Items Tagged With losing

Learn::Forex provides exclusive content for members of FXCM.  I find that out of all Guest Trading Ideas they have "keeping it simple" analysis that you have to respect.  Others have analysis that from day to day is not consistent and analysis that also can be contrued as more of an art.  (easily interpreted differently from 1 person to another)

Here is Learn::Forex's Analysis today.  See for yourself.

AUD/JPY April 12th, 2006

The pairing that has caught our attention this week is the AUD/JPY.

First lets take a look at the Daily. Two things that stand out.First, notice that we have TWO different fib pulls that are coming together and have for resistance. And second, look at the momentum.it is appearing to weaken.

Then on the 240 minute chart we find confirmation of the price action losing momentum and we also get a nice trend line to use. In SHORT there seems to be an opportunity here.anywhere from current market price all the way back to re-test the trend line and resistance zone of 87.00

We have some support at the 85.50 area with more major support coming in at 85.00 which also happens to line up with a .382 retracement fib. 

The graphic below is the weekly EUR/USD chart with corresponding candlestick patterns.  As you can see, going into next weeks trading, we are following an engulfing bear.  Care to play the odds that this week will see more bearish action? Since 1999, here are the pip profit/loss if going short for the week following an engulfing bear:

 +51, +266, +21, +124, -58, +132, +38, +8, +11, +46, -10, +136

Out of 12 weeks, only 2 of the weeks were losing and they were small losses of 58 pips and 10 pips.  The average profit was 83.3 pips over the other 10 weeks. 

Funny how I was able to squeeze out a 11 pip profit on a trade that was absolutely discretionary.  I was watching the GBP/USD and it was highly overvalued on the short-term charts with solid resistance at 1.8400.  Even though the pair had reached a new high today, the MACD histogram failed to reach new highs (negative divergence on the 5 minute, not shown below).  The I shorted the pair at 1.8380 with a stop 30 pips above at 1.8410.  Once the pair ran up 15 pips, I set my stop to breakeven.  It ran up as high as 26 pips but started losing momentum.  I was watching for an exit on the 5 minute charts and once I noticed momentum and inertia decreasing, I exited.

15 minute chart below: 

I appreciate Greg's comments and agree with everything he says.  In particular, I agree with the facts that:

1. I am getting flogged.  If this was actually happening physically, I'd be a bloody pile of mess.
2. The 5% who consistently make money are taking the other 95%'s money (including mine) 

The reality is that though I have lost money, it hasn't been more than $2000 (give or take a couple hundred.)  It has cost me a lot more in time and effort.  I don't consider the loss of thousands of dollars a waste considering the 6+ months of experience I have received.  The $1000 for a mentor is also money that I feel is well spent even though the results have not been realized yet.  I was chatting with Rob during the US session today and as far as I can tell, he is trading for real during these times.  It is also no wonder that most mentors are probably failed traders that decided that they could do well teaching others a very difficult thing.  This doesn't mean that they know how to make money trading forex.  You can compare it to a professional sports coach who was never successful as a player but is as a coach.  There are many examples of this.  They aren't necessarily there to tell you what to trade but are there to prepare you for when you do decide to trade.

The goal of this site is to be truthful and honest.   I can tell all of you that though I have thought about not posting a losing trade in my trade history because of fear from criticism, I never did not post it.  I feel strongly that if you cannot be honest with others, you cannot be honest with yourself and therefore you will never learn. 

As always I appreciate all the comments that come in and hope that I can and others can learn from this.  If after 2 years, I'm still posting crap about losing, then shoot me down because I should not be doing this.  I promise that I will not enter the world of mentoring either.  I am not without faults in my trading (specifically with randomly trying things with real money, emotional trades, overtrades, and all the rest) but after 6+ months, I still have confidence I can do this for a living.  It's not going to be easy but think of all the hope it will give others if I can manage to beat the odds. 

Don't come to this site if you want trading advice (THAT'S FOR SURE... at least not yet) but if the 95% of you want to see someone going through exactly what you are going through, come on in.  Post your comments because I truly respect every one of you that has and if I am successful, I will attribute it to you.  

