I saw a dummy setup right before I shut down my Tradestation. This is a small R trade. Long position of NQ futures was established around 1205pm. NQ was moving in my favour, however, it was slow. And subsequently, an ugly big down candle at 1230pm pissed me off. I bailed out with 0.21 R (after commission) gain.
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This series of short notes is to record down thoughts, skills, and any lessons that I have learned from day to day trading. I am not talking about Technical analysis. One can really learn TA by getting a good book, and practice, so nothing much to discuss here.
So, what did I learn recently?
Stop Monkey-ing around with Trailing stops in Forex trading. I know I will attract a number of attacks or debate over this topic. But wait.
I note down this because it suits my trading style. It doesn’t mean trail your stops is wrong. There is no right or wrong in trading, but only what works for you and what’s not.
I start to realize, what I really love to do is to take care about how bad /how much I will lose in a single trade instead of how much I am going to earn in a single trade.
Put in the stop, that’s it. I will either close my position at a profit target (which is pretty far away) or at a predefined time. It hurts me more when watching a huge profit run away from me because I got stopped out prematurely by trailing stop than accepting a predefined amount of loss.
I can’t nor anyone can predict where will the price go and how much space we need to give to the trade to fluctuate before continue gaining. So, it is extremely tough to design the right trailing stop techniques. It can be done, but I am not into that.
OK, that’s the lesson 1. Lesson for myself.
Not a good day for day trading GBP/USD. I was stopped out twice . End with -2 R loss. GBP/USD reversed the direction around 3am EST.
I call it a day for day trading system. I am still holding GBP/USD for my weekly system.
Summary:
Long GBP/USD; Result: -1 R
Short GBP/USD; Result: -1 R
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This series of journal is to record my Forex day trade system. I am not going to describe the details of my system, since, it is customized to suit my trading style. Basically, it is a SAR (Stop and Reverse) system. And there is no guarantee of success.
Anyway, I made a mistake today, I miscalculated my stop loss, though it did not cause any problem today, it is still a mistake.
I went Short of GBP/JPY, and I was stopped out with -1 R loss. I went long immediately and my profit target 100 pips was achieved, I closed the position with +2.5 R gain.
Summary:
[photopress:GBPJPYDayTrade03April07.PNG,full,pp_image]
Trust me, a real man trades Futures, his son trades Forex. I am trading both, for my wife. LOL
After spending the weekend to draft out my trading plan, I start my Forex trading this month. I did that before, and now I am trying again with totally different style and strategies. The reason of picking up this trading vehicle again is to utilize the advantage of staying in Asia (since I have no interest to trade stocks in Singapore market). Yes, I will trade during Asian and European session , and continue in U.S session if I see opportunity. Thanks Vincent who encourages me to look into currency trading seriously (Though he was talking about currency futures). I am not talking about trading in demo account, I did my testing of strategies in demo account, and now I am going live. For the time being, the risk amount is half the size of my normal R.
I am focusing on two strategies where one of them requires me to hold my position over days with maximum a week, while the other is a day trading strategy which will last for hours. Both of these strategies do not require me to stare at the screen every minute. No dummy trading in FX, as I find it to be difficult in FX trading and I got stopped out frequently during my testing in demo account, well, maybe later I will try it again, since I am a BIG DUMMY Fan.
I am planning do a weekly review of my Forex trading process. Of course, my main focus is still Futures trading during U.S market hour. This is something that I really love to do.
uhm…am I now a ‘full-time’ trader? LOL
Let’s see how it works.
Ok, maybe I again write too many posts over the weekend. But , I just can’t help doing this, because WE WON AGAIN!! We fought back from 0-1 down in the first half, and finished the match with 4-1 win! And my favourite Korean star Park Ji Sung scored again! Oh man, you know what I am saying, we are Manchester United!
