Cory2679

First trade of the week... Took profit at PT1 on the first half, but broke even on the second half.

Well, it's about quitting time (I try to stay on at least until 11pm EST), and I didn't have one trade tonight, and I'm soo happy! I began tonight determined to do this right and not overtrade. I did have an order in at one point that didn't fill, but that's it! And now looking back with hindsight, I did exactly the right thing (for me). (Last Sunday I took 3 trades, all losers!)

Hey guys, Since I said it here... ...I'll post this week's P/L. However, I think it's silly to essentially make duplicate posts, so from now on, I'll just post my P/L exclusively on my log. You can view my P/L log post here. -Cory

This Week's P/L Well, I had a rough week...and an especially rough start to the week... I ended up down 3.11R. Hopefully a lot of lessons learned this week...moving on to next week without skipping a beat! NOTE: I should mention, for my trades, if I have multiple profit targets, that means multiple orders, so I didn't take as many trades as it looks like. Also, on Friday (today), I had one trade that took 4 orders (2 market orders that I scaled down because my initial positions were too big).

Well, I've pulled my order...it's getting fairly late and still hasn't triggered...I'm not convinced of an impending downmove at this point...

I'm actually looking at a potential short on the EUR/USD... (I got barely better than BE on my two long attempts on the EU.) EDIT: Well, actually, I've taken 3 long attempts on the EU today, with a net loss end result.

I just got totally burned and I have to vent... :frustrated: The EUR/USD came up on major resistance...at the time I was long, and ended up pulling out for a small loss... BUT, I wanted to get short, missed the initial opportunity, but felt sure the EUR/USD was heading lower after that bounce off of resistance...so I went short with a market order (with an unfavorable entry point) with a profit target aimed for the low, and another profit target for 150 ticks (I was planning to trail my stops down to the 150 tick target)... I got totally burned for a full 1R loss! And to make it worse, I initially missed the long opportunity!! Luckily, I got in off a retrace and am now sitting long with my stop @ BE. Thanks for listening! :o

Fair enough... Well, you can see, the original chart I posted, in my opinion, looked good. Then, after some time had passed, it just began to look choppy, less impulsive, back and forth, etc. Also, at around the same time, I was watching a setup on the GBP/USD (which turned out nicely...made me positive for the day), which filled, so by that time I just thought 'forget the USD/JPY' and just focused on my GBP/USD trade.

Yeah, I know...I just thought, based on what you'd said, that you might have thought I had quit out of discouragement, etc. since I hadn't made any posts recently...I just wanted to make clear that even though I wasn't posting, I was still trading and hadn't stopped.

NOTE: I didn't take it...PA looked less and less compelling...

I thought I'd make a post so you guys don't think I've abandoned my log... I definitely understand what you guys are saying, and it is something I did do a while back. Now I'm trading four. The only "argument" I have against going back to one is that I was truly doing well trading all four! Now I know anyone who has been following along with this log is probably thinking "yeah, right!" and that's ok...I would be, too. Also, since the currencies are so correlated, I don't really feel like I'm trading 4 totally different markets, anyway... I truly believe my problem this week is that I did indeed psych myself out with my new "plan." I'm apparently pretty emotional when it comes to trading, and things like that mess me up! But, I've done progressively better over the week...huge loss the first day, medium loss the second day, good profit the third day, and today I'm down so far, but not too bad... ...and I should have done better yesterday...Tuesday night I had a winning trade on, it had hit PT1 and was working on PT2...however, I wanted to go to bed, hated to see it travel back to PT1, so I pulled it right about in the middle...had I left it, it would have hit PT2. Then yesterday morning, I had an issue with my alarm and didn't start trading until after 10am!...and I saw that I had missed a pretty blatant short opportunity. This morning I've had a loss and a BE...both of which were due to 'picking the wrong market' (ie GBP/USD vs EUR/USD)....I would have locked in profit on BOTH had I picked the right market. I had come up with a general rule for that...because I didn't trust my judgement...I'll put orders in for both and whichever one triggers first I go with and cancel the other order...it had been serving me well...but this morning, I didn't do that and paid the price (I decided for other reasons which market I'd trade). Lessons learned...for now...I'm sure I'll have to relearn them down the line. I feel fairly certain that the majority of the reason why I'm down is because of my emotions and mind causing error...I was doing things that go against my general trading plan/method... I never stopped trading...I just quit posting every trade on here. Since I was making a lot of trades that go against my general trading plan/method, I figured what's the point? Also, I think it hurts me a little as far as my mind/emotions to be posting every trade... A while back I would have friends and family asking me every day, and sometimes several times a day, how I was doing with my trading...I found this harmful to my state of mind...because moment by moment, trade by trade, isn't that relevant and it hurts me to focus on it. SO, I'm not going to be posting all of my trades on this log...not for right now, anyway. I'll post my P/L...well, L...for the week tomorrow. It will probably end up a losing week, and that's fine...I don't have to 'start over' anything, or quit, or any of that...I just keep moving forward... Since I feel like my mind/emotions are mostly what was getting in my way...and that it's getting better each day...I feel like the best thing I can do right now is just keep trading, every day...practice makes perfect...

