Trades for 5-28-09

Today I did +.31% during London hours, and had no trades for the rest of the day. I missed a few entries today, but it’s no big deal because I’m over my goal for the week.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+.31%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

1 trade for a gain

Trades for 5-27-09

Today I did +.92% during London hours, +1.36% during abnormal hours, and no trades for normal hours. It snowed yesterday afternoon (it’s freaking may!!!), but thankfully it looks like it’s going to be sunny all day today so I’ll be able to get out and do some fishing this afternoon :).

Totals for the day
Forex: (+2.26%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

5 trades, 1 loss, and 4 gains

Trades for 5-26-09

Today I did +1.64% during London hours, and had no trades for the rest of the day. I may have missed 1 or 2 more trades today, but I’m still happy with how I did.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+1.64%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

1 trade for a gain

Trades for 5-22-09, and weekly total

My total for the week is +3.89% in forex, and I had no trades in stocks.

Today I did +.33% during London hours, and had no trades for the rest of the day. I decided not to go backpacking because the weather is miserable (rain, rain, and more rain). I’ll likely do some day trips though, but regardless I’ll see you guys on Tuesday.

Got some music for the Friday post:



Have a good weekend!

Totals for the day
Forex: (+.33%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

3 trades, 1 loss, 2 gains

Trades for 5-21-09

Today I did +2.13% during London hours, no trades in abnormal hours, and +.43% during normal hours. I might take tomorrow off and go backpacking for the holiday weekend. It all depends on the weather and it isn’t looking good for a backpacking trip. If I don’t go backpacking I’ll at least do a lot of hiking/fishing. I’ll try to post my weekly results before I go anywhere tomorrow, but if I don’t I will post them when I get back.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+2.56%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

3 trades, all gains

Trades for 5-20-09

Today I did +2% during London hours, no trades in abnormal hours, and -.64% during normal hours. I should have called it a day after my last trade during London hours because things were going flat for quite awhile.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+1.36%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

8 trades, 4 losses, and 4 gains

Trades for 5-19-09

Today I did -3.80% during London hours, +.53% in abnormal hours, and +.64% during normal hours. Only problem with today was that I had a couple of unlucky trades in a row on full sized positions.

Totals for the day
Forex: (-2.63%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

11 trades, 3 losses, and 8 gains

Trades for 5-18-09

I'm back to trading for real now. Today I did +.86% during London hours, no trades in abnormal hours, and +1.41% during normal hours.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+2.27%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

3 trades, all gains

Trades for 5-15-09, and weekly total

My real trading total for the week is -8.35% in forex, and I had no trades in stocks. Real and paper trades combined I did -4.09% in forex and no trades in stocks.

Today went great, and was my best Friday trading forex so far. I could have doubled my money had I kept trading, but after my 1st few trades today I more or less took the day off. My totals are +3.06% during London hours, no trades in abnormal hours, and +.10% during normal hours.

For my Friday post I decided to make an educational post about indicators. Click here to read it

Totals for the day
Forex: (+3.16%) PAPER Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

5 trades, 1 loss, and 4 gains

Why indicators aren’t the “key” to successful trading

(click to enlarge)
Which chart (#1 or #2) is giving you more information? They are both of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and they are both over the same period of time.

That’s right, both of them show the exact same thing! Some people like to think that if they find the right combo of indicators, or a “magic” indicator they will make lots of money. I fell into the same trap thinking if I could just get the correct combo of indicators my problems would be solved, and I’d be swimming in money. It wasn’t until about 1 to 1 and a half years into my trading carrier that I realized all indicators do is show you what is going on in the chart already. This is because they are just mathematical formulas of current/past price (and sometimes volume also) with some formulas trying to predict future movement based off current/past price. Now don’t get me wrong, some people do make money using indicators. However, even they will tell you that an indicator is not the “key” to successful trading. It is how the person reads the indicator that makes them successful, not the indicator itself.

Just to clarify, I’m not saying throw indicators out the window. What I’m saying is look at the indicator as a tool to help you read a chart, not as a magical money maker like I used to. You wouldn’t look at a hammer and think that it would design, and build a house for you. The hammer is just a tool to help you build the house, just like an indicator is a tool to help you make good trades.

Trades for 5-14-09

Today I did +1.42% during London hours, +1.10% in abnormal hours, and +.24% during normal hours. Today went much better, and I think I’m finally out of the rut I was stuck in. I’m still thinking about trading for real tomorrow because it’s Friday, and Friday’s aren’t usually good days for me.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+2.76%) PAPER Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

8 trades, 1 loss, 2 flat, and 5 gains

Trades for 5-13-09

Today (5-13-09) I did +.63% during London hours, +.98% in abnormal hours, and +.01% during normal hours. Yesterday I realized what my problem was and was able to address it today. I will paper-trade again tomorrow though because I still made a couple of bad mistakes this morning.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+1.62%) PAPER Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

11 trades, 5 losses, 1 flat, and 5 gains

Trades for 5-12-09

Sorry about not posting this yesterday. I ended up trying to figure out what is going on with my trading, and then I went fishing.

