Been trading full time for a while but only recently was able to follow my plan. Just started on forex so I'll update my progress here with it. Trading for me is solitary, which is fine, I work well that way, but it's nice to break it up with some interaction. The net is good for that. Looks like Mike did a good job on this forum implementing more features than most which is probably going to keep this place active.

I have a thread on my psych stuff over in the psychology area. That's a huge subject so I'll keep those comments there.

I just started a forex account on Friday. It was amazing that it got all set up AND funded in under 2 hours.

I was dismayed by the spread. I stated a thread about how I was shocked by the spread. I was discouraged, but it seems the spread often changes by a large amount. Tonight was first test of the account and spread was improved and the AUS/USD market was moving since the Pacific region wakes up Monday morning here on Sunday night.

I worked faster than I wanted to since I saw a decent formation immediately. I had a demo account and was testing it with 0.02 divisions of the 100k lot. I kept that size on my mini 10k lot so the size was too small, but I kept it anyway since it was first live test.

I made 18cents. No commissions at this broker so I got to keep it all.

I'm new with MT4, so I didn't find trade markers so this cap is from just before getting filled on long aus/usd at bid.

Jaytrades,

Good luck with the new thread. I have traded forex for a couple years, so I may be able to help you with the MT4 platform now and then. By trade markers, are you referring to showing closed trades? If so, just drag your closed trade out of the Account History terminal window onto the chart. It will post the open and close of that trade.

Do you trade any other futures markets other than YM?


Bowie

Bowie 

Jaytrades, Good luck with the new thread. I have traded forex for a couple years, so I may be able to help you with the MT4 platform now and then. By trade markers, are you referring to showing closed trades? If so, just drag your closed trade out of the Account History terminal window onto the chart. It will post the open and close of that trade. Do you trade any other futures markets other than YM? Bowie

Thanks, that worked great. Here's my second forex trade also on aus/usd. I really want to be in bed by now but it just looked like a move with high probability so I couldn't turn it down. I did, however, settle for a smaller target to end it, I'm tired.

Looks like ya gotta have some good ability and follow thru to beat that spread. Again, very, very small risk but rather than 0.02 of mini 10k, at least I upped it to 0.1, still learning, but I love, love, love, the low risk on the wide stop which is why I am doing this FX thing at all.

43 cents, ha!

I also trade whatever futures are setting up with volume, decent swings, and related intermarket support, on my screen is 6e, 6j, 6c, 6b, 6a, ym, es, nq, tf, zn, zb, cl, gc, dx, and on my list to also check are ags, zc, zs,zw, qm which seems too thin. But mostly I'm trading 6b, 6j, 6a, 6b, ym, dx. I tend to stick to 6b, ym, dx rarely nq, because of the $5 per tick value and 6b's frequent accurate hold of support & resistance. This will change as I keep up this very new ability I have to follow my plan, have some gains, keep them, then at some point, maybe by the end of the year I'll consider some higher risk, include back the yen, aus, note, bond, and or up the FX risk, but I could also see myself carrying this exact same new found way for months.

Not much. I was up last night too late being excited with new fx trading new broker & platform and improved spread from my first time watching it at a time when spread was larger, bad first impression. So with the Pacific open Mon am it was improved and I had to trade it. See prior posts.

Which set me up for being tired this morning and dragging thru the day, and doing errands, and preparing for an upcoming visit in this place that is a mess.... So, I did what I had to do, clean, watch markets with low mental energy, happy to know that I'm in no way even going to bother to sim trade in this condition.

After tea and waking up, that took hours, I saw a rare little scalp opportunity.

NQ, which I rarely ever trade, was setting up cleaner than YM. YM had a head fake in both directions the 3:15 pm ET area of a tight base after a mild uptrend with MA's still rising.

Took the break down failure on NQ long over the prior recent highs, and took a very modest one point target off of it.

Not a big deal, but here's the chart. Just glad I had something and followed my plan which meant, no trades unless I'm up to it, and still having zero compulsion to trade.

