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+

~~

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

~~

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.

~~

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!

~~