Yeah, for sure. I worry about missing the chance to profit from the big movements.
You’re right. It’s something I try to keep in mind. There are always more trades. It’s 100% true. I just have to be patient.
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I have not journaled for quite some time. Maybe I will start soon.
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I saw a trade with SEK/JPY that I thought about taking, but I had to stop myself. I was thinking about what I had written yesterday about whether or not I should take a trade vs how can I take the trade.
I decided that I SHOULDN’T take the trade. I thought to myself ¨that’s the old me¨ and it reminded me of this.
I went short on USD yesterday. Some pairs moved in my favor, some didn’t.
I learned that sometimes the pairs move together, and sometimes they don’t. Of course, right? But I’m talking about major movements in general.
I thought USD would have the same effect across the board at the same time. But, that’s not the case. Some pairs might move earlier, some later. I guess you just have to watch the chart, and never assume.
I took a moment over the weekend to backup my data. I have a micro SD card in my laptop, and that’s where everything is stored. I no longer store any data on my internal drive.
But I still back everything up on my external HD: I was looking for encrypted SD cards but haven’t found much in the capacity that I want. Something with 100+ gigs would be cool.
In all honesty though, I don’t need that much space. I’m just dealing with documents. I’d probably be fine with 25g.
There are flashdrive options, but plugging and unplugging a flashdrive is annoying. A micro SD card, you can just leave it plugged in. And if it’s stolen, no big deal because it’s encrypted.
I’d like to have a mobile set up with a tablet and SD card. In that case, I can keep an encrypted USB as backup storage. Possibly even cloud storage.
I saw a trade that I missed. I missed it because I was in disbelief, and I was scared to take it.
The other side to that problem was that I took a lot of trades yesterday, and my margin was starting to get really thin. I didn’t know if I was gonna get some positions liquidated or not. But I was willing to accept that risk. If I had taken that trade, I wouldn’t have the margin to trade EUR/USD or GBP/USD, which were offering much more profitable positions.
You can’t trade 'em all!
It makes me wonder if I should bother reducing my roster a little more. Maybe by one or two pairs. CAD/NOK would probably be the next one to go. Kroners move so beautifully, but the margin requirement is wild. The worst is trading the Chinese yuan. I really like that currency and how it moves, but it eats up so much margin, it doesn’t leave you much for other pairs.
A second pair I’d be willing to let go up would be EUR/HUF. I like this pair, too, but the spread sometimes is so wide it just makes you not want to bother.
I’m starting to catch more trades based on the signals in my strategy. I’m still making lots of mistakes.
But I have caught a few trades that gave proper signals, and I caught them, and now they’re running. I’ve also missed some trades based on the same signals. But the good part is that even though I was scared, the signal was correct.
I’m starting to understand the purpose and benefit of waiting for the right signal.
I just came across this
It seems practical. That is, until your laptop slides off and hits the floor. I see there’s a some little straps across the corner, but I wouldn’t put that much faith in them.
Something that’s helping me is understanding where price is generally going. Focus on trading WITH the trend until there’s a sign that the trend is gonna reverse.
I used to constantly trade against the trend and chase it, while it’s going up. What a waste of money!
Now, I recognize the trend’s direction, and I just go with it. Or if there is no chance to jump in, based on my strategy, I’ll just wait until it hits resistance/support.
I’m reallly digging this song right now.
It reminds me of one of my all-time favourites.
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Just reviewing charts today. I practiced a chart and I had a lot of losses. Too many. So, I’m looking for a similar set up, and I’m gonna analyze it and see what similarities there are.
There are always clues, but I have to be willing to acknowledge them. When do I follow my strategy, and where are the exceptions? Are there exceptions? I’m gonna find out.
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I practiced trading a chart, and I had 68% trading loss rate. Out of 38 trades, I lost 26. There were some winners in there, but that’s too many losses.
I analyzed one particular area, and I started wondering how I could trade it better. I started looking for clues to trade in a way that would have been more profitable.
But, I realized that I was chasing the wrong trades. I was looking for clues that were NOT consistent with my strategy.
You can’t follow your strategy sometimes, and other times no. Because if you do that, how will you know the difference? Unless you have a set list of exceptions. But even that can be tricky for me because my brain will use that exception to justify anything.
Sure, I would have loved to profit in that particular area. But in that zone, my strategy is clear.
