Trade Review for week starting 2/1/08 - 4/1/08

This week of trading has been pretty smooth, except for some minor mistakes which I never fail to make.

Been really attached EUR/USD, and enjoying the movements in the pair. I guess the most attractive thing about this pair would be the low spread. 2 pip spread is great as I do not have to worry about paying too much even if I was on the losing side.

On 2/1/08, made some mistakes by not trusting myself and switching around too much. I'm glad the spread was only 2 pips, so switching around did not really cause me to lose too much in the spread. Went long in the first trade @ 1.4665 but took a quick profit @ 1.4667. Earned $1.60 there as I stuck to 0.8 lots. Reason for exiting so quick was because on my hourly chart it showed a reversal, so I shorted again @ 1.4670, and seriously I was right initially and was up approximately 20 pips. However, the mistake in this trade was that I did not pay attention to news release, and I ended up taking a 10 pip loss of $8.00, and hence I quickly reversed my position and entered long @ 1.4688 to ride on the wave. This brought me a 42 pip profit by closing @ 1.4730, which was $33.60.

Overall profit/loss for the day was +$27.20, a pretty decent trading day.

On 3/1/08, main mistake was trading in a rush. I was out literally for the whole day, from 8am in school, all the way to afternoon where I went for my medical checkup, and then going to look for May in the evening, and reaching home only at 11.30pm. Went home, and saw EUR/USD chart, hourly chart signalled a short, but not at an exactly good price. As I wanted to earn at least $10.00 that day, hence I just hastily entered a short at 1.4721. Before I knew it, I was down a good 10 pips. Then I saw a friend on MSN and asked him for opinions, he was confident of how much it would go up, and as usual, I was taken in by his confidence. Closed off the first position at a 20 pip loss, losing $16.00 and entering long @ 1.4743. The moment I entered long, prices immediately started to decline and not before long my losses were fluctuating around 10 - 15 pips. This definitely signalled a bad sign. I didn't want to think so much and hence I just held the position overnight.

On 4/1/08, I woke up and saw a profit of approximately 10 pips, but that definitely wasn't what I was asking for. So I just held on further. At approximately 2pm I couldn't stand the losses anymore as it had hit 20 pips and it was the limit of my rsk appetite, so I closed it off at a 20 pip loss. Both these trades took away $16.00 and caused my balance to fall below the initial.

These two trades caused me to think through what I had done wrong, and the obvious mistake was that I entered trades hastily and the next would be I was wavered easily when people told me of their opinions.

So I just waited, and kept waiting for a chance to enter into EUR/USD again. About 5 hours later, this chance came as there was employment data release from the US. Prices started to escalate and I was prepared to go long at any price which came. Managed to long @ 1.4724 and I decided to not be greedy and just t/p @ 1.4775, earning a sweet 51 pips, giving me $40.80.

Before I entered this trade, I was looking at some other charts as well, and saw a good chance at GBP/JPY, but I guess I really have this phobia with this pair and have no wish to touch it again even though I saw a very strong resistance @ 216.55. I seriously have to blog this down otherwise I'll feel very bottled. It really sucks to see yourself missing on a chance which you had spotted. A good 300 pip that would be.

Ok, no point fretting over something which I was bent on not touching. Then I went over to May's house at night and brought my laptop along, was prepared to go short on EUR/USD again, and yes eventually I did after much hesitation and missing out on good movements. Shorted @ 1.4770, not an excellant price as well, saw a 13 pip profit but did not want to close it, ended up taking it @ 1.4767 making $2.40 out of it. Though if I had held on, I could have closed it off at a 10 pip profit, but I didn't want to hold on as I was so tired by that time at around 4am. So overall, up $38.12 from initial capital, not a bad start though I did not hit my profit objective of 30usd/day on average.

Lessons learnt: Do NOT trade when you are all tired and worn out. Do NOT trade based on a friend's opinion.

A friend is a fiend in trading.