Jaded and Paralyzed

My trading system maybe the worst system in the world. The winning ratio are very low. Stop Losses too tight and stopped out dozens of time. In the chopped market it will eat you alive. Even in Crude Oil, very common having 5-6 losses in a row. Hell, having those losses will crippled you especially Crude Oil may chopped until end of days, no chance to breakeven.

In currency is the same. I have to use my logic if the market will expand or not. Like Friday, I may chopped to death until the move come. Or you wait and wait for 4-5 hours, eating the trading-spirit and then sometimes par you alive and price went on.

However, in a wide range market, this system is a Holy Grail. If soybean (ZS) keep ranging 20 pts a day, I will make profit every day. That's right. But who knows what will happened? Just hoping the grain market keep expand like this and I will set for good. But I know this won't last forever. The only consistent market IMO is currency, futures or forex, the same. Rarely it moved under 100 pips intraday. And if it does, then next days usually expanding with huge range. However, because of the 24 hours market, and playing on market accross the world, it had a dead session. Usually from 07.00 - 10.00 EST if no impact news between.

So, if ZS kept doing like this, I'm sure making consistent profit on this. Also Currency, I had doubt in my setup. The chopped is unavoidable and unknowable. Even on London session may give a chopped, and worse, wide volatile chopped. While Crude Oil, there's too risky with my setup, since the chopped may continue until closing bell. Volume doesn't work that good.

I added the NQ in my portofolio. The moved quite fast, the swing quite wide. And most important, the SL is low. I am not targeting $500 or $1000 profit. Just $100 - $150 per contract will do me fine. Friday was my first day trading it, chopped around until real setup came out and my internet jammed. I might chopped out 4 times and it cost me less than $200. Compared it to Crude Oil.

I planned to swing options with my new MTPredictor setup. It's good and if the best setup come out, the result may devastating. However using currencies, you may not trade 2-3 days cause of no signal at all. But with stocks, there's hundreds of choice. And there must be some great setup appeared. Still working with the import data for stocks.

That's it for now, MOnday hope for hte best to come. If market moved like 2008 again, I'll be a happy and rich man :)

Sorry Long Time No Posts

I got Trigger-Shy Syndrome, meaning I was scared taking the valid trades. The advantage is I didn't take cherry-picking trades. But unfortunately, there'll lot of missed opportunities, from not entering or early profit taking.

Monday
The first day after Friday-Big-Losses that I thought never happened again for the rest of my life. Monday was the day my objective is = get-green. This crucial day need to become a foundaton of my next trading days. So I don't care bout revenge or anything, just get green. Taking it about 5 trades $115.

Tuesday
Tuesday was the day I was busy learning MTPredictor. It's Elliot Wave software but have been re-modified. The Guide was quite long. The setup frustrated me. So no focus on trading. Tuesday I made two mistakes. Widened my Stop Losses, and Cherry Picked one time. Still in the get-green spirit, overall just $37.5

Wednesday
Begin to understand the software, started to play around with it. No Currency cause of FOMC days tend to wreak havoc. So focus on Grains. ZS stopped out on positive slippage. ZC run 2pts and got out. Still go-green spirit. $101

Thursday
This is the Fruday's nightmare haunted me again. Crude Oil chopped me to pieces, and it's deadly. Loss double my previous three days gain plus stopped out from Grains. Fortunately, Crude Oil dived South and I managed got out but not green enough to wash the previous red. Last trade, ZC nailed the daily performance to slightly green. $7

Friday
Planned to play NQ, didn't work out very well. par,-2pts,-2pts,and then my internet down!!! After re-connect, my chart showed the short signal (too late already). Leaved the NQ with -$100 include commissions. It dropped 50pts worth around $1000 per contract!!

Experience played in this part. I convinced the EUR may expanded since from 03.00-22.00 there're no significant moved. Less than 100 ticks range. Shorted the 7E, got out scary on 16 ticks only, worth 100ticks++, sigh. Still slight red, decided to trade the ZS,ZC. Missed the ZS surged, and ZC stopped on par. Then ZS signal short, stopped with slippage. Reverse, long signal entered, got out total $165. End of Day.

If Friday just doing well, I may booked more than $2000 profit from all of the three. But still have the syndrome and need to revitalize.