For example, if my strategy says a trend is hitting support and start trading it as such, then that’s my strategy. Because the backtests prove that to be profitable in the long-term.
In this particular zone, I would have been wrong 4 times. 7, if I’m being aggressive. But this in accord with my strategy.
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While studying a chart yesterday I saw that often there is a signal, then confirmation.
This is helpful because once a trend starts, I ignore any contradictory signals. But when it’s followed by second signal, indicating confirmation, then I have to abandon my original plan to hold, and reverse my position.
This was in my strategy already, but I added a very nice sample to demonstrate this even better.
Since I started my strategy from scratch, I noticed that I don’t add as much to it as before. It was getting out of hand. It’s simpler now.
To be honest, though, I check it, but perhaps I should check it MORE. I’d like to get to a level where I don’t have to look at it anymore, and I just know it.
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I checked on a trade and I got stopped out. But barely. Price TOUCHED my SL, then reversed.
I’m not happy about it, but it doesn’t bother me much. I followed my strategy, price did what I thought it would, but I knew that there was a small possibility that I could get stopped out.
Another trade was a chance to jump in on a trend continuing. I really dropped the ball on that one. I had it on my notes to keep a close eye, but I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Maybe I was doubtful of the sign. Maybe I was confused because it was the first candle of the week, and they can be quite tricky.
Another trade, price almost triggered my limit order. Missed it by just a few pips.
I see some JPY trades that I SHOULD have taken earlier this month. JPY is going up right now, and I’m wondering how I could have taken advantage. I would have had to get in earlier.
So, that means I have to pay more attention to those types of trades, which are retracements. I mean, when the retracement ends and the trend is resuming. I don’t know what that’s called. But that’s what I’d like to pay more attention to. Those trades are gold!!
Jeez, man. I have three JPY crosses, and I’m only trading one of them. The other two, I missed out on.
This is all part of the process. I’m actually trading less, which is weird. I feel good that I’m following less pairs, and that I’m having more patience.
I’m really kicking myself for not profiting from these big moves going on in JPY right now, but this is all part of the process. I can learn from ALL these mistakes.
Let’s go!!!
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Ok, now I remember why I didn’t catch one of the JPY moves. I went long because it hit some support, and my strategy said to go long only, with the trend.
I was wrong because price pushed bullish a little bit more, then got dropped like a hot potato.
So, that’s why I missed it. I didn’t know price would keep pushing bearish.
I can’t beat myself up over the unpredictable part of price action.
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Just listened to these two songs! 
I initially got very different vibes, but after a couple more listens I think I got the semblance. Good taste! 
Haha.
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That’s an interesting percentage. 
But I love how you’re taking it as a learning opportunity!
Just to confirm, this is the result you got from NOT following your strategy, right? At this point, what motivated you to try out this sort of trading experiment? 
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They both have a funky groove, and a nice bassline!
hahaha for me it’s ridiculous. If it was real money, it’d be such a waste!! And that’s exactly how I’d be trading if such a trend occurred live.
Yes. Well, I thought I was. I was focused on trading the reversal, but I was ignoring clues that the trend was gonna continue. So, in one way I was following my strategy, but in another way I wasn’t. That’s why it’s so tricky, and I have to pay attention to those clues.
It’s not really an experiment. It’s just practice. I trade D1, and watching a trade unfold takes days. It’s difficult to focus on just one trade and really study it when it takes so long. But when I can speed trade it, the results have a stronger impact on my brain and it’s easier to analyze.
It’s a very helpful technique for me. I take screenshots of a trade, before, during, and after. I have a spreadsheet to note what my trade in each picture is. I’ll write long, look at the next picture and decide to hold. Then I look at the last picture to see how the trade ended.
I’ll do this for trends that last from anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I guess you can call it speed trading. I can trade a 6-month trend in two hours. This is great practice for me and has helped me to speed up my learning curve.
As far as what got me motivated to try this, I got tired of losing so much. I wanted a faster way to practice. And if no such thing exists, make it yourself!
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I just opened my trading platform and I don’t have any SLs hit since yesterday.
oooh yeah
I had trouble sleeping, so I got up and did some work. Now, I’m getting really sleepy, and I haven’t even started trading yet. Oh god…
Then just go to sleep and wake up until New York session, when you are sleepy, you can’t make a good trade, 
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