Trading journal

[dushimes]

In a practice trade, I had a nice position at the beginning. Then, near resistance, there was a very nice opportunity to pyramid.

The risk with pyramiding is that price could pullback and you could lose your position, and getting back in will be a disaster. I suppose it depends on how aggressive of a trader you want to be. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to risk your current position right?

It also depends on the nature of the new position. If the new position is less profitable than the current one, why risk it? But if it’s equal or close to it, it’s worth the risk.

If I was aggressive, it would have been an even better position, and very very profitable. But, put simply, I got scared. And I did nothing.

When I pyramid, I prefer to do it near the beginning of the trend. Sometimes, the random walk becomes more random after first leg of the trend. Or is that an excuse? I’ve had trades that I pyramided later after the first leg of the trend, and price just pulls back, and I lose my position. I end up wondering, ¨why didn’t I just leave it alone?¨

If price is offering you a valid trade, do you take it no matter what?

[dushimes]

I marked a trade that had a clue+confirmation, but I was scared to take it. And now price is trending in my favor. If I had taken it, it would have been a nice entry.

I have to think about why I wouldn’t take a trade that has a clue+confirmation.

Is my brain so afraid from losses that I get scared of valid signals? That’s unfortunate. If I focus on trades that have have valid signals, I’ll do better because those trades have favourable conditions.

I just finished for today. It was pretty quick. My trades are running, and they have a ways to go. And my other pairs have no clear signals yet.

Of course, I see trades that I should have taken. I have to remember that it’s ok to take a chance on trades that look favourable. Just because I get some trades wrong, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t trust my judgement, or my strategy. There were some clear signals that I was just too scared to take.

[dushimes]

Dear journal

Nothing special today. I’m trying to be more patient and wait for very clear signals. I should trades signals that could be favourable; not candles that could be signals. Does that make sense?

Some candles could be signals, but the conditions aren’t right, so I trade them just in case they could be favourable. That’s a bad strategy. It’s a misinterpretation of my strategy. I have to keep in mind how much time passes between trades when studying charts. Sometimes, it’s weeks.

[dushimes]

I just practiced a trade, and I bought at support. Price got near resistance and there was a reversal signal. I was thinking that maybe the market is trying to trick me. My strategy says to only hold if there are NO signals. But there was a signal, and I defied my strategy.

Price started reversing after bouncing resistance, and I just gave up. Price reversed and I just let my profits dwindle. I didn’t bother trying to trade. I just gave up.

Sometimes, I think I’m doing something smart, and I’m not. I’m just making more mistakes.

You know what it was? I was scared that price was gonna keep going, and I’d miss out. A strategy is not meant to work every time. It’s meant to work often. That’s it. ¨Often¨ is pretty vague, but I think that’s accurate.

I’m trying to maximize it by interpreting signals, and I end up altering the strategy in a bad way.

[dushimes]

I’m doing some practice charts, and I’m trading emotionally. I’m feeling frustrated, and I’m just jumping at candles that I think mean something. I didn’t think about any S/R, I just thought, ¨hey there’s an engulfing candle, I should trade it¨, then I saw another candle and I reversed my position…

It was just a mess. I walked away for a moment and looked again. I considered where I should have drawn S/R, and I could have just skipped those trades all together and just waited.

That’s when I realized I’m too emotional at the moment.

[dushimes]

I recently got yet another reality check. I got emotional and exited a trade when price retested my entry. I gave up and thought price was going against me. Nope.

Price retested my entry, I closed it, then price went in my direction.

The emotions from live trading is completely different from practicing. I’m learning about how I react though. Medicine never tastes good.

I’m gonna keep practicing this weekend and studying my errors.

But I’m slowly doing better. I make a lot of mistakes. Too many mistakes. However, I’m slowly doing better with a few trades.

Patience + persistence!

[dushimes]

I mentioned this before, but I’m just thinking about how to rebuild my demo account. I decreased it with larger positions, before I eventually reduced my lot size.

So, if I want to rebuild my account in a reasonable time frame, I will have to increase my lot size gradually.

I don’t want to do a hail Mary trade, but I will have to increase my lot size once I slowly build my account back up.

Anyway, today I’m just practicing charts.