Beauty of EW

Monday was just a scratch $100-ish profit day. Nothing special. I was busy implementing Elliot Wave Software which suits my trading style (lot of losses, 1 winner solve it all)

Although I was new to Elliot Wave, but I learnt it sometime ago. I heard some expert said there always be Wave on every sequence. You only need to re-calculcate it if it's wrong. So I analyze and it's nearly impossible to count wave on let's say chopped market. Until I realized there's no need to be wave every time. I mean I don't have to calculate it on every chart exist. If it's too complex just leave it be, look for another sequence.

Te picture there showed perfect Elliot Wave Today. Wave 1 ABC correction, Strong Wave 3, so on. If there's nice EW like I showed, then it's easier to spotting the entry. If it failed, then just looking for nice sequence again, repeat the process.

Actually the ABC correction was a wedge breakout pattern too. Just like Head and Shoulder. So it's not changing the style I trade. Just enriched it.

It's amazing how trading unfolded new knowledge almost every second in my life. I probably never mastered the market. But I sure believe there's way to profit from it consistently.

If one person can do it, then I can do it too :)

Realized mY Mistakes (AGAIN!!)

I took my chart on GBP, backtesting and learnt it, I realized that there's thousands of easy pips from the chart. Rarely found three failure setup in a row without >10 ticks profit between. It's quite easy for gaining 10 ticks for the day and quit trading. Of course there's some failure, maybe 2 or 3 consequtive losses. But if you can afford 10 losses in a row, it's good. Of course I din't find 10 losses in a row. Not yet.

The chart was just random, not picking the good one. In fact, it's one of the bad one.

The reason I kept failing and failing because overtrading and to buck profit fast. Also I want to chased my losses, the reason I overtrade is to cover the losses and end the day with green. I always stopped trading if I booked >$300 profit of the day. IN fact, I kept trading if my losses already $1000.

So, how to conquer this pitfall?
My strategy is get back to scalping method and stopped trading after gain daily profit. If I was down 30 ticks, I will keep trading with 30 ticks objective max per trade. That way I can still playing take and give and reduced my losses. No more big profits hope and hopefully no big drawdown day. I alaways want a green day every day. That way I feel great, confidence, but also make me complacent.

Friday's Misfortune

Today was a total disaster. Starting with small profit plan ended up with huge massive losses. It all started I got $199 profit from EUR. I wanted to make it $200++ so I thought Crude Oil was gonna fine. So I took discipline trade, I even get the limit order to fill on better price. I even place limit order for 2 cents profit.

What could go wrong?
Everything, first...if I just took the standard place, I would easily booked the profit in milliseconds.
Second price came up without even touch my 2 cents objective, besides, eating my 10 cents Stop Losses. This is where the disaster happened. Slipped out, Double filled, etc. Made matter worse, the Crude Oil goin nowhere. So I ended up stopped out dozens of time. It all happened because of the 2 goddamned cents!!

I still can limit my losses. If I just let loosed the Stop Loss, then I might fear it happened like Thursday 290 pips EUR day. BUt the I used my Stop Losses it kept went back and forth all day long. And I also had a bias.

I feared I was on the edge of giving up. It took me 5-10 days minimum to cover from this losses. Not mentioned I will make other losses.
I can't trade like this. I felt like sabotaged myself to oblivion.

My last call should reduced my losses significantly. But I was stopped out at the exact tick.

On London Session I was so disciplined, profit taking early, planned to stop after $200. I just having $199, and all wan to have was the $1, make it $200. It became nightmare.

Crude Oil was a beast of choppy and slippage. I didn't know what devil told me to trade it today. I kept avoiding it like plague. I just wanted the 2 cents and it crushed me to pieces.

Get back to plan, I will scalp currency until my max daily losses reached. Which is -$1000. My target objective would be $200. No Crude Oil, No Grains, Just Currency. mainly 6E,6A, and 6B. No more dream of $1000 profit per day. Be realistic. $200 is enough for me. This is my last day trading Crude Oil, and temporary disable grains. From now onwards, I only trade Currencies. Time to change perspective. I losed almost 30% this 3 weeks only.

I think I never meant having a homerun. Getting $1000 per day was just like a dream. It's too hard. I can count it after 3 years of trading, I only had those days like 6 days. And I think I nver meant to be a trader. Tired of this game. THe only things I can consistently disciplined was taking losses, others are just a blew out.

