Day 21. - 13.2. Houston, we have a problem.

A morning of technical difficulties and blunders. First, I put in a pending trade, price hit it, went into profit by 4 pips, stalled, and I went to exit. But wait, where's my trade? What shenanigans are being pulled here? Did Oanda's platform have a hiccup? Oh. Arrgh. Insufficient funds for the trade. I had switched my account back to the primary instead of the sub since I went up to 10k units. But I was logged in to the sub when I put the trade. Fuck. Oh well.

My first real trade was a small winner. The 2nd and 3rd trades lagged hard. On each of them price stalled and where I'd normally get out (would have been profit on both) my trade wasn't even showing in the open positions. They didn't show until after price had bounced back and put in me in a loss. What the fuck. That 3rd trade didn't become visible until I was negative but I made it worse by leaving it open to give it some room to move. I had a feeling it wasn't behaving right but I tried to gut it out anyway and took a full stop hit. The 4rth and final trade is later, not seen on chart. But that one was all my fault and it too hit my full stop. Bad morning.

I was trying to hold to hit my targets with the 3rd and 4rth trades but it dawned on me this morning (afterwards) that I would probably be better off giving it time when it's already in profit. Once again, it all comes back to momentum. If price is moving against me momentum is lacking, or worse it's building in the opposite direction. Which means I should get out quick. If price is going with me and I'm in profit then momentum is on my side, plus I have a little room to breathe. Just make sure I don't let a winner become a loser.

But then the question becomes, what's the use of having a 6pip max stop if I'm going to bail at 1-3pips anyway? When do I let the trade actually move against me for a full stop? Should I even do that? If not, why am I using dynamic stops to begin with? Hmmm...

Probably the best time to allow, and maybe the only time, a full stop is when that stop is backed up by some other factors. Such as s/r lines PLUS the EMA, and going with the trend, and has at least a 1:1 ratio AND is not trading into congestion or other s/r. That's a really specific instance to allow a full stop but then it would be more likely for price to bounce off and continue in my direction.

On top of everything, I couldn't sleep last night and got only a few hours of shut eye. When I woke I didn't feel unusually tired but I have to wonder if I would have made the same mistakes in holding on to those trades if I had more rest.

Over yonder, I continue to ponder...

Week 5 review.

Week 5
Trades: 16
Total pips: +23.9

What did I do well?
I identified patterns in price behavior and took trades that exploited those movements.

What mistakes did I make?
I took that trade into the strong upward slope of support. In the past I haven't given much weight to angled support lines. Price never really seemed to respect them as much as horizontal lines. However, this time it was obvious that price was moving along a very specific support line. I should have realized that. I almost made the same mistake the next day! hah. But I caught myself and though, "Wait, this is the same shit that happened yesterday. I'll pass on this one." Learn and move on!

What did I learn?
See above.

Also, I learned more about setting dynamic stops, using 2 targets, and how they relate to my style. I experimented with different max size stops and though I haven't come to a conclusion yet, I'm leaning towards keeping the max at 6pips. I want to have the possibility of at least a 1:1 ratio. And doing that with anything above 6 doesn't seem to jive with me. It's highly unlikely that I'll hold any one trade for 10+ pips so it doesn't make sense to use a stop that large. But at 6 pips I'm able to get in and out quickly, which I enjoy doing and seem to be good at. It's also easier for me to catch moves that are less than 6pips and do it consistently. So making 6 pips the max seems the most logical thing for me to do. It means I miss out on moves that retrace further than I'd like, but that's ok. I don't need to catch all the Pikachu's.

As for 2 targets, I'm still working on that as well. I'm leaning towards all in/all out because it's much simpler for me, especially since I'm entering/exiting quickly. But I might experiment with 2 targets some more.

What will I do to improve my trading?
I will continue to work on identifying price action behavior and responding accordingly. Also, I am going to get a Kindle this weekend, ohyay! First book I'm going to buy on it is this:

I'm excited about it. Been really looking forward to it ever since I browsed through it in the bookstore.

DAY 20!!! +3.6 Let the party begin, bitches!