I actually did one smart think. I had a trend that was pulling back and I was about to jump in, but I thought I should wait because it was just the first clue. I waited and the next candle pushed resistance slightly, and gave another signal.

So, I got my first signal and I waited, then I got the second signal as confirmation. I took the second signal, then price started trending bearish. It was a tough decision, but it was the right one.

But here’s the rub. Sometimes price doesn’t push S/R, and I wish I had taken the first signal. The problem is that sometimes taking the first signal yields a more profitable entry. Other times, price pushes S/R by a lot and you wish you didn’t reverse your position.

It’s a case by case thing. Gotta read the environment. But there’s no way to avoid losses. No matter how hard you try.

[dushimes]

I had some real trouble with two USD pairs. There were both buy and sell signals, and I seriously didn’t know what to do. I was going back and forth.

I consulted my strategy, and I couldn’t figure out what I should do. In the end, I waited an hour and kept watching to see what direction it started going in.

I had a reversal signal, but then there was a contradictory signal. So, do I follow the reversal signal or the contradictory signal? I seriously got stuck.

I ended up following the contradictory signal. Basically, if price reverses, but then there’s a contradictory signal, then the contradictory signal invalidated the reversal signal.

It’s all in my strategy, but I was too flustered and filled with emotions to see it clearly right away.

The contradictory signal was a little weird, so I doubted it. And that doubt drove me nuts!!!

I feel embarrassed to even talk about this, because it’s such an easy problem, and yet I’m having so much trouble with it. I’ve been practicing with contradictory signal this weekend.

My doubt was really making it hard to follow my strategy. My strategy says:

contradictory signal? take the trade

These instructions could not possibly be any clearer!!! I shouldn’t have to go back and forth about it. I reversed my direction THREE times! What’s the matter with me???

But, in the end, I followed it. I’m respecting my strategy. But, I did cheat by waiting see what the candle does. And that’s a terrible idea because you can’t trust an open candle. I wanted to follow my strategy but I was scared.

I’m going to keep practicing. I guess this is progress, even though it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.

I want to get more confident in my strategy. Well, the strategy is fine. It’s just me. I need to learn to…

I need to… what? Learn to be brave? No…

I think I need to learn to follow the strategy and not question it. Follow the strategy, take the trade (or stay out, based on the trade), and move on.

No going back to look. Yeah, this is definitely progress. Made the decision based on my strategy, even though I cheated a bit. But in the past, I would be so flustered that I didn’t even look at my strategy, or I looked but did the opposite. This time I followed it.

My decision process has to be better though. I’m gonna keep practicing. I see what I should do, but when a candle first starts, it often pulls back slightly. This makes me think my strategy is mistaken and price is gonna continue in the opposite direction.

Have faith in the strategy, young padawan. Shed all doubt.

[dushimes]

My emotions were way too high yesterday. I have to practice and pay attention to my emotional state, and how to navigate through it.

When my emotions are up like that I have to rely on my practice/training. I have to let the force guide me.

When my emotions are blocking my thought process, my training should shape my instincts, and that’s what should come to my mind–as opposed to being flustered and confused.

[dushimes]

I just finished trading for the day. I caught some obvious signals, however, I did get some subtle signals wrong. I put a small note on the chart as a reminder.

I ran out of margin, but that didn’t stop me from trading. If I don’t have much margin left, I’ll just trade 0.01 lots. I’m ok with that. At the moment, it’s more important to take action and see if I was right or wrong. If I can’t profit, I at least want the knowledge of that trade.

One pair was going in my favor, but now it’s doing the random walk in the park and it’s consolidating. I moved my SL to BE, and I’m not doing anything else. I’m not trying to trade that at the moment. There was no obvious sign, so I’m staying away.

I’m gonna rest my coconut for a little while, then back to speed trading.

[dushimes]

I’m preparing more practice charts. There’s a part of me that feels good when making charts, because I think I’m being productive and working hard.

But the truth is that practicing trading is where the actual work is. If I can do well during practice, that’s a reason to feel good. I can’t allow myself to feel productive over the wrong activity. It’s a fake accomplishment.

[dushimes]

Just finished my trading for the day. I’m still preparing more charts for practice. I’ve been thinking about the bad trades that I’ve been taking lately.

