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!..

Songs my mother taught me

for Martin from Brno, like Magdalena

Not just a beautiful woman, Magdalena Kozena is the biggest mezzo-soprano of our time. Sublime czech language in my ears, an exquisite way to pronounce the words, supreme eloquence and inner noblesse. My best cd for Christmas eve IF my daughters allow to listen this... Savoured with a glass of the big wine of your taste and the warm presence of your beloved.

Merry Christmas to you all!..

Paul Krugman

This is the blog I never miss, I read it every single day. Inspiring thoughts, deep knowledge of economics and today problems and transmission of this knowledge with a few words.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Paul Krugman published a very good book last year with the same title.

Two more nice blogs : http://fistfulofeuros.net/ is about european countries and their problems, and http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/ , Jacques Attali's thoughts and comments (in french).

Scalping, chess, life

When I tried scalping for the first time, I was impressed by the analogy between scalping and fast chess ("blitz"). In fast chess , like in scalping, you have to act very quickly, based on intuition, experience and intelligence. There is no place for endless analysis.

-

How life imitates chess is an excellent book from the former world champion, Garry Kasparov. It's not about chess, it is an easy approach of very important subjects, like decision-making, strategy development, crisis managment, intellectual evolution, game theory, perception and intuition, and so on... A lot of ideas in 270 pages and for 10 bucks.. Very inspiring.

Carcassonne

An idea for a gift this Christmas : Carcassonne, an excellent strategy boardgame for adults and kids. Very amusing, very simple rules and countless possibilities, like in the japanese game of Go. Thanks to this game, my 5 1/2-years old got very deep notions of strategy in a weekend , she would need several months to match this level in chess learning . Now she wants to play online with "ranked players"... A lot of communities, forums, online versions for this game. Just google it.

Kirschbluten

for Christian

A splendid film from Germany, by director Doris Dorrie. Emotional and sincere, all the delicacy of humans and their sentiments, in this little masterpiece. And the human destiny is treated seriously (german way) and poetically at the same time, with feminine touches. Splendid images too, I never saw Japan filmed that way before. Don't miss it!

P.S. I have a serious problem, I admit it : I cry in the movies. I watched this film with my wife and her (many) sisters. I was the only one who cried during the film!.. Women are getting tough these days..

Nice Friday!

Santa Clauss (high volatility) came to town again bringing presents ...

I must close the week, my best ever (+105%), AT THIS POINT, because I am able to wipe out everything in a Friday afternoon, I have done this before. Better read something or play chess..

Volatility, the party continues

Easy money, going with the flow, in a high volatility day.

Eur/usd drops like a stone, like the good old eur/jpy...

Euro/dolar again

The party is here!

I had a look yesterday in the charts after FOMC announcement (smashing interest rates again in U.S.) and realised that the party is going to take place in the euro/dollar fields. So i switched today to this pair and had quite some pips in this NY session. I didn't catch all the move but i do not look for this. 110 pips won in total.

Bits

5 o' clock

I could have a better entry on this, anyhow some fast pips and good exit.

Had some small trades after that one, 8 winners and 2 losers in total today, 47 pips won, +13%. Done for the day. Must keep the maximum rate of 10 trades per day. A lot payed in commissions recently..

Love Mondays (again)

Easy money on (almost) every Monday London opening.. I will stop here till 10:00 EST (17:00 my time).

Never (trading) on Friday!

Lesson learned from last week..

Continuation

It took some time to take off and have this +18. Before this I had a faulty reversal trade as i didn't waited the break of previous low and trend line. But it was closed in time, for a change...

Risky, risky...

Forcing things..

The conviction that price SHOULD resume down gave this late exit.

Slice of bread

I didn't trusted this earlier, so i got just a portion of the downfall.

Closed early

Closed early, although this is my preferred (safest) setup and i trust it.

Earlier today

Nice London opening effect. Second trade could be closed at breakeven.

Life (and passion) goes on..

Still alive and trading..

Under fire

Athens is under fire tonight. Our house, which is centrally located, is 100 meters from the fires. Heavy smell of police chemicals. Total chaos and fear here...

How to wipe out your gains

Friday afternoons can be tricky.. Large swings around London closing time today, big nervosity and indecision in the market gave me this disastrous finish of the week. In 3 lousy trades I managed to wipe out the 20% weekly gains I had before these. Price went very clearly against me and I could not close.. I can find excuses : I was very tired, the kids were making a lot of noise and so on... But the fact is there. An ugly way to waste one week's efforts...

Easy money makes you greedy

Easy money again today, by just following the direction of the markets at their opening. If European markets open down, eur/yen goes also down (the opposite is not always valid). This can produce a dangerous confidense sometimes and this is visible on the third trade on the chart... 12 trades in total, 10 winners, 2 losers. +7,5% on account and then i stopped for today, and was happy to do this.

I wanted to share this because there is a striking difference with my attitude yesterday. Yesterday it was an identical market, I made a fast 10% on the London opening, by following the DAX...The easy money made me greedy, I wanted more, I continued in the afternoon and was trapped in a consolidating market. Result : I gave back the nine tenths of the gains, little by little.. My frustration was bigger than the lost gains..

We learn something every day, each day adds to the big unwritten archive named experience or screentime ot whatever you like...

I love Mondays!