5 trades today. 3 winners 2 losers. I'm pretty happy with the way I traded today. The first trade I held out just a but long than I normally would, until it got to the point where my mind was screaming "GET OUT NOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" So I exited and it was the perfect moment since price instantly reversed. The 2 and 3rd trades were loser but I exited them early because the way price was acting didn't seem right. Good thing too because both of them would have hit my full stop costing me extra pips. 4rth trade went the same as the first. The 5th trade was a bit different. Price was constantly bouncing off the 21 ema (different chart) and then falling. It happened 3 times previous so I decided that I was going to take the trade the next time it happened. Which I did and made a small profit.

And today is DAY 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I successfully made it to my first milestone!! Goddamn. Even though it's only been 20 trading days, I feel like I've come so far and done so much already. I mean, it's the first time I've actually stuck this thing out through the good and the bad times. And there were a few bad days in there! hah. Normally, I would have gone back and forth between time frames, indicators, methods, rules, then I'd brake the rules or not follow them at all then I'd change everything again. Never moving forward, always in a circle. So I'm quite proud of myself and what I've done in these 20 days. I have a lot of work ahead of me but I feel I'm making great progress and heading towards my goals.

I've been trading 1000 units on Oanda, haha. Wanted to prove I could stick to my rules before I went higher. On Monday I'm going to up it to 10000 units.

Lastly, I get my first reward to myself! Ohyay! Gonna get that Kindle. My gf is actually looking forward to it too because she plans on using it whenever I'm not, hah.

Blazing saddles baby. Where da white wimen at?!

Day 19 Part 2. +4.4. One more day till my first milestone!

Traded the Asian a bit. Got one trade in for +4.4. Spread was again 1.2. :( I hope Multicharts can resolve the lag issue I reported with them. When trading manually off the charts the process of closing the trades lags. It takes longer to close than it does on either NT or even Oanda during the times that Oanda is laggiest. If they can fix that I'll probably end up moving back to MBT sooner rather than later.

Anyway, I gotta clean my fucking dishes. Had hot pot last night and the smell of day old kitchen funk is wafting to my room as I write this. But oh yeah, it's day 19! Just one more day to my first milestone. Holy shit! Alright, going for real now.

Peace in your head!

Day 19. +7.3 Movin on along

A positive day within a short session. Started at 7am today. Spread was 1.5 for the most part and never dropped below 1.2. If these spreads continue much longer I might as well trade with MBT again where spread + commission comes out to about 1.7 pips and sometimes below that. The difference of .5 to .2 pips would likely be made up by the fact that my ping to MBT servers is much faster (19ms) than Oanda servers (100ms). Plus I'd get to trade off one software package rather than charting in NT and trading in Oanda. If spread doesn't start going back to .9 soon I may just doo eeeet.

Day 18 part 2. -11.1 Doi doi doi!

Don't have time to post a chart but I traded Asian open and it was slooooow. I ended up taking one trade took a -11.1 hit. Ouch. Looking back it was a stupid trade to make. Price was reaching it's recent highest point and resistance so I chose not to buy the breakouts upwards unless it broke the resistance. As usual. However, there was a strong upward wedge of support that was forcing price slowly up. Price bounced of the high resistance and brokedown and I took the trade. But if I stay out of trades when they are nearing horizontal S/R lines I should have known not to take a trade getting close to a sloped support line. I don't use slopes that much so I suppose I didn't notice it as I would have easily done before. So I'll make a mental note and won't make that mistake again. Doi!!

Day 18. +13.5. Blood, Milk, and Sky.

Continuing to hold longer and using 2 targets. First trade I figured was a possible home run type. It was higher than it had been in a while. I think the most recent hard resistance it faced at this level was around Feb 1st, but that was around 3820. So if this popped up it had a good chance of charging hard. However, around 7:10 it hit, almost to the pip, the same point it did at 7am and bounced back. So I said fuck it and exited. I was expecting price to go down after that but knew that if I was wrong, and it broke that little double top, that the pressure to do so would cause it to jump nicely. So positioned myself. I scaled at my first target and then price kept making tiny jumps back and forth so I exited the rest of the position. I soon got back in and put my entire target at 3778. I've noticed price often hesitates around the 80 marks. It's not as strong as 00 or 50 but for whatever reason 80 just seems to be where things go silly. Target at 78 was just to be safe. The reason I didn't use a second target to scale was because A) the 80 thing I just mentioned. B) Price was getting closer to 00. C) we were reaching the ceiling of resistance at 3820. Lots of room between each of those areas but since I'm still learning I decided to err on the side of caution and exit my entire position and also end my session. I'll be looking at the Asian open later today too.