I had this system, scalping system. It's still using wedges with faster tick charts. Now I will trade like robot, taking every valid signal. The only subjective things will be Profit Taking. Let's see what next week gives :)

From Profit Taking Early Transform To Difficult To Profit Taking

Changing from Profit Taking Too Early ---> Difficult to Realized Profit. E7 gave me 30 ticks in an instant and I just taking none. In fact I added 1 contract, result: quite losses. Having a bias also made this trades become bad. If I just took the short signal, everything will be just fine. Bias is an expensive things in trading.

Soybean, long at 1 cent pullback was a stellar. It just ate my order and never looked back. Then the hard part coming. I wanted the 10 cent profit from ZS which is achievable. When the price moved to double top at 9 cent, I just don't pull the trigger. Fortunately the market made triple top, that's when I letting my $50 potential profit dissapeared. I mean, if price got hard on your objective, it's better to get out. Of course it's possible to go further. But come on, one cent not really worth it. So I built my consequtive green day tradition, stop trading after $200-$300 profit, put aside the greedy in me, and used my spare time to generate profitable idea.

This is what I used to be on July-Sep 2010. Happy with the small profit, generate profitable idea, and guess what, I made $8500 on that 3 months. If I used to do it, then I can do it :)

But I don't mean I took profit early. I wanted to generate strategy that if on early trading I got red, then I just happy with small profit. But if I had sudden price jumpin on still with clean sheet of the day, I may keep the movement but still with cautious.

Mistakes I made this day was, I just wanted to have big profit aka. greedy. Of course some of the day it's workin. BUT most of the day it just won't work. If I down $1000, and my last position made $800, I sure took it. Don't care what happened next. It's easier resumed trading with $200 losses than $1000 losses. If then my single positions jumped to $1500, well it could happen. But it's outlier and most of the day won't do. Most of the day it just pull back or reversed eating your par position or whatever.

Another flashback to my proftable era day, I remebered to regret profit taking I made. Almost everytime I liquidate my positions it just move another $200 or more. And I felt unhappy bout it. Day after day it happened. Some days, I took my profit near the peak/bottom. But it rarely happened. And guess what, even with lame Profit Taking, I made green days after days without much difficulties. And that day, I was not smarter or knowledgable than today. In fact I was dumber, and having no bias/opinion at all. I just following the signal blindly and it generate profit almost every day. I think I still made good profit this January if I implemented those actions.

Sources of my losses was having a bias and impulsive trading. Classic. And it's made worse with eliminate the Stop Losses. For example I just couldn't believe the EUR will go up 200 pips intra day without pullback. Well it went 280 pips with 40 pips pullback until closing. Expensive experience.

Today I still doing dumb things. I had a bias EUR and GBP might go up. I almost cherry picked long EUR for small losses like yesterday. Glad I won't do it. Even if it's workin, it's just not worth it in long term.
So I just following Long signal and neglect short signal. And like everyday happens, it just diving south . If I was a dumb back then, I just made another profit like usual.

Another thing I regret was missing opprotunities. My mind just keep analyzing what the market will do today. Is it choppy, trendy, consolidation, whatever. So if my mind told it's choppy, I won't get in. Then I missed it. Today I planned trading EUR after 10.00 EST. Because there's no much movement on ealry session. The planned should work, somehow I just missed the short signal (talkin about bias, sigh)

I should really don't care what others do or don't. I should focus what's work with me. And it's my consequtive green relative small profit day worked for me. I used to don't care what market did after I took my share of the day. And it worked for me. Of course there's some bad day I made quite large losses. But since it rarely happened and most of the time it still smaller than my accumulating profit.

I should back to focus profiting everyday. Small is okay. Another things I should do is backtesting and generate strategy as safe as possible. As I wrote this, market went nowhere and I glad I just stopped. But even it went somewhere, I done with it. No more jackpot oriented day. In fact, jackpot oriented is one reason I cherry picked since I wanted a huge moved from top/bottom that may wiped clean my losses and big profit. Sometimes it did, most of the time it just won't do.

Sorry for the long posting here :) Have noone to share with my trading experience besides this blog. Hope you enjoyed it and hope it useful for ur trading journey.

