2023W24 Review

Win rate of 76%, +184.8 pips, equity growth of 14.3% in 25 trades.

Seems like another great week... The win rate could have been higher, if I didn't take a few experimental trades, but ok, let's not split hairs, coz I might still count those single digit winning trades as wins anyway...

No full loss this week! The biggest lost was -26.4p

So... I guess, another Grade A+

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2023W33 Review

Win rate of 90%, +180 pips, equity growth of 13.8% in 20 trades.

This review was written 3 weeks after the week concluded, so not much were remembered, which means nothing really spectacularly different. Statistically, it looked like a great week, although there's a full loss of over 60 pips. All profitable trades were quite normal, around 15 pips. Two trades that were +8 and +5 pips, could had been a full +15 pips too.

I increased the lot size to 0.7 and then to 0.8, as my account grew to over 7000 and 8000.

So far, so good.

Grade: A+

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2023W32 Review

Win rate of 78.2%, +32.7 pips, equity gain of 7.1% in 23 trades.

A rather middle-of-the-road week.

Started the week with a triple position full loss, nearly -$1000 handicap.

However, it's a moderate week from there, with rather good win rates, and only 1 full loss.

An average of +6.5 pips return a day is not great by any measure, but it is realistic, nevertheless.

Grade: B

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2023W31 Review

Win rate 82.1%, +102.8 pips, equity gain of 22.8%

All seems very impressive, deserving another A... except it doesn't.

It all started quite well, with 10 consecutive wins. Maybe that's usually a sign of some inevitable losses are just around the corner.

The first full loss of -55 pips came right after that, on the second day of the week. But the real disaster started that afternoon, after a long position went south, and I added 2 more positions to it after that. When the trades closed, it was a totaly of -226 pips and -$1361. It was a real hit in the confidence and mood.

The same night, I entered 4 more long positions after all the falls were settled, and managed to claw back just over $1780 on the next day. It was maybe a very lucky situation, because the positions were still in loss, until it gapped up by nearly 50 pips, giving me a +58 pips return on a 2 lot play. I was aiming for no more than just over 20 pips.

So, while the win rates and pips return were quite well, it was a week characterized by big emotional swings, desperate positions in order to save positions. If not because of the lucky 2 lots and 1.5 lots that gave me around $1400, it would have been a break even week.

Grade: C

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Traders or Gamblers?

Many people, me included, have said from time to time, that trading is nothing more like gambling.

Without going into the definitions of "to trade" and "to gamble", the statement is true in many ways. I guess when someone says "you're gambling", he usually doesn't imply any compliment. Quite the opposite.

So do reckless traders equal gamblers? Do professional and disciplined gamblers equal traders?

For me, gamblers just want to play and enjoy the excitement of playing, be it at the roulette table or in the market. Traders, meanwhile, want to win.

Gamblers can't resist the temptation to wait and not playing. Traders would wait patiently if it needs be, and strike only when the odds are on their side.

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2023W30 Review

Win rate 79.3%, -144.6 pips, -9.34% equity loss in 29 trades.

A losing week after 4 weeks. A reality check? Down back to earth?

In a way, it makes everything more "real", at least for me. In my current perspective and understanding, it's rather unrealistic to be profitable every single week. Of course, there are a number of people who claim / reported to be like that. But at least for me, I don't consider myself near those levels yet.

Thursday night was key. GDP data was good, pointing to a bearish Gold. When I watched it, it was swinging, and was probably showing some bullish candles, which compelled me to enter a long. Lesson learnt is, with ONE position opened, then I will always be biased to winning / saving that trade, that's why I ended up with 3 positions, risking nearly 30% of my capital.

In fact, in one of the 3 positions, I could have closed a win, if I hadn't aimed for 20 or 30 pips. Recalling the live trading time, when I was aiming for 30 or 50 pips... that's when the win rate crashed and equity depleted.

Grade: C

One bad night was enough to ruin a week. If it was 2 bad nights? Disaster!

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4 hours before the FOMC rate decision, where will XAUUSD go ?