Oh yeah, the pip count is in full pips. I add the grand total rather than counting half pips. Otherwise I'd have about 15, but make more sense to me to use the full pip amount.

Right now I'm listening to White Zombie. They were the first band I saw in concert. It was also the first time I was molested in public by some random unknown girl with big personalities. It was a very good time but that's a story for another day. Anyway, Devil's Rejects is one of my favorite movies but don't even talk to me about the Halloween remake. That shit suuuuuuucked! Ohyay.

Day 17 part 2. +1.2

Even though I traded the morning session a bit I checked out the Asian. Gotta get more screen time in to get used to holding positions. I tried using 2 targets so my chart markers look a little crazy, hah. First trade I had the 3713 as the 1st target and second target for the runner was all the way at 3730. Quite a difference from my normal quick bites. As you can see, first target was hit almost perfectly and I exited my first scale. Held on and price started to reverse. Went too much for my liking so I scaled the rest out around 02.

Next trade I was targeting 80 but price bounced back before it and considering that it was near a pivot area I scaled out both real quick.

No big gain but was interesting trading pure price action and using 2 targets. Look forward to tomorrow.

Day 17. +5 Ken Roberts and a glorious mustache

I had a bit of time this morning so decided to open my charts. Lo and behold, we were right in the middle of that nice trend down. I didn't get in sooner because I was busy checking for support, resistance, all that good stuff. Finally got a good chance and got a trade for 5 pips. I thought it would go down a bit further but was a bit conservative. Still trying to get the hang of holding longer when I think it will go more.

Been working on trading more price action set ups which, a lot of times, are 1-2-3 formations. When I was a teen I bought Ken Robert's futures course. TWMPMM! hah. He always talked about channels and 1-2-3 tops and bottoms. I believed that it could work and had some mild success. Then dropped futures when I needed to liquidate my account and put the money to use towards mortgage and car payments. I flirted with futures and options off and on then got involved with Forex late last year. Found that a lot of people see Roberts as a fraud, and understandably so. However, is funny that the more I learn about Price Action the more it seems Roberts was on the right track and taught sound methods for setups. Where he completely lacked was Money Management, of course. He never taught that and without it you would likely blow up your account.

Oh yeah, doy doy doy. Since yesterday was a US holiday I didn't trade the Asian session. Buuuut haha, that was dumb. During the Asian session the US banks are closed anyway! haha. During the first few hours yesterday the Asian dropped 100 point. I felt silly after that. Anyway, time to get to work.

Aye yai yai

Oh my god, look at that, haha. The first day I don't trade because I choose to do the Asian session instead and I miss out on this...

It doesn't get any better than that. Holy shit, with my set up and criteria I would have made so many piparooni's! Oh well. At least I can pay myself in gum.  :(

Day 16. +1.9. Yellow moves.

I was able to get NT working again, so that's ohyay, but I traded the opening hours of the Asian session. Ever since I've been waking up at 4:30 I've been going to sleep earlier and earlier, of course. I've been trying to get to sleep at 8:30 which isn't so good for girlfriend time. By the time she gets off work and comes over we only get to spend about an hour together before I go to bed. She's supportive and though she'd like to see me more than we've had time lately she's willing to see me through trading the early sessions. But I don't want to neglect her so I really should give the Asian session a try before saying "Sorry baby, I can only trade the NY!!" So from now until the next leg of my 60 day challenge I'll try the Asian. Asian opens at 4pm my time but according to Mataf it has sustained volatility from 4pm - 6pm. I get home from the day job at 4:30. I'm only going for small pips though so it's not too crazy to aim for.

Man, how different this session is. That first trade lasted about 6 minutes. The second lasted 25! Holy shit, that's insane, hah. During NY both those would have lasted no more than 45 seconds. I knew I'd have to give more time for the trades to develop. Just feels strange. Suppose I'll get used to it after a few days.

No trades today

Argh. Frustrated. I've been having to leave NT on 24x7 to collect data for seamless sessions for my range bar data. Otherwise there are gaps. That's frustrating enough but last night I noticed NT wasn't tracking anything at all. Restarted, uninstalled, reinstalled, everything from scratch, and all that wonderful stuff. Still no go. So I tried using Multicharts. And while that comes close, it tends to draw bars in different places than NT at times (compared it a few days ago). So no trades today and the one thing that works perfectly for me is the Oanda 1 min charts. hah. Which is what I've always entered my trades on anyway. If I can't get NT to work soon I may just use the 1 min on Oanda. Similar data to my range bars, I just prefer the cleaner look of range bars. But it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

And the band marches on.

