2010

HK trip cancelled last minute.

Trading resumes.

I'll be focusing on 2 instruments for daytrading. I'll trade FX exclusively during the daytime (my daytime), using 2:1 leverage, and a max of 6:1. Once US market opens, I will trade TF exclusively. I've opened a separate account with IB to trade TF only. Contract size per trade will vary.

ETFs - this will be traded on the original account and most will be daytrades. Will take longer-term trades whenever I see opportunities on daily charts.

This is what 2010's looking like for me for now:

1) Car - selling my 5-year-old love (D says it's TOO OLD - in Singapore, a 5-year-old car is old enough to be scrapped....doesn't matter that mine is a turbo brick with an average life span of 20 years), and getting D's favorite.

2) Mortgage - getting a place for D's mum who's leaving LA to join us next year. I'm used to owning my home. As a matter of fact, I like to OWN everything I use/have. I hate credits. I hate mortgages. Basically, I just utterly hate debts. But I like D's mum. So I shall try to like the mortgage bit.

3) Friends - I'm projecting ZERO left. D's my only friend. The 2 years that I spent in my cave have made me realized that I'm a born loner. Only D can put up with someone who spends 90% of her time in her own head. For the first time in my life, I'm going to be friendless, coz I simply have no time for friends next year.

4) Learning - I've read some really good books in the past few days, and realized how much I've missed just lying on my bed or on the settee by the window reading things that are not trading-related. I MUST MUST MUST set aside time to pick up spanish and to play the piano that is starting to become another white elephant in my home.

5) Kids - NONE. Adamant. The world had better really end in 2012 this time.

TF & ETF Trades 11/27 (Fri)

TF 1min

D and I entered into this arrangement with ONE rule that we promised to observe: I give him the entry and profit target, he executes the trade which includes getting in and getting out based on what the tape and the other indices are doing.

I broke that one single rule and asked to take over everything. Bad news was, my chart and IB's BookTrader went out of sync like 70% of the time, and I missed our 580 exit (2 points away from our entry at 578) when I was focusing on my chart at the wrong time (when Booktrader was FASTER than my chart). I ended up having to scratch the trade at +2 ticks.

D was super pissed.

Anyway, I got us a second entry, and this time, D executed the trade and covered where I told him to.

1.3 points, plus a little in ETFs. $190 to end a short trading session. Happy ending! Ha.

No trades from yesterday. TF had a really short session (ICE closed at 10:30am ET) and I didn't bother.

USDJPY Trades 11/27 (Fri)

USDJPY 1min

USDJPY 15min

Total: +43 pips

The last trade was tormenting. I had a hunch the pair would make it to my trendline target, so I decided to put up with that extremely long sideway move. When the smallest candles were forming, I literally felt like throwing up and couldn't get out of my chair coz I was fainting. I lost sensation in my fingers, and kept asking D for water that I didn't really need (coz I was really wanting to puke). Once the market started moving again an hour later, I totally recovered from what felt almost like morning sickness. I have no idea still what that was about.

I haven't the time to wait for price to hit trendline (who knows what route it's going to take to get there!) and covered when bull candles started to weaken again at the peak.

I finally figured out where that hunch came from. It was from a 600 bucks lesson (lost 1k in 1 trade, took back 400 in several scalps) from months ago. 6J just kept going up regardless of all the bearish candles that formed along the way. Lower lows and lower highs formed within what I understood later to be corrective waves - all part of a healthy uptrend.

Time to visit Little one.

Scums!!!

My 6-year-old niece (the older twin) fell today during an ice skating trip organized by her school.

The teacher in charged called Seabloke to inform her of the fall.

Seabloke's instruction was for Little One to be sent to the clinic immediately - she was getting into her car but it would take her a good half hour to reach the ice-skating ring.

When Seabloke arrived an hour later (she was caught in a bad traffic jam), little one was sitting all by herself, BLOOD DRIPPING FROM HER CHIN. She had bleed for an hour and the school decided she could wait for her mother to take her to the clinic since they DIDN'T HAVE HER PARTICULARS (so if someone that's gravely hurt and unconscious can't be identified, doctors leave them to die???! Was that what the teachers assume?? Are they even educated???!! Or are they just - borrowing from J's favorite description of anyone worthlessly slothful - CRIMINALLY LAZY??? ).