With 96.5% chance that the Fed will raise rate by 0.25% (I remember it was over 98% just a few days ago), the market is ready for the hike. But the Fed can still move XAUUSD price drastically if they hike more than expected (which is very unusual given the recent trend), or pause the hike. Perhaps what's more likely is the expected 25bps hike being doled out, and followed by a hawkish statement.

In this H4 chart, the "death cross" from the twin tunnels was formed around 20 June, after Gold fell steadily from the historical high on 4 May 2023. As of today, it's on the verge of forming the "golden cross" which might signal a bullish extension. However if the golden cross failed, it's effectively a death cross, which might see God drop further to 1900 level.

Likewise on the D1 chart, SMA20 crossed below SMA50 on 30 May, and is looking to cross above it again, forming a golden cross of its own. A failed cross will again point to 1900 level. It's worth noting that recent bull run from 1900 appears to be a retracement which topped at Fib61.8, adding another reason to expect seeing an immediate downward rally

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2023W29 Review

Win rate of 82.9%, +270.7 pips, equity gain of 30.9% in 41 trades.

It feels like a repetition in terms of my analyses and execution, i.e. no new elements added or significantly changed. So the fact that it still gives a decent return is actually a good news, indicating the strategy and the method is serving me well. One change is, I started trading 0.6 lot instead of 0.5 from Tuesday evening, in view of my account size that's now over $6200, to me that's quite remarkable considering it was as low as 2200 just 4 weeks ago. 

I stick to the approach of aiming for 15p as standard, it worked perfectly fine, at least in this week. ALL the winning trades I took there were less than 15p (because I closed them early due to fear) would have become full 15p wins, although there was at least one that I cashed out near the max, like this one on Friday afternoon. With my current ability, it's good err on the side of caution.

Quite a lot of range plays this week, and did give me quite a few quick and repeated returns like this one below on Tuesday night. I shorted 4 times with profit around 1970 major resistance level. What I didn't realize was, the fact that I was shorting at higher and higher levels (and higher lows) might have been a signal of bullish build up, so I ended up with a full loss after that.

Luck was certainly a factor. Right after the loss above, I entered a short again, thinking the market had moved over 220p, above the ATR. However the trade wasn't smooth. With a 1.2 lots position, I eventually moved my SL to just over 100p, some sense of gambling there! It turned out to be a win overnight, after nearly 12 hours. The positive short swap added to the profit, but it was a big risk taking. The trade was nearly -80p at the worst point.

Overall, a very good week, with some good learnings.

Grade: A- (the minus was for the mindset instability)

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2023W28 Review

Win rate 81.25%, +31p and 16.6% equity growth in 32 trades.

Felt more like a "normal" performance.

With 5 full losses of -50p or more, it's quite a respectable outcome to be still in positive. A main reason was the double-sized trades.

Another adjustment this week was I set a standard TP to 15p from 10p. This was after reviewing past trades, realising that more often than not, winning trades of +10p would also achieve +15p. This helped to build up better equity to cushion any potential loss.

Of those 5 full losses, was there anything I could do to avoid them? Maybe, but I wouldn't call them bad trades because they were executed after the usual analyses.

Grade: B

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2023W27 Review

Win rate of 91.30%, +191pips and 39% of equity growth in 23 trades.

The good results from last week extended into this week.

There's only 1 double-lot trade this week, which made the result even better, and also explained why higher pips return resulted in relatively lower equity return.

One remark, though, is that I have been remaining on 0.5 lot per trade as the standard even though my account size were down to 2.2kUSD. It's a good way to recover fast, but also means higher % of risk per trade!

Grade: A

Second week in a row meeting the criterions of going live. 

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2023W26 Review

Win rate 80%, +128pips, and equity gain of 49% in only 15 trades.

A huge contrast from last week.

There was a lack of focus last week, and arguably also this week. The difference is maybe I am more selective and less involved, which led to "only" 15 trades. There was nearly no big loss, except for one -33p trade.

The equity growth was also helped by increased (or doubled) lot size which brought in more wins. This should be applied very cautiously though, as it's obviously a double-edged sword.

Grade: A

Another week that I fulfilled the criteria of going back to live of +80p a week with good grade.

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2023W25 Review

61% win rate, -235 pips, nearly -47% of drawdown.

One of the worst week, if not the worst, in my trading journey so far.

