Hello John
I am so sorry I wasn’t available yesterday afternoon to chat to your group. The afternoon just got so busy and I had to step out.
It’s been a roller coaster week for trading. I am entering trades a lot more confidently but I still have a confidence problem and am doing some reading on improving this and hopefully it will work out. I have always been a fan of Paul Mc Kenna and I got his book on improving your confidence this week and am working my way through it. I have already found that a lot of what he says makes sense and I bought it with trading in mind.
I entered 8 trades in one day and lost 3. My losses were big but end of the day I broke even. I took to heart what you said about trading on the longer term and entered the euro trade with you and made 26 pips. The currency was in a channel all day and only broke away end of that day or the next day. It was a great channel to be in and I could have made pips long and short but once I recouped my losses I stopped trading for that day.
I understand I need big stops for longer time frames and I used this method on Thursday when I entered a cable trade. Cable was going down fast and the news on dealbook constantly said that everyone was dumping cable so I thought ok lets go in for a longer sell. I made a few big mistakes.
1 the first error was that I should have entered when it was at ..80 but as I’d just logged onto the Vt I wasn’t in the zone yet. Something said to me at the time enter at ..80 but I was afraid to enter after only just signing up to the charts so I waited.
2 The other error I made was having the 15 chart, 5m chart and 30m chart all open together. This meant I had three charts open on one screen but they weren’t fully open. Know where this is leading to???? You guessed it. When I entered the trade at ..42 I put in a 40 pip stop and then let the trade run and left it as you had suggested the previous day. I came back and saw I had been 13 pips in profit and then it whipped back up and took my profits and my stop out. I was so mad at myself as I felt I should have stayed and watched it but as I was going in for longer term I didn’t want to sit glued to the machine making myself mad
3 After my loss I had a good look to see why I was stopped out. All the time frames still said to stay in but I had stopped out for some reason. Had my stop been 100 I’d have been smiling as it did turn around and come back and dropped several 100 pips. The reason I got stopped out was that I entered at support which I only noticed once I had opened the charts fully. ..42 was support and had I looked at the 5 minute chart more carefully I’d have seen that it went flat there several times and stayed out and waited for a breakout. So best action was to stay out or go long for a while and then go short when it turned and dropped like lead again.
4 although cable was falling the candles were very iffy. One was long the next shorter and the spikes were very long. Afterwards we watched a 15m candle and saw that it jumped over 50 pips in that time and not slowly, it would rush down 30 and then whip back up 50 and then rushed down again. Every candle would have stopped me out. I compared the previous day’s euro trade to the cable one and saw immediately that the euro candles were far more even in length albeit shorter and although they moved 10 pips either way over a 15 minute period it wasn’t a mad rush and the fluctuation was easy to handle.
This set me thinking again that I just don’t have an account big enough to weather 100 pip stops. So as much as I’d like to trade the 15m chart I can’t enter it unless I get good confirmation on the 1m and the 5m charts.
Yesterday morning just as we logged onto the charts I saw an opportunity to go short on the euro for a few pips on the 1m chart. I said to Leigh ‘look here the Bollinger band has turned, the MACD has turned and a sell would be good at 22 and risk 6 pips and get out if it goes beyond that.’ I wasn’t expecting him to enter this trade. He did at 20 and it went up to 27 and then turned and fell all the way down to 02.
He freaked as he said ‘what the hell am I selling for when this is clearly a buy’ and I said ‘it’s the 1m chart and there is a retracement, the trend is down anyway and the 5m will give you the same confirmation soon’. It did and he got out when he broke even and felt sick when he saw that it dropped a further 18 pips after that. This trade made me sit back and think and I tested it in my mind twice more to see if I was right in getting in when the Bollinger band turned. Every time it worked. This is how Darren trades and does so well.
Later on the euro went up while we weren’t been watching it. Another mistake to get in. We both got in. I set my stop at 20 and so did Leigh and would you know it as soon as we entered it turned and went south. I baled at 15 pips as I didn’t want to give up too many pips on a 1m chart trade. Leigh stayed in. it turned at 19 pips against him and went all the way back up and he made a 27 pip profit. Yes I could have stayed in but I realised it was a bad trade to enter as I wasn’t sure if it had reached the end of its run. It had. Leigh took the last pips to be had at ..77 and the euro went all the way back to 00.
I find I keep doing the same mistakes. Entering on a run that could end at any minute. Rather walk away as there are always more runs to be had.
I’ve been trading three months now on real money and it is nothing like my demo days. I have learned so much since I’ve gone live and there’s so much I didn’t try out on demo instead reducing my bid to the minimal and using real money to try out things like support and resistance which I can see now was hit and miss when I did demo and my demo successes were to me a fluke. I only learned proper trading when I went live. To go back to demo trading wouldn’t do it as your mindset is so different in demo as it is in real money’ and so I will carry on the way I am and keep learning and hopefully reduce my continued mistakes over time.
