Day 12

Start Balance               $1, 518

Today's Profit Target       $19.60 (Day 19)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	7:28 PM	8:00 PM	9:31	15,950	1.42550	1.42730	1.8	$1.96	L	18.0	$35.65
2	EURUSD	7:53 PM	8:00 PM	0:07	15,950	1.42420	1.42450	1.8	$1.96	L	3.0	$5.32
3	EURUSD	8:18 PM	5:34 AM	9:16	15,950	1.42340	1.42500	1.8	$1.96	L	16.0	$32.07
											37.0	$73.04

End Balance                $1,592

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 23 = 11 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 31

Comments

Today I feel like a complete fraud and it would appear that I have learned very little from the first time round. I’m putting today’s experience down as my last chance to get my act together or forget this whole approach to forex trading.

Essentially what happened was near enough déjà vu to the collapse last time around. First the differences, this time around I was very aware of the sell offs going on in the equity  markets (hard to miss what was going on with Lehmans & Merrills really) and I expected a lot of volatility (last time I was mostly blissfully ignorant to the JPY carry unwind trades occurring), what I didn’t expect was the extent of the moves. I entered long EURUSD after a 250 pip drop confident that there would be some relief rally and my entry looked good for that. Like the end of the first project the timing was really unfortunate, in the blink of an eye I was staring at a 50 pip loss. At this point I should have took it on the chin and walked away. But it’s just so hard to do though when it happens so fast, clearly success is going to be down to pure luck until I can gain that discipline. So what did I do? Just like last time I tried to get smart and pick a counter trend bounce to enter another long, this time it kind of worked but I panicked and closed it for a very small gain. That was just as well though as another wave down hit me. Learning nothing and virtually close to throwing in the towel I put on another long and watched in horror as the EURUSD just careered south at speed.

I’m too embarrassed to admit at how deep in the red I was with these two trades and for all intents and purposes the game was up, AGAIN. I felt that I had little chance of getting out alive but as the results show, I did, and not only that but with the best daily pips result so far. So having effectively conceded defeat again I left both trades on with extremely optimistic take profit stops set overnight. When I checked the next morning I couldn’t believe how far back the EURUSD moved up, more than 200 pips. What a day. My guess is what happened is that as the European stock markets sold off in horrendous fashion the capital flow was from EUR back to the USD sending the EURUSD down. Then when the US stock markets opened the reverse happened sending the EURUSD back up. A wild ride indeed and far too volatile for what I’m trying to do with this project.

So no question that the result is very good but the means to achieve it was diabolical and I’m not at all happy with myself, it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before I blow up again if I can’t learn the lesson. The strategy for this to work is to have very short term trades lasting a few minutes not 9 hours.

With these three trades my hit rate has now surpassed 90% and the bank is up 35% but it could have all easily been so different.

Comments

[Gabriel]

"Find out what whiskey he drinks and send all of my generals a case, if it will get the same results."
-US President Abraham Lincoln, referring to General Grant