balance $1525
some ups and downs but balance is now $2000. have decided to reduce my expectations significantly to stop myself risking more than I am happy with.
Holding back and trading less has certainly improved results.
Lets see how May goes.
$2300. Have managed the risk much better lately. and held off on trading more than usual. Happy with the way its going, not the most exciting but steady progress.
$2400. Turbulent week! missed some good opportunities but so be it.
Time to get my journal going again.
added some funds to the trading and have about $10 000 in at the moment
no revolutionary gains in the last months, a few losses. Interesting lessons learned, mainly around the very strange behaviour around some news events.
I have decided to use $5000 in 1 account and $5000 in another, and treat one of them as an outright attempt at good trading practice - while the other will still use good practice but with a bit more emphasis on gains, and hence risk. Thats not to say the “safe” account will not make gains, or that i will be OK with the tiniest of gains, just to ensure I never take a loss. But lest see how it develops - comparing the results of the 2 accounts.
Im changing trading habits, or trying.
Made some serious losses during the $US decline. whats worse is - i was in fact in with very good trades, and had i just left well enough alone - would have made about $6000, but i 2nd guessed myself and turned it around.
so sad.
Went back to some of my practice accounts, and just to vent my frustrations, did some serious increases. Doubled my 1 million practice account to 2 million in 1 day. Obviously that was at maximum risk and such trading would never be done by any sane person.
actual trading now very slow
Very annoying when that happens!
Just watched the old movie Wall street, and then the new movie Wall Street. Great watch.
Double slap to the face.
i was in with a beautiful trade shorting USD/JPY, had my stop loss into positive, and then my stop gets taken out (no loss to me) but i miss out on making $100
then deciding to take a signal from some renowned dude on EU/CAD, i took a smallish trade as i dont generally trust signals. well. Not only did his signal not pan out - it went so far in the opposite - i would have made another $100.
all in all lost opportunity of $200, shakes head.
So much for signals
Lesson to myself - stop losses do their job, and thats just the cost of risk management.
still - better to have had the stop loss… or not?
took 150 pips 2 days back, then only about 30 pips yesterday.
but still only small gains
The last 2 weeks or going much better. small gains but im trying to lessen/stop all my bad habits. Feeling much better about Risk control now.
Decided to be in with very minimal trades over the Feds Rate hike announcement, but also had a few trades in practice accounts. Happy with the result. Practice accounts made nice gains. Live accounts no trades active just as the announcement was made but were still active in the build up. Interesting to see the market sentiment in and around this. Anyway - main point is that I was wondering how big a move would have been possible and was thinking something like 2-4% rate change, in the end more like 1%
Balance now $10500. Not great gains in the time given, but fairly happy nonetheless. Still trying to get rid of bad habits. Its been going pretty well in general and I have been trading more pairs. Recent favourites are EU/CAD and USD/CHF.
One of the bad habits that im struggling to change is to let winners run. I’m often closing with regular smaller gains, which is not the worst but its not as good as it could be. Cutting Loosers short and letting winners run is quite a challenge!
Why do you think that is s bad habit? you’re probably just not a risky person.
Well its not the worst thing to do. Some folks say take profit as often as you can but of course letting winners run definitely makes more gains, maybe not always.
Last night was a good example. Because i was sleeping and had pretty good setups before bed, I had one of the best overnight gains, around 750 pips spread over about 4 currency pairs. All in all about $300 up for the night. Great many of my trades hit take profit. I would certainly have closed them earlier if i had been sitting watching.
Balance $10 861.
Was doing around $100/day till Fri which was very good.
I know i wont always let trades go to take profit, but i should at least try and let more trades not get closed by me at only small profits.
File an accurate Schedule D Form 8949, calculate capital gains, including wash sales on stocks and options. Save time and headaches filing your trader taxes
Balance now $12000
Well - finally got to login again. Password forgotten and the reset password not working. Finally got in again. Since last - have had ups and downs, but balance eventually 15500 at the end of it all, and then added another 4000, and after todays big change with the BoJ news, I made a bit more. Balance now $20300. News Years resolution. NOT to trade with my usual bad habits. I have also dropped my expectations. At this stage if I obtain 10% per month I will be happy.
I was not expecting that huge drop in the dollar, and im betting a lot of others werent either. Must have caused a lot of losses … sure did for me, and just as I was having my epiphany of trading. Finally all the basic good habits of trading were making sense, and then 3 days after I was resolutely going to follow good habits - im back in bad habits in a big way - trading without stops - and boy did I pay for that, such a massive drop in the dollar!!! So now I have to regain my losses, but finally thank goodness I know why all the recommendations were made. is it easy to follow them … No. Is it easy to trade the way 95% of traders trade … yes. So lets try and follow the risk management plan as well as the good trading habits.
I am quite sure that one of the aspects least applied and least understood is the degree to which unrealised and realised gains or losses are related, or rather is hould say that most everyone totally understands that an unrealised gain equates to a real gain immediately, but somehow that unrealised losses are something fictional which might go away if you leave them alone… I think the most sneaky killer in trading is the unrealised loss - because 95% of traders leave them alone till they are really big and then become a massive loss. 3/4 of your account wiped.
so - finally after tha bad habits have hurt me so many times - can I finally change my ways.
1 Use risk management
2 dont close winning trades when they have only made a small gain
3. close loosing trades
Dear Blue Henry.
well done, bluehenry. I read few posts you have had written over the period of 2 years. It is amazing you keep things well written and sort the deep thoughts. Thank you for the posts, and they are reminders for many.
Keep going,
Artzon
SirBlueHenry here. I had to create another profile just to be able to log in again - for some reason my work computer just refuses to log me in - and the password reset process also just not working. Never mind, so now when im at home I will comment as myself, and when im at work i will comment as my other self. 
Anyway - thanks Artzon. I have some more thoughts