And that’s my trading for this week. I’m still not disillusioned. I still dream of charts and when I visualise trades I never think of losses only wins. Early days I keep saying but boy do I get frustrated when I screw up.
Have a good weekend
Desiree
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
17th January
From John Bartlett - I sent Desiree a copy email from one of my students received today to give her encouragment - Im enclosing this for Blog Followers :-
From Desiree "That is awesome. I intend to get to that level too. How encouraging"
JB's reply to Bob - Bob - There is NO target level – why set barriers? the Art is GET OUT when charts tell you either 1 pip or 40 – Regards John Bartlett
PS at £10 per pip that’s £2320 this week !!!!! (If only)
From: Bob Sent: 17 January 2009 10:53To: john@puriton.eclipse.co.uk
Subject: RE: this weeks trades to 16th 2009
Hi John, I did 58 trades on VT this week and I am + 130 pips 22 were losing trades or 62% winners. some of these went seriously wrong though and I spent a lot of time trying to get back lost profits. I just could not. I am trading the bollinger bandwith macd and rsi. How do you decide the target profit for a trade?
I also made six trades on World Spreads and of these 5 were winning and one loss of 3 pips. total +102 pips on world spreads. 83 % winners So all in all I am up 232 pips on the week. 64% winning trades. Regards Bob
From Desiree "That is awesome. I intend to get to that level too. How encouraging"
JB's reply to Bob - Bob - There is NO target level – why set barriers? the Art is GET OUT when charts tell you either 1 pip or 40 – Regards John Bartlett
PS at £10 per pip that’s £2320 this week !!!!! (If only)
From: Bob Sent: 17 January 2009 10:53To: john@puriton.eclipse.co.uk
Subject: RE: this weeks trades to 16th 2009
Hi John, I did 58 trades on VT this week and I am + 130 pips 22 were losing trades or 62% winners. some of these went seriously wrong though and I spent a lot of time trying to get back lost profits. I just could not. I am trading the bollinger bandwith macd and rsi. How do you decide the target profit for a trade?
I also made six trades on World Spreads and of these 5 were winning and one loss of 3 pips. total +102 pips on world spreads. 83 % winners So all in all I am up 232 pips on the week. 64% winning trades. Regards Bob
18th January
Subject: Million Dollar Traders
Hi John
It was great chatting to you this morning.
I enjoyed the Million Dollar trader but there is no way I would go in for this type of trading and to let so many loose with this much money is scary. Surely they would demo trade for a while to find their feet? If the guy loses his million bucks he can blame himself. And to trade with cameras on you will add even more pressure.
I’ve been thinking of trading and time frames and I think every one needs to find their niche as to what suits their temperament. Of course if you go for a larger time frame your stops must to be bigger and in turn you need a bigger bank too which we have to work up to so for now ‘long term’ for me is 15min.
In my opinion if you are a risk taker than scalping is for you but for many and especially novices I think a slightly longer time frame is better on the nerves. Since I packed away the 1min chart (and I don’t even use it as an entry signal anymore) I approach my trades far more calmly and feel confident I will make pips. How pips may remains to be seen as this week the currencies did some weird things. Let’s see what next week brings.
I’m glad I have the indices to fall back on. Now here is a question for you. If youare in a good run like last Friday after the announcement and the euro went into a lovely 200+ pip fall. It was a steady fall over a lengthy period of time. If you entered a trade say using £5 a pip and you saw its going well surely you could go in again at £10 or even £15 a pip and scalp that way? You don’t need the 1min chart for that.
Hi Desiree - your really not Scalping then - what you are doing is day trading and yes you can roll up for longer trades provided your Bank, Margins and stops are positioned - the emphasis is always Money Management and risk control. The importance of watching the changes on the charts and having your exit strategy - THE KEY - Yours JB
I also find with the larger time frame the trade seldom goes against me for more than 8 pips and most times it goes right into profit. The trailing stop is what takes me out. Maybe I need to use a regular stop first and only once the trade is running I’ll turn it into a trailing stop.
Yes D always put your standard stop on First - Then when in sufficient profit you can change to a trailing stop (for blog readers we are talking of GFT Deal Book) remember Wide Trailing stop but this really is a swing trade - longer time frame to give it room - always try to get in a no lose situation first. - John B
Tornado is great and you can wait for the perfect trade before you enter. I’ve put it onto all my charts and indices. I love it. Sure there are days when you won’t find a trade. However, the good trades have longer runs. I have to still get into my head that not every day is a trading day. Mondays have never been good trading days for me but I want to get over that as well and see if trading longer term will be different. There is always somethingto scalp but for now I’ve packed that away as I get the two hats confused and with me it’s a case of one or the other.