Enough of this Rah rah rah...  After reading this over, it sounds like I'm about to cry....

I jumped back into the market this past week and made 2 losing trades.  I lost a total of $539.50.  It seems like the losing will never end.   I'm not discouraged and I'm looking forward to another trading week.  The weather has been beautiful in New York this weekend so I've been outside and will try to remain outside for the remainder of it.  I'll try to do a little studying this evening for potential setups during the Asian session today or the US session in the morning.

I figure this may be a good time to mention a new website I'm developing to complement "The Forex Project." The new site is called Forex Care and it will consist of ratings and reviews of all Forex products.  There are no reviews as of yet but I'm just starting to get organized and hopeful will complete 1 in the next couple of days.  I don't want to just start adding reviews quickly without being as thorough as possible.  I've found out for myself and have heard from some of you that it is so hard to find forex related products (websites, books, trading signals, software, etc) that aren't just flat out garbage.  Here's my first post of http://www.forexcare.com that explains a little more.

What is this website all about? 

Quite simply, I've seen for myself and have also heard from many visitors how hard it is to disseminate useful forex information on the web from just plain garbage.  This is the big reason for starting the Forex Care website.  What this website will attempt to do is provide a repository of Forex Ratings and Reviews of the following:

• Forex Brokers
• Forex Software
• Forex Trading Rooms
• Forex Signal Services
• Forex Books and Magazines
  
• Forex Websites

These are the main categories that come to mind but I'm sure there will be many more added in the upcoming months. 

Who performs these reviews?

Me and hopefully others in the future.

Why are you qualified to perform this?

There are a couple of reasons.

1. I'm relatively new to Forex and have been trading Forex for about 6 months.  This means that I'm still in the exploration phase and therefore will be exposed to many forex products.
2. I run another website called, The Forex Project and doing so exposes me to a lot of your comments and recommendations.
3. Because I am going to take the time to effort to perform the ratings and reviews without prejudice.

I've already gone into the reasons why I think this week was unprofitable.  The main reason was due to my exit of profitable positions before my limits were triggered.  I exited many positions this week just to take the quick profit however small it was.  I noticed afterwards that these positions would have moved more in my favor if I had not exited early. 

I made a total of 19 trades this week, winning 10 and losing 9.  My average trade profited by 32.1 pips which if you take into consideration I'm trading 3 lots, it's really only about 10 pips per trade.  That is not good.  My average losing trade was 54 pips or 18 pips per lot.

I lost a total of $1827 this week bringing my 13 week total to +5519.  So I am still in the black but if you average my total profit over 13 weeks, it's only about $425 a week.  

So I have work to do this weekend.  I need to develop a more systematic approach to entry and exits.  I don't have a true trading plan and a lot of my setups are random and sometimes come from feeling.   This will be a work in progress.

I have exited only 1-lot of a 3-lot position for the first time.  Last week I said that I had a bad habit of closing out a position when it went a little bit in my favor and that developing a multi-lot exit strategy may help.

I entered a Long position in the USD/CAD at 1.1360 (3 lots):

My targets were:

T1 - 1.1395
T2 - 1.1425
T3 - 1.1460 

My T1 was hit for a 35 pip profit.  I heard that it would be best to move your stop up to the entry level which I did at 1.1360.  So the worst I can do at this point is make a profit of 35 pips.  The best I can do is a profit of 200 pips.   

I already feel like this strategy will be good for me.  For one, I already have a guaranteed profit.  Two, I have the potential to profit 165 more pips without any risk of losing anything except unrealized gains.  I really think this will prevent me from micro-managing my positions and
impulse trading.

I'll admit that the frustration of losing is bottling up.  I did manage to end the losing streak by getting a couple of smaller pip wins today after my 30 pips loss.  I ended the day -15 pips.  I sent a message to Rob this afternoon stating my frustration and he had 2 suggestions for me:

1. Stop trading the EURO!  He thinks the currency pair is a "turd" and that it hardly moves.  He told me to stick to the GBP which has been moving big time over the last 2 weeks.
2. Decrease my lot size on a day with no economic news whatsoever.  I only traded 1 lot, followed my rules, and only lost 30 pips so it ain't so bad