Trading journal

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
827

I’m looking at charts over and over. I’m kinda getting tired of it because my results aren’t changing. The problem is ME.

At this point, I’m starting to think that the key to improving is not about finding new charts, but looking at the charts in a different way–approaching from a different angle. Reviewing charts and thinking about waiting more, or what to pay more attention to. This is where my improvement will be found. Each time I look at a chart, even if I’ve studied that swing already, if I delete all my drawings, will I draw my notes the same way?

What I look at now is slightly different than what I looked at six months ago. But not in a random way, in a deductive logic kind of way.

By the way, I’ve had my first green month. My account is slightly up from last month. During last month it dropped a lot, and I had a few good trades that brought it back up.

It’s nothing to celebrate yet, but it’s something positive.

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828

I did it yet again. I saw a signal and convinced myself not to follow it. This happened on another occasion at the same time. The first candle after the weekend often is a little crazy and I get scared to trust it.

I have to remind myself to trust the signals.

I’m actually getting tired of even writing about the same problem. I often get so worried about missing out on a trade that I get paranoid I’m being faked out. I’ve been faked out so many times. Not every set up is a fake out. Most of them are not fakeouts. If I took all the signals as they are, and lost on the fakeouts, I’d still be doing well.

829

I was about to study some charts, but I don’t see the point right now. It’s not about the charts right now.

I’ve backtested a lot, and I see the same things over and over. But if I don’t follow the signals like I’m supposed to, then there’s no point. It all comes down to my decision to follow what I see or convince myself to do the opposite.

That’s what I have to address. Perhaps my diagram could use some adjustment.

I saw several trades this morning and I was so worried about getting tricked by the market and losing, that I did the opposite and ended up losing. This is the next problem I have to tackle. The solution for that is not in the charts. It’s just me.

830

I’m looking at some retracements that I could have traded, but didn’t. I saw the signals, and if I had taken them, I would have profited.

It’s a bit of a challenge for me. Retracements are tricky, but I’ve backtested them. At some point, I’d like to try trading them more.

I should just take the risk and just try. In my backtests they are often profitable. But, I get scared to be honest. It feels like anything can happen. I guess I get so scared of losing that it affects my decision-making.

But calculated risk is a part of trading. It’s ok to be scared, but when it affects your decision-making, you’ll only sabotage yourself.

I’ll keep this in mind.

831

I actually have one trade that I caught a retracement trade. USD/CZK recently retraced, and I jumped in. My order got triggered, and it’s been rolling since. I’ll give myself some credit for that, but there are lots more opportunities out there with retracements. Once the retracement is ending, there are very profitable opportunities.

832

I’m taking a little time to reassess my trading steps. I closed my diagram files, and I’m starting from scratch.

I don’t know if I’m making things better or worse, but it’s worth trying to see what happens.

I currently have four different files, and there are lots of pictures and it gets a bit complicated. Perhaps it’s possible to reduce it all to meat and potatoes.

833

The funny thing is that backtesting is sooo easy because the answers are already in front of you.

But live, you have no idea-- just best guesses. And that uncertainty is scary. Even when the signals are legit, it’s still scary. You feel like it’s a trick. I feel like that often. I feel like ¨it’s too easy, that has to be a trick¨.

You know, I feel like not everything can be put into a strategy. I don’t know.

Trading channels, trading mini channels, swings, reversals, S/R bounces, fakeouts, etc.

There’s so much. And putting everything into a strategy is cool, but to check the manual for every trade is a bit excessive, perhaps. I think the idea is that the strategy is there to guide your mind. But eventually, the goal is to apply the strategy to your way of thinking. Meaning that your brain learns to think and see according to the strategy. I could be trading a channel, but then there’s a sudden reversal mid-channel. Do I follow the mini reversal strategy or the channel strategy. The channel strategy might say that I have to wait much longer for price to hit S/R.

And if the strategies’ instructions coincide, then why not just consolidate them?

I’m just trying to simplify things in my strategy, but the truth is that I don’t want to have to always refer to the strategy. I do it often, but I want to get to a point where I don’t need it so much and I just know what I should do.

The market is so tricky that there are times that you have no rules for what’s happening, but you’ve studied so many charts you have a gut feeling that you should take it.

There are many areas where ideas cross, and there are redundancies in the strategy, rendering it impractical to use.

I’m trying to find a way to reduce it all.

834

Well, that’s frustrating. A trade that I opened, then doubted and closed, then reopened later with a much wider stop…I’m seeing that I reduced my potential profits by 75%. That’s the cost of a bad entry.

835

I had some nice profits running, and I didn’t respond to the signs I saw. Several pairs have reversed and my profits got cut in half. My account was up 10%, and now it’s nothing. This is quite frustrating. I’m trying to be more patient and let my trades run, but there were signs that I thought were just retracements, but they were actually reversals.

I get scared of closing my trades too early, but now I seem to have held on too long.

I guess my problem is that I wasn’t following the charts. I had set zones where I thought price would continue, but that’s just me trying to tell price where to go, rather than price telling me where it’s going. Often that works, but I have notes saying that it might not and I should watch for reversal signs. But I thought it was too soon to reverse. I thought it was just a retracement, but it wasn’t a retracement sign. I chose to see it like that, though because I wanted price to keep going.

836

When I make mistakes like this, it makes me just wanna go back to bed…

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837

Hi @dushimes - Thanks for keeping such a thorough and frank journal going. New traders should read this from top to bottom - this is what’s going to happen, this is what its going to feel like, this is what you’re going to be driven to do about it, so be prepared.

You probably know already our trading styles are poles apart but so much you’ve posted resonates with my own experiences. Keep going, we will get there.

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838

For some people it’s not such a struggle. For others, it is. It’s like you said: trading is a test of character, not intelligence.