Day 15. -12.7 Mucho happenings mang and I'm a bad boy. :(

Action packed day today. I put up a good fight but in the end the market put a dog collar around my neck and made me it's bitch.

Lots to talk about. This is gonna be a long one. Longer than the other long ones. 12 inches down your throat long.

I started off with a loss. I had planned to exit if price reached above a consolidation point (not seen here, was on my 3 range chart). As price hesitated I thought "hmm, maybe I'll move my stop higher." Then I realized that hell no, I can't do that. I must never do that. I did that so often in the past but no more. I chose the mental stop area for a logical reason and I'm sticking to it. As soon as I told myself that price started going down. Ohyay! It was like a reward from the chart gods for remaining faithful to my rules. However, it was not to be. Price soon moved up and I exited with a loss as the chart masters said "Hey, fuck you. Get back in your cage!"

  Even though I took a loss I was proud of myself. Price twice bounced off the same spot to move upward. To me that meant price was not going down and rather it was about to bounce upward. Therefore I should exit early, as in right now. Which I did for a loss of a couple pips. Which was much better than a -5 or -6 I would have got had stayed in till I originally planned. And as anticipated, price did indeed go higher. Much higher. In the past I would have moved my stop to "give it room" hah. That would have been a huge loss. So kudos to me for A) sticking to my plan and not moving my stop B) Reading price action correctly and C) Exiting with a small loss saving me from a large one.

I stayed calm after the loss and knew I could handle it. I then had a winner and another small loss and remained calm and confident,

"Can I get out of my cage now?"

"No. You remain!"

:(

I have an econ indicator to tell me when news is about to hit. But apparently the audio alert doesn't sound when I'm using my headphones, as I was this morning. In the trade and BAM, spread suddenly went to 10 pips. What the fuck? Then I looked at the time. Ahhhhh fuck me. I didn't want to mess around so I exited right away. That's not included in the loss as I'm including only the trades. As I didn't include the small gain a while back when it was an accidental trade. However, from now on I will add those to the stats as they will help to make me more aware of what I'm doing.

I continued working on holding my trades longer. Fail. I was thinking about this all this morning. The more I think about it, the more it seems I should not be doing that with the way I currently trade. As mentioned in a previous post I'm trading momentum moves on small timeframes. If momentum is there, it's there, and I grab quick pips or get occasional runners. Or I exit with small losses. If momentum is not there and price is chillin like hey what's up how you doin, then I should exit. Otherwise I'm just hoping that price will continue when the lack of momentum is telling me the opposite. I suppose I could scale out as I know some people on BMT do, but I prefer all in/all out. Balls deep. Most of my losers today would have been small winners or a couple of very small losses. My winners would have been smaller but in the end I would have came out ahead. Plus, it feels more comfortable to me. So I'm going to focus on trading the momentum as I have been, rather than trying to hold longer. Get in and get the fuck out. Oh yeah. Though by getting in on the trend earlier I feel it will set me up for more runners so I won't really need to hold and hope.

Which brings me to the next thing...

The use of the ADX to filter trades. I normally don't take trades unless ADX is 30+ since that tells me a strong trend is in place. The problem with that is that when consolidation happens the ADX number goes down, of course. So when the breakout finally comes I'm unable to take the trade. Often times even during the retracement and continuation the ADX hasn't caught up, so to speak, so I again don't take an obvious move. After a few of those have happened ADX is around 30, hah. So I'm thinking about taking those breakouts even though ADX says not to. ADX is only telling me what I already see on the screen via price movement. I don't need it to tell me when a market is trending and when a market is choppy. Again, I see that on screen via price. It appears that ADX is really just a crutch, something to keep me out of bad trades but at this point I feel that I can easily identify when a market is trending and when it's not. So perhaps it's time to have one less thing on my screen.

Now on to those consolidation breakouts.

