Andras Schiff

I had the chance to assist to his live performance in Athens. He played and conducted some of Haydn's and Mozart's masterpieces. His interpretation of Haydn's symphony nr. 80 was a total revelation to me. A big, big artist. His recent recordings of Beethoven sonatas on ECM is an absolute must. The masterclasses on these sonatas are free here. Some minutes of magic also here.

Month's end

No more trades till Feb. 2. Time to rest and experiment new things.

Greed..

21 pips weren't enough.. Consolidation was totally ignored. The fourth trade is a complete non-sense.

Zen etc.

My friend Andrea Oppenheimer from Italy suggested this blog. EXCELLENT! I wish I had the time to read most of the pages, and they are a lot. Thank you Andrea!

I still remember some pages of a book about Zen I have read a long time ago, Esprit zen esprit neuf by S. Suzuki. No much time for similar readings these days...

Closing the day with a loss

I saw this after the initial drop, I insisted to enter on a hypothetical second move down. A sure way to give back some of the daily gains. +9% today, don't complain.

A risky one

Late entry gives a risky trade allways. The trend was strong and gave finaly this profit. I moved quickly stoploss close behind the price to keep the gains and that paid off.

Monday morning

Quite pips around London opening, with the new setup in mind.

Einstein, Picasso

Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc" by Arthur I. Miller.

The best of two worlds in one book and the amazing correlations between them. Or the mystery of the highest creativity. Spendid reconstruction of Paris debut du siecle atmosphere. An excellent reading for this rainy Sunday evening.

more info here.

A better entry

This was taken later on Friday. A considerably better entry gave a better result than previous post. Three identical

setups one after the other, only the first was taken. Rainbow, indicators and CCI, all confirming the steady uptrend. My preferred setup for the moment.

Late entry (3)

I usually wait for a break of previous high to enter (as on this example) and this way I miss the better part of the momentum. The trendline breakout is a better entry. Or just follow the indicators who give an early sign to entry but know nothing about resistance of course..

Late entry (2)

Late entry and early exit on the first trade compromised the strong momentum.

Late entry

Late entry, "certified" by my beloved CCI 50, gives a loss most of the time.

And this

Pre-London

No much time for trading in the previous days.

Nice Pre-London today and steady move. Third trade was aggressive.

Final

last trades for this session. 14 in total, 10 winners, 35 pips won.

And this

Monday opening

Clean trades and accurate close. Clear mind comes back..

A hope for the humanity

On tv, the concert and Obama speech at Lincoln Memorial. Below the scene, 400,000 people under freezing weather. The kindness, the serenity on many faces. People and humanity in general hopes after a long time. I wonder how we will feel about him and our hopes, in two years from now.

The gambler

Book of the week!.. lol

"At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, and a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowed-four thousand gulden-and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me." Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler

Addiction (2)

....actually i didn't stopped this Wednesday, i continued trading and trading and trading.. 96 trades in total!!.. Followed by 89 on Thursday and 56 on Friday.. The week started as a total madness, 65 trades on Monday and 60 on Tuesday.Total : 386 tades in a week. Simply I could not stop trading. These 386 trades mean 221 pips loss in paid commissions to cover. I should grab 221 pips to just break even. I didn't. I made 85 pips only, because my monthly average 3:1 win/loss ratio dropped dramatically to almost 1:1 . I simply shooted on everything. Criteria, high probability setups and conditions, all were lost in the sound and the fury of addiction. So i lost considerably this week, -16%, first negative one in the last three months. The worst is not the money lost of course, is the horrible feeling of severe addiction i felt, I felt and still feel washed out completely and exhausted. Could I restrain myself next week from this compulsive behavior? I don't know..

First and only

Easy pips on a clear uptrend. Left session after this. Just one trade for today? I don't believe I am able for this!..

Afternoon session

Stefan Zweig

for the RMIC*

A great little novel, a miniature masterpiece, by the great Viennese writer. I re-readed this today and had good time. A big story teller that Stefan. You need Zweig, Musil and Broch to feel the Mittel -Europa atmoshere of the early years of the (previous) century.


*RMIC = Rennaissance Man Ignoring Chess..

Closing the week

A nice trade to close the week..

A mad, mad week actually. Heavy ovetrading and a capital mistake... I can't believe that after all this the week ended positive by 43,8%. This is mainly due to the big volatility of Monday-Tuesday and the big gains of these days. 361 pips collected in total. 284 trades taken!.. Need to cool down next week.

Post -NFP trades

The fourth trade was closed late, the others were ok.

Mistake of the month

The first 2 winning trades were the trap... i entered for the third time by greed, far away from balance point and just before the correction. In addition, that was the first trade of the week whithout stop loss. And the ugly turn took place..

Addiction

Complete madness today. I traded furiously and could not stop trading, all day long. This compulsive behavior came after two largely profitable days which provoked a big excitement... 139 trades in 8 hours today!! 55 winners, 49 losers, 35 nulls (-2 to +2 pips). Every trade costs me 0,6 pips in commissions, so the 139 trades costed 84 pips. I won 44 pips from these trades and that means that in reality i lost 40 pips. -5,2% on account. A furious effort to lose money ..by winning a little and keep trading!..

"It takes all the running you can do, just to keep in the same place!" Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
.

What a day!...(2)

Same session, a few more trades. I could let an open short and collect 200+ pips, but nobody could anticipate such a collapse whithout ANY correction...

187 pips in total today,with some collected in the afternoon. It was a day to make money , a "gift" of the market to us..

What a day!...

London opening and immediate euro collapse! Even a fool can make money with this..

First trades of the year

3 out of 3 positive on the year's beginning and this steady and quite uptrend.

New year, new era

A beautiful cold and sunny day today, I walked around Acropolis in early morning. In a small park near the monument, I counted 10 persons, middle aged men mostly, sleeping on a piece of paper, surrounded by plastic bags. A small tree, next to a sleeping man's "bed", had Christmas decorations (photo)... I never saw this so close to Acropolis before. The human misery is getting closer and closer everyday. For how long can we keep our confortable way of life, ignoring the pain of others?

happy new year to everyone!..