61% win rate didn't sound too bad, but losing 270pips on the final trading day and ended with half the account size, was definitely awful.

One key factor was FOCUS.

With a job interview / technical test of the following week in mind, it was hard to keep mind free and clear at all times.

Things really got rough on Friday, when petulance and recklessness got the better of me, and I played with double lot size, raking up 5 losses in a row, that was about -170 pips. 

自暴自弃，报复心态，totally messed up emotionally.

Grade: E

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2023W24 Review

-145p, -17.8% capital

70.3% win rate

It appears to be a terrible week. But the fact was, although it couldn't be said as a fine week, I didn't feel as bad as it seemed.

There were wins and there were losses, and there were some trades that shouldn't had been taken. There were two bettings, during the Tuesday and Thursday data releases. 

The first one, should have been a win, because I was aiming for 20p, and the price clearly had moved over 60p in my direction, but when my close initiated manually and executed, the price had swung -35p against me. I would call it technical glitch, or latency, or simply this platform isn't meant for such huge volatility trade.

The second one had less excuse... except it was even less ideal to play such trade on the phone. Big loss, and led to two subsequent reckless and mindless trades, that amounted to -290p or nearly -$1800 loss.

While it's not totally fair to exclude such "mistakes" from the counting because there were real emotions involved, which might well affect live trading anyway, other trades in the week were rewarding enough.

This week I started to pay more attention to if I could get more than a standard 10p target in each trade, and dared to take multiple positions from an entry range, usually with later positions taken from better levels.

Also, I used Fib retracement to help my entry and exit, instead of setting a target purely based on wishes.

A mixed bag week... one or two bad calls and bad decisions, but also consistent reward. 

Grade: C+

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2023W23 Review

-18p, -1.6% capital

69% win rate

Sounds like a more realistic but rather frustrating week

Started the week being too cautious, due to the "good result" from last week (good is the enemy of great?). It gave me a strong fear of losing money, to "mess my record". 

Not that I took too early profit, but just feeling "under trade". I overlooked thin S&R lines and only waited for thick ones. It didn't hurt my trade record, but the mentality wasn't completely right.

Was well on Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday was bad, with 3 full losses that translated into about 12% weekly drawdown in a day. It's again deflating...

That's when the voices and thoughts of "face the fact that losses are part of trading" came. It didn't feel so bad if it wasn't for Alex making huge profits. It felt like I had got so much more to catch up, to learn, which means far away from realizing the goal (of being financially independent).

A few wins after that but it felt really small in comparison.

The main reason the week ended with "only" -18p loss was a >40p win from a limit sell placed since a few days before, opened during my whisky tasting session.

Thoughts of the week: I'm not there yet, still making big losses and lucky wins; I'm still emotional, feeling wanna give up after "the record was messed up"; Those losses weren't bad trades, just part of the performance with my current skillset; I'm not there yet, but I'm not totally lost anymore.

Grade: B

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Worry about Risk, the Rewards Will Come... ?

"The primary goal of every trader must be to control and limit risk. If the risk of a trade is properly handled, the rewards will follow. "

-- Winning the Day Trading Game, Thomas L Busby,

Chapter 7 "Worry about Risk, the Rewards Will Come"

When I first read this statement, it sounded like a cliché.

I read it again... there seemed to be more to what it sounded.

I read it again... well, how can you defend your way to success?

Hm... sounds familiar...

In sports, great offence win you a game, great defence win you a title... a great striker win you a game, a great CB win you a season... 

Know what are the risk and what I might lose...

Brazil football team used to be known for their "offence is the greatest defence" philosophy. Even then, it involved risk management, i.e. they knew even if they conceded goals, they could score more to make it up. It's calculated. It's not reckless.

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2023W22 Review

The best week in trading life so far.

88% win rate in 25 trades

+176.5 pips

20% equity return

Noticeably, there's no big loss this week. In fact, there wasn't a single trade that triggered the SL.

3 losing trades, but 2 were closed manually and pre-maturely (would have been wins), and 1 was experimenting on playing the data, which turned out to be a very weak movement.

No doubt, there were luck factors. Most price movements were favourable, even though they might have moved into floating losses. Most trades hit TP in reasonably short time (all within one hour).