I've been using dynamic stops as of late but as I ponder, it appears that very small stops are the way to go here. Small as in .5 to 1 pip. At most 2. That may sound crazy but a legit breakout, from what I've seen, usually busts through pretty quickly with little to no initial hesitation. The times that it does hesitate it often goes back down to the middle of the consolidation or lower. A small stop is .5 to 2pip, a dynamic one would be anywhere from 4-10. I can possibly take several of those small ones and still be ahead of a loss from one dynamic stop. That's not even taking into account that I may not take a loss at all, I may catch the breakout first time. If I take one or two losses with the dynamic I need a medium to large move to make a profit. If I take one or two losses with the static I need a small to medium move to make a profit. This also keeps congruent with trading based on momentum, not hope. If the momentum is there, it will move. If not, get out. In addition, this also keeps in line with getting in the trend earlier which give me a higher probability of catching a runner.


I noticed that I overtraded a bit. Or tried to anyway, hah. There were pendings I put in which I cancelled but I shouldn't have put them in. It wasn't against a rule but I put it in to take a trade into an area which I felt would likely show resistance. Normally I avoid that but today I did it anyway. Which tells me the session results were getting to me. Though I performed much much better than I had in the past under similar circumstances, I still have to continue working on myself. Happy about the progress but more effort is needed.

I broke the rules today for the first time so $10 bye bye. :( :( :(. Back to my cage I go for now to regroup. Come tomorrow it's ass kicking time. Chart masters, I'm coming for you.

Day 14. + 3.4 Itty bitty bites

Prices were in a nice uptrend and made some purdy moves but I couldn't take most of them. The ones I did take were very hesitant and slow moving so even though I'm trying to hold a bit longer I exited to be safe. I did get in on the trend a bit sooner though so that's good.

I predicted a trend change and was wrong this time. Circled the marker.

3 trades today for a total of +3.4 pips.


**Edit** I looked at the charts just now and found this:

 That circled pending on the left is where I entered the marker (see previous chart above) to predict the trend change. And while it didn't happen immediately it did happen at the level I thought it would. Ohyay.

Week 3 Review

Week 3
Trades: 10
Total pips: +13

What did I do well?
Kept trades open a little longer and also using dynamic stops, based on local support/resistance. Also, exiting a trade that reversed immediately and losing the minimal amount. Additionally, I didn't try to chase the market after that to force pips for a breakeven or positive day.

What mistakes did I make?
One glaring mistake, though it wasn't directly related to trading, it still has an impact on it. I went to sleep way too late on a couple of days. I still woke up on time in the morning but it was harder. And being tired could drastically effect my performance in the future. I will have to make sure I'm in bed no later than 9:30 pm each day, preferably 8:30, from here on.

What did I learn?
I learned that dynamic stops are the way to go. Also, I learned I need to get in on the trends a bit earlier, but still with reliable and high probability entries, which I started working on the last couple of days. I will continue to work on that.

I learned how to read price action a bit better. I still have a long ways to go but I'm quite happy with my progress this week. I don't intend to pick tops and bottoms, but I think it will be hugely beneficial to detect likely trend changes earlier in the game.

I learned that I must continue to be vigilant in my mindset. Today I almost took a trade that clearly violated a rule. Everything looked so perfect except one rule said no. I intended to break it because I felt so strongly that the trade would be a winner. Then I thought about throwing $10 in the street and canceled the pending trade. In the future there may be times to bend the rules but before I reach that point I need a rock solid foundation. At this point I'm still building it and have a long way to go.

What will I do to improve my trading?
I will get to bed on time each day.

I will continue to monitor my thoughts and feelings to make sure I'm trading my rules 100%.

I will continue to enter markers where I think trend changes are soon to occur. I will analyze the results to see where price action can be exploited in the future.

I will make a stronger effort to feel the flow of price when I first open my charts. I find that when I do this, things somehow seem to make more sense.

Day 13. +1 piparoos.

One trade in for a gain of 1 pip. Several pendings after but no dice.

Time seems to go by so fast in the morning. Get up at 4:30 and next thing I know it's 7:30. When I used to try scalping the Asian session for a couple hours time seeemed to draaaaaaaaaaag on forever. Probably cause action is so slow at that time.

Anyway, time to get ready for my day job so I'm outta here.

Day 12. +6.9 Crush Groovin.

Great success today. First, best winning day so far. Second, I got in on the trends a bit earlier than I have in the past, while still sticking to my rules. Third, I practiced letting my trade stay in a bit longer. I didn't do too much longer, hah, but in the process I got a couple extra pips. More pips, more fun! Fourth, I finished my session earlier than usual. And lastly, I was able to pretty accurately predict where the trend would change.