Okay, Less Greedy, More Grinding Day

Not long ago, I just a scary guy who taking profit too early. So I was happy with $200-$300 profit / day. If I had it, I definitely stopped trading for the day. No matter how the market after that, I don't really care. Results are quite magnificient. 10-15 days consequtive winning worth $2000-$3000 profit. Losing day usually came from undisciplined action, not because of the market. Sometimes it's just late to take profit then everything was in mess.

Now I just a swinger, took 40-100 ticks profit. 2 days I made $1500+ profit then other day I lost $900. It's the same amount but it felt so annoying. Green day was a great things. I mean, if I can trade >2 contracts, I just took my daily profit objective, then let the remaining for a home run. If not, I already had a profit.

To achieved that, I have to compromised my Stop Losses. I was not eased with SL larger than $150. Even $100 seemed little bit bigger for me.

My Broker can trade Forex with customized lot sized. But it's a bit hard to do. If I want to trade long GBP/JPY for example, I have to short GBP/USD first, after I had the GBP, then I can trade GBP/JPY. What a pain.

More lost from Commission

I should stopped cherry picking the trades. Small there, little here, scratch over there. Realized the commission mounted. Also I should stop trading on consolidation/chopped area. But how? Somebody please tell me. I am bad on profit taking.

Okay, overall I lost $1400.

First GBP, max profit nett $120, result -$132

Then my EUR can produce max $980. How much did I took? $250. Still Lost -$1150.

Then my Soybean produced max $950 (2 contracts) How much did I took? $421

Then my Wheat (ZW) produced +$40 nett, I let it stopped out on -$180 (previous losses)

If I just took 80% from max profit, I may had $1640, good enough to cover my losses plus a decent profit. But no, I just let it stopped out, or make little profit. This things happened all the time. Sigh :(

EUR SHORTIES, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

Inverted Head And Shoulder, Cup with the Handle, You named it...

Monday: No Mood of Trading

As I posted this, still have long position ZS on 1415.50. Raised SL on Breakeven. I really didn't have mood for trading. First of all, I missed the EUR vaganza early London session. Next, Crude Oil made nice rally at opening US session, without me of course. Lastly, I just wasted the 9 cents profit from corn. that's $450 per contract and took the SL on 3 cents only before it dived down 1 cents more and got back to moving up.

ZW were just chopped around aimlessly and this is the wise decision today to stay away from it. However, ZW was the underdog compared to ZS and ZC. It's just not that 'hot'. ZS was number one for violent and slippage. ZC was more friendly IMO. Not as strong or fast as ZS for movement, but it had much more liquidity.

Next, I kept buying ZS on tight SL when it's diving down, cost me 10 ticks. The commisions alone were $50. Bad move. Decided to stop trading if my last OP were stopped out. Hopefully it moved 10 cents to make this day worthed. Whatever happen, I stopped trading and prepared for tomorrow's dance.

Greedy now become my middle name :) I changed my trading stlye more to swing trading, but with very unreasonable tight Stop Losses. Sure grains had much much potential especially ZS and ZC for a while, the moves are solid, fast, and less chopped. However since there's less liquidity, price may mad sudden jumped and lots of slippage. The strategy for daytrading grains are= Took 5-10 cents profit, and end of day. I mean, if we can catch 5 cents, that's $250. Added with 2 isntrument, that's $500 already. Only need catch one wave and that's it. Today's, ZS already made 3 waves in just 2 hours trading. Worth 5,10,10! Stopped out multiple times might be forgiven as it moved 5-10 cents easily. MOre than that, it's just plain harder. Just put SL on 5 cents after it moved 7-8 cents. It's infamous with the sudden reversal. It's less than 1 millisecond to moved 4 ticks! So, place the SL wisely. Sometimes when floating 3 cents profit, it may wiped the Stop Losses on breakeven without even you knew it. Now I hoped the last wave, usually after 01.00 am to go up. Besides that, it's just one small losing day :)

Rare ZS Trader

I searched on Google looking for ZS daytrading forum or whatever. The result, my blog is No.2 while I just occasionally trading it.

It showed there're only little retail trader or maybe all of them are low profile. No matter, less retail participants means smoother movement. Look at Crude Oil nowadays. I think too much reatailers that almost every breakout followed by deep pullback, eating my Stop Losses. It's common to see pullback 40-50 cents which is sometimes considered as reversal.

