Various Trades: - 25 pips

I'm really disappointed with my trading for this week. I followed my rules and was up 30 pips. Then I got greedy and started to listen to other's trading advice and screwed up. I traded New York which is not a favorable set up for me so far and lost 20 pips. Then when I wanted to short Euro, I shorted half Euro and half in Cable because of somebody else's idea, I got stopped out of that, and closed my Euro short that would've let me up for the day because I lost track of my trading at this point.

I also saw a long on USDCAD that I was not able to trade on for fear of continued screw ups and losing even more money.

I over traded this week. Listened to other's advice. Got greedy. Felt fear. All the bad habits of trading I experienced in 48 hours from Wednesday night to Friday morning. 

I really need to learn to trust my process, trust my set ups and follow my rules. I lost 1.5%, so I'm up 1.5% for the month on my first month trading, with a week to go. This is quite possibly better than most people but it's disappointing. The main thing that drives me crazy is listening to somebody else's trade. That never works because you don't know the set up, you don't know when to cut it, what to look for. 

Also, Euro just broke 200 points higher on the election news to open the week which would've been my play for this week but I have no idea what it'll do now.

Moving forward I need to follow my rules, that I even wrote down on Tuesday in my notebook. I'm quite disappointed in myself but I think this will be a learning experience.

Long EURUSD +30pips

Wanting to get back my losses on NZDUSD from last week, I saw a potential set up on EURUSD.

I figured USDX would fall from current levels and Euro might be a good buy, with highs waiting to be taken out.

 I was in and out of the trade while I was sleeping and made back a bit more than my loss from last week with half the position size. Overall, I could've waited for more now that I know what I'm looking for better, but anyway, a good trade for me.

 Back at +3% for the month with a week to go.

Long NZDUSD -10 Pips, 0.3 Lots

I had been expecting the dollar to continue lower all week as previously  noted. Therefore, I was looking for foreign currencies to rally. 

Looking at all possibilities, I thought NZDUSD gave me the best risk/reward so decided to place a trade here. I set an entry of 0.6940 looking for 0.6970, and a risk of 10 pip stop only.

The trade moved a bit in my favor but just continued down throughout the day. The trump speech in the afternoon finally got this moved but I'd been long stopped out of it.

Overall, I learned that this Easter week is not good for trading as the movements are not clearly discerned.

 I'm not too concerned about the drawdown as losses are expected, and I had become too complacent with the trading. Looking forward to getting on the positive side next week once again!

GBPUSD Short +12pips 0.1Lots, +13pips 0.2Lots

I was looking for a short on the cable thinking it'd run the stops accumulating under the consolidation happening and that USDX still had room to run to 101.

I set my order and I got about 30 pips but wasn't moving much after that. I wanted to get 60 pips and get a 3R trade, so I held. The trade started going downhill and eventually closed it.

I'd rather get my 30 pips and be done, than have to sit through hours of price not exactly moving or going sideways, especially in this market. If we had big ranges I'd be inclined to wait through New York session but I'm not at that level yet. I'd rather stick to my trading rules for now and then learn more as I go along.

 I was also looking for EURGBP to go higher from here, but that never materialized.

Despite some mistakes with position sizing and profit taking, the account is still growing at a reasonable rate. I want to make 6% monthly, and in 7 weeks, I'm at 9.29%, which is on pace to achieve those results.

EURUSD Short +30pips 0.2Lots

Today I'm really excited! I made my first live trade and it was a winner: +30 pips and +2% on my account. I have been interested in trading for a long time but had not managed to really start until late last year and all the hard work is paying off. I am happy because of my understanding more than the monetary gain. Although eventually I'd like to do trading for a living, I am in no rush as I have a stable job that I like and want to remain there for years to come. Nonetheless, it feels really good to finally take a trade and see it pan out.

I decided to take a similar trade on the demo to keep track of my progress. I say similar because the data feeds have different prices so it won't be exactly the same, but the concept that I'm using to take the trade and objective will be the same.

I was looking to short the Euro one more time as I thought dollar had still room to run, plus EURGBP looked like it would finally trade to 0.8590. I placed a sell limit order looking for 30 pips and a stop loss of 20 pips. I could have increased my trade size but chose not to do so yet and go with my standard 0.2 lots, and a 1.5R trade. 

I woke up and I had almost reached my goal but missed it and started to freak out, this was around 5am, and knew I'd get a retracement before NY but decided to stick to the rules and hold it. It was a struggle and could not sleep well, but in the end, the trade panned out and I was able to make my 30 pips.

I learned a lot from this experience and look forward to continuing on my journey. Here's the updated MyFxBook as I close the month of March. 

The account is up 8.45% in six weeks, which is almost 9% and comes out to 6% monthly which is my goal to duplicate my money yearly.

EURUSD Short +30pips 0.2Lots

I did not see anything I liked on Monday and I decided to not even look at the markets for Tuesday. I think this is very important because as I get more and more comfortable with my trading, I don't need to be forcing things everyday. At first I was looking for a set up everywhere, and if you look hard enough, you can see both the buy and the sell scenario.

Another thing that I think is important, is that I've seen more experienced traders making some predictions on Twitter and I've not let them affect me. Sometimes it's a relief having some confirmation from other sources, but the best teacher in my opinion is experience so I'll go with what I'm learning.

Anyway, here's what was happening yesterday:

I had done my analysis early on and noticed I could potentially see a short in Euro or Pound. I thought cable was way too extended for my liking and decided to look for Euro. Euro had moved a bit already and I didn't think it'd give me an opportunity to sell on a limit order as the price I wanted was too close to the current price. I decided to take a short right then and there, with a 20 pip stop loss and looking for 30 pips for a 1.5R trade.

 Dollar had some room to go to take out the buy stops above 100.00 so I thought it'd be a good idea. I wasn't sure we'd get to 1.0770 stops on Euro and decided not to push it.

I woke up this morning to see that the trade had already panned out for a cool 2% gain in the account.

Since I opened this demo account I'm up 6.45% (February 14th - March 29th) for six weeks. I'm happy with my development and I have learned a lot. I'm ready to trade live and see how that affects my trading as the psychology involved is probably a lot tougher than demo.

Below is my trade history taken from MyFxBook.

GBPUSD Long +25pips 0.1 Lots, +40pips 0.1Lots

The closing of positions earlier makes it hard to account for how many pips one makes. Making some pips and securing profits gives me some peace of mind, and in this case helped me to hold the rest longer, but I'm not a huge fan of this approach, I think I'd rather just frame trades in 2:1R and be done with it instead of struggling through the motions for hours to get something done.

Anyway, onto the trade: went long at 1.2475 looking for 1.2560 as an objective. It went to 1.2530 and gave a lot back so I started to get nervous, I never know how to manage the position when this happens. For this time around, I decided to take out something with a favorable move, and leave the rest so I could practice.

USDX was choppy at this time but cable looked stronger and I thought they'd take out 1.2530 but did not see 1.2560 happening anymore.

Even though having some profits felt good, I didn't want to see what I had evaporate so I closed when I got some retracing move. Eventually, 1.2530 was taken out but given the time of day I felt more comfortable just getting out there.

After a month and a half of demo trading for real, unlike past experiences, I feel much more comfortable with my plan. I just need to start framing trades with better risk reward, or at least holding for it as right now I tend to close positions erroneously. Any loss for the full stop of 2% risk takes me out considerably, while I usually make something like 1.5% per trade.

I am ready to go live with my trading in April and feel very comfortable with the approach I've managed to finding setups.