When I trade the Dow I put the currencies away. If I try and mix the two I make a mess. My concentration has to be especially sharp when I trade the Dow. A friend was commenting that despite a huge loss I still come back for more and refuse to give up. Now after a big loss I pack the charts away for the day as I find can’t make a good decision about entering a new trade. I guess with experience and time this will change. Small losses don’t bother me but a whopper needs walking away from the computer and doing something else.
Thegreat thing is I don’t get sleepless nights over losses anymore. I still can’t get into the DealBook and its 6 hours since my first attempt. I wonder if they are doing maintenance. This is a typical example of the much needed stop and limit as my DealBook closes for no reason and all it says is that it is shutting down for some violation and wham it’s gone. I also have problems creating duplicate charts and I get an error that I haveto submit to them and after submitting the docket the platform freezes I have to use control alt and delete to exit the program. Apart from those few glitches I like the DealBook. And that’s me for today. Have a good weekend - Desiree
Hi John
It was great chatting to you this morning.
I enjoyed the Million Dollar trader but there is no way I would go in for this type of trading and to let so many loose with this much money is scary. Surely they would demo trade for a while to find their feet? If the guy loses his million bucks he can blame himself. And to trade with cameras on you will add even more pressure.
I’ve been thinking of trading and time frames and I think every one needs to find their niche as to what suits their temperament. Of course if you go for a larger time frame your stops must to be bigger and in turn you need a bigger bank too which we have to work up to so for now ‘long term’ for me is 15min.
In my opinion if you are a risk taker than scalping is for you but for many and especially novices I think a slightly longer time frame is better on the nerves. Since I packed away the 1min chart (and I don’t even use it as an entry signal anymore) I approach my trades far more calmly and feel confident I will make pips. How pips may remains to be seen as this week the currencies did some weird things. Let’s see what next week brings.
I’m glad I have the indices to fall back on. Now here is a question for you. If youare in a good run like last Friday after the announcement and the euro went into a lovely 200+ pip fall. It was a steady fall over a lengthy period of time. If you entered a trade say using £5 a pip and you saw its going well surely you could go in again at £10 or even £15 a pip and scalp that way? You don’t need the 1min chart for that.
Hi Desiree - your really not Scalping then - what you are doing is day trading and yes you can roll up for longer trades provided your Bank, Margins and stops are positioned - the emphasis is always Money Management and risk control. The importance of watching the changes on the charts and having your exit strategy - THE KEY - Yours JB
I also find with the larger time frame the trade seldom goes against me for more than 8 pips and most times it goes right into profit. The trailing stop is what takes me out. Maybe I need to use a regular stop first and only once the trade is running I’ll turn it into a trailing stop.
Yes D always put your standard stop on First - Then when in sufficient profit you can change to a trailing stop (for blog readers we are talking of GFT Deal Book) remember Wide Trailing stop but this really is a swing trade - longer time frame to give it room - always try to get in a no lose situation first. - John B
Tornado is great and you can wait for the perfect trade before you enter. I’ve put it onto all my charts and indices. I love it. Sure there are days when you won’t find a trade. However, the good trades have longer runs. I have to still get into my head that not every day is a trading day. Mondays have never been good trading days for me but I want to get over that as well and see if trading longer term will be different. There is always somethingto scalp but for now I’ve packed that away as I get the two hats confused and with me it’s a case of one or the other.
When I trade the Dow I put the currencies away. If I try and mix the two I make a mess. My concentration has to be especially sharp when I trade the Dow. A friend was commenting that despite a huge loss I still come back for more and refuse to give up. Now after a big loss I pack the charts away for the day as I find can’t make a good decision about entering a new trade. I guess with experience and time this will change. Small losses don’t bother me but a whopper needs walking away from the computer and doing something else.
Thegreat thing is I don’t get sleepless nights over losses anymore. I still can’t get into the DealBook and its 6 hours since my first attempt. I wonder if they are doing maintenance. This is a typical example of the much needed stop and limit as my DealBook closes for no reason and all it says is that it is shutting down for some violation and wham it’s gone. I also have problems creating duplicate charts and I get an error that I haveto submit to them and after submitting the docket the platform freezes I have to use control alt and delete to exit the program. Apart from those few glitches I like the DealBook. And that’s me for today. Have a good weekend - Desiree
Saturday, 17 January 2009
16th January
Hi John
Well I set up tornado on all my charts for the shorter time span and I still need big stops. I got into a Euro sell which went well but I entered at the wrong time on a spike and then sadly it stopped me out. I had a set a really large stop on tornado as all the signs said stay in and when I got stopped out it still said don't go. I realise that 40 stops are not enough.