Little one was hurting, scared, cold, and hungry and left alone, and there was absolutely NOTHING done for her to stop the bleeding - no gauze, no napkins, NOTHING!!!! The sandwich that Seabloke had packed for her was half eaten, as the rest was SOAKED IN BLOOD dripped from her chin while she was eating!

I have no words to describe the pain I feel. Seabloke must have felt a hundred times worse! She had on a previous occasion gone to the site of one of their excursions to check out on her daughters and the teachers expressed their displeasure. So to avoid putting little ones on the spot, Seabloke decided to trust the teachers/school this time.

To her utter disgust and horror, she saw that her trust had been seriously misplaced. The kids were all WITHOUT protective gears, and there was only 1 instructor watching over 20 kids that were skating among many other kids! When Seabloke got to the place, the principal and the other teachers were sitting somewhere nearby watching my niece bleed for an hour!!!

This is Singapore, my hometown. I love the way the country is run. I even like our leaders. But I have to say, I seriously fucking hate the ROBOTS/COLD-BLOODED human beings that populate this island.

"Operational Net Assessment"

"What I heard is that Blue Team had all these long discussions," Van Riper says. "They were trying to decide what the political situation was like. They had charts with up arrows and down arrows. I remember thinking, Wait a minute. You were doing that while you were fighting? They had all these acronyms. The elements of national power were diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. That gives you DIME. They would always talk about the Blue DIME. Then there were the political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information instruments, PMESI. So they'd have these terrible conversations where it would be our DIME versus their PEMSI. I wanted to gag. What are you talking about? You know, you get caught up in forms, in matrixes, in computer programs, and it just draws you in. They were so focused on the mechanics and the process that they never looked at the problem holistically. In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning."

Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink" Pg 124-125

TF Trade 11/25 (Wed)

TF 1min

TF : + 1.1 Point

Great reset.

D got home really late. US session had begun, and we were having dinner and catching a movie. Well, D was watching the movie. I was busy making notes. It was good that D wasn't paying attention to the market. I had all the time I needed to let market make its move before I made mine.

The best part: D was finally willing to exit where I wanted him to. No more running after 3 ticks. GIRL POWER.

Done for today. We are both tired.

EURUSD Trades (Update) 11/25 (Wed) & Regarding Daily Posting of PnL

EURUSD 1min (Part 1): + 13 pips

EURUSD 1min (Part 2) : + 16pips

EURUSD 15min
Total: +29 pips

EURUSD 15min (The Big Picture)

It kills me to trade 10k size, aiming for 70 to 90 pips each time. HOURS of sitting in front of my screen waiting for profit target to be hit is agonizing. Almost as bad as - if not worse than - sitting on a loss.

I love leverage. I wish I'll really think it's bad. But I don't. I think leverage is revitalizing. ETF and 10k FX trading has been sucking the life out of me. I'm dying a slow death.

I'm moving to full size lots. This will be on days when I can't trade the 6E (coz of ugly charts, my ugly moods, etc).

Day 3 trading TF with D turned out to be a total disaster. We drove each other nuts. I stonewalled him, and he went to bed REALLY pissed. Day 4 (yesterday) was GOOD, coz we traded separately. Ha Ha.

But, I'm still keen to work with him, coz I know that the results will be impressive. I am good at thin-slicing the market which allows me to spot good trades quickly, and D's good at executing them.

We'll see.

Will be posting PnL. Based on months of observation, I notice there's no difference in my performance patterns OVERTIME whenever I had stopped reporting.

I will not be trading everyday. I will if the market allows. If it's not my kind of market, I'll stay away.

I will no longer explain my trades, or justify my wins & losses.

I will post charts that are worth posting.

I will be turning comments off in my next post.

EURUSD Trades 11/23 (Mon)

EURUSD 1min

EURUSD 15min

It has never occurred to me to trade directly on Oanda's chart until today. It was nice...moving stops was a breeze. I traded on the 1min timeframe, but planning was done on TOS' 15 min chart and on Sierra's 6E 15min (charts right at the end of this post). Oanda doesn't give me enough candles/bars to see patterns.

