bangkoker
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:smart: Hello, not sure how this will go. Initially this thread is for me. I know, selfish. Over time maybe some parts of it may become of interest to others.
I really wanted to make myself a journal to document my journey. I have been learning to trade for sometime. I don't know how far down the road I am.
Journey so far: Seems to have been a long time, I must have had at least a fleeting interest in trading for many years. Something about it appeals to me.
I will not lie, obviously the desire for more money, financial freedom is part of it. I am sure it would be of no great interest if that was not at least a possibility.
I think I first started to dabble at Forex with no clue whatsoever.. purely a punt on direction :cheesy: but at the sametime I think everyone has to get that stage out of the way.
Ok, I can not truly remember by I am sure I won and little lost a little and ultimately got wiped out by leverage :whistling that seems to be the general idea.
I think I then started to learn. I have read many books, from basic books on stockmarkets, charts,candlesticks, Dr Elder Trading Room, Naked Trader, Journeys of spreadbetter ( a female journalist who dabbled),Stock Operator (I may edit this to give it some more detail) etc.
I was introduced to Trade2Win, really opened my eyes. Read some great threads.
I don't know now (wish I documented earlier, what order or what they taught me).
At this stage, this may be dull but I feel I should fill in the background.
Some of the threads I remember finding fascinating were:
TheRumpledOne, never win again etc: I think there is a fair amount of critism and I have never really tried this trading style but I certainly think it opened my eyes to the reality of trading and made me realise there is no holy grail.
Some other threads I found fascinating, were: MrCharts. Although when I have attempted individual stocks it has been with mixed success..
Anyway back to the journey: Dabbled again at trading and learnt a valuable lesson of never catching a falling knife with Northern Rock I only really lost money that I had won from opening a spreadbet account (at that time you could get a prefunded account as an introduction) and I think it was a very valuable lesson on never catching a falling knife, do not chase losses, have an idea what your plan is.. where stops are, when you are wrong etc.. I think a very valuable lesson, oh why did I listen to 'experts' when shorting it all the way down would have been so much better.
Ok at this stage lots more reading: The Three Ducks, Phil Newtron Bomb's breakout strategy, GPD/USD 123, to name just a few.
At this point I decided to stick to something and started to 'do' the FTSE, my logic I could open a position before work. A very simple strategy.. see where it goes out of the gate at 8am, if it goes up then long, if down then short. I think this taught me a lot.
Money management, that is what it taught me.. by simple having a smallish stop and letting my profits run. I found, I could win just under 50% of time (not impressive) I soon realised that this was because even if I ultimately got the right direction for the day, I could be chopped out first... but my losses were small and my wins larger.. just by moving stop to breakeven when went my way and slowly locking profits in.
Ok I had a stumble again here.. thought I had sussed it had grown my account, the logic seemed to be if I could make money on FTSE100, then surely if it was going up I could make more by choosing the strongest performer in the strongest sector and the reverse when going down. Well this didn't work for me and turned a bit gambley and lost back most of my gains.
A break in trading life temporarily got in the way and lack of spare funds.
Ok, then I decided I need to crack on, a few months back I deposited a small amount with a large spreadbet firm and by slowly using my ftse system I grew my account to just over 8 times starting amount Ok, even then I made mistakes, I was fully aware at outset that I was underfunded and over leveraged but fortune :clover: smiled on me and I had a good run.. I have slowly increased position sizes (whilst reigning myself in an making my trades a smaller percentage of fund.)
This went reasonably well. Got a little over confident again, thought if it works on FTSE should work on Dow (but discovered a bit volatile), had a bit of a hiccup, little bit of a draw down, not much mind.. just a week or so profit. Made me realise I am not invincible and am now doing some more research, why?
Because I have learnt a few things:
Money management is very important (taken me so long to start to learn that).
I want a system that is simple (but not so simple that it is just random).
My system feels too gambley and I would like something which is giving me an edge (although I don't expect to accurately predict the market).
I would also like the option to look at more markets (primarily so I go for the strongest trades and not weak trades as the only option on the market).
This led me to look at forex again. Has always thrown me a bit but I think my maturity as a person, as a trade :whistling is showing a little. I have lost the gamble and grown a little more patient. Prepared to stand aside at not blindly jump in.
I love the simple approach of the three ducks relying on finding the most trendy of trend things. This is an approach I am trying to implement and has worked for me more of than not on little trades I have tried but time to check the market constantly can be a problem when you work.
I love the breakout approach, I think somewhere in my mind it feels right and I feel more comfortable with it. I have also been reading on another forum a excellent thread on essentially waiting for a retracement on a trend and then diving in for 20/40 pips. I love this kind of simple approach and think this will form a big part of my strategy for awhile.
This is long isn't it?
Anyway I have learnt I don't want a million indicators, I don't want to gamble, I don't want to be over-stretching my account so that fear and greed become too big a factor. I want to gradually improve and develop my own trading style.
This thread will hopefully be me trying approaches and seeing how things go. I have kept a journal of my trading and I know with patient it is possible to make money. Bigger wins, smaller losses.. I think I am attached to my ego and I would prefer a system that at least puts me in a winning trade 50% of the time. This could be a weakness as I understand many good traders are wrong often but make up for it with very big wins.
I doubt anyone has got this far but maybe this thread will become interesting with time. At the moment I imagine it looks like a pile of jumble clichés but I think that is how my mind is working. Anyway I think it takes awhile to learn these things and I may now be ready to start my journey... resume my journey.. it may be interesting we may teach each other things, exchange ideas overtime.. it could be a one post dullathon that never gets off the ground but i have put finger to keyboard and hope to gradually add to my journey, if only so I can review my own progress.