If lot of ES Trader now trading Crude Oil, they might be very happy with 20-30 cents profit which is equal to 4-6 pts ES. Explained the pullback every 20 cents movement on Crude Oil.

However, I might focus on Grains from now on. 15++ cents movement a day with decent liquidity and compressed trading time = quick fast moved to make a profit or quick recovered from Stop Losses.

Today's Crude Oil, I think I just get lucky getting filled on best price. How many times it threatened my positions. If I wanted to play save after 50 cents, raising Stops to 20 cents, I would be stopped out for sure.

Biggest Profit in 2011 so far with only 2 trades

Yesterday I sold my soul to the devil and he helped me with this trades :) Crude Oil, another too early selling. Targeted the 100cents profit but instead got out less 30 cents. Of course it reached the target. $1000 profit with only 1 contract each.

Still booked red this week. Imagined how massive the losses were?

Grains Update!

TRINITY (ZC,ZS,ZW)

Pre-Market seemed weak today. As u can see on the charts, the weakest opening would be Soybean(ZS), already broke the yesterday's low. Wheat though stronger on opening, yesterday didn't make new high and made bigger fall than ZS. Corn will be the strongest from all three. Make new high and not yet broke yesterday's low. US session will be crucial for the first one hour. If it made reversal, then ZC might become good candidate to go long. If it's get worse, then Wheat and Soybean will be a good choice to short.

Grains become a hot things this 2011. Food issue like failed crop, bad weather, all over the news. I don't have bias where the market will go. But all I know, lot participants = wider range = bigger chance to make profit. Crude Oil still hot things and it always had. But bad thing is it often chopped around until 01.00 pm before it makae directional move. Not having enough move to recover from the chopfest. Grains also have tendency to chopped around, with worse issue like slippage. But The compressed pit session made participants to move the grains more furious, faster, harder. It have more probability having 3-5 cents in a matter of minutes. While Crude Oil, never know when it get out from the chopped zone.

Today Big Losses Again

I short the EUR, thought it might give me 10-20 pips. Short at 200 pips pips of the day. Well, lesson learned. EUR surged almost 300 pips today. If unlucky, another 100 pips to 1.3470 may occured. If that happened, I must closed the business for good. So, I still want to open the business, I bailed out.

What I learnt over and over again that statistical odd is not useful if there's no good Money Management. How many times EUR moved 280 pips in 1 day? Today's the example. Not only it broke every resistance, but also it never retraced back even for 40 pips!!

That said, I missed Grain in Play, Crude Oil (though doubtful since I may stopped out 5-6 times before making profit).

I will refill my account tomorrow. I have tendency not to trade well if I had depleted account, though I almost never trade full margin.

Licking my wound tomorrow onwards. I had speciality on massive winning streak day. It all changed after I changed my trading style, looking for home run. Almost all my home run busted before riped. Sometimes I still amazed how I can profit 23 consequtive days, with zillions of Stop Losses, still prevailed the green day. Of course the profit was small, around $200 per day. But I once had 23 days of $200. It's $4600!

I remembered day after day grinding the $$$. Quit after having a green day, Resume trading if not having profit yet. Feel awesome, happy. Feel very enlighted when finish early, pocketing some $$$. Just play around for the rest of the day. Repeat the process tomorrow. And it happened when I was not very knowledgeble. Taking profit very early (in my perspective now) cut losses small, trade like an idiot. Meaning no S/R, trendline, or other things. Just entering when there's triangle breakout, exit 15-20 pips, end of day. It worked. Of course there's some massive losses. Took around 1 week profit per losses. Still netting 1 or 2 weeks profit per month.

Today I wanted to change. I wanted to trade wider profit. Means more Stopped Out, Reducing Green Day. But I found out, the more red I made, the more my mentality depleted. Day Trading is not like become a smarter guy. It's just mental game. No matter how good the edge you have, if you can execute with fine manner, it's worthless.

Day Trading for me like an operator. No thinking when trading. See the setup, enter the trade. Worked, repeat the process. Failed, repeat the process. Over and over again. That's why new system or trading new instrument need time to smooth it. Executing the trade itself need skills. Execute Crude Oil different with Eminis. Also different with ZS.