Possible USD/JPY long...

I don't know anything about OEC, but for the long crude example, you could just sell it then buy it back at a better price (ideally)...rather than having a short and long on at the same time (which is essentially the same thing as being out of the market...they cancel each other out). If your short was going to be smaller than your long position, you could just sell some rather than all. If you short was going to be larger, you'd have to sell the entire long position, then go short additional contracts. It may be easier, especially if the short is larger than the long, just to have two positions on at the same time, though...maybe... -Cory

I just want to say that I really like the use of #.##R (vs ticks or % return or $$). A while ago, I made the post attached below, about how neither ticks nor % return really mean much in isolation (as far as gauging performance)...so how do you measure performance?...by ##R! (that hadn't occurred to be back then)

I'd be considering this GBP/USD short if it weren't so late in the day...

First, take what I say and do with a grain of salt... I usually do prefer at least 1:1 R:R for the first profit target, but in this case, I felt PA was pretty compelling... Also, if my PT1 is less than 1:1, that means my BE level is probably fairly close to the entry, so since I'm getting to BE fairly quickly, I figure the risk is low...probably more likely to get BE, but still worth a shot at pulling a little profit out. I definitely see what you're saying, and that probably also has something to do with why I'll sometimes choose to take a trade with less than 1:1 R:R for the first PT...

Since the EU is resuming the uptrend, I'd really have my eye on this level...

:shocked:Good grief! Didn't see that coming! (I got PT1 on the first half, at least...BE on the second...)

Beat ya to it! (Check out my edited post.)

It's funny...I had my intial stop-loss where the short entry would be...and of course, after price broke that, I was thinking 'oh man, looks like it's going lower'...but it didn't occur to me to go short. :doh:

Nope...too focused on the potential long...

Potential EUR/JPY long IF we can break that high...?

Potential GU long...

Thanks. Yeah, I understand that. Anyone who's been paying attention to your thread should understand that. I've just been a mess this week thus far. :o Well, the week's far from over...I plan to come back for Tokyo this evening a new man!

Update: I took this loss on the EUR/USD (pulled it for -18.7 ticks)... (This trade was before the last several posts about my overtrading, against the trend, etc.) Then, I got long on the GBP/USD...I realize that price was still in a chop zone, but I thought the price action looked compelling...I watched it closely around the high of the chop zone, but after hovering for a little bit, it broke it pretty solidly, so I felt good about it... But then, price came up on potential major resistance... So, I had the idea to try for a short... But, after reading this... ...I decided I must be wrong and immediately reversed back long... I have now pulled out of that long... ...and it may still very well be a pause and not a reversal...I just managed everything really bad. Here's how the short would look as of now... This will be it for me this afternoon...it's getting late, anyway. I need to step back, calm down, and take a big deep breath. I know I can do a lot better than this...I'm pretty embarrassed and disappointed with myself. I'm currently down 3.37R for the week. This is the worst I've done in a long time...