Going up

My Sunday with Euclid

""THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN BY A HUMAN. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating; there is no way to express the joy of reading Euclid without sounding like a lunatic. There are very few books which reach their umpteenth thousandth edition without promising a posthumous infinity of bliss. The bliss of 'The Elements' is admittedly finite, but it delivers right away. This is an electrifying piece of work which has produced a chorus of rapture and inspiration lasting two millennia.""wrote a reviewer on Amazon.

I passed my morning today re-reading (10th time?) the geometry-dedicated 6 first books of Euclid's Elements. I have the chance to read them in the original : greek never sounded so elegant and precise. I felt the same joy and enthusiasm as the reader cited above. This edition is the best translation in english and comprises all the 13 books in one volume.

What is the relation of this material with trading, you may ask. In my humble opinion, trading is pure geometry. It is the skill to think visually, in the two dimensions of a chart, as the chess player thinks in the 64 squares and 2 dimensions. Euclid's geometry is the best exercise i ever found for training your mind to think visually.

During my studies back in the 80's, I got a "passion" for some other geometries too. Among them, the now out-of-fashion projective geometry. Twenty years later, when I started reading trading books, I was really surpised to discover that all this stuff was the inspiration for the trading patterns of the first serious, pioneering book on Technical Analysis by Edwards and Magee, the famous Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, written in the 40's. Human knowledge transplanted on an other domain!..

 To trade properly, you need just two things : geometry and table tennis. The first, explained above. Table tennis makes you fast. More on this on an other post!

Pre-London

A strong (technical) move just before London opening (10:00), which I didn't trusted much and as a result I left many pips on the table.

Contra and straight

I usually avoid (not always!) contra trades after a strong move. The gain on these is minimal compared to the risk taken. So is the first trade on the chart, just 1,5 pips and closed in extremis before the resume up, which gave more pips with some "straight" trades.

And this

Late entry

Late first entry minimized the gains of the session.

Thin Monday

Not much, on a thin Monday morning session. I should skip Mondays trading..

Reversal

Range and breakout

Losses  inside the range (again) and then a breakout.

No news, no moves

Eurogroup day today, with no news and no moves, flat markets. I was busy all day,  I opened charts late in the afternoon. I insisted to trade inside the tight range. Big mistake. I got a big pain and risk, just to get a breakeven.

Again

The unecessary first trade, while price was in the range, gave a loss. The gains came after this, in a natural way, when price moved out of the box. Scared exit (or stop hunting?) on third trade let the pips on the table. Not a big deal, the next wave gave more.

Going up

Price confirmed support around 19:13 and broke the range to go up. I wasn't there, I entered after the first slight pullback. Shy first trade (unexplainable exit) and then some pips.

London opening

Two correct trades, followed by three rather lousy ones. Then I missed the obvious reversal of direction.

Nice little moves

Post-NFP (3)

Too many trades and tight stops and mini losses on this last part of the session, in order to keep previous gains. I could finish the session before all this.

Post-NFP (2)

Post-NFP (1)

No trades

No trades today. Missed the nice drop at 5 o'clock (10:00 Est), as I was away from the screens. Bad timing.

Splitting

Not a fast train down this one, so the need to split every trade into several ones (precaution). Despite that, some trades were mediocre as executions.

A start

First trades of the year, on a relatively thin morning. Last entry was late - and risky.

Ratatouille (2007)

When in bad mood, I have a remedy : I watch a film with my daughters. Today it was Ratatouille. A little mouse who becomes chef in a gourmet french restaurant! Astonishining direction and lighting, fantastic detail (professional cuisine, Paris), amazing caracters and a very touching story. The director, Brad Bird, has two more masterpieces on his credit : the most underrated marvel in animation, the Iron Giant (1999) and the incredible Incredibles (2004), created with Pixar.

Thank you Brad, you made my day!

Season's grief

Back from the holidays with a terrible cold and fever, only to be informed that I lost a good friend... I was thinking a lot of things in the last days and that putted me in the blues too... Exactly two years ago, I was writing in this blog one of my posts I like the most. Today, the crisis is a lot more actual and global. Where are we going, really?

Doing my little research about Tony Judt (previous post), I discovered a fine article of him, published here, which developes the same ideas, far more deeply and eloquently of course. Please, read it!.. (more about T.J. here).

Happy new year to all!