Strong bias = dangerous trap

The strongly biased market of the last two days (sharp decline of the euro) made me trade whithout a safety net. Price went to -13 on the second trade (as the max. -10 stop was unefficient yesterday) and I was ready to close with a big loss, as the correction could drive much deeper. Suddenly the price scetched a local lower high and dropped like a stone! I closed at +5 and I couldn't believe I was on the positive side!
Not very professional trading, really...Like a newbie, again..

Going down (obviously)

Free fall after Portugal downgrade, everybody was sure the euro was going down sharply, except me. This hesitation produced mediocre entries-exits. Average execution generates also bad luck : price reversed in my favor exactly after I was exited with a 10 pips loss (7th trade), the maximum loss I could accept.

Funny (phony?) stories

The latest and shortest joke has just 3 words : American judiciary system!!!

I knew for the very beginning that all this stuff was a bad b-movie, pure (and poor) creation of a mediocre screenwriter. That's why I was mad (and I wrote here) about the treatment and the public demolition ("perp walk" etc) of the man who would be the next president of France.

 At the beginning of this cheap story, the maid was a "honest and hard working woman". Now she is a liar, a "hooker" or simply a manipulated person or an agent. It took 2 months to the NY police and attorney to know who the maid really was. Enough time for Strauss-Kahn to step back from the head of IMF....

""The justice system is already screwed up - too many innocent people wrongly convicted and no way out. DSK's money saved him, never forget that."' (a comment from a "deep America" reader, in the NY Post tabloid).

Money is not that important

All the money of the word cannot bring you the joy of life of this young lady, the hapiness to sing in the streets with friends...

Day off

Day off today, as the June target was met and cannot jeopardize this on the sometimes sharp month's fixing (last day of month).

Enjoy the day

Target met in 50 minutes. Closed charts and pc after this. Euro may reach 1.44, 1.45, who cares.. Time for reading, swimming or music now.

Tuesday-2

The daily target of 20 pips was reached with these, but at a price! Huge risk taken twice, big anxiety..

Tuesday-1

I insisted too much on the -8 trade, despite the fact that price was fighiting against a previous high on the hourly. Last trade closed in time, because of this.

3 trades a day

My fear with trading is always the same : to be trapped in the spiral of endless overtrading. Today I had a day which I consider as the perfect one :  reaching (almost) my target (20 pips) in just 3 trades, in less than an hour.  I can't stand the continuous stress, all day long, in front of the monitors anymore, I must care about my health and I have to make my pips with high stakes in the shortest time possible. Life is elsewhere..

Going up and reversal

Last trade closed at the middle of the move because, at this point, I totalled my 20 pips/day target and I wanted to secure this and stop trading for the day!

Last chance

Got the last train to go south, after missing the previous (and safer) opportunity to do the same.

Up and down

I insisted too much on the wrong direction on the first trade and got a -8 in no time. The gains came after this, in a natural way, just by following price.

Extension

On the second trade of this, 1/4 of position was closed as soon at it got positive, at +1. I had the fear that price had overextended north, so a correction was very probable. Despite that I left the rest of position to run with stop at breakeven and closed 1/4 at +10 and the resting 1/2 at +10 also but a few moments later.

And this

Price following

A few moments later, it was easier to follow the price and make some gains, keeping always a tight stop.

Casino thrills

I was lucky enough to close trade a few seconds before the madness episode. It was 5 minutes after the news and with no particular reason, price dropped 70 pips and raised 80, all in 19 seconds!!! How can anyone trade under these conditions and stay alive? Forex becomes a casino little by little, with all the thrills and the suckers hooks of a casino. I feel a growing deregulation of the currencies market and a wise man should stay aside for a while.

At the very same time of this episode, the ES future (S&P index) was calm like a zen garden. I monitor this instrument also in the last weeks and I now understand the thousands of traders who trade this for an income. No big thrills, quite, steady moves and more safe to gain a few ticks here and there. More soon..

Post NFP with futures

Tight stop (6pips) saved me on the first case and putted me out of the trend on the second. Total 21 pips.

Move up, twice

No trades -enjoy music!

Bank holiday today, no trades, a day devoted to music, listened at least 25 lps since morning. Among the new albums, the latest of my favorite jazzman of the new generation, the sublime Marcin Wasilewski from Poland, the fantastic "Faithful". Lyrical and genius.

The secret garden

Trading room moves outdoors

For those who asked about my (very simple) configuration : here is the outdoor trading room in my garden (from May to Νovember). An ordinary Vaio (i5 proc with 4gb ram, Win7/64-bit, main and backup connections) connected to a 23'' monitor (with 3 NT charts, DOMs, spreadsheets) and a ipad for news and browsing, plus a pair of good loudspeakers for listening to music (all the time). And Rocky, the pupil.

I am well protected against the rain and the sun. My only worries are a few ants who fell off the pine tree above and try to find warmth inside my laptop...