Predicting a trend reversal is not something I was I interested in doing before. The only reason I decided to try was because, as I wrote yesterday, I noticed that most of my trades and pending trades were entered right before a trend change happened. I wondered if the price action and signals I use to enter my trade are actually strong indicators that a reversal is about to happen. The more I thought about it the more it made it sense so I decided to test myself. I went over to Forexbirds blog, since we both use 3 range charts, and opened 20 of his charts in separate tabs. I held a paper over the chart only revealing the first bar and slowly moved the paper over to reveal the next bar. I continued to do this until I got to a point where, based on price action I would normally put in a trade. I said to myself, "Ok, right here is where I would put a trade and this is why. Because of x and x I think a reversal in trend will happen around here at xxx." Then I took the paper away to reveal the rest of the chart. Out of the 20 charts I tried this on I was correct 17 times. I was really surprised at this and excited as well. Felt like I was really getting a feel for price action.

Testing myself on static charts is one thing, but doing it in real-time is another. So I had to test myself while trading live. Which I did today. To mark where I think the trend is about to reverse I put in a pending limit in the opposite direction then immediately canceled it. That way a marker will be left on the chart. I did this twice today. The first was around 5:22. Price reversed there. Second time was around 5:46. Price reversed there as well. Then ranged and completely changed direction. I actually did it for a third time around 6:19 but I didn't mark it. My attention was elsewhere and I glanced at the chart right then and thought, "Oh, right here. I bet price is about to reverse." Then bam bam boogie, it did. If you compare those two marker limits to my previous charts you'll see that that is where I would normally enter a trade. Which coincides with my assumption earlier. Funny stuff. Anyway, who knows, I may have a hard day tomorrow and think, "What the fuck, I don't know what I was talking about!" hahah. But for now, it's all good in the hood.

Day 11. -.5

Just one trade went through today. After entering and going into slight profit price immediately turned around and said, "Peace out, bitch!" So I exited near my entry point with a half pip loss and watched price run off into the distance. I caught up with him a couple times later but he continued to elude my grasp. Next time Gadget, next time.

I've been looking at all my entries and pendings and it appears that I have this wonderful ability to buy tops and sell bottoms, hah. Just a few pips off most time. Fortunately I've been able to get in and get out quick most of the time to get small pips. But I'm thinking my entries could definitely be improved. As it stands, the way I'm currently trading I'm minimizing the possibility of a homerun and maximizing the possibility of a bunt. Not even a clean base hit! ;p

While I don't want to focus on the homeruns I should be trading in a way that at least increases their probability. Or even just increase the probability of doubles or a single base hit. Which means I'll have to get in the trend sooner. If I can get in at around 50% of the move that would increase the probabilities by huge margin. Hell, even getting in at 75% of the move would be better than what I'm doing now which is getting in at 97% of the move! hah.

But how to do that with reliable entries? Hmmmm. I keep coming back to the idea of those small consolidation breakouts. It's usually several of those breaking out in the same direction that constitutes a strong trend to me. And on the next breakout, I enter on the continuation after the retrace. Looking at my charts it appears that by this time the trend is at a short term end and begins to reverse. So perhaps I should get in one of those earlier breakouts. I'm hesitant to do that because it seems that I often get faked out and take a loss. But perhaps the larger gains will offset those small losses. Or I could just fade the moves, hah. But nah, I'll stay away from fades for now. Maybe add that to the 'ol rep-a-twah after I've become better with pro-trend moves.

Again, I ponder.

Day 10. +1.5

In the short time I've been waking up at 4:30am, this is another instance of a trade not taking place until the 7-8 time slot. It's becoming a theme.

Nothing good for me first couple hours then around 7am things strarted looking mighty tasty. My rules were met several times but I chose not to put in a pending order. Reason being that price was nearing the very top of a solid range. Too bad for me that each one of those trades would have been winners! hah. It's cool though. It very well could have reversed as it had when previously reaching that area. Then I'd be kicking myself for making such dumb trades. So no worries.

The few pendings I did put in mostly got canceled but one went through for a gain of 1.5 pips. I felt it still had a good likelihood of going higher but (due to anxiousness I think) I decided to close it with profit to be safe. It immediately went higher and I told myself, "See? Should have left it." Yeah yeah. I'll work on being more in tune for next time.