Todaythe markets are also here and there but I have followed tornado and the other indicators. Now that I'm out watch this puppy fall all the way back. Sods law. This was the second trade of the day. The first one was in profit and I trailed my stop and I was then taken out of the trade with my stop which thankfully was in profit.
Win some loose some. I'll keep looking. I'm flying back to the UK tonight. Chat to you when I get home Regards - Desiree
Well I set up tornado on all my charts for the shorter time span and I still need big stops. I got into a Euro sell which went well but I entered at the wrong time on a spike and then sadly it stopped me out. I had a set a really large stop on tornado as all the signs said stay in and when I got stopped out it still said don't go. I realise that 40 stops are not enough.
Todaythe markets are also here and there but I have followed tornado and the other indicators. Now that I'm out watch this puppy fall all the way back. Sods law. This was the second trade of the day. The first one was in profit and I trailed my stop and I was then taken out of the trade with my stop which thankfully was in profit.
Win some loose some. I'll keep looking. I'm flying back to the UK tonight. Chat to you when I get home Regards - Desiree
12th January
Hi John
Removal of 1 click
I have also decided to do away with 1 click and go in manually. With 1 clickyou click either sell or buy and I've twice clicked the wrong button taking me in the opposite direction. I discussed this with Leigh who has made thesame mistakes so it's not just me getting the two confused. With the manual method I have to go through three processes on VT and if a trade appears tobe a short run and I need to get in quickly, then that wasn't a good tradeto be in.
I gave trading a lot of thought over the weekend and I've decided I'm going back to $5 a pip. I am only entering trades that look good on the 15m chart which cuts out a lot of bitty trades and then I wait for the right moment.With support and resistance and tornado I have more winners than losers.
Iain is back and he's done no trading while away so he's back to square oneon demo. He has Vista and no end of problems getting onto the platforms. Leigh is studying brushing up on tornado. Let's see how it goes.
Re our visit to France. It appears we'll be arriving closer to the 20th if that is ok with you? The Ryan air option doesn't suit us and we'll be using Air France. Price wise it just about comes to the same as we need to get down to Luton first. The only hassle is we get in at 10pm. We will also look at the option of taking the train from Paris so that we get in at a better time.
Did you have a good weekend? We had another 10 inches of snow and the tempsdropped even further and it was freezing. We had some lovely walks in the snow and got some strange looks but it was fun to be out. When we arrive back to Scotland on Friday it will feel quite tropical!! I look forward to hearing from you Regards -Desiree
Removal of 1 click
I have also decided to do away with 1 click and go in manually. With 1 clickyou click either sell or buy and I've twice clicked the wrong button taking me in the opposite direction. I discussed this with Leigh who has made thesame mistakes so it's not just me getting the two confused. With the manual method I have to go through three processes on VT and if a trade appears tobe a short run and I need to get in quickly, then that wasn't a good tradeto be in.
I gave trading a lot of thought over the weekend and I've decided I'm going back to $5 a pip. I am only entering trades that look good on the 15m chart which cuts out a lot of bitty trades and then I wait for the right moment.With support and resistance and tornado I have more winners than losers.
Iain is back and he's done no trading while away so he's back to square oneon demo. He has Vista and no end of problems getting onto the platforms. Leigh is studying brushing up on tornado. Let's see how it goes.
Re our visit to France. It appears we'll be arriving closer to the 20th if that is ok with you? The Ryan air option doesn't suit us and we'll be using Air France. Price wise it just about comes to the same as we need to get down to Luton first. The only hassle is we get in at 10pm. We will also look at the option of taking the train from Paris so that we get in at a better time.
Did you have a good weekend? We had another 10 inches of snow and the tempsdropped even further and it was freezing. We had some lovely walks in the snow and got some strange looks but it was fun to be out. When we arrive back to Scotland on Friday it will feel quite tropical!! I look forward to hearing from you Regards -Desiree
Saturday, 10 January 2009
10th January
Hi John
subject : Non farm pay rolls - don't trade then unless you want to be crucified
Today I learned an expensive lesson. How stupid can I get. You'd think after all these months trading I'd not make this error of trading around an announcement and especially this one. I will never trade on announcements again. (I'll try anyway )'m amazed it actually let me into the trade. Leigh is seriously pissed with me. I am pissed at myself but strangely calm as I have learned yet another valuable lesson. Argggg down that road again we go.
The Forex factory server was on overload and unavailable for 30 minutes before. Hint one that everyone was waiting. Then the mad scramble and off it shot in my direction and that profit turned into a massive loss seconds later as I had no time to put in a stop. Thank goodness I was trading a $1 a pip. I had waited to get in but obviously not long enough despite using the 5m chart as my entry. I now know that the 5m chart in cases like this is like being on the 1m chart. When I entered my buy trade on the euro it shot up as the result was negative and then it turned. It was too fast to let me add a stop and so I sat holding my breath as it went the other way within seconds. I eventually got out as my order was put on pending and then when it offered me a quote I took it and got out as it continued going even further against me. I didn't get out when I could have minimizing my loss as it recovered slightly but it didn't go all the way to the recovery. At that point I had a chance to get out but again you don't go on hope you go on what you see and just then it went the other way and dropped some 200 pips.