I love outdoor life and I am a better trader outside. A lot of ideas come to my mind, here, under my pine tree..

End of trend

Trends are like old stories : they have a beginning, a middle and the end. You can't catch a story or a trend at the end. Here I got some lousy pips at the start of the move and then I missed the main part of it. Because of this, I insisted to continue long, while the steam was getting less strong. Result : two consecutive losses.

Three parts

Entering late in the trend and scaling out trades in three parts, in order to avoid a reversal. Besides that, some risk was taken on the 3.66 trade.

Going down

Going up

Going up with lousy trades and serious risk taken at the end.

Moscow trials

In a civilized country like the US, a few NY cops and a low-rank judge named Melissa can easily destroy a man like DSK, on the simple accusation of an other person. I know, I know, the presumption of innocence is a vice of the "old Europe", where the human rights (of the criminals too) are respected.

I am still under the choc of seeing a man  I admire, presented in a show, as a  trapped beast (an old lion in a circus), as the new Al Capone,as a serial killer. This could never happen in Western Europe.

Second attempt

A few more trades below the 1,4270 resistance. I didn't believe that the breakout was imminent, so I closed every time the price approached the "roof" and on the slightest pull back. Obviously the strong move was the other way round (down) but I had already stopped for the day when that happened.

Attempting a break out

I came late to this, while price was trying to break 1.4270. Only two trades, as a range below the roof was profiling.

Going down slowly

DSK

How can a (very) clever man be trapped in such a pathetic and cheap american b-movie plot?

Again

Scaling out

Futures are perfect for precise application of scaling out positions strategy. On most of these trades, I closed 1/3 of position at +4-5 pips and waited more  for the 2/3. That's why the decimals here, they express average win/loss.

Afternoon

Only two

Back to morning sessions with two trades only. Clean futures market and fills, entries with stop limit orders, 0 spread.

Splitting, again

Unnecessary fragmentation of a move into several trades, due to the tight stops, moved to breakeven once in profit.

Self-confident (?)

On the -5 pips trade I took an enormous risk, as the result of a strongly bearish market, which makes you deadly confident . It could be a disaster..

Post-NFP with futures

The amazing thing with this is that I was able to enter a trade a few seconds only after NFP announcement, as the spread was already at 1 pip and that was quite impossible on the spot market, where a large spread is present for a minute at least after announcement.

Microsurgery

One important gain at the beginning and then super conservative treatment of the uptrend, as price was at 4H cart resistance. All but one entries/ exits were filled at 0 spread and whithout slippage. 20 pips with less expenses than usual and precise, pain-free trades.

Scalping + futures = Microsurgery.

A major step forward.

Finally I did it : I traded yesterday, for the first time, the euro fx future (6E) instead of the eur/usd cash market. What a difference! A really professional instrument which makes scalping tremendously powerful. Here are the benefits of the migration:

1. Almost all entries/exits were filled with 0 spread, especially on limit orders, instead of the usual 0,5-1 pip on IB cash!
2. Absolutely precise control of the trade on a price ladder.
3. Lower commissions by 35%, 0,4 pips per trade round trip, instead of 0,6 pips.

All that putted together, it means at least 1 whole pip economy per trade. With 1M lot (8 contracts) that means $100 savings per trade!! Multiplying by 10 or 20 trades per day, the savings are in the thousands, every single day..

You may understand how impressed I am. I must be really naive for staying five years in the cash market. Futures are an absolute must for scalpers. I always wanted to make the migration but always postponed it for some reason. A comment of Thomas from Denmark in a previous post made me think about this again. A BIG thank, Thomas. I owe you a big favor!

Commissions

15 pips on this but a lot of trades and risk taken once. 7 pips given back as commissions. Too much. Trade less!

Barca

3 little trades between the two half times of the classico (Real -Barcelona). Actually the match made me miss the move up..

Bad morning

Fourth trade was a pure compulsive (revenge) re-entry which compromised the whole session. -10 pips.

Cautious

Cautious comeback to the charts, so much that I closed the third trade without reason and lost the move up.

Spring in Creta

Back home after a splendid week in Creta. Most tourists visit the island on summer BUT Creta is superb during the spring. Optimal temperatures (20-25 C), myriads of colors and smells and the luxury to play with snow on the White Mountains and less than an hour later, to swim in the sea..

The photo is from our "family workshop", teaching my little daughters to photograph wild flowers with a pocket camera..

Easter bunny

No trades since last Friday, I took a week off for Easter, to move around with family. I never trade via the hotel room connection, so I can only contemplate, in my hotel, the spectacular eurusd price drop of last Monday and today's recovery. More waves to come. Happy Easter!

Friday-2

Friday-1

Let it go!

Let the price move up instead of fragmenting it to several micro-trades, minimizing gains.

Coming late

Coming late in the trend minimizes the gains and increases the risk of a reversal.