Trading Results Are Bad
by Trader Rich
Looking at my trading results for the month of July doesn't leave me feeling any sense of accomplishment. My results are actually embarrasing as they show that my trading is getting worse. I'm down 401 pips this month and looking at all of my trades makes me wonder if I can make any money doing this no matter what side of the price action I'm on. Looking more closely also makes me wonder if something is psychologically wrong with me as my habitude of shorting looks not to be coincidence. Out of 15 trades this month, 14 were short. Last month I made 8 trades and all 8 were short. This is just strange and something I had not noticed until yesterday. Performing a search on Google for this habit turns up nothing.
Another thing that I cannot fully explain is that even though I've had a terrible month, I am still optimistic. When I first started trading, one thing that I heard a lot of was, "The Trend is Your Friend." I remain optimistic because I realize that I've lost sight of this saying. A lot of my trades have been counter-trend in nature and I've been trying to pick tops and bottoms. Trying to do so is difficult if not impossible for even the most seasoned traders.
Next week I will remain cognizant of the trend as I try to recover from this deficit.
I am finding that the setup of my charts are reverting back to their previous state and I think that my attempt to analyze with a limited number of indicators may be a mistake. For instance, more advanced traders can see momentum increasing or decreasing by price alone but I know that I just cannot do so with my limited experience. I've been trying to get by with mainly support and resistance lines but I'm going to start using MACD and moving averages more.
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Howdy.
I followed your link from OANDA. I know what you are thinking since I’ve been there. I wasn’t optimistic though
. Lost 70% of an account, said I’ll quit forex, but instead went back to the drawing board, learned my mistakes and now I’m making 10% per month of a bigger account.
I did make some mistakes on the new account, though. Biggest of which was setting 50 pips per week as a goal for myself. Even though management theory sais precise goals are nice, I have found that setting goals in forex makes you enter stupid trades. You should set for yourself “nice to have” points. It’s nice for me to have a 20% profit in a month. Beyond that, I’ll risk a hell of a lot less, but I accept sometimes I will fall more or less short of that “nice to have”.
If you’re thinking about going back to the demo I don’t recommend it. Instead train on the live account with something like 0.5$/pip (but don’t try to regain your 9$/pip losses with anything but 9$/pip).
Happy pips.
P.S. if by short selling you are reffering to selling a currency pair, I think that doesn’t say anything about you. It would on the stock market, but not in fx where short eur/usd = long usd/eur. It’s just a choice of base and quote currency. Going against the trend says more.
This will sound like cliche, but it’s true “there is no such thing as failure, it’s just feedback”. Adi’s comment is very encouraging, you can lose big, but if you learn from your mistakes, you will come back better and stronger. And this is where I personally have lots of work to do, I need to analyze my trades and learn from each one of them just like Brent says in his blog. If you’re following your plan and not getting results, then maybe it needs revising. And on the other hand if you’re not following the plan, maybe the answer is to simply stick to it. I know first hand it easier said than done, cuz I am the point where I cannot make up my mind on how to trade and that;s why I am flip flopping between different trading ideas and…failing miserably.
So I am at the point where I just want go back to basics and stick to something (anything)…otherwise I will be tempted to apply all 273 indicators on MT4 and still find myself looking for the Holy Grail.
Anyways Rich, you are doing an awsome job with the website and I’m glad you’re still optimistic cuz it means will we hear from again and again.
My best,
Magdalena
Adi, thanks for the advice. You are definately right about not going back to a demo. I don’t feel like I can trade with “fake” money now… maybe if I never traded real money. I feel like hard lessons come from emotion and real monetary loss. Either way, it’s inspirational that you were in my situation at one time and now you’re profitable. Glad to hear it.
Magdalena, I too need to start analyzing all of my trades no matter how painful or time consuming. Though we both have full-time jobs, it would probably be just as beneficial or more to analyze our losers before analyzing the market for future winners. I’m also a flip flopper and have to go back to the basics. Magdalena, I hope we can get it together and it seems like your dedication is similar to mine so if dedication is any indication of success then we will get there eventually.