Yesterday I traded on Deal book and it was great. The trailing stop is magical. What I did wrong was not have my stop wider than 10 - even on currency. I realize with the Dow it needs to be massive It went my way and I decided to stay in the trade and let it run and not get out as I usually do. Well this time it did continue in my direction however it went back up after a while and stopped me out thereby ending the trade. Its like fine tuning a car or should I say in my case trying to get our coal stove to work. Leigh lights a match and voila it works. I try the same and end up using electric heating and spend the rest of the day glaring at the stone cold coal stove.
and that's me for now. I'm not going to trade now for a while as that may feel like revenge so I'll get up and do something else
have a good weekend
Desiree
subject : Non farm pay rolls - don't trade then unless you want to be crucified
Today I learned an expensive lesson. How stupid can I get. You'd think after all these months trading I'd not make this error of trading around an announcement and especially this one. I will never trade on announcements again. (I'll try anyway )'m amazed it actually let me into the trade. Leigh is seriously pissed with me. I am pissed at myself but strangely calm as I have learned yet another valuable lesson. Argggg down that road again we go.
The Forex factory server was on overload and unavailable for 30 minutes before. Hint one that everyone was waiting. Then the mad scramble and off it shot in my direction and that profit turned into a massive loss seconds later as I had no time to put in a stop. Thank goodness I was trading a $1 a pip. I had waited to get in but obviously not long enough despite using the 5m chart as my entry. I now know that the 5m chart in cases like this is like being on the 1m chart. When I entered my buy trade on the euro it shot up as the result was negative and then it turned. It was too fast to let me add a stop and so I sat holding my breath as it went the other way within seconds. I eventually got out as my order was put on pending and then when it offered me a quote I took it and got out as it continued going even further against me. I didn't get out when I could have minimizing my loss as it recovered slightly but it didn't go all the way to the recovery. At that point I had a chance to get out but again you don't go on hope you go on what you see and just then it went the other way and dropped some 200 pips.
Yesterday I traded on Deal book and it was great. The trailing stop is magical. What I did wrong was not have my stop wider than 10 - even on currency. I realize with the Dow it needs to be massive It went my way and I decided to stay in the trade and let it run and not get out as I usually do. Well this time it did continue in my direction however it went back up after a while and stopped me out thereby ending the trade. Its like fine tuning a car or should I say in my case trying to get our coal stove to work. Leigh lights a match and voila it works. I try the same and end up using electric heating and spend the rest of the day glaring at the stone cold coal stove.
and that's me for now. I'm not going to trade now for a while as that may feel like revenge so I'll get up and do something else
have a good weekend
Desiree
9th January
Hello John
I’m sitting in my lounge in PA and its snowing. The suns out and it’s so pretty. If I dare venture out I’ll be met with an inch of ice at my front door ready to turn my steps into a kiddy slide. This gives house bound a whole new meaning.
Despite my loss today I’m actually feeling ok. Leigh is flying from Delhi to Newark and hopefully will simmer down before he lands. I am getting used to loosing and not letting it keep me from sleeping. Generally speaking my losses are very low now. Leigh was having kittens while I was in the trade but you know whereas before when in a loosing trade I’d have a cardio workout, now I seem to chill and wait for an exit. I have lost the fear of trading. We were talking on Skype and when I clicked buy while watching the charts. He said ‘what have you just done?’ I couldn’t very well lie as he heard the tell tale dings of the platform. Why to these darn things make a noise when you enter them? I need to go into the works and see if I can disable the sounds. They should let us suffer in silence without having to get a bleating down the phone line from whoever you are talking to telling you how clever you were to enter a daft trade especially as I had just told him I wasn’t going to enter this trade yet but wanting to wait for the right entry. The lecture was worse than the trade.
I walked away from the trading even though there were some good opportunities to make it or at least some of it back but I decided one mess a day is plenty and Monday is another trade. ooops I forgot I don’t trade on Mondays. Make that Tuesday.
A tip. When you create your layout on VT, export it to desktop and save it for ‘in case’. In case happened to me this week. Remember I told you I had lost my connection with VT at one point? Well during that loss of connection with it went the layout I was in at the time. I had to redo it. Iain was telling me this happens to him on occasion but this is the first time it’s happened to me. When I clicked on the currency pair all I got was a blank work space.