I was short initially. Just wanted to take some scalps while waiting for something that I can recognize to develope. Was stopped out on both scalps (after failing to take scalp profits....I forgot that I was scalping...). The level that I was stopped out at confirmed a long entry, so I flipped and took a quasi-swing LONG (I did hold profit for hours). I learned my 1k lesson.

Seabloke and Gremlins came to visit and spent the whole time watching me manage my trade. But my charts no longer interest little ones and they were BORED to tears. I promise no trading the next time they visit - and that will be this Wed. Wed is a CURSE for me anyway....Gremlins' hundredth visit should break the curse. Hmmm.....

Today's result (Oanda charts above show my entries & exits):
-9pips (short)
-5pips (short)
+ 75 pips (long)
Net: +61 pips

I'll be trading only FX during globex hours and will be focusing on EURUSD.

10k lots for now, and will move up to 100k whenever I feel comfortable enough with Oanda to use leverage.

Will be posting all my FX trades.

EURUSD 15min

6E 15min

TF 11/20 (Fri)

TF 1min

Day 2.

Day 1 (Thurs) was NOT good. D took calls from his office, from his mum, and couldn't stop checking his blackberry, and his office laptop for emails. Extremely frustrating for me coz I like QUIET, FULL COMMITMENT & COOPERATION and UNDIVIDED ATTENTION.

Day 2 was better, albeit a tad comical. D was argumentative (D's always right...). We got our entries, but none of the targeted profits. D was extremely reluctant to stay in trade and would run with his few ticks each time. Drives me nuts.

Will keep doing this during US session.

Am still trading 6E during globex hours, but will slowly switch to Forex.

Jules Is A Mule (Part 3??!)

6E 15min

Yesterday was an interesting day - not just because I gave away 1k in a single trade again - so thought I'll talk about it.

I Shorted the 6E rather early in the morning (my morning and around 8pm NY time) coz, well, I was convinced 6E was going back down to test the spike low (see chart above). As with other days that I refused to think straight, I held on to the trade until I realized I couldn't be sure if price was going to stop going against me before the day ended. And as with all those other days that I was convinced that price would go to a certain place, price eventually did start going in my direction, or totally hit my target, either a few hours after my exit or 24 hours later.

All these days had been Wednesdays.

After I cut my loss, I had gone into my personal library to dig out some material I came across before, and to take a closer look at something that I never really took into account when I trade the futures: market participants (who they are - farmers/merchants/banks, speculators, hedge fund managers etc, and WHEN they operate).

My hypothesis about why the chart did what it did and why I kept hanging on to my biased view was confirmed when I traded the TF later in the evening (US morning of course) - when a wolfe pattern failed during lunch hour (learning very quickly from my 6E experience just hours before, I told D to refrain from buying a breakout - which is needed for price to get to wolfe target).

In any case, a hard stop would have saved me from myself. I had a lot of conviction, which was why I didn't want a stop to get in the way (what an irony). Extremely stupid, looking back. But then of course everything always appears obvious with the benefit of hindsight. It takes a hell lot of discipline and UNCOMMON SENSE to immediately recognize and stop a stupid act that's about to happen. I have neither discipline nor uncommon sense.

But I have an endless supply of energy. Maybe that's exactly what makes things worse. Instead of taking a hiatus after that 1k loss (6J took it!) from 2 weeks ago, I went right back to work after a 2-day break....

And after yesterday's 1k blunder, I went right back in to intervene in D's trading.

I had started off by telling D I would stop trading altogether for a while, and share with him about Wolfe Waves instead. After US market opened, D traded the account, taking his usual 1 to 3 ticks (since I said I wouldn't trade) before I spotted the wolfe pattern.

When I told him to go long at 595, he hesitated but went with it anyway. BUT he got out after 3 ticks instead of holding and moving his stops til we see the 3rd target (see chart below). When TF hit 600 in a parabolic move up, he blamed himself for not having persuaded me to take the trade myself.