It's a good thing I decided to paper-trade, because for 5-12-09 I did -1.11% during London hours, -.45% in abnormal hours, and -1.72% during normal hours. I have finally found what my problem is, and will address it today (5-13-09).

Totals for the day
Forex: (-3.28%) PAPER Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

25 trades, 13 losses, and 12 gains

Trades for 5-11-09

Today was just plain sad, I did +.38% during London hours, no trades in abnormal hours, and -8.35% during normal hours.

The good news is I think I may have figured out what has derailed me. I need to go back to what I was doing during my 1st 3 weeks of real trading with forex. What had happened was that during my 1st 3 weeks I wasn’t making my dollar goal so I tried to up my sizing. What ended up happening is I’m trading full sizes too often, and I haven’t been happy with small gains. I used to just trade mostly 25k sizes with a full size every once in awhile while also being happy with +.25% per trade. So what I plan on doing for at least tomorrow (or maybe the rest of the week) is paper-trading to see if I can get back into that groove I was in during my good weeks.

Totals for the day
Forex: (-8.35%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

6 trades, 4 losses, and 2 gains

Trades for 5-8-09 and weekly total

Sorry about not posting this yesterday, I ended up going fishing :). Here are some photos:





About 90% of the lake was covered in ice, but we managed to find the 1 spot with open water that you could get to.

For the week I did -3.66% in forex, and I had no trades in stocks.

For 5-8-09 my only trade was during abnormal hours and it was +.07%. No much else to say other than I feel like I’m out of the rut I was stuck in.

For my Friday post I have an interesting article on how the banks in Europe are doing: http://www.cnbc.com/id/30641235

I’ve also decided not to make daily trading video’s anymore. The only time I’ll do a video is if I feel like it or it’s requested.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+.07%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

1 trade for a very small gain

Trades for 5-7-09

For today (5-7-09) I did +.46% during London hours, +1.78% in abnormal hours, and had no trades during normal hours. I’m happy with how I did today, and feel like I’m out of the rut I was stuck in.

This post was lacking so I decided to post a photo I took yesterday while I was out fishing:



Totals for the day
Forex: (+2.24%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

3 trades, 1 flat, and 2 gains

Trades for 5-6-09

For 5-6-09 I did +.33% during London hours, +1.19% in abnormal hours, and had no trades during normal hours. I did a lot better because I was looking more at the 5 minute charts, and less at the 1 minute charts. I remember now that when I was doing good I based my entries mostly off the 5 minute (and larger time frames), while using the 1 minute mainly for trailing stops and placing orders.

Totals for the day
Forex: (+1.52%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

4 trades, 1 loss, 1 flat, and 2 gains

Trades for 5-5-09

Today I did -.54% during London hours, +1.53% in abnormal hours, and -1.54% during normal hours. My problem today was that I made too many trades. I feel like I’m really close to breaking out of this rut, and all I got to do is have some patience by only making really good trades instead of trading everything in sight. For example, lately I have been almost 100% focused on 1M charts and I need to take my focus and spread it out to the larger timeframes. I started too today, which is why I did better.

Totals for the day
Forex: (-.55%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

20 trades, 9 losses, 1 flat, and 10 gains

Trades for 5-4-09

Today sucked because of 1 trade that was stopped out all because I should have had the stop just a bit lower. I was +.15% during London and abnormal hours combined, and -7.09% during normal hours. I would have made a slight gain today if I had my stop lower (see chart below).

The #1 thing I learned today was that I really need to work on the confidence issue. I’m missing out on gains, and then jumping in on trades too late which is really killing me mentally. The reason I’ve been having a hard time lately is because I’ve let my habits go downhill. I stopped working out, eating right, going to bed at the ring time, etc. So what I need to do is make myself stick to good habits starting today. This should be an easy thing to fix, and I expect to do better tomorrow.

Totals for the day
Forex: (-6.94%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

18 trades, 8 losses, 4 flats, and 6 gains

Trades for 5-1-09 and weekly total

Sorry, but I forgot to post Friday’s post yesterday. Here it is:

My total for the week is +5.05% in forex, and I didn’t have any trades in stocks. I did improve this week with what I learned last week. However, I still need to improve more especially with my self confidence.

Today I did +.29% during London hours, and had no trades the rest of the day. Overall it was a boring day.

For my Friday post I have an article about Obama putting the blame on investment bankers for Chrysler’s bankruptcy. I love how he points the finger at them to deflect any criticism the government might get for bailing them out with tax dollars instead of letting the free market do its thing. The fact still remains that the company was run badly and badly run companies go bankrupt no matter how much money you throw at them. Link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/30517139

Totals for the day
Forex: (+.29%) Real Trades
All times on the charts are Mountain Standard Time

2 trades, 1 loss, and 1 gain