Have a good weekend. I’m back in the UK end of next week. - Desiree
I’m sitting in my lounge in PA and its snowing. The suns out and it’s so pretty. If I dare venture out I’ll be met with an inch of ice at my front door ready to turn my steps into a kiddy slide. This gives house bound a whole new meaning.
Despite my loss today I’m actually feeling ok. Leigh is flying from Delhi to Newark and hopefully will simmer down before he lands. I am getting used to loosing and not letting it keep me from sleeping. Generally speaking my losses are very low now. Leigh was having kittens while I was in the trade but you know whereas before when in a loosing trade I’d have a cardio workout, now I seem to chill and wait for an exit. I have lost the fear of trading. We were talking on Skype and when I clicked buy while watching the charts. He said ‘what have you just done?’ I couldn’t very well lie as he heard the tell tale dings of the platform. Why to these darn things make a noise when you enter them? I need to go into the works and see if I can disable the sounds. They should let us suffer in silence without having to get a bleating down the phone line from whoever you are talking to telling you how clever you were to enter a daft trade especially as I had just told him I wasn’t going to enter this trade yet but wanting to wait for the right entry. The lecture was worse than the trade.
I walked away from the trading even though there were some good opportunities to make it or at least some of it back but I decided one mess a day is plenty and Monday is another trade. ooops I forgot I don’t trade on Mondays. Make that Tuesday.
A tip. When you create your layout on VT, export it to desktop and save it for ‘in case’. In case happened to me this week. Remember I told you I had lost my connection with VT at one point? Well during that loss of connection with it went the layout I was in at the time. I had to redo it. Iain was telling me this happens to him on occasion but this is the first time it’s happened to me. When I clicked on the currency pair all I got was a blank work space.
Have a good weekend. I’m back in the UK end of next week. - Desiree
8th January
hello John
I'm glad you did well on the Dow today. I have been watching it as well as the currencies. As you say every trade is a new trade yet when I entered a long on cable and my order was not accepted I saw it going up 200 pips and nothing I could do about it. Eventually the order was cancelled and I had no trade at all. Even when it came back down to where I went in I thought it might trigger my order but nothing happened. That put me off my stride for a while and I watched the charts. As its the 15 charts I waited for opportunity but none came for a while.
Then I decided to close VT and now I'm on DealBook. I entered a Cable trade and set a trailing stop of 10 which was silly on a 15 minute and it went well and then took me out at £1 loss. I'm not complaining as I am getting used to Dealbook and the more I use it the happier I am. I have the Dow 1m and 5m charts up and on currency the 5m and 15m using the 5m to enter. I feel so much more in control and wait for things to happen and then enter. This way I trade less but what I do trade (if i only put my trailing stops wider) I do make nice profits. So far I've only had 2 loosing trades in the past week but more winners.
I had some technical issues with Dealbook and they gave me the same spiel they've always given me by adding the new URL and disabling firewalls I dont have enabled. The told me to manually go into my Dealbook files and delete old folders and such so I'll give that a try. this is what they said, you may find it useful
Manual Removal Location of folder: C:\Programfiles\DealBook360\storage In storage you will have displayed demo.gftforex.com 8080 or/and live.gftforex.com 8080 (depends on the port used) delete these folders
You know my dad always said to me about living in different countries. He'd say every country has its own problems, you just need to decide which problems you'd like to live with. I feel the same with the platforms. They all have their niggles but by and large I do like the Dealbook and it's charts. VT is great too and generally lets me into trades but it doesnt have trailing stops so I have to sit and watch those.
well that's all for now. Will be in touch later - Desiree
I'm glad you did well on the Dow today. I have been watching it as well as the currencies. As you say every trade is a new trade yet when I entered a long on cable and my order was not accepted I saw it going up 200 pips and nothing I could do about it. Eventually the order was cancelled and I had no trade at all. Even when it came back down to where I went in I thought it might trigger my order but nothing happened. That put me off my stride for a while and I watched the charts. As its the 15 charts I waited for opportunity but none came for a while.
Then I decided to close VT and now I'm on DealBook. I entered a Cable trade and set a trailing stop of 10 which was silly on a 15 minute and it went well and then took me out at £1 loss. I'm not complaining as I am getting used to Dealbook and the more I use it the happier I am. I have the Dow 1m and 5m charts up and on currency the 5m and 15m using the 5m to enter. I feel so much more in control and wait for things to happen and then enter. This way I trade less but what I do trade (if i only put my trailing stops wider) I do make nice profits. So far I've only had 2 loosing trades in the past week but more winners.