As if things hadn't been bad enough up to that point, D had to sell at a place that I would buy, after TF pulled back from 600.

I hit the bid column on booktrader, covering his short.

D yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!!" (I know, someone who has lost 1k just moments ago really shouldn't be meddling in the trade of another who has a record of zero to one losing day out of 20 on average) .

I was stunned, but only for seconds. Then I hit bid once more to get in on a long trade, at 3 ticks higher than where I had covered D's short (where I covered his short was exactly where I had wanted to go long - in other words, I had wanted to flip his trade - but D shocked me, and I was late hitting bid a second time as a result).

After I covered my long at +9 ticks, D thanked me for stopping his short at minimal damage, and for the rest of the day, we were in consultative mode (until I went in for my shower when D quietly took some "lunch time" trades).

It was fun - trading with D. And we might just do it again. I'm tempted to let D execute all the trades I identify. D doesn't lift stops - which means I can say goodbye to 2.5% drawdowns in a single trade forever.

On TWS - Red arrow shows where D entered on wolfe pattern, Blue arrow shows D's short that that I covered, Green arrow shows where I went long after covering D's short

TF 1min (my apologies for the blur - program was going to shut down, and I hadn't saved the chart, so needed to do a capture immediately - click to get a better view)

D's 3-Tick Rule (Update)

Target of 598.3, 599.5 and 600 hit!

D's crying. HAHAHAHA!!!

Chart above shows Wolfe pattern from yesterday (include price from the day before).

D's 3-Tick Rule

TF 1 min

Was teaching D to trade a Wolfe pattern that I learned from Todd. Told D to buy at 595 (blue arrow), and place a 3 tick stop. Target was anywhere along target line. I projected 598.3, 599.5 and 600.

D took 3 ticks and happily exited.

Sigh.

WASTED.

There was a wolfe pattern yesterday too. Will post later. But find your own first just for the fun of it.

For the record, D has only 1 losing day since beginning of the month. So, maybe his 3-tick rule isn't so bad after all. Ha ha.

Brief Update

Honestly, not missing my blog. But missing my friends a lot (MVW, stop waiting by the mailbox :-) I will be a recluse til Jan 2010. By then I will write to tell you what had happened). Still haven't gotten down to writing them. I have been studying mostly, and traded a little.

This is just a quick update. I haven't traded that much as mentioned, but the days I traded had been ok - not exactly gainful, but they were alright. It's a green 1k plus week.

Above shows Wed & Thurs' results. Tues was a breakeven day with some crappy 6B trades. Somehow I couldn't get Tues to show on the log. Still lost in IB land.

Not trading FX futures after Tues was something I decided on Monday. It was a week filled with econ data that had indeed made the charts of those I trade (namely, 6B & 6E) rather ugly during the time that I normally trade them.

I traded the TF and NQ instead. I hadn't sat and watch them all day and would start monitoring them only at around 4am ET.

Both the TF trades were 4R to 5R gains. So, DT, yes, it can be done.

Starting Monday, I'll be trading only the ES during US session. I will continue to trade mostly FX futures during globex hours.

After today, I will return to provide update only when the results get meaningful.

In an act of defiance, I have removed the charts that I had originally attached to this post. Charts were taken from my daily journal entry. It didn't quite surprise me that the journal that's for my eyes only looks like it's written by another person. I gather that when no one else's reading, I can write exactly what I think about the market and trading on a daily basis.

This Is The Reason

6E 2min (Blue arrow: Entry / Red arrow: Exit or Stop-out)

This is only the 1st of 3 sequences that I'm planning for the day. Am stopping now only coz Sea and Pilot and Gremlins are visiting, and I want to give them my full attention for the rest of the day.

For reasons that experienced traders would know, it's difficult to TRADE RIGHT when the focus is to show good, consistent daily results.

I started the day being stopped out for a loss; took profit for the 2nd trade (which more than offset the loss and was a nice 100 plus net gain); then stopped out for a loss in the 3rd and 4th trade that put me back in the red;then my 4th trade got me to my target.

For each of my trades, my initial stop was less than 0.2% of my daytrading account. I held back taking profit and move my stops to "valid" levels. I was counting the number of trades I've entered throughout so I know when to stop if price didn't get to where I was aiming for.

