February Totals

This was by far the best month of my trading career.  If I can continue to trade half as well as this, I will be a very rich, very unemployed man.

This journey for me is just beginning, and I'm still a complete beginner, so I find it hard to believe that I've peaked and will never be able to perform like this again.

I may or may not outperform this month in the near future, but I will be learning and improving with every session I trade.  I can only improve from here.

14 Trading days, 13 winners!  Not a bad rate!

March here we come!

28 February 2012

Was too exhausted yesterday to post the charts, so this is a day late, and of poor quality.

Day wasn't bad, a few mistakes, but overall decent trading.

Still in my crappy pips/trade ratio.

Stats:
Net Pips: +15.8
Trades:  11
Winning Trades: 9
Pips/Trade:  1.44
Win %:  82% 

27 February 2012

Oh my.. Today was absolute hell, one of those days you wish you could forget.

I'd like to run this blog like a fascist government, making things that make me look bad disappear, but JMF3 over at http://scalppipping.blogspot.com/ is keeping me honest.

Yes, I did get +32.3 pips, and yes that is better than usual, however, I violated EVERY rule I have, which is trader suicide.

Adding will be the death of me, it was when I first started, and it will be now, I need to reel that back in.

Second, it's a rule, but i'll state it again, YOU CAN NOT ADD UNLESS IT'S AT A MAJOR LEVEL.  I added several times in "no man's land" where I had nothing to stop the price.  I also do not fade movements without seeing it fully turn around, or unless it's at a major S/R area, I tried to fade in no man's land.

Lastly, as I was talking with JMF3 about, it's good to be a little more aggressive when you're up really far, however, you still need to cut your trades quickly.  I held on to far too many trades for far too long, because I was worried to lose my progress.  This is dangerous.

Anyway, I want this day to be over with.

Rome was not built in a day, let the learning continue!


Stats:
Net Pips: +32.3
Trades:  23
Winning Trades: 16
Pips/Trade:  1.4
Win %:  70% 


23 trades!!??  Seriously!!??

24 February 2012

Another one of those days that weren't even remotely elegant, but still worked out.

Ended the morning session with +12.7, got another trade at lunch for +4.6.  Not a bad day, I must say.

Pips/trade still sucks.

Stats:
Net Pips: +17.4
Trades:  11
Winning Trades: 8
Pips/Trade:  1.58
Win %:  72%


Ha, same exact hit rate as yesterday, interesting.

23 February 2012

First day back after being sick, and it overall was a good one.

This was another one of those things where I was anything but elegant, just hacking away at it, but all in all good management, ended up with a very respectable pip count.

Market was acting in fairly unpredictable ways, did my best to grab the pips I needed and got out.

My pips/trade were pretty awful, meaning I paid a good deal in commission, but not that much.

Stats:
Net Pips: +11.8
Trades:  11
Winning Trades: 8
Pips/Trade:  1.07
Win %:  72%

22 February 2012

Hey everyone,
I haven't been trading the past few days because I've been horribly sick, but I now think I might have kicked it and will be getting up tomorrow morning to trade London.  Hopefully I didn't lose all my skills with my stomache.

In the mean time, here's a summary of how february has gone so far.  If I can continue even doing half this well, I'm going to be really set.

16 February 2012

First day back after the wednesday break, and it was a good one.

In the london session I made some mistakes chasing the price, and made a fat finger error accidentally doubling my position size, but it ended up going greatly in my favor.  The reason it played out like this is because I don't add very much anymore, and would always prefer to close the position then wait for it to finish moving, then enter again.

I will start to mentally forward test, if in certain situations it would be smart to double lot size for later entries like I accidentally did today.  I think this would be effectively be adding like Throw from apipthrowingparty does, but I think it might be just a smidge safer since I would be a little better protected from rocketing price action.

The last trade of the day was at my lunch break, and was phenomenal.  It dropped 20 pips in about 2 seconds,  I was already short, so I held it until my exit at the fib.


Stats:
Net Pips: +24.7
Trades:  7
Winning Trades: 4
Pips/Trade:  3.53
Win %:  57%   

14 February 2012

Same as yesterday, crappy market.  However, near the end of London I was able to recognize it and shrink my TP to go for quicker trades.  If I would've done this from the beginning I would've done even better.

Took one trade at lunch, a quick little bounce off the m2.  Worked great.