Day 9. +4.1. Apples and lollipips.

Quite a few canceled trades there and all as easy as apple pie. Actually, easier. Last summer I tried to make an apple pie, my first time ever and that shit was not easy. Pie came out soggy as hell. Didn't know there was such thing as bakers apples! Anyway,  2 trades went through for a total of +4.1 pips. Sticking to my rules now feels completely normal. And some of the subjective calls I have to make at times are getting easier.

For instance, one of my rules is not to trade into major support/resistance points. Major resistance is determined on higher charts such as the hourly. I also am very wary of taking trades into large round number areas like 1.3500, though that part is not a hard rule. Last trade on chart my hard rules were being met but price seemed to stick. Seeing price move like that, and also seeing as how the price acted similar around 5:55, annnd seeing that a major round number was being approached, no thank you. My hard rules said all things were go, but those other elements didn't look right and I decided to cancel my order. Good thing too, because price would have hit my order just a couple minutes later and given me a loss.

The above is great, however, how I reacted to my loss on Friday was not so great. During the trading, everything was cool but over the weekend a familiar friend, Inconsistency, dropped by to say hello.

"Well hello Soma. Been a little while, but figured I come over and say hello."

"Oh hello there. Seeing you again feels great. Man, glad you could join me."

"Yeah, something that feels so right can't be wrong. Hey, let's go get a drink. Tell me all about your losses on Friday and I'll give you advice on what do. Help you change things up and get back in the game."

"Waaait a second. I'm not so sure about that. I'm supposed to stay away from you."

"C'mon, it will be just like old times!"

"Yeah, it would be fun...wait, no. No, I can't. Fuck off. I can't go."

"C'mmmmooon,  you know you want to. Hey, look, I got some candy for you. Look at this nice lollipop. Just come on over here and get into my van. It's ok, I promise."

"Ahhh, fuck you. Go away!"

And that was that. I came close to going with him but in the end he left alone. Though I do fear he will return in the future. I suppose I'll just have to keep an eye out for him.

Day 8. -8.4 pips. I bleed like Mai Li.

Apparently, Megatron kicked my ass because I had 4 losers in a row and 1 small win.

Things to note...

Looking at the 3rd trade now I'm wondering why the fuck I took it. Trend is going down but I do remember at the time thinking the trend was going up. I'll have to look at my other charts later to see why I took that trade.

Trades 1, 2, and 4 all went in the direction I expected after stopping me out. I'm using a very small stop, 2 pips which includes spread. Which made sense for the setup I was using previously. But for my current one, perhaps that's just dumb. I may need to make it dynamic, place the stop where I think the trade has failed. Which means I have to count on myself to stick to that level and not move it. Something I'd had problems with in the past. But I wanted to grow as a trader so this may just be what I need to do.

After the 4th loser I thought I had just hit over -10 pips. So what did I do? I stopped, bitch. I stopped! So ohyay! I was tempted to continue on and thought, "Ehhh, lets just take a trade to see what happens..." then I thought again and said, "Aw man, nevermind. I can't do that. Gotta stick to the gameplan. This sucks." hah. Then I remembered the last time I thought I was down more than I was so checked the account to be sure. Found out I was down 9 pips. So I had one more trade left. Took it and made a small gain, not much but I'mt happy that when I thought I went past -10 I stopped.

Another positive thing is that I only lost 8.4 pips since I stuck to my rules. I say only like it's a good thing, hah. But seeing as how I went on slot machine meltdown in the past, taking something like 20-30 trades in 10 minutes or so (and most of them losers!), -8.4 pips today is a more bearable outcome.

So overall today, some setbacks but also some progress.

Leeets do dis.

In my last entry I mentioned I might be hindering myself by not getting in enough trades. But also expressed concern that those thoughts may be stemming from old habits rather than legit qualms.

I've been thinking about it all day and have come to the conclusion that I do need to get more trades in. I've proved to myself that I can follow rules 100% so it's time to add another setup. Also making a slight change to the current one to allow a few more trades in. Just small changes overall. That way I can continue to build discipline and not be inundated with a million things to watch. Yet still test myself and my setups/rules to see if they really are valid. And more importantly, to find out if I'm a good boy!

I'm a little nervous already, hah, but it's time to see if I'm made of sterner stuff than Megatron. Fuck that guy.