Like I said, this is just the 1st of 3 sequences I plan to trade today. This is the MO for days that I can trade (For this week, Wed has already been blacklisted. I will be spending the day planning for my trip, getting air-tickets etc etc): I will trade from 8am to 10 pm my time (7pm to 9am N.Y. time), with 2 breaks in between (when IB does its routined shut down) where I'll work out at home (yes I have a mini gym). Once US market opens, I will trade ETFs very leisurely and will hold them for swings whenever I feel that they are worth holding.

With a schedule like that, it will be extremely difficult for me to continue to blog.

I have what I call a "1st" target to hit by early next year. I realized that the reason that I wouldn't stop sabotaging my trading was coz there was nothing I wanted that money could buy. So I asked D what he wanted. Then D asked what I wanted. And when I couldn't recall, he reminded me that I was crazy about a red Lotus. So, there it is - my carrot.

As I've mentioned, I will be back with updates once I hit my target.

Long & Wrong and Solfest:
You guys should consider writing/teaching. You apparently are more convincing and persuasive than Mark Douglas. My mind's poisoned now and I'm not looking back (MM, sorry, just gotta borrow your phrase coz seriously, there's just no better substitute).

It's Time

Ok, this is really good-bye. I am ready for serious trading now, and am doing it alone.

Trading is inherently a lonely endeavor. Sure you can have trading buddies, and a whole chatroom of other traders to share your experiences with, but none of them will ever really feel your joy when you win, and your pain when you lose. Trading, like death, is very personal.

I work best in isolation. Once I achieve my first target, I will update this blog, and share my experience.

To all who have sent me emails (Jack, Ziad, JE, Jaya, Paul, MM), I will write you in the next few days. I am sorry I haven't replied, coz there was just so much I wanted to say, and not enough time to say them all.

I'd love to keep in touch with the few of you who have access to my private blog. I have your email address, and will write you on my progress, and perhaps to rant a little from time to time :-)

Albert, thanks for your email. Yes, I know HK. I lived there :-) I'll see you in late Nov.

Long & Wrong Is Not Human

I felt so terrible about my stupidity, I fell sick for 2 days. After I got better, I took a look at Long & Wrong's chart again. And I got sicker.

The calmness with which he executed his trades is frightening. I suspect LW is a machine.

On Nov 2nd (see, that's another reason I think LW is not human - it totally didn't bother him that it was a MONDAY) took a total of 7 trades within 5 to 6 hours, and out of these 7 trades, only 3 were profitable. He was stopped out 3 times for a loss, and once at breakeven. But he was very profitable by the end of the session.

What amazes me was how fast he recognized an opportunity in what would have felt like a total setback had it happened to me. The first trade he put on was a full stop-out. I gather he was buying either to the trendline he's drawn or a breakout of that trendline. Price went against him immediately - it headed south and didn't even touch the trendine. Once it hit support, an unruffled LW went long again - at a better price (ie. higher R!), and aimed for the trendline. 4.5R. Disgusting.

And after that it was a series of longs and shorts and more stop-outs that didn't stop LW from catching that monstrous move up to his trendline (I think he actually flipped a short, or went long immediately after being stopped out of a short).

This is the part I don't understand: WHERE ARE THE EMOTIONS???

I hated stop outs. I hated them more than I hated having to sit on a losing trade. I would usually feel so awful after being stopped out I would immediately step out for a smoke to cool my head, and miss all those wonderful opportunities awaiting.

But thanks to LW, I shall look forward to being stopped out on my first day back at trading.

UF/LW (why does it even matter, you probably go by model & serial number...), you can now go take another shower. :-D

6J Trade 11/4 (Wed) - After Action Review & Paul

6J 15min

While I tend to look left, and right, and left again before I cross the road, I had neglected to check for all overhead resistances before I placed a trade that was seemingly valid at first glance.

That's mistake number 1.

Mistake number 2: removing what was there to protect me in the event that I make mistake number 1.

It's like insisting on driving myself to the hospital after being run over by a truck.