I had some technical issues with Dealbook and they gave me the same spiel they've always given me by adding the new URL and disabling firewalls I dont have enabled. The told me to manually go into my Dealbook files and delete old folders and such so I'll give that a try. this is what they said, you may find it useful
Manual Removal Location of folder: C:\Programfiles\DealBook360\storage In storage you will have displayed demo.gftforex.com 8080 or/and live.gftforex.com 8080 (depends on the port used) delete these folders
You know my dad always said to me about living in different countries. He'd say every country has its own problems, you just need to decide which problems you'd like to live with. I feel the same with the platforms. They all have their niggles but by and large I do like the Dealbook and it's charts. VT is great too and generally lets me into trades but it doesnt have trailing stops so I have to sit and watch those.
well that's all for now. Will be in touch later - Desiree
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
5th January
Dear Clive
John Bartlett sent me your email and I value your comments re the book. I do agree this would be a great idea but right now John has had so much on his plate getting the new scalping course out and organising the January live course that this is something that will take place in the future. We wanted to get the blog out ASAP. To answer some of your questions. I do keep a trading analyzer and it’s sent to John each week for comment. Also some of my emails in the subject line will say 18 pips yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay and that of course doesn’t reach the blog! This is something I will start to add to my emails.
John’s advice is like gold and when he tells me to do things I put them to practice and always do well. There is nothing like having a mentor like John. He is tough but I appreciate it as pussy footing doesn’t get the job done. I have only been trading live since the end of October and although I have made losses I have made more profits. My biggest stumbling block is trading with higher amounts. Let me trade on £1 a pip and I go sailing away. Put me onto £5 or more a pip and I turn to jelly and everything goes off kilter and I make serious losses.
Money management is the key and so I increased my bid it was because my bank account wasn’t at the stage where I can weather a 20 x £5 pip loss yet. So I have gone back to basics and I’m back to £1 a pip which is seriously boring but I’m making steady gains and recovering what I lost. That in itself is a lesson. Recovery of losses take foreeeeeeeever.
I had a spate of more losses than wins for a good two weeks and I can see where folk loose heart and leave trading. However I am seriously determined and have put aside several thousand pounds to learn. This is my college fund so to speak however it still hurts like heck to chuck £50 away on a stupid move. All my losses were seriously stupid moves on my part. I had platform problems and you shouldn’t blame a platform but it cost me £140 in trades due to no fault of my own. I’m on my 4th platform now.
I am the first to admit when I do something daft and when something like this goes beyond my own control that makes me loose confidence and I’d say my biggest loss of confidence was due to the platform problems and not so much my trading as it’s a horrible feeling when you are in profit and try to get out and you can’t. The market happens to be seriously volatile during that time and you get whipped about and can’t get out. I went from a profit of £45 to a loss of £60 trying to get out of a trade. A trade I should never have entered as it was done around an announcemenbt. That did not sit well with me and I turned away in disgust and left trading for the following day. I
don’t trade on Mondays. Fridays are iffy too but they are better than Mondays. I find that’s when I make my biggest losses. I have also gone over Johns courses several times and taken what I want to concentrate on and studied as much as I could on that particular subject (support and resistance) and practiced it on demo. This will be an email on the blog. Over Christmas I decided on a trading strategy and will stick to it. That has been my biggest downfall to date. I needed a strategy and to stick to it.
Hindsight I can see where I went wrong and now I will try not to let that get me down again. I found I need to work out a time frame that suits me and have finally found one. I thought scalping was for me but right now its not. I love the excitement of it but for now I have had to shelve it. I need the longer time frames to get me zoned in and work out the best entry and exit signals. I’ve put the 1m chart away completely and my smallest time frame chart now is the 5m. I concentrate on the 15 now and it doesn’t whip me about like the 1m did which is where I made my biggest losses.
Happy trading. This is going to be a good year for me. I’m determined to give up my day job and do this full time Kind regards Desiree
John Bartlett sent me your email and I value your comments re the book. I do agree this would be a great idea but right now John has had so much on his plate getting the new scalping course out and organising the January live course that this is something that will take place in the future. We wanted to get the blog out ASAP. To answer some of your questions. I do keep a trading analyzer and it’s sent to John each week for comment. Also some of my emails in the subject line will say 18 pips yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay and that of course doesn’t reach the blog! This is something I will start to add to my emails.
John’s advice is like gold and when he tells me to do things I put them to practice and always do well. There is nothing like having a mentor like John. He is tough but I appreciate it as pussy footing doesn’t get the job done. I have only been trading live since the end of October and although I have made losses I have made more profits. My biggest stumbling block is trading with higher amounts. Let me trade on £1 a pip and I go sailing away. Put me onto £5 or more a pip and I turn to jelly and everything goes off kilter and I make serious losses.
Money management is the key and so I increased my bid it was because my bank account wasn’t at the stage where I can weather a 20 x £5 pip loss yet. So I have gone back to basics and I’m back to £1 a pip which is seriously boring but I’m making steady gains and recovering what I lost. That in itself is a lesson. Recovery of losses take foreeeeeeeever.