Will tip any interesting threads I see. Bye for now.
I really wanted to make myself a journal to document my journey. I have been learning to trade for sometime. I don't know how far down the road I am.Journey so far: Seems to have been a long time, I must have had at least a fleeting interest in trading for many years. Something about it appeals to me.
I will not lie, obviously the desire for more money, financial freedom is part of it. I am sure it would be of no great interest if that was not at least a possibility.
I think I first started to dabble at Forex with no clue whatsoever.. purely a punt on direction
:cheesy: but at the sametime I think everyone has to get that stage out of the way.Ok, I can not truly remember by I am sure I won and little lost a little and ultimately got wiped out by leverage :whistling that seems to be the general idea.
I think I then started to learn. I have read many books, from basic books on stockmarkets, charts,candlesticks, Dr Elder Trading Room, Naked Trader, Journeys of spreadbetter ( a female journalist who dabbled),Stock Operator (I may edit this to give it some more detail) etc.
I was introduced to Trade2Win, really opened my eyes. Read some great threads.
I don't know now (wish I documented earlier, what order or what they taught me).
At this stage, this may be dull but I feel I should fill in the background.
Some of the threads I remember finding fascinating were:
TheRumpledOne, never win again etc: I think there is a fair amount of critism and I have never really tried this trading style but I certainly think it opened my eyes to the reality of trading and made me realise there is no holy grail.
Some other threads I found fascinating, were: MrCharts. Although when I have attempted individual stocks it has been with mixed success..
Anyway back to the journey: Dabbled again at trading and learnt a valuable lesson of never catching a falling knife with Northern Rock
I only really lost money that I had won from opening a spreadbet account (at that time you could get a prefunded account as an introduction) and I think it was a very valuable lesson on never catching a falling knife, do not chase losses, have an idea what your plan is.. where stops are, when you are wrong etc.. I think a very valuable lesson, oh why did I listen to 'experts' when shorting it all the way down would have been so much better.Ok at this stage lots more reading: The Three Ducks, Phil Newtron Bomb's breakout strategy, GPD/USD 123, to name just a few.
At this point I decided to stick to something and started to 'do' the FTSE, my logic I could open a position before work. A very simple strategy.. see where it goes out of the gate at 8am, if it goes up then long, if down then short. I think this taught me a lot.
Money management, that is what it taught me.. by simple having a smallish stop and letting my profits run. I found, I could win just under 50% of time (not impressive) I soon realised that this was because even if I ultimately got the right direction for the day, I could be chopped out first... but my losses were small and my wins larger.. just by moving stop to breakeven when went my way and slowly locking profits in.
Ok I had a stumble again here.. thought I had sussed it
had grown my account, the logic seemed to be if I could make money on FTSE100, then surely if it was going up I could make more by choosing the strongest performer in the strongest sector and the reverse when going down. Well this didn't work for me and turned a bit gambley and lost back most of my gains.A break in trading
life temporarily got in the way and lack of spare funds.Ok, then I decided I need to crack on, a few months back I deposited a small amount with a large spreadbet firm and by slowly using my ftse system I grew my account to just over 8 times starting amount
Ok, even then I made mistakes, I was fully aware at outset that I was underfunded and over leveraged but fortune :clover: smiled on me and I had a good run.. I have slowly increased position sizes (whilst reigning myself in an making my trades a smaller percentage of fund.)This went reasonably well. Got a little over confident again, thought if it works on FTSE should work on Dow (but discovered a bit volatile), had a bit of a hiccup, little bit of a draw down, not much mind.. just a week or so profit. Made me realise I am not invincible and am now doing some more research, why?
Because I have learnt a few things:
Money management is very important (taken me so long to start to learn that).
I want a system that is simple (but not so simple that it is just random).
My system feels too gambley and I would like something which is giving me an edge (although I don't expect to accurately predict the market).
I would also like the option to look at more markets (primarily so I go for the strongest trades and not weak trades as the only option on the market).
This led me to look at forex again. Has always thrown me a bit but I think my maturity as a person, as a trade :whistling is showing a little. I have lost the gamble and grown a little more patient. Prepared to stand aside at not blindly jump in.
I love the simple approach of the three ducks relying on finding the most trendy of trend things. This is an approach I am trying to implement and has worked for me more of than not on little trades I have tried but time to check the market constantly can be a problem when you work.
I love the breakout approach, I think somewhere in my mind it feels right and I feel more comfortable with it. I have also been reading on another forum a excellent thread on essentially waiting for a retracement on a trend and then diving in for 20/40 pips. I love this kind of simple approach and think this will form a big part of my strategy for awhile.
This is long isn't it?
Anyway I have learnt I don't want a million indicators, I don't want to gamble, I don't want to be over-stretching my account so that fear and greed become too big a factor. I want to gradually improve and develop my own trading style.
This thread will hopefully be me trying approaches and seeing how things go. I have kept a journal of my trading and I know with patient it is possible to make money. Bigger wins, smaller losses.. I think I am attached to my ego and I would prefer a system that at least puts me in a winning trade 50% of the time. This could be a weakness as I understand many good traders are wrong often but make up for it with very big wins.
I doubt anyone has got this far but maybe this thread will become interesting with time. At the moment I imagine it looks like a pile of jumble clichés but I think that is how my mind is working. Anyway I think it takes awhile to learn these things and I may now be ready to start my journey... resume my journey.. it may be interesting we may teach each other things, exchange ideas overtime.. it could be a one post dullathon that never gets off the ground but i have put finger to keyboard and hope to gradually add to my journey, if only so I can review my own progress.
Will tip any interesting threads I see. Bye for now.
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