So, I may have big losses on 2011. But no matter how bad, if I can survived and keep trading good. I may prevailed. Assuming this, one newbie and one trader with bad performance (like me). Newbie already learn theory and trading demo for a while. Both of them now trading real account, same amount, same setup. I bet the newbie will have a problem since he's never executing the real trades. While the already-trader will have no problem executing it. I used to have Stop Losses, I used to have big losses, I used to have good profit. I used to have operating error. All of it actually a worthed skill. So, tomorrow onwards, winning streak will come again. If not, then it's just delayed. Prepare to grateful with my result :)

Chopfest on Crude Oil

Thought Crude Oil might moved well today. I was f***** wrong!!! Chopped slam and jam, lost my nerve losing me another unnecessary $200. While E7 made a par on London, Stopped out at the ticks before it surged 100 ticks. To picky on ZS, missed the train.

Worst things about my trading style, it's definitely relied on the Instrument. If it's chopped, I'm dead. If it's rallied but with thousands pullback, I'm par. Only with clean direction I made money. This was the 5th day I losed on 2011. Sigh...
Worse than unemployment.

Looking at my account: It depleted dangerously. What can I say? I already only trade 1 contract.

I was quiet discipline today. But still, I was losing. And I don't know what's wrong that I can make profit. Highly frustrated. Seemed like my hard working effort was costing money.

Crude Oil was the source. Stopped out zillions of time until one movement comin. And it's either stop par or stopped with 10/20 cent because I already down let's say 80 cent. How the hell am I supposed to get my position to 80cent profit without stopped out on par?

I can't take it. 3 years of trading and still struggling. Tomorrow, I dunno what my plan. May trade EUR as usual. Hoped ZS may give nice profit from the wild movement. I just kept missed it :(

EUR on US session seemed okay for me. And I definitely will focus on Grains. Developed my system.

Iron Clad Mentality

8 Stopped Out from Crude Oil. Almost worn me off. Loss $732 from crude already, and one trade wiped them all. I might loss -$732 if I stopped trading. But today, I am back with my old traditional trading style which once gave me 30% profit in one month.

EUR was sick, consolidation at no end. But like crude oil, it broke out and one single trade wiped out all losses.

ZS, no luck 1 losses, 1 par, made my day.

Summary:
I am sure my old method still had edge. But there're need of iron clad mentality to use it.

Working Too Soon, Exit Too Early

I tuoched ES, stopped out, then focus on Crude Oil. Thought it was a chopped day and actually trendy day. All tickers worked out great and I was left in dust. Patients, patients, patients, patients.

This week was a whole mess for me. My setup busted out, unfortunate error, crazy impulsive trade, Loosening Stop Loss, Swing trading Micro Lot, Averaging Down recklessly. All sins I made and not once worked out. When I got out too early, the moved were stellar. When I stayed in my trade, I got stopped out, all of them. When I decided to go on, market chopped like crazy. When I decided to leave, market trending amazingly. All things went bad. Yesterday when I entered soybean/wheat, it didn't move at all. Today I was slipped out 2 ticks at SL, kept me away. It is actually trending after a while. Worse, I neglected $500 max from Crude Oil, TWICE!!! First it's too fast after NFP, 2nd, I wanted more. Both of them just $100 each.

The only things I done right today was not trading the London Session.

Perceptions on me just got worse over time. Chopped out Crude Oil early days made me think today was a bad oil day. Thought ES would be bad again, stopped out twice before it moved, without me.

But actually today I was trading by planned. No single impulse trade, even once. So I just considered it not my day, not my week.

Lsoing 3 days in a row surely a pain. I wanna scream like, wtf am I doin? Workin and wasting money? Working should means make money. I worked so hard for this profesion. Once I developed an iron-will Stop Losses. I was more prone Cutting Losses than Profit Taking. Can't sleep last three days. Feels like worthless junk. Working for losing money. Three Years Trading and I can't even predict where the price moved. I just taking every single entry. First I would short, next trade I may go long.

Crude Oil for example. It's like all the world fighting against me. long, stopped...short, stopped again...short moved 50cents, stopped out 10 cents, profit stopped out twice, minus 40 cents..par, another 10 cent stopped. Moved 50 cent, stopped out at 10 cent profit. Every trade was valid trade. Then after I stopped after last stopped out, market moved.. and I wasn't in it.

ZS, long...stopped with 2 ticks slippage. Nomore trade, moved 10 cents more.