I had a spate of more losses than wins for a good two weeks and I can see where folk loose heart and leave trading. However I am seriously determined and have put aside several thousand pounds to learn. This is my college fund so to speak however it still hurts like heck to chuck £50 away on a stupid move. All my losses were seriously stupid moves on my part. I had platform problems and you shouldn’t blame a platform but it cost me £140 in trades due to no fault of my own. I’m on my 4th platform now.
I am the first to admit when I do something daft and when something like this goes beyond my own control that makes me loose confidence and I’d say my biggest loss of confidence was due to the platform problems and not so much my trading as it’s a horrible feeling when you are in profit and try to get out and you can’t. The market happens to be seriously volatile during that time and you get whipped about and can’t get out. I went from a profit of £45 to a loss of £60 trying to get out of a trade. A trade I should never have entered as it was done around an announcemenbt. That did not sit well with me and I turned away in disgust and left trading for the following day. I
don’t trade on Mondays. Fridays are iffy too but they are better than Mondays. I find that’s when I make my biggest losses. I have also gone over Johns courses several times and taken what I want to concentrate on and studied as much as I could on that particular subject (support and resistance) and practiced it on demo. This will be an email on the blog. Over Christmas I decided on a trading strategy and will stick to it. That has been my biggest downfall to date. I needed a strategy and to stick to it.
Hindsight I can see where I went wrong and now I will try not to let that get me down again. I found I need to work out a time frame that suits me and have finally found one. I thought scalping was for me but right now its not. I love the excitement of it but for now I have had to shelve it. I need the longer time frames to get me zoned in and work out the best entry and exit signals. I’ve put the 1m chart away completely and my smallest time frame chart now is the 5m. I concentrate on the 15 now and it doesn’t whip me about like the 1m did which is where I made my biggest losses.
Happy trading. This is going to be a good year for me. I’m determined to give up my day job and do this full time Kind regards Desiree
January 3rd 2009
Email from Clive Holland (Thailand) to John - Copied to Desiree
Hi John,
firstly I would like to wish you a happy New Year. Thank you for sending the link to Desiree's blog, I am around halfway through it and have found it very interesting, she seems to have been through all the emotions I have. I have not traded for a while due to other commitments, which sadly have taken me away from my computer. This will be rectified in the coming weeks as I am serious about making some sort of income from trading and to be honest I am missing the fun of it.
I noticed your suggestion to Desiree about turning her blog into a book, if I may add my tuppence worth, I think you would have a winning combination if you complied the book together. From what I have read she regards you as a good mentor and is obviously very pleased with the advice she receives from you. Why not go all the way and write your replies so as to give both sides of the coin. It would be very interesting to see your replies to her questions and how she has reacted to them. Also a weekly or even daily total of trades and a profit and loss account would show people how the concept of mentor pupil is working out, does she make more profitable trades after a chat or email from you, does it take a couple of days before your advice sinks in and is acted upon, or does it not make a noticeable difference.
I am starting back to trading on the 12th January, this will give me time to go through your courses again to refresh my memory. In the last year I have lost 1,000 pounds due to my own stupidity and will not be making the same mistakes this time around. OK I may find a few more mistakes to make, but will try and eliminate them before damage is done. I am sorry I didn't get to meet you when you were here, but my wife was rushed to hospital with gall stones and that was obviously my priority. Perhaps next time. All the best Clive. (Thailand).
Hi John,
firstly I would like to wish you a happy New Year. Thank you for sending the link to Desiree's blog, I am around halfway through it and have found it very interesting, she seems to have been through all the emotions I have. I have not traded for a while due to other commitments, which sadly have taken me away from my computer. This will be rectified in the coming weeks as I am serious about making some sort of income from trading and to be honest I am missing the fun of it.
I noticed your suggestion to Desiree about turning her blog into a book, if I may add my tuppence worth, I think you would have a winning combination if you complied the book together. From what I have read she regards you as a good mentor and is obviously very pleased with the advice she receives from you. Why not go all the way and write your replies so as to give both sides of the coin. It would be very interesting to see your replies to her questions and how she has reacted to them. Also a weekly or even daily total of trades and a profit and loss account would show people how the concept of mentor pupil is working out, does she make more profitable trades after a chat or email from you, does it take a couple of days before your advice sinks in and is acted upon, or does it not make a noticeable difference.
I am starting back to trading on the 12th January, this will give me time to go through your courses again to refresh my memory. In the last year I have lost 1,000 pounds due to my own stupidity and will not be making the same mistakes this time around. OK I may find a few more mistakes to make, but will try and eliminate them before damage is done. I am sorry I didn't get to meet you when you were here, but my wife was rushed to hospital with gall stones and that was obviously my priority. Perhaps next time. All the best Clive. (Thailand).
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