Afternoon

Second trade was a forced one, therefore a loser.

3 trades session

3 trades only, in a lazy, sunny morning, a bank holiday today here. Time for cycling...

Let it come

Two compulsive losses one after the other and then a strong and natural wave up.

Splitting, again

Splitting

One little move splitted in several trades. Splitting costs me a LOT in commissions every day. Insurance is expensive..

Monday

Not much, on a quiet Monday morning. In fact, my execution was rather mediocre.

Range breakout

More pips when the range was over. I stopped when I got the 20 pips for the day. More gains were possible after this, when the move up accelerated, but who cares..A day with no trade lost and the weekend is profiling. I could not ask for more..

Range

Trading in the tight range differently from previous attempts. VEry tight stops, moved at +1 as soon as it turns positive, big lots, risk keeped low.

Rusty

Late entry on ALL trades on this. Hesitation, fear. I am still rusty, after 3 weeks of inactivity..

Back to the charts

Back to my base (after some winter holidays and a business trip), only to be immersed in the post-Fukushima era... Because of the tragic situation in Japan, the eur/yen pair was a straight drop today, big and (very) easy money. But I wasn't comfortable to make profits from the misery (and death) of thousands there. I am not a shark.. So I continued with my modest gains on eur/usd pair.

Black Swan

I went to the movies, to watch Black Swan yesterday. Impressive but rather overrated, imho. It is a must see however, for two reasons : the fabulous performance of Natalie Portman and the last 15 minutes, an exceptional Swan Lake ballet filming. The whole movie has a quite hysterical tone. I prefer to remember the director, Darren Aronofsky, as the creator of the awesome Pi!

Risk

Silly risk taken on first trade, then some quite pips.

Overdoing

Too many trades and contra risky ones, in a rather easy morning.

Green waves

VERY late first entry and subsequent trades.

Nostalghia - Song for Tarkovsky

Working late in the night with this EXQUISITE work in my earphones. French composer and pianist Francois Couturier wrote superb music inspired by the biggest movie director : Andrei Tarkovsky. An excellent way to find again your (my) inner peace and serenity.

Awful

After the previous "perfection", here is my worst session since a long time. Everything is wrong on this : entries (compulsion to trade on a heavy range, entering against the supp/res levels)), exits (silly waiting for a stop to be filled). Bad timing, compulsion, need for revenge, addiction, all the human alienating passion  is there to be scanned by those who need to avoid this. Enjoy!

A perfect session

Strong and smooth moves, almost predictable. Trader's heaven.

Not much

Not much in a session with some dynamism. Mediocre trading.

Breakout

The breakout came this Monday morning finally! I followed price keeping in mind to stay in the trade as long as I could, to avoid exits / re-entries. I exited at S2 line, to keep gains above 30 pips.

Friday's mistake

After considerable gains this afternoon, due mainly to increased volatiliry after Mubarak's resignation, I commited a newbie's mistake at the end of session, when I should already have stopped and enjoy the evening : I insisted to go for the break of the daily low, despite the strength of 1,35 support and  the "traditional" Friday's afternoon incapacity to initiate big, genuine moves. Silly me.. I took a -15 to close charts and play with my kids..

And again

Again

Waves

Smooth and quiet waves in one direction, perfect situation for this kind of trading.

Friday

Missed NFP today, came late from a trip and had some pips before the weekend.

"I can't be wrong"

Two red bars at the same level but I can't be wrong, price must go up! So I lowered my defense and got an uppercut on the face!..-14 pips and felt really stupid.. This is the price of arrogance. I can't be wrong means I am smarter than the markets. But I have already learned that I am just a humble follower of the market. The days I feel I am something special, the loss is there to keep me on the soil...

Madness

Compulsive trading is just that : trading and trading at aeternam, exiting and re-entering at the same point, again and again. Overtrading is the "art" to destroy a genuine price move by splitting it into many trades and get ruined from the paid commissions.. From this 40 pips move I got ..nothing and payed a lot to my broker too.. I had a minor excuse - the move was hesitant and i had to be cautious and expect a reversal, BUT this is only an excuse..

Breakout and retracement

1.3757 (blue horizontal line) was the daily high. I was very cautious with that level, I closed trades, not waiting for the breakout, when price approached this  and found the slightest resistance. I had then two trades above the level, at the break of the high, very cautious again. But, from all these trades, the one I am proud of, is the last one, a breakeven. I closed immediately when i "smelled" that a correction was imminent.

As a scalper, I am realy privileged to trade as described above : imagine, on the contrary, a guy who trades the 15m chart and went long at the break, 1.3760. Taking an affordable risk, he has a stoploss of, say, 25 pips. But price retraced immediately after the break to 1.3728, 35 pips lower with spreads and stop was reached! Even worse, at the previous attempt to break this level today, price retraced 60  pips!.. All stops were taken...

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!