Wednesday, June 29, 2005

100+ day :)


Feelin' Good!

Had another storming day today as follows

Cable Trades +8, -10, +1, +114, +5

Grail trade (cable only) +56

Total +174 pips

Looks like im finding form again.

Ive turned down the scalping commission - for me trying to tune a scalping strategy is almost impossible - Im not a scalper - havent trained for it, dont want the stress. Im a trend trader and there is always a trend somewhere - today it was on the 5 min and 15 min - tomorrow it might be another timeframe and thats what i learned to do for over 3 years now.

lets see if i can add some logic to my rather erratic system trading of late ...

I was talking to a collegue in the last few weeks and we both agreed that 2005 has been a poor year as far as short term trend goes. We agreed to try and get our heads around scalping as a system that can be done in any market.

To be honest it was time well spent. I did get into it at one point but at the end of the day i was exhausted falling asleep for hours in front of the tv before bed.

Ive realised that to get to the standard that bb and duckfu have acheived may take me many years or re-training my psyche. Im not prepared to invest that time again when i have a perfectly good methodology that makes good money.

So, from now on im working purely on trending systems - although to be honest trends exist everywhere - even on a one minute chart - hilda works fine on a one min chart for example.

Heres the problem i had with scalping. Being a trend trader i had always learned to let your winners run. scalping on the other hand involves taking profits off the table when the market is showing strength at the target area.

this was causing a severe conflict with my brain which kept on saying "you cant close on strength - are you crazy?" - thats the way ive been programmed - to eek out the maximum possible from a trend when in place and not let the wiggle dance of the currency shake me out - its something that has served me well over the last 3 1/2 years.

So thats that - im back to form trading as always - those of you who know me of old will know what that means :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best advice that I could give to anyone looking to trade for a living (I'm not there yet mind you) is that you have to find a style of trading that fits your own mentality. If you are trying to trade long term trends and every time price ticks against you start to sweat, try scalping, or vice-versa.

Trading is hard enough without having to battle your own natural tendencies.

Anonymous said...

yes mate, your right about the demons part I'm sure. This is the same reason that I haven't quit my job and started trading full-time yet. A) I want to compound my account fully until it 5, probably 6 figures. B) I want to have enough experience trading everyday, over and over and over that it becomes almost subconcious for me.

You also run your own businesses on your time, which is much better than working for someone else as far as personal satisfaction is concerned.

I will definately trade for a living, but not until I'm fully ready.