So what are the takeaways?

• I made some distinctions between S&R lines. Thinner line for near-term S&R, e.g. intraday or within a couple of days; thicker line for medium-term, i.e. tested by several day candles over weeks; thick and dark lines for long-term S&R, i.e. monthly candle or Bollinger Band.
• Trust the process more, trust the bounce and reactions at key levels
• Be more cautious with entry, although not saying I was overly cautious. Luck factor also meant that I didn't miss too many entries that I wanted
• When price gaps up or down, it really GAPS even if the candles are not showing it! Pending orders might be a few pips near current price level, but slippage due to data releases can move the entry by 50 pips.
• Come Friday night, I could really feel the fatigue, after being in the game for a week. Trading does take attention, focus and energy.
• Constantly reminded myself not to let arrogance creep in especially after a handful of wins.
• Still missed a few entries because I wasn't monitoring, and a few of those entries might not have turned out well... Luck factor.

Grade: A

This was the first week that I fulfilled the criteria of returning to trading live again. I need at least 3 more weeks like this!

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2023W21 Review

+$29.50

-91.1pips

81.3% win rate

A strange combination of numbers...

As late as Friday afternoon 3:30pm, the drawdown was more than 15% of the week opening capital. It was deflating and shitty feeling.

There were emotional trades, price chasing, but the biggest failure was still the inability to identify an opposite one-way train.

Managed to save the week into positive with the subsequent 9 positive trades, some with double lot size. In a way, it's a plus in trade/lot management

Grade: C+

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2023W20 Review

It's a week that I lost just over $500 (on demo account), that's about -10%. But still I don't think it's a terrible week... except the last handful of trades

All was quite well, with some small gains and rather big losses, perhaps the expected return with this high hit rate and low return strategy.

Emotion... is still biggest thing, even on a demo account. 

When I was on winning streak of 2, 3, or 4, I was able to stay rational, be patient, stick to the plan, wait for opportunities to show themselves instead of keep looking for one, no FOMO even when price ran away.

But when winning streak got longer, like 4, 5, 6, then complacence and arrogance started to creep in. 轻浮，浮夸，不严谨。

The worst thing, however, was after one or two losses... then I tend to become aggressive, go on offensive and try to regain lost capital,  start to tweak my game plan, which may not be a good thing for an inexperienced trader.

In terms of market movement, biggest killer was still one-way train movement.

I trade on "reactions" and "rebounds", 10p can be obtained, even on a one-way train. But one-way train has another voodoo... which is speed. 10p may be hit in a few seconds, or 1 min, and that is very exciting, tempting me to catch more small profits.... then inevitably, will get trapped before too long.

Grade: B

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Emotions!

"Whether you believe it or not, it is a fact. Many traders psychologically sabotage their trading and they do not even know it. They are not prepared for the flood of emotions that sweep over them when they are trading and, therefore, they are unable to deal with them. 

When the bank account balance is on the line, you will experience greed, fear, and denial. You will react in ways that you did not anticipate and, at least part of the time, you will take irrational and self-destructive action. In order to succeed as a trader you must prepare for the worst, just as a jet pilot must prepare for an engine failure. You must recognize the emotions that you will experience when you are in both winning trades and losing trades and you must be prepared to deal effectively with them. Design specific strategies for the market’s movements and be ready to execute those strategies when your emotions get fired up. If you do not recognize the power of emotions in trading and if you do not prepare yourself to effectively deal with them, you will fail. 

Do not destroy your next trade by worrying about and reliving your last one. If you plan to be a long-term player, there will be hundreds and maybe thousands of other trades."

-- Winning the Day Trading Game, Thomas L Busby,
Chapter 5 "There's No Crying in Trading"

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Be a Good Loser

"As weird as it sounds, learning how to lose is really learning how to win because we will all be losers at one time or another. You must know how to deal with losses so that they do not defeat you. Winning  traders put their bad days in perspective and keep on plugging away. They do not ignore their mistakes; they learn from them and get better and stronger."

"To be a winner you must learn from your losses and eliminate mistakes you have control over."

-- Winning the Day Trading Game, Thomas L Busby,
Chapter 5 "There's No Crying in Trading"

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