Other Forex Traders Had a Rough Month
by Trader Rich
David had a good observation in a comment post today. He says:
"This may be coincidence but you, Colin at Forexspirit, Simon from Simon
Super Trader, and myself all had good Febuarys[sic]. But those same people
had a pretty bad March except Simon but he did say in his blog that he
had some very rough trades. Is this a coincidence or was the market
acting really different?"
Colin at Forexspirit was up around 8% in the middle of March. I too was up over 6% on March 20th. He ended March down over 17%. He states in his post that he had a lot going on throughout the month and his energy level was depleted, something I can relate to. It’s tough trying to become a competent forex trader when it’s not your primary job. The best solution I had for this problem was to mold my trading strategies into and around my life keeping it higher up in my priorities yet not at the top. Colin’s March forex trading review can be found at http://www.forexspirit.com/2008/04/01/march-2008-review/
Simon had a mixed month of trading hitting a losing streak but then recovered towards the end of month for a 180 pip gain. In his March review post, he does bring up an excellent point about blogging forex. He stated that he only had a certain amount of creative energy and a lot of it was being used at his full-time job. This was leaving less creativity for his blog. I too have had the same exact problem. My new job has been creatively demanding also and it certainly does affect my quality of writing. His March review can be found at http://simonsupertrader.blogspot.com/2008/03/march-review.html
I don’t know if David has a blog so I can’t give you any details on his results. I can only imply that he had a pretty bad March. I quickly scanned my charts over the previous three months and don’t see any major differences in market reaction. Maybe you do. If so, please comment.
I read that comment too. Funny thing, well not that funny, is my results paralleled many of the traders you mentioned. In February I was up 6.12%, March came along and started great. At one point in March I was up around 3%, which for me is good. Then it hit the fan and I ended down -4.88%. Frustrating month, primarily because I did not follow my plan. Too many discretionary trades. One of these days I will learn.
Jim
I think that if you are trading part time (as I do) you dont need big money on your account. My monthly statement looks different by % if I have small amount. This week I am already over 100% up P/L (with over 740pips UP just from Sun-Wed morning). I am trading small money, I feel more confident and I hope that I will hit 1000 pips up this week and hit world record.
Small amount, right leverage.. give me same power just with couple hundreds as you have with 20k.
Good luck to all ..
I had similar results, Rich. January up 6%, February up 8%, March down 5%. Throughout the month I felt that the market had a different feel to it, but I have no way to quantify it. I ended up taking the last week of the month off from active trading to avoid getting into a negative mental state. April just started and I’m up 2% already, so hopefully I’m back in sync with the market.