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OK, turns out the whole reason for coming to blogger has been shot to hell. I thought the credit card on file for my GoDaddy account had expired so my domain would not auto-renew. But actually my Paypal account was used for payment, so I bought myself 2 more years of hosting! Since I'm paying for hosting, I may as well use it!
 (Plus I get to use WordPress which is probably better...)

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New Record

Today I achieved something that I've never accomplished before: I did not have one stop loss get hit. Sure, I had losing trades, but I closed them all before they hit my hard stop. This really helped my performance today. There will be some times when you get shaken out of a trade too early and continues in your favor without your hard stop getting hit--but I'd prefer my winners come from trades that -immediately- go in my direction without looking back. I was correct on 5 out of 8 early closes (meaning 3 wouldn't have hit my stop, but only 1 of those 3 would have hit my take-profit, and on that one, I re-entered for the win anyway).


Closing trades that show just a couple pips of loss has always been hard for me--I mean how easy is it to just let it go 2 more pips in your favor and -then- close it out? The problem is that most likely it won't, and you'll be taking a bigger loss. So the fact that I'm showing definite progress in this area is nice.


Today's Results: +4R (+20.5 pips)

Weekly Results:  +9R (+46 pips) with 38% wins (includes scratches) and win/loss size of 2.3:1.

Quality Action

Today the euro gave some good action. I dug myself in a 20-pip hole early on with some undisciplined trades. I have a bad problem with starting the day out with a loss or a few losses. In this case, I had a proper setup but entered late, which led to another failed attempt, and another. Finally I saw what price was actually doing and got on for the ride (in the other direction). I added to a winning position when I knew I was right--always a good thing to do. After another sloppy entry I got on board for the stop-blowing pop I knew was imminent and got a good move. Price then went on a wild reversal move and I caught a bear flag (which is one of my valid continuation setups) but didn't get greedy, keeping my take-profit where it should be--otherwise I would have been stopped out at breakeven (after the initial move, which is common with flags). I can't say it was solid trading today, but I got the moves according to my premise, so it was profitable overall.

Today's Results: +4.5R (+23 pips)

Solid Patience!

Today I showed much better patience and it paid off. The euro did make some really big moves that I wasn't a part of, but even during a 100-pip move I had trouble finding a low-risk entry. My first trade I jumped the gun a little bit so I got stopped out on the throwback. Realizing that I forgot to wait for the throwback, I reentered (therefore at a better price) and booked a win. I closed the trade when price did not follow through, and although it was only 1:1, I didn't let my emotions of the recent loss prevent me from taking any profit at all (i.e. getting greedy to make up for the loss plus some) and it was good execution because price reversed at that point and would have stopped me out.

I hesitated on a couple quick moves that I could have taken in hindsight, but I was content to just watch price move in a "what if I had entered there" scenario. Besides, I was working on my patience in only looking for the best setups. I waited over an hour for my next trade, all the while studying for the GMAT, which really helped me resist taking bad setups. If you do something to preoccupy your mind, then waiting for great setups is a lot easier. I was rewarded with 2 more well-executed wins. I would have continued trading but Oanda's servers seem like they're having some trouble today so I'm not going to bother with it. At least Oanda is good at giving you the price you want when you click, even if the trade showing up on the platform lags by 15 seconds.

Today's results: +3R (+16 pips)

Bored Day = Losses

I struggled to find low-risk entries today. I did have two, but then I forced a lot of others. I need to avoid entering trades during the chop. My wins are always bigger than my losses but I'm suffering from "death by a thousand cuts." I try to predict where price will go next instead of waiting for price to actually go somewhere. The result is that when price is at equilibrium, I take every slight extension that reverts back into the chop zone. I become a victim of the "heartbeat pattern" as I like to call it. Price stagnates, then jolts one way out of the zone, then jolts the opposite way out of the zone, and then decides where to go after that. It's a typical move by wholesalers clearing out stops on either side before a true direction is decided. Unfortunately, when I watch charts for hours on end without getting my setup, I fall victim to these traps. There were 3 good opportunities presented today, and I took 2 of them (the third was more risky and did not yield a very good move). Unfortunately, I decided to get whipped about 9 other times, including a trade I took while writing this. It seems valid, but of course volume has decreased (noon EST) so we'll just call it another loss!

Today's results: -4R

Slight Rant

Today I fired up the ol smoker and smoked a chicken and a sausage loaf as a dry (or moist) run for Thanksgiving...I must say, whoever has me over for their turkey-day meal is lucky. That giblet gravy sure topped off the meat n potatoes...

But on to the rant against Fox News. I don't understand how they are legally allowed to call themselves "news". There is no other media outlet that is so biased and false -- and I don't understand how people are so delusional that they actually think it's anything but comedy. I don't want this to be a political blog, but take the following for example: recently Fox News got all excited about how the president's visit to India will cost $200 million a day with the dozens of planes and thousands in his entourage. Except that then the real news outlets showed that the ENTIRE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN costs less than  $200 million a day. I get so riled up at how these people are allowed to make up fake facts and spew them to the ignorant. This is why people hate our country. This is why we're falling behind in the world. It's because we're not working to get better--we're promoting a circle-jerk of ignorance. Then a few minutes after I get riled up, I forget about it and move on to something else because the tidal wave of ignorance is way to powerful to try to stop. You guys knew I was looking forward to Armageddon, right?

Slippy Monday

It was a tough battle, but I managed to profit today. I missed 2 trades early on, but they were really only good in hindsight. I let boredom sucker me into a bad trade, and then took what was probably a revenge trade shortly after, so I started out with 2 losses. I was upset at myself for not closing them each for 1/2R when I knew they were losers. I just sat there hoping my stop wouldn't get hit, which of course it did. I scratched a third entry (this time determined to kill a trade before taking a full stop) but then entered again when it looked like I was right. The problem was that I got slipped by 3 pips! Just bad luck I guess. I took a good breakeven trade although it should have been a small winner. After the next plays yielded a small win and a scratch, I was once again slipped for 3 pips when trying to close out at breakeven. Bummer! I finally caught the next move with 2 parts worth a total of 4R.

I took a couple trades that were not good, and got some unlucky slippage, and I also failed to maximize profit on a winner that came after some of that frustration, which led me to seek greater profit instead of locking in the solid win that I had. Tomorrow I will make sure to analyze whether a trade is being taken and managed for emotional maintenance or for reasons associated with price action.

Today's result: +1R