I’ve heard a story about one trader who could 10x his account, then he’d blow it all in just a couple trades. Then he just repeats that over and over. That seems to me like that guy has an inner demon that’s affecting him. I could be wrong.

Some of us have strong demons and don’t know how to overcome them. Even worse, we don’t even realize we have them. We just make bad decisions over and over, then we wonder why our life is the way it is.

Forex has helped me face a lot of my demons and confront shortcomings in my life. It’s not about money. It’s about being who I need to be, in order to make money. It’s the same idea as trading is not about money, it’s about trading properly.

Forex really does hold a mirror to you. It will expose almost everything about you.

You gotta see the success in your failures. If you blew your account in 6 weeks, and the second time you blew your account in 12 weeks, that’s a sign of improvement!

I had a nice, nice profit and it slipped away. But I had it!! I may have lost it, but if I did it once, I can do it again. And when I do it again, all I have to do is close!

I’m super close. If I can do it twice, I can do it over and over.

If you’re willing to pay the price, you can do anything. It’s about character, not intelligence.

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839

I’m tired of looking at charts, but it’s a good drill. Good practice. I’m just reorganizing my diagram a little bit. Nothing too significant. I realized that I have notes for price action conditions (surrounding environment), and notes for signals (which are valid within the conditions).

I had them mixed up in my diagram, so I just separated the conditions from the actual signals.

Perhaps this will help me in the future.

840

Studying some charts right now. I’m looking at GBP/SEK’s consolidation period between April and May 2022. I could say the trades look easy because the answers are in front of me.

However, I’m following my strategy, step by step, and the trades really are easy. I just get so caught up in the moment during live trading, I sabotage myself.

I’m wondering what ¨caught up in the moment¨ even means. My emotions are running because I see a signal and it represents the opportunity to make money (demo feels real); I worry about getting it wrong.

Then, I think the market is trying to fake me out. Then, I go to my diagram which has many many chart samples, and I don’t see anything that looks exactly like my current chart, I start to doubt everything I’m thinking, and I start to feel trapped.

If I go long, I think I’ll lose. If I go short, I still think I’m gonna lose. It’s happened where I go long, then close, go short, close; then finally go long again. It literally feels like no matter what I do, I’ll be wrong. Time is passing, I’m spending too much time on just one trade. Then the next day I see I should have gone short.

I get so consumed by the fear of losing that I cause myself to lose.

I’ve posted many times that I got stopped out on a pair two days in a row, then the next day I DON’T trade and the pair goes in my favor.

The psychological aspect is so difficult. It’s quite a challenge to blindly follow your strategy. Even when following your strategy there’s some discretion. That discretion is just enough room to justify anything. It’s as if you’d have to be wreckless in order to follow your strategy blindly.

But the whole point of discipline is to NOT be wreckless. And there’s the paradox.

I say wreckless because your strategy says to do something, but you disagree. Why would you do something that you think you shouldn’t? So, you do the opposite, only to realize after that your strategy was right…yet again.

I’ve written this before. Deja vu.

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I’m trying to understand what’s going on in my brain when I’m looking at charts, and I either freeze or sabotage myself.

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841

It’s scary and not easy to follow a pre-planned strategy. A major risk to performance is reducing the sample size. So, with a strategy which has a 60 percent win rate, it’s very predictable that a small sample of say 10 trades could see that win rate drop to 40 percent, with just 4 good trade outcomes and 6 losers.

That is very unlikely across 100 trades.

842

I don’t know of any programs that run old charts as new live charts.

I started taking pictures of an old chart, then I edit the picture. I edit each picture for each new candle. Right now, I’m doing this to analyze a GBP/SEK consolidation zone.

It involves paper trading, meaning on actual paper. I’ll have to write down if I’ll go long, short, or wait.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I procrastinated. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not.

This the next best thing to live trading because I trade D1. In the afternoon, if I want to practice trading, I don’t have to wait until the next candle starts.

Also, I can practice charts of any time period I want.

I just started making these practice charts yesterday, so I’ll find out if it’s helpful or not.

843

Jumping on a swing trade after a retracement can be profitable but can be quite dangerous.

In my strategy, there are times when it’s safe to enter. After S/R bounces are safest, but in between anything can happen. And sometimes, it does. There are signals that confuse me and make me think that I was wrong. This is when it’s the most mentally challenging to hold a position.

844

It is quite interesting to read such achievements of such traders. This is pretty helpful.

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845

I’m taking a little time to edit the steps in my diagram. It’s really a lot simpler than I make it.

Retracements and consolidation areas can be very deceiving, and that’s when I take the most losses.

I don’t think this is where banks are trying to take out retail traders. I think it’s banks dueling with each other.

846

I had a strange feeling today. There were some pairs that I see them, and I think to myself ¨what in the world am I seeing?¨

There are some signs that look nothing like what I see when I backtest. Or at least nothing I remember in particular. It’s frustrating because if you have an open position, it’s similar to a closing signal, but not really. And you don’t have an open position, you’re not sure if you should trade it or not.

SOMETHING is gonna happen. Yes, absolutely. But price could pull back and blow thru your SL. Or price may decide to retrace for a while…

It sucks to sit a trade out, then come back the next day and see a big green candle that you could have profited from. And that’s what I fear. I’ve seen it so many times.

But, I’ve also lost so many times trying to catch trades that sort of fit my strategy.

The most disappointing option is also the safest: don’t trade it.

I seriously had a few confused moments. And I stayed out of some. For two of them, I jumped in just to see what will happen.

I saw two pairs with a common base currency. Both pairs are bullish but gave a bear candle. I’m not sure if the retracement is over and trend will resume, or if it will continue retracing for a couple days.

One of them I went short, the other I went long. My strategy says to go long, so we’ll see.