The melody at night, with you

Sublime piano from Keith Jarrett, to listen with your beloved, ...or alone, with the laptop shut down please.... Perfect when you are very tired in a Friday evening, like me..

Have a nice weekend.

Monthly stats : May '08

Third good month in a row, with the best ever win/loss ratio at 2,8. Reward/Risk ratio (average win/av. loss) remained below 1 and this should increase in the next months. Trades per day (T/D) are as of April, should drop this below 8. Fewer trades, fewer mistakes, less commission paid. Two big mistakes in May, on the 5th and yesterday. Hope for less in June.

Weekly Stats : Week 26 (26-30/5)

My first week with no loser! But I payed a price for this, the big risk I accepted to take yersterday, because I could not accept the loss. So I am not mad about the zero losing trades.

14 trades (7 trades x 2 lots) in 3 trading days. My first week with all the trades published gave less trades, as expected and this is very good. 9,17% account increase on weekly basis.

End of month

No trades today. I had a busy end of month in my day job, now I can trade but the market is not moving any more.

A really bad winning trade

The real drama happened earlier today : I entered short in my preferred bears' trap, market turned against me but i didn't close trade. I had 4 occasions to close at breakeven but I waited for the drop down, a possibility when looking at the hourly chart. I became a swing trader for a morning!... Price went to -30 and then reversed again and again... I could lose all the gains of the week in just one foolish trade, not mentioning the stress I felt. This is completely against the very essence of scalping.

Finally, price broke the hourly trend line and I exited with 7,5 pips gain!!! Lucky me...

I hope this is the last time.

I am done for the day, 2 trades, 2 winners(!), 2,62% account increase.

Take 5

I grabbed 5,5 pips and closed feeling the reversal coming. It came after a few minutes. Conclusion : I am late to get in the trade.

A broader image

My 2 trades of the day, on the 3 min chart of the day. Scalp trades look ridiculous on a higher than the 1 min timeframe. But the scalper has two advantages : first, much smaller risk and tight stoploss on every trade. Second, a scalper does not need to anticipate and catch the big price movement of the day . Five safe pips here and there are enough. The high leverage will do the rest.

Stop for the day(?)

I was busy and missed the up move on eur/jpy. I have to stop for now, maybe for the day. +2,83% daily gain till this moment.

Tiny 5

My second trade, +5 pips. I closed feeling that was not the moment for a new break higher. Better get out with 5 tiny pips, there is a consolidation forming there.

Day's first

Long at previous high break, closed around +10 or so. One bit at a time.

Recap

3 trades today (6 in my counting, because of double lots), all winners, 3,45% account increase.

Serenity

As I am almost done for the day, I have now the absolute luxury to listen to an EXCELLENT cd, savoring a glass of assyrtiko in the garden. Glenn Gould plays in a deliciously slow tempo (for a change..).

Eur/jpy can continue up or down.

My little one

I decided to publish ALL my trades every day in this blog. Better reference for me, hope is not very boring for the reader.. I will trade less that way, I think. So, here is my third trade for the day, 4,5 little pips, closed because CCI 50 gave signal of a momentary pause.

Another 6,5

Entered short at local resistance break, closed because I felt uncomfortable, thinking the reverse was imminent. It was, indeed.. Wise decision -:).

Pre-London

Closed just below the hourly res. line (blue line).

Hate Mondays

No trades today. Holiday in America - busy day for me.

Why scalping is better (imho)

This chart is several days old but I had not the time to comment it earlier. On that day (16/5) I was monitoring a few technical analysis sites to see how they trade. Here is what I noticed : At point A, trend line break, everybody went short expecting a second leg down of 100 pips . But the run stopped at 60 or so and then price reversed sharply. The most cautious closed trade at breakeven, the others had their stop taken at C, losing 30-40 pips. More medium term traders, like FXCM stuff (at dailyfx site) entered short at B (previous low break) and lost 100 pips in no time... Then traders entered long at point C (local resistance taken) ...and lost again.

Being a scalper, I do not have the metaphysical anxiety to guess where the market is going. I just take 5 pips here and 10 pips there. I follow the elephants and i am out before the turn against me. Or take one bit at a time, like Weinstein's sparrow. I ride the wave, as my 5 years old daughter said the first day she saw me trading. It took me 3 years to learn(?) that.

