I had entered a trade today in GBPJPY early in the morning just waiting for the price to breakdown lower. My stop was wide (80 pips).
All day I watched with baited breath as it violently swung up and down almost hitting my stop. One minute I had a good profit and then within five or so further minutes, a loss of the same amount!
Eventually, just as I was about to finish for the day, a quick breakdown in price hit both of my targets with ease.
The moral of this story is to ‘Set and Forget’ i.e. don’t continuously watch a trade of this sort, or to just be patient and let the market do what it wants.
My analysis suggested that the price was to go lower, so why get all stressed out watching it move up and down all day!
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Personal Development for Improving your Trading
Today I found myself reading one of those thin ‘Personal Development’ paperbacks
(Which I managed to read in a day or so – quite fast for me!) and one of the ‘exercises’ was the ‘wheel of life’ which is a common theme in these sort of books.
Pick eight facets of your life eg. health; wealth; money; relationship; friendship etc. and score them 0 to 10. I thought this would be a good exercise for a trader, to list eight trading related facets and see where any improvements could be made.
The idea is that you will like to improve the ones which already have a high score, but you should concentrate more on those that have lower scores, for an all-round ‘healthy’ life as a trader.
Some of the areas I thought of were: record keeping/Admin; entry/exit strategies, trading plan, goals, routine etc. To be a good trader, you need to be good in all areas of trading, so this exercise can only be tremendously useful – give it a go!
(Which I managed to read in a day or so – quite fast for me!) and one of the ‘exercises’ was the ‘wheel of life’ which is a common theme in these sort of books.
Pick eight facets of your life eg. health; wealth; money; relationship; friendship etc. and score them 0 to 10. I thought this would be a good exercise for a trader, to list eight trading related facets and see where any improvements could be made.
The idea is that you will like to improve the ones which already have a high score, but you should concentrate more on those that have lower scores, for an all-round ‘healthy’ life as a trader.
Some of the areas I thought of were: record keeping/Admin; entry/exit strategies, trading plan, goals, routine etc. To be a good trader, you need to be good in all areas of trading, so this exercise can only be tremendously useful – give it a go!
Let's start Here!
Well, It was bound to happen – just thought that it would be a good idea to get down in text my everyday experiences to help me and others learn to trade, focussing on those little aggravating points that nobody ever mentions, but are all part of the trading experience.
Yesterday I watched as one trade was in profit by 70+ pips and then saw it turn and not only wipe out all the profit, but stop me out in the other direction – how annoying is that!
There are a couple of obvious things to learn here – the first approach would be to watch the chart and see a retracement form and then GET OUT! – yes, easier said than done. This way, I would only lose a little of my 70+ pip profit, but at least walk away with something.
The second approach would be to always make the first ‘target’ (executed on ALL trades) easily achievable, thus locking in some profits.
The second approach is better if you are not peering at your screen all day and to be honest I’m not! That’s why I came back to find my lovely profit gone! – still, lessons learnt.
Yesterday I watched as one trade was in profit by 70+ pips and then saw it turn and not only wipe out all the profit, but stop me out in the other direction – how annoying is that!
There are a couple of obvious things to learn here – the first approach would be to watch the chart and see a retracement form and then GET OUT! – yes, easier said than done. This way, I would only lose a little of my 70+ pip profit, but at least walk away with something.
The second approach would be to always make the first ‘target’ (executed on ALL trades) easily achievable, thus locking in some profits.
The second approach is better if you are not peering at your screen all day and to be honest I’m not! That’s why I came back to find my lovely profit gone! – still, lessons learnt.
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