Day 20: Held through strong till the end

-$6.65 $331.29

So it was a weird morning, GDP numbers came out negative but didn’t seem to have much affect on EUR/USD but GBP/USD kept falling. Pound has been falling hard even yesterday, so I decided to stay away from it since it was acting irregular. And EUR/USD was a headache as it did not know it’s direction. Lost money on EUR as it was going up and down, but I recovered back a majority of it. It wasn’t till the end that I was going to call it quits around -$25 but decided to take another go at it and pulled through some lost pips. Next week will be the first trading day of February, hopefully it won’t be as bad as January. This month has actually been a nightmare but I also learned a lot from it.

Week 4: -$147.48 -30.8%

Start: $478.77

Finish: $331.29

This week has been tough, but more importantly could’ve been avoided with better trading psychology and focus. Made silly mistakes which were quite costly. Next week I will improve on controlling my emotions and trading with discipline rather than impulse.

Day 19: It hurts!!

-$51.82 $337.94

Sigh.. another negative day after a foolish mistake.

So, I got up bright and early at 7:40 a.m for the unemployment claims number that was suppose to announce at 8:30. Once time came and the number came out “lower than expected” I immediately sold the dollar against EUR/USD and USD/JPY. Trading in a news release, you have to be fast. So I trained myself to immediately execute a trade after hearing key words such as: lower than expected, higher than expected, bearish, bullish