concerned with good feelings adversely affecting my results.
If you want to know why I'm so focused on my emotional state of mind while I'm trading then look back a few posts and see the entry I titled Emotional Decision Making.
+1 pip = +10 cents
02.03.10
4 Trades
3 W - 1 L
Basically all my trades were stopped out at BE. Didn't trade a nice down trend very well. Today easily should have been a +30 pip day.
4 Trades
3 W - 1 L
Basically all my trades were stopped out at BE. Didn't trade a nice down trend very well. Today easily should have been a +30 pip day.
Emotional Decision Making
Two great post's from other people's blogs from last month I found particularly helpful and lead me to a couple "aha" moments.
It really should be obvious that emotional decision making is flawed but for some reason its not obvious enough. Think about how many couples break-up in the heat of the moment and then get back together after things settle down. Or how many children, in a moment of not getting what they want, decide that they're never talking to their parents again. Only to happily eat dinner with them an hour or two thereafter.
I'm beginning to analyze my emotional state at an ever increasing level. If I'm feeling any emotion, good or bad, while trading I'm strongly re-considering my actions before putting the trade on. Quite literally I'm not seeing reality if I'm emotionally imbalanced. This often leads to giving profits back or digging a deeper hole when placing trades. During a trading session I'll often times only be emotional for perhaps 10 to 20 minutes of the session. As soon as my internal "emotional threshold" is breached I now know I LITERALLY CANNOT PLACE A TRADE BECAUSE I'M NOT SEEING REALITY. I must wait out the emotional storm, good or bad, and take the next opportunity that presents itself when I'm in the PROPER FRAME OF MIND.
Being a discretionary trader the proper frame of mind is more important than any pattern the market is presenting as an opportunity. Because the only way I can be certain that I'm seeing the actual pattern the market is presenting is if I'm in the proper, balanced, frame of mind.
Here are the two posts that helped me realize this;
The long term effects of making decisions when you're upset
&
Tilt The Odds
It really should be obvious that emotional decision making is flawed but for some reason its not obvious enough. Think about how many couples break-up in the heat of the moment and then get back together after things settle down. Or how many children, in a moment of not getting what they want, decide that they're never talking to their parents again. Only to happily eat dinner with them an hour or two thereafter.
I'm beginning to analyze my emotional state at an ever increasing level. If I'm feeling any emotion, good or bad, while trading I'm strongly re-considering my actions before putting the trade on. Quite literally I'm not seeing reality if I'm emotionally imbalanced. This often leads to giving profits back or digging a deeper hole when placing trades. During a trading session I'll often times only be emotional for perhaps 10 to 20 minutes of the session. As soon as my internal "emotional threshold" is breached I now know I LITERALLY CANNOT PLACE A TRADE BECAUSE I'M NOT SEEING REALITY. I must wait out the emotional storm, good or bad, and take the next opportunity that presents itself when I'm in the PROPER FRAME OF MIND.
Being a discretionary trader the proper frame of mind is more important than any pattern the market is presenting as an opportunity. Because the only way I can be certain that I'm seeing the actual pattern the market is presenting is if I'm in the proper, balanced, frame of mind.
Here are the two posts that helped me realize this;
The long term effects of making decisions when you're upset
&
Tilt The Odds
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