Weekly Stats : Week 25 (19-23/5)

Few trades this ending week due to my trip. 24 trades (12x2 lots), 2 of them on Monday, the rest on Friday. Friday was flat on eur/jpy, so nothing especially important for my trading. Being very cautious on friday afternoon, I had 3 nulls (0-2 pips) in a row. More action next week (I hope).

Waste of time

Miniscules trades in a non-moving market. Here are 2 of my nulls this afternoon, for the anonymous friend who asked for this. My first concern was to avoid the Friday's afternoon trap.

Done for the day/week.

Little breakout

Back from my trip, I had these fast 5 pips, on a minor breakout. Closed before the reverse, but missed the (relatively safe) re-entry to the downside.

Some days off, due to a business trip. Hope to trade again on Friday.

Joy

I was listening this cd yesterday, while I had my unique trade of the day. I felt entirely the joy, the serenity, the inner peace of every note of the Violin Concerto, this luminous Beethoven 's masterpiece (one of many). The joy of this music was in phase with the joy i feel recently in my life for several reasons. It was also the joy feeling the connection of music movement with price movement, having them both live at the same moment and in contrapunto. The joy that (successfull) trading can be very simple and that one hour trading per day is all I need, dedicating the rest of my time to more important occupations. The joy, finally, that because of trading I discovered qualities I never had, like consistency and discipline.

Beethoven wrote the concerto in the happiest period of his life. The portrait on the cd cover is irrelevant, was made many years later. Isabelle Faust, in her modern interpretation, is excellent.

Weekly Stats : Week 24 (12-16/5)

A more than perfect week for me, with a win/loss ratio at 9, my best ever. This is the result of very cautious trading in the last few days. I decided to avoid big risks and that paid off. 34 trades (17x2 lots) in 4 trading days, 18 winners, 2 losers, 14 nulls (0-2 pips). Hope i will continue that way, even with smaller w/l ratios.

Week's last one

Fast 9,5 pips on London opening. More were there on this downtrend but doesn't matter. I am done for the day/week. A very nice week indeed.

3 trades in a row

3 trades on early London, practice on 1 min rainbow. Total +12p. 2 first entries were too late. Risk taken on the first one was enormous (again).

Early exit

London session. Premature exit on this one, this is not my feel and use of the 1 min rainbow. Lost the nice up move in order to keep 7 pips.

Weekly Stats : Week 23 (5-9/5)

A lot of labour this week, just to break even after the stupid trade of last Monday. I had to lower lot size after this and as a result, the 65 pips won this week didn't gave any profit. Lesson learned... Win/Loss ratio dropped below 1,5, alarming sign. Too many risky trades.

Again

pre-London. Huge volatility day. How can we scalpers, profit from this and not stopping the ride at +6 pips? This is the question. The fear gets me at +7 and need to close. Let this today for a change. 2 lots closed separately could be a solution but everything happens so fast.

A bit of bread, a small one

should let it ride...

easy 7

7 pips. I like the swing h/l, this is what was missing from the rainbow (imho).

Mistake of the month

Foolish trade this one : I entered short, anticipating a continuation of the downtrend, my favorite bear trap, and got stacked there. I had then several signs (TL breaks) that I should close fastly the trade and take the loss, but I didn't that. Closed finally at -44,3! Now I have to make many small winners to compensate this ugly loser! Bad, bad trading...

One more

A trade opened on 1 min and closed before the resistance , looking at 1 sec chart too.


Traded only Friday this ending week, +1,91% on account, no weekly stats before next Friday (it will include 6 tradind days).

Post -NFP

My 2 trades immediately after NFP. Entered first one too early.

Monthly Stats : April '08

Fewer trades in April, due to vacation period mainly, 12 days traded in the month only. In addition, trades per day are 8,5, smallest number ever. Average loss is again below 10 pips and that increased R/R ratio. Less commission paid effect again : with 25% less pips won this month(compairing to March), the performance decreased by 3% only, because the trades were 40% less in number. Less money for the broker, more in account.

Back from the mountains

Back to my pc, after 8 spendid days in the mountains with family.