Stats:
Net Pips: +10.7
Trades:  5
Winning Trades: 4
Pips/Trade:  2.14
Win %:  80%  

13 February 2012

Started off trading london because I thought I had to go to work today, luckily it ended up getting cancelled.

The london session was AWFUL.  I am not disappointed with my calls, they were half decent, but the market was absolute garbage.  My real critique for myself is I need to recognize when the market is garbage like that and stay out.  First session ended -5.1, with 2 winners out of 6 trades.

The second session was NYC, and I couldn't have asked for a better session.  The market was in a clear downtrend, and I made solid shorts all the way down.  The second session ended with +25.9 pips, 3 trades, all winners.

It's amazing how much difference the market movement will make in my results.  Time to get better at recognizing which is which.

Stats:
Net Pips: +20.8
Trades:  9
Winning Trades: 5
Pips/Trade:  2.3
Win %:  56% 

And here's a little motivation for myself, this is where I want to live.

10 February 2012

Had today off work, so was able to trade the NYC/London overlap.

Crappy day, but not a total disaster.

The violent moves down in the AM caused the NYC session to be garbage.

I've been on a win streak recently, and it eventually had to end.

All well, tomorrow's another day!

Stats:
Net Pips: -9.8
Trades:  6
Winning Trades: 2
Pips/Trade:  -1.63
Win %:  33%

09 February 2012 Part II

Was getting ready for work during my breakfast break and saw the price shoot up, decided to jump in and take some juicy fades.  The price action seemed to be really obvious.  Add 13.7 to my day's total.  What a great day this was.

UPDATE:
DAILY TOTAL
Stats:
Net Pips: +29.5
Trades:  5
Winning Trades: 5
Pips/Trade:  5.9
Win %:  100%

09 February 2012

I'm pretty satisfied with today.

The first trade I took put me up +10.4.  I really wasn't in the mood to trade this morning, so I mostly watched random youtube videos.  I took a few low risk trades, but mostly stayed out.  Market was pretty choppy, and relatively unpredictable.

I feel like trading you really have to be in the right mindset, and if you're not, it's important to recognize it and sit out.

Stats:
Net Pips: +15.8
Trades:  3
Winning Trades: 3
Pips/Trade:  5.26
Win %:  100%

07 February 2012

This session was pretty rough.  It wasn't necessarily because of a bad market, it was more me hacking away at it.  I may have gotten out positive (barely), but it was anything but elegant.

One thing I've noticed is that even in a ranging market like today, or even a slight uptrending market, I take like 95% shorts.

I think this has to do with the fact that when I was really learning to scalp, EURUSD was going straight down for months.

This NEEDS to be fixed.

Stats:
Net Pips: +10.6
Trades:  9
Winning Trades: 6
Pips/Trade:  1.17
Win %:  67% 

06 February 2012

Just a couple of trades today.  Crappy hit rate, but the high R:R kept me positive.  Market wasn't moving great, and it was out of my normal time frame.  Quit early while I was ahead.

Stats:
Net Pips: +3.4
Trades:  3
Winning Trades: 1
Pips/Trade:  1.13
Win %:  33%  

03 February 2012

Another sexy day.

Since last week I've been getting up at 3 AM to trade 3 hours before work on Mon, Tue, Thurs, and Fri.  Wednesday is "half-time" where I get to sleep in.  This has been really really great for my trading.

This is all I've been missing, really solid chart time, and the better moves happen from 3 - 430.

Anyway, another great day.  Had one big loser, but hey, almost all the winners were bigger than that, and that's what matters.

Win% and Pips/trade a bit lower than I'd like, but still great.

Stats:
Net Pips: +17.4
Trades:  6
Winning Trades: 4
Pips/Trade:  2.9
Win %:  67%   

02 February 2012

WHOA!

There was a HUGEEEE spike today that literally came out of nowhere.  By shear luck I wasn't short at that point.  I was able to get a really good fade off the M3 though.  That 60+ pip upmove happened in about 10 seconds, I've never seen EUR/USD move that fast.

Apparently the Chinese president mentioned something about euro bonds and getting involved in the EFSF.  I really wish he would consult with me before he starts saying crap like that during my trading session.

Anyway, great day today, let's see if I can keep it up.

Stats:
Net Pips: +29.6
Trades:  5
Winning Trades: 4
Pips/Trade:  5.92
Win %:  80%