Tiny success is still a success....



...just want to add that the reason I was confident in this scalp was the push up in gold at the same time from a little 2 hop after larger spike w pb to it's MA. I mention this because without some kind of typical inter-market correlation, I won't trade anything at all. Another reason why I missed all the earlier action today, and there was a lot, AUS/USD and EURO.

Congrats on starting a journal.

Mike

Big Mike 

Congrats on starting a journal. Mike

Thanks Big Mike.

I abused trading tonight. Bad news, but tempered by lower risk, FX account, very small size and tight stop. Those things are not very relevant, however. I think some traders may look at the total financial situation and say, "It's nothing, carry on." But the event was real, and I'm not letting myself slide any more. And I'm not going to do a journal and only report the good stuff. That would be

Lala land is where I'm not willing to be.

This makes me feel weak OTOH I know that facing it is courageous. I also know that eventually, conquering it will contribute to future wealth.

Facts are facts. I was feeling good about my August record of gains. I also broke a rule to not get into the details with anyone regarding my trading stats. I was feeling stressed from outside of trading by a pending visit by a judgmental person. (This sucks....) So, let's see, I was feeling bad, but what lately has been making me feel pretty good? Um, trading. What did I do? I forced a trade that wasn't in my plan. (tg for smilies)

I regressed to a good ole standby, the phantom climactic equal high in a spiking strong uptrend. It's not a trade, not in my plan, it's an invention by a desperately seeking setup trader. The potential reversal is enormous, what greed. Wouldn't I feel good if.... Feel is not in my plan either.

So this little exercise here is for me to admit a vulnerability in my psychology that I need to be aware of in order to plan for it's eventual replay. The beer I had should have been enuf, and then I should have streamed netflix, not trade!!!

So I guess I'll add this one to my list over in the psych thread: 2n: Trading is for making money, not feeling good.

If only all my prior lessons cost just 16 cents, I'd still have $_ _ , _ _ _ . _ _

Humiliated, emotional, let down, but not defeated by any means and still determined as ever. Now let me get thru tomorrow without and I'll catch up with this hopefully on Wednesday.

I've come a long way. I didn't really have a lot to add to my journal because I was repeating the same mistakes over and over but it's in my hand written journals. There was a lot of deeper psych stuff that makes me feel mentally ill, so of course, I'd rather not share that with the world....

The better news is that I've found my discipline.

Interestingly, I'm so used to abusing my forex account (for pennies) that when I lost my ability to trade my main focus (futures) because of recent events in Jan 2014 with broker, it was all I was able to trade becuase my forex was with a different broker. This made me start applying discipline to my forex trading, and now I've started to have 50+ pip gains and small losses.

pennies, but it's the pips that matter, if I can continue with this kind of gain, I'll eventually scale up in lot sizes. The great thing about forex is that you can test with no monthly fees, tiny margin, tiny minimum account size, no commissions, yes that means larger spread, but if the gain is larger than just a few spreads, then it works out.


In forex, I can't scalp. Mike suggested this a long time ago, but I have to learn the hard way. The small time frames are too erratic and constantly blow away stops and the support & resistance get taken out too often. I've seen my entry point on the larger gains get hit so I was up & down many times on the trade, but my stops were wide and target wider. These experiments help to tune up a plan.

well, those tiny forex gains are gone by a few multiples... pretty sure i'll never get it in fx...

one benefit of a larger account is being able to afford to trade every futures contract. this is important since i have to search to find one trading with decent support and resistance areas for targets and stops, there's usually at least one a day that sets up nice.

i had big limitations with only being able to trade the handfull of the contracts with the cheapest margin requirements, but i had good reasons for having to do that, biggest reason was that i was in the habit of blowing out my account down to minimum margin until only very recently. I detailed that over in the thread on account blow outs.

statistically significant results at this point are best month in 3 years, best week in 3 years, best series of months ever - 4 months in a row with lower losses and up into gains and higher gain than prior month, so i had a beer.