The bigger picture that says no go (unless it's a scalp):

6J 240min

What I had yesterday was a 2% drawdown - in a single trade - on what was set aside for scalping/daytrading.

My comfort level is 0.5% per trade for futures.

On most days, it's actually 0.25%!

So, I'm really not too happy with ME now.

I shall have no ice-cream for the rest of the year.

A very sweet Paul has written some thinkscripts for me, and I'm going to be spending the day playing around with the alerts (if I manage to insert the scripts properly). My hormones are still crazy so I'll likely stay on the sideline, or experiment with more ETFs during the US session.

6J Trades 11/4 (Wed)

6J 15min

SIGH.

First trade was stopped out at 11088. Not indicated here coz I had used a bracket order. I'm still clueless as to how a 11057 stop could be triggered at 11088, but that's the least of my problem for now. Actually, it won't ever be a problem again coz I'm never going to use a bracket order on IB ever. It's too smart for me.

PnL is too disturbing (for me, when I revisit my own posts) to be published. 1 tick = USD 12.50

Let no one lecture me on my trade.

I am woman and can always blame it on hormones.

Trade Gone Bad

Burnt by 6J.

I let it go after nearly 12 hours of watching it go south. Did away with hard stop coz something went wrong with my bracket order during the first round and I was stopped out way before my stop. It was so early in the morning, I guess it's either the light traffic or my malfunctioning brain (instead of 11057, I probably keyed in 11087).

6J plus Fed day plus "DAY 1" plus "mum wants to do dinner", plus I turned off my phone and had Macdonald's when I was having a migraine (ajinomoto gives me migraine).

Talk about deja vu.

6B Trades 11/3 (Tues)

6B 133-Ticks

It all started with me not giving a perfectly valid trade room to move.. Scratched before stop was hit (price didn't get anywhere near stop before it hit my profit target). Took a small loss of around 90 bucks. Went in again, and scratched before my profit target was hit - way before actually. I guess I just hate to have to give up a day's winnings (yesterday's). My profit target would have been hit had I stayed put, and I would have had a lovely day.

Anyway, I got a little upset with myself, and went in a 3rd time, and this time, I allowed the trade too much room to move. Total loss for 3 trades was 279.

Scalped back 179 bucks after waiting for hours for 6B to form a higher low.

I'm extremely unhappy. Daily target is working against me. And having to look for a nice trade with decent R:R daily is a pain.

Total Net: - USD 108.10

FXPT,
I pay 1 buck (a lot cheaper than what your bank's charging :-)) for commission for 100 shares of FAZ. It's not a leverage product, but the movement is 3 times that of finance index.

Trades (6B, UWM, QID, FAZ) 11/2 (Mon) - Wrap Up

US session's just a mess. I AM THE MESS. Was all over the place. Kept buying bear markets and sold my UWM before market opened (which wasn't a bad idea coz it didn't really go up with the market when the session started).

Total Net: + USD 273.30

Not showing the TWS platform coz all the records were cleared at 12am my time - I was too busy watching my chart to notice it was near midnight. And no charts for the ETFs coz like I said, I was just all over the place. No loss though. I was adamant about not taking a loss on a textbook u-turn day.

I'm happy. Today's the first day I start using the profit-target template that D created for me. Woohoo!

MM, DT:
will respond to your comments a few hours later. I desperately need sleep again....

6B Trades 11/2 (Mon) & Daylight Saving

6B 133-Ticks (Trade #1)

6B 133-Ticks (Trade #2)
For D's sake, I wish yen and DX will continue to stay in the red, and get redder as the day goes. D's still holding FAS, which has become a rather toxic asset in his portfolio....

My UWM buy stop order was triggered on Friday. Ha.

US market opens at 10:30pm my time today (instead of 9:30pm during US' daylight saving time), which means that D will have a lot more time to prepare for the trading session after he knocks off from work, and I will start having to turn in at 5AM!!!

D's going to have to learn to make his own coffee in the morning.

And I'll have to give up trading the Sydney session.

Either that, or I give up trading the 2nd part of the US session....

Definitely the 2nd part of the US session.

6B and 6E are too tame during the Asian session to give up.