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You should avoid thinking too much; try to don't have any bias, because you don't know what's going to happen next. Nobody knows where eur/usd will be in 3 months, nobody, economy Nobel prices included, so it should not affect your trading.
Very easy to say, I know .
BTW, I don't agree about your EURUSD bias, for me sooner or later we'll have 1€=2$; but for sclaping and short term position, we really don't have to care about what will happen in the next 5 years...
Congrats for publishing your charts, it's harder to post losing days than posting good days.
Been reading the posts in the Psychology threads. Most of them recommend that you don't think to much while trading. I was just thinking the same thing earlier today. More of an intuition type of thing born of many many hours of screen time.
I've been bearish on a macro level for a long time on many different instruments/issues. And nothing currently going on in the world has happened to change that bias. But I realized this morning my macro level bearish bias has NOTHING to do with intra day trading. Its only important if my holding period is long term.
For short term trading, the only thing important is the current price and whether or not other traders like it or not. Period end of sentence.
PS...I think my brain has been sabotaging me on this. I have a need to be right about the Euro. At least I did...no more. I could care less if Europe gets it act together or not. Just give me something to trade!
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Here is a snap shot of my daily trade stats summary.
This started on May 31st. My goal was to trade the $1000 sim account until the end of June to prove it could be done on a small account. I was doing decent until this last week.
Made some rookie mistakes....all mental.
MANY MANY of the early stop outs were very small after I got scared in the trade and bailed out with 1-3 tick loss.
Then there were plenty of larger ones this week as I just kinda lost it mentally.
Next week will be better and I hope to bring this back up to par.
Before any one goes ballistic over my per trade commission rate, that rate is inclusive of all exchange fees as well and not just my broker fees.
And I just found a math error on the total commission paid. Its set to calculate on a two car strategy and I am using 1 at the moment so cut that figure in half.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
That's the point though, right? You won't be so quick to make these mistakes again, because you'll be sharing the results and be accountable for your actions. This will kick-in and help you focus during each trade, so long as you know at the time of the trade that you will be publishing the results for all to see later.
Last week was rough. Three losing days in a row. Ouch. But I traded against my rules and the trend. Bad news all around.
This week I determined to leave my bias at the office door and only trade with my rules. In other words, with the ADXVMA. Its right most of the time.
Trouble was, I forgot about another of my rules, Pay attention to Fib numbers, today, my fib numbers overuled the ADXVMA....I tried to be long after it turned colors, it ran right in to the 76% fib and reversed and went down all day after that.
You can see it on the chart.
Then it was back to catching a falling knife. That always hurts.
Finally took a log at S2 pivot with 100% fib extention and caught it almost on the money. It was a 20 tick trade that I only got three ticks on, for some reason, the trailing stop caught it and stopped me out....I am beginning to dislike trailing stops!
But I ended the day BE except for commissions. In my mind, that stopped the three day losing cycle.
Tomorrow, more focus, better entry discipline, I was late a few times today and I missed about 4 entries as my limit orders were a few ticks away from the final re-tracement price. That happens as well.
I am not un-happy with today's results. I showed I could reverse my bias mid stream and go with the flow.
Tomorrow is a winning day. 3 days down, 1 day consolidation and the rest of the week up!
It is my goal to end the month using the same sim account I started it with. Hopefully I can make some money as well but over all, I want to prove I can trade 30 days without changing my charts and at minimum, break even taking plenty of trades.
4 more days to go.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I had a power outage at my home this morning. I had seven trades done by then, but the power outage fubard pretty much every thing and I had to recreate my trades from memory as I lost all record of them in the crash.
Best I can remember, I was down 2 ticks after seven trades.
Its late, and I am out of time for today. I have a ton to do tonight so the journal will resume tomorrow....pending no further power outages that is....
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Get a UPS, you can find some good CyberPower ones on NewEgg for like $100 shipped that should power your system for 5 minutes or more, enough time to shut down properly.
Last week I completed a month long experiment to see if I could trade a $1000 sim account all month and end the month with at least that much in the account. If successful, I was to go live today. If not, back to the sim until I can prove myself consistent enough to trade this tiny amount of money. If I can do this, I know I can trade my actual account.
I failed. But I almost made it. The same old demons most of us face sabotaged me. BUT I learned so much. In order of importance, here is what I learned.
1. Once in a trade, sit on my hands. Leave the initial stop alone. I would have made so much money if it were not for this one problem. My average winner was almost $20 more than my losers and I created so many losers by moving my stop to soon. The vast majority of these turned into winners had I just left my original stop alone.
2. Don't over trade. For me this means 4-7 trades a day.
3. My method works, trust it and play the edge. Don't second guess.
4. Stop trading at the daily stop loss. This alone would have kept me in the game long enough to successfully complete the challenge.
5. Stop trading if you make your profit on the first couple of trades.
So I refunded my "live" sim account over the weekend and declared that today is my personal independence day. It is the end of financial tyranny and the beginning of financial liberty!
More to come...............
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris