[kaalilaatikko]

Ok, maybe exact details will clear it out. The worst cards I had in hand were FWLT and EIX. If you have a look at them, VS SAR 3.1 has been broken. I'm looking these to rebound, but now I'm not in any more. All other positions are still open and mostly far from SAR. XTO has started climbing already. WMB has crossed beyond SAR, but closed again above it. NUE has one green candle and is above the SAR 2 line. Then I have a couple of more that are pretty much ranging now. And one more, as one of my first CFD trades, I jumped on a trend with PFE and it also has closed contrary VS SAR 3.1 = out of game. Luckily that loss was much smaller than the others. Maybe the entry on that was a bit out of the rules.

Just to be clear: you DO wait for the close but you DO NOT simply close or 'Enron' a position AT MARKET i.e. you place a stop order either to close the position totally and realise the loss or 'Enron' IF EXECUTED.

This is a good point I did not think about. I closed at market, but now looking at the charts, a stop below the low at spread*2.5 would not have helped in these cases. But I need to keep this in mind in the future.

At this point to be honest I'm not quite sure what to say or how to help. I cannot fathom how we are all following the same systems and yet some are doing better than others??? If ANYBODY has an explanation for this then please DO let me know!!!

Yes, we should be following the same systems, but there are a bunch of parameters affecting the choice of instruments, and here I think that I have managed to select a much worse hand compared to yours. Then exiting is an art in itself and can lead to opposite results with alike entries. In addition, there is one thing that can make small trouble to me. I'm normally still at work when the American stock markets open, so I cannot place stop or limit orders right then. So far I haven't noticed any notable problems about this, though.

But I'd like to say that don't be too worried about how to help. I think that it is only experience, experience and once more experience (if there are any Finns reading this, they'll get the lousy pun in saying this) that can make you confident about what you are doing. And that's what I'm getting right now, and I'm alone in that, it cannot be helped. I'm very interested in seeing the next week and there will be some difficult decisions to make if my positions go green: should I TP soon, as it is forecasted that the we haven't seen the bottoms yet, or should I hold, as it has been forecasted that we already have seen the bottoms. There is one thing that I haven't got experience yet: a beautiful VS trade where I would be able to exit on profit by VSSTOPS, but I hope to get the patience to wait such trades - and profits.

And one more thing about this: I really do believe what you are saying about the systems, I hope you are not doubting that. I've already seen the light with them. But there are times that are harder and test your faith. I'm being tested, but still in, and definitely not giving up. I've just puffed my account a bit so that these temporary downs would not prevent me from being properly in when we start getting those stellar VSC1 signals. So please be patient if there are some comments by me that may sound blue, that's only temporary. I'm still training this and thinking that if there are several bad months in a row, only then I should think about quitting.

I was just reading some more posts (back) and J.'s post again. One thing you ALSO have to remember is this: ALL the stuff that YOU are reading about and that YOU have just found out the banks and the institutions knew about LONG ago.

But there still are some wild movements there when there are news releases. I'd like to think that there still are some things that come as surprises. But true, if a whole is going to recession, that won't happen overnight and as a surprise.

2) (And this is MORE interesting to me anyway): at least two people mentioned that they were 'long only shops'. SO: it would sure seem to me that my 'long only fetish' is INDEED a 'method' (especially for stocks). As I've said: VERY seldom have I gone short on anything and the times that I HAVE gone short I've sat with BS losses and waited forever and a day for BE or a little profit. Time will tell I suppose but I STILL feel FAR more comfortable taking ONLY long trades. Again: THIS is 'just me'.

I've been thinking about this a bit as well. Maybe it is something like focusing on certain pairs only, maybe it helps in keeping more focused and concentrated.

I've got also another thought about CFDs related to what has taken place this week. Maybe it would be good to have an equal number of long and short positions open at the same time. In times like these they might be helpful in hedging each other. The only thing here is that you should then be also looking at shares that are doing badly.