ES, short, stopped out 3 ticks...long, stopped out par. focused on CL, moved 8pts :(

Currency used to be my favorite, now..it's like scary beast to me. I may count at London Session stopped me out 4 times in a row!!! While the 5th entry only gave 20 ticks before it went back stoppe out on par. And it's 2 days like these.

BUt with all whinning and complaint today, I just sayin I still want to trade. Hell even if I had 100grand, I still want to trade. I just keep trading until my account can't afford to trade again. If, I was discipline, it took me 10 days max losses in a row until I exhaust my account. Today's not my max losses.

Also one thing I truly regret was, actually market moved very nice (except for ES and I can live with that).
Crude Oil, 4 out of 5 days and actually it told you no trade at the one bad day
Soybean, 4 out of 5 days and I just trade the one bad day
Wheat, same as soybean, or can say 5 out of 5
EUR, dunno..heavily news driven. Can chop all day and trending all day
GBP, confused
TF, 3 out of 5...still no interest

With all this ticker and I still got big losses. Even I still booked profit perfect on Christmas weeks. Actually with this kind of market, no way I can't ptofit. My subconscious mind always whispered me to impulsive trade. Like this afternoon I almost did it again. Almost....it's like I had split personality.

I was a counter-trend / fader blood. I never convenient entering market which isalready moved too far. Always afraid my SL easily breached.

But if First Week like MOnday repeat every single week for the rest of this year, no need a crazy market. I surely just trade Crude Oil and Booked $2500-$5000 per month per contract. No need other trades.

Next week will be I dunno...losing faith with currency and befriended again with Crude Oil. Oh, and one more things... I WILL DO WHATEVER POSSIBLE NOT ATTEMPTING TO PICKUP BOTTOM/TOP AGAIN, EVER AGAIN.

Mental Capital Maintained, Account Capital Reduce

I was trading like a brave soldier today. Well, greedy costs me $500 from Crude Oil. T predicted today will be stellar day from NFP. But even EUR were volatile and wild choppy. Then come ZS slipped me 2 ticks! Stopped trading ZS, though re-entry might gave back the losses.

Interesting from crude oil, I was stopped out heavily on start. Every signal either faked or chopped. I knew there's thin volume on Crude. Not my day. Of course I was aware about my thinning account. But what else can I do, just trading properly, no emotion like today. Crude Oil=less than 6000 contracts per 5 minute=Chopped. You can backtested it if you like.

Trading as discipline, no need to perform today, better luck next time and I'm sure I will. I came back with my old crude trading. Except today was chopped day.

Severely Damaged

I was losing grip this last 3 days. Made lot of mistakes, trading under pressure, you named it. Commodities trade were fine. Just pick up wrong choppy days. While Crude Oil was chicken trade. Surely it moved $1900 and I just picked net 11 cents !!!

I just losing confidence right now. Losing directions. Three years of trading experience was just wasted. I was nervous trading Crude Oil. No confidence in me, just got out 10 cents from clean slate. Then commodities, oh.... just missing one move and it will be okay. The wheat offered Breakeven also the ZS. At least I should booked $200 minimum with this two. And what am I thinking, entering the 7E Long????

Wheat was quite good, except I missed last entry. Soybean just moved 5 cents and stopped out (last trade).

7E was also damaged. I discreet trading. This month was very damaging. While Micro Lot 6E was exhausted my mental state.

It seemed the worst week of my life. I have lost more than this. But this felt sucked. :(

Probably the main reason I trade like this because of swing micro. If I had one losing position overnight, I can't trade right. The position no matter how small the size is kept distracting me. While after saw (not experienced) how many failed setup in EUR, I just losing more confidence. I kept thinking like, if I entered those, I would losed 40 ticks in an instant! Then I just not entering trades. Somehow today, the trade were stellar.

I just losing grip in my life. Afraid what life may come if I kept losing was killing me. Main thing I am so not consistent because I don't have system on Profit Taking. So I just relying in luck. Sometims too early, sometimes stopped out, rarely exact time. Tomorrow I had my PT system. It's Fib Extension. At least I had a system.

First Day = Feel The Water

Great Day Starting 2011:

ES moved 5.0 pts = Realized 0.75 pts

ZS moved 20 cents = Realized 1.5 cents

My PT early bad habit haunted me. But it's still a damn lot days to come.