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!
Blog and Rants
Trader’s Narrative Trading Blog Contest
The once inactive blog is back. Babak is back with some great posts on his stock trading blog Trader’s Narrative. He is having its first trading blog contest. He’s giving away six months of access to SentimenTrader.com: Analysis Over Emotion in the Stock and Bond Markets.
All you have to do is to write a post about the contest. Check it out.
Month in review : March 2007
I was thinking to skip my monthly review for this month, and walk away. I feel so bad to report the lousy performance on my blog. I did badly this month. I found it difficult to trade and in addition, I lost my focus for a moment, I made more trades than I used to. This is the first losing month of the year. I have discussed couple of points in my previous post, I am not going to repeat again here.
I keep two separate journals in order to track dummy system specifically. Interesting, in total, Dummy system produced 0.11 R this month, while my overall trading performance in March was down -3.36 R. And I experienced a string of losses in the last week of March, as I’ve mentioned in my twitter. However, these losses were small as the risk amount were around half of my normal R. Which means I had a couple of trades that required small R , and I did not increase position size.
The result is ridiculous. I made 18 trades this month, which are more than what I did in Jan and Feb. And the result is the worst of the year.
Overall performance:
- Total P/L: -3.36 R
- Total No. of trades: 18
- Winning trades: 3
- Break Even: 1
- Losing trades: 14 (!?!?)
Anyways, it doesn’t help to bother too much over the losses. Lesson learnt, noted down, and I am ready for April. I give no chance for negativity to enter my life.
FX trade 29-Mar-2007
As mentioned in my twitter, I am trading spot forex in demo account to get familiar with the platform and position sizing. This is a dummy trade of USD/JPY. Long position was established around 1am NY time @117.1199. Stop loss was set at the recent swing low 117.056. First target of 117.346 was achieved, stop loss was trailed to 117.279 and triggered.
Closed 2/3 of position at 117.346
Closed 1/3 of position at 117.279
One paper trade with + 1.48 R
[photopress:USDJPY1hour29Mar2007.PNG,full,alignleft]
Journal note: Apparently, the exit was premature. I was over aggressive when trailing stops. To lock in some small profit, I am missing the forest. Well, lesson learnt.
I am starting trading live tomorrow. The risk amount for forex trades are half of my normal R size, until I see convincing result I will get back to my normal R amount.
Trade 28-March-2007
I made one short trade on NQ futures yesterday, but I was chopped out. The risk was only half of my normal R. I was trying to join the fun of selling during the second pull back, which was a stupid mistake.
No chart here. Ugly and messy.
As mentioned in my twitter. I saw NQ was setting up a bounce. And I had no idea about Big Ben was going to give a speech (err..I did not listen/read news). and we saw a spike in NQ. Was this just a coincidence? Well….
Quote from MONROE TROUT
In The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America’s Top Traders
Make sure you have the edge. Know what your edge is. Have rigid risk control rules … Basically, when you get down to it, to make money, you need to have an edge and employ good money management. Good money management alone isn’t going to increase your edge at all. If your system isn’t any good you’re still going to lose money, no matter how effective your money management rules are. But if you have an approach that makes money, then money management can make the difference between success and failure.
…
I’m excited and confident about the future. If I ever don’t feel that way, I will stop trading.