I have to think about the unfavourable trades that I’m taking. Patience for the right signal will help. But sometimes, I see a favourable signal, and I get scared.

This is the thinking that I have to start overcoming. Often there’s a clue + confirmation. That’s when conditions are favourable, and I should take the trade.

[dushimes]

I’m looking for another chart to study, and I’m trying to find something really choppy.

Actually, I should probably go straight to the red dragon…

I’m going thru pairs, one base currency at a time. Right now, I’m kinda done with AUD, and I’m doing CAD next.

I’m looking at CAD/CHF, and everything looks so easy. I can see the signs with such ease.

Why is live trading so much different? I think perhaps because there’s no patience involved. I need to be more patient. I often worry about if I’m seeing a sign or not, and it causes me to have trouble recognizing genuine signs.

[dushimes]

I just realized why I had so much trouble with a recent trade. There were so many bearish signals, and I guess I was so worried about price turning bullish that I had trouble seeing the bearish signals.

They’re quite obvious. I was just confused about which way price was going.

Instead of just focusing on where price was going in the short-term, I was focusing on the long-term and where price was trying to go.

When, in the current moment, price is ranging, and there were clues all over the place.

ok…ok…I got it. I was so focused on long-term signals that I ignored the obvious (and only) signals which were short-term. I was confused between what I was seeing and what I WANTED to see. I could have made some nice profits with healthy risk-managed trades, and I missed them.

It’s ok. I’m gonna keep going. Studying and practicing until I learn to ride the lightning!!

[dushimes]

I just finished my trading. It went pretty quickly. My margin is pretty much used up. I wouldn’t really want to push it much more than I have already.

My trades are running, and there’s not much to do with them besides check for exit signs.

Of course, I see setups I wish I had taken earlier. Some, I didn’t take due to fear-precaution. Some, I wish I had taken but didn’t have the money.

There are some trades that I didn’t have the money for, but I wanted to see if I would be right. So, I traded just 0.01 lots. It’s not a bad idea.

But, it just makes me think about the quantity of pairs I’m watching. For now, I’m ok, though. No need to change much at the moment.

[ria_rose]

@dushimes

For now, I’m ok, though. No need to change much at the moment.

Definitely! Looks to me like you’ve been hard at work so it’s fine to sit back for now and see how your trades go. Hope this week turns out to be a good one for you!

[dushimes]

I did one particular thing according to my strategy yesterday. I had a USD pair going one way, and another USD going in the opposite direction. I was concerned I was seeing it wrong.

But I saw a clue and a confirmation, and I took the trade. So far, the trade is going in my favor. I could be wrong later, but for at least that setup I did what my strategy said to do.

Often I do the opposite, but not yesterday.

In the past I have reversed my position as many as three times in a row. Buy…nope. Sell, buy, sell. Still get stopped out.

I realized that I should take a trade, and wait to see what happens. If I’m wrong, ok, I’ll just be wrong once. But the uncertainty of reversing positions is really annoying and a waste of money. Each time, I’m just throwing money at my broker.

[dushimes]

@ria_rose

Looks to me like you’ve been hard at work so it’s fine to sit back for now and see how your trades go. Hope this week turns out to be a good one for you!

Thanks, I think it’s going ok for now. I still have to keep watch, though. Today, I reversed some positions, but based on signals though, not fear or confusion.

If I finish my trading early, I go back to practicing trading, or preparing practice charts.

[dushimes]

I finished my trading. Not much to do, but I just wanted to check on everything. I finished another practice chart.

Normally, my practice charts are around 80 screenshots or less. I extracted a chart that was way too long, and it ended up being over 160 screenshots altogether. I finished and it was mentally exhausting. My brain actually feels a bit fried. I think I’m gonna go to be early.

I don’t like to sleep, but unfortunately it’s necessary. I’m starting to get a headache. I took a break for 20 minutes, but it wasn’t enough.

[dushimes]

I’ve been using a vertical mouse for a while, and I really enjoy it. But now, I have a new problem. My index finger is starting to twitch.

So, now I have to find some way to correct that. I don’t know if I need an alternative mouse, or exercise my hand more…the problem will keep occurring I think…