Day 7. No trades.

Woke at 4:30 again. Looks like it's turning into a regular thing. Anyway, not the most exciting day in the world. Lots of movement but none that met my criteria. Came close several times but then no way jose, so I had to cancel the pending order each time.

A few things to note about myself though...

Sticking to the rules I laid out feels automatic now. There was no hesitation in canceling those pendings and there was no urge to jump in the market, even with the obvious downtrend. If my rules aren't met, I don't trade. Simple. I didn't even think of the good boy/bad boy jars. For the most part I forgot they were there until I noticed them after my session. I'm a bit surprised about this really, considering how I was trading just a few weeks ago all wild-eyed and retarded. I look at one of my first blog posts, the one that shows a ton of trades and think, "What the fuck?" hah.

Oh yeah, when I was about to take trades, like before I noticed myself getting worked up. So I took a few deep breaths and tried noticing how I was feeling. That helped to calm me quite a bit.

I've been thinking about the setup I trade. I only use 1 and it's super strict. I do have others that I feel are valid but originally I just wanted to focus on 1 to make it easier to build discipline. I've been wondering if, at this point, that is hindering my growth. Meaning, since it's keeping me out of the market so often am I being tested enough? How will I react if I take several losses in a row? Will I really stop for the day at 10pips down like my rules state? How will I react if I get a huge winner? When I played poker in the past and had a great winning day,  I would then get too reckless and lose more than I should have back to the table. It was like some weird la-la land feeling where I thought, "Ahhhh, I'm up a bunch today. I can just splash some money around now, no biggie". But it is a biggie because in the long run that adds up. A lot! So what about now, will I start to take stupid risks after big winning trades, or will I stick to my rules? With my current setup it could take forever to find out.

Or is all the above a bunch of bullshit? Are my old ways of wanting to take a million trades planting thoughts in my mind to take over once again?

I will ponder.

Day 6. Ok, no trades today foreal. Fo'real.

Similar to an Asian father who's never satisfied with his child's good grades, trades came close to happening but never quite lived up to my expectations. So no trades today.

Speaking of Asians, my girlfriend and I will be taking a trip to China at the end of March. So yesterday I went to Walgreen's to get a picture for my Visa.

"Hi, I'd like to get a picture taken for a Visa."

"Picture for passport, yes!'

"No, for a Visa."

"Passport! Now, you go stand there." and he walks over to the wall and pulls down a white screen.

Didn't really know what to expect but I thought they'd have some professional cameras or something. So I stand there waiting for him to bring out some expensive looking photography equipment to take the pictures when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a camera that looks like it belongs to his 5yr old daughter. I was thinking, "Wtf, I could have taken my own picture in my bedroom. Why am I paying for this?"

"Ok, you smile now. Ready? Here, I show you..."

He gives me a smile, I suppose as an example of how to smile. But 1) hmmm, I already know how to smile. And 2), the smile he gave looked just like this:

He even looked like that guy, hah. So I gave a smile and thought, "Hell yeah. Best Visa picture ever. I rock." Then he took his baby camera to the back and did whatever they do back there. A few minutes later he returned.

I looked down at my picture and motherfuck, I looked just like that dude. Aargh. His pedo smile must have been contagious. As I'm looking at my picture he says

"You look good. Very good."

So I guess it's official. If my new friend at Walgreen's with the girl's camera said it, it must be so. I do indeed have the best Visa picture ever.

Good times and on to tomorrow.

Day 5. No Trades. Oh wait, jus kidding jus kidding jus kidding. +2.2 pips.

A little frustrating. Woke up at 4:30am today, as I did yesterday. No trades though a couple times I thought for sure I'd get one in but then a rule would be broken and I'd have to cancel a pending order. Kinda just sat here with my thumb up my ass for almost 3 hours. I suppose the screen time though is good since I'm noticing setups that I will test out later on...

Also, I'm finding it easier and easier to cancel the orders when the rules are suddenly broken. It feels almost automatic now.

Well, nevermind, hah. As I was writing this I decided to give one last look at the chart and what did I spy with my half-Mexican eye? A setup forming with all my rules met. So put in the limit and it hit and stalled so I quickly exited with 2.2 pips. That's the second time now this happened at almost the same exact time. Might be coincidence but I'll make a note of it. Might be that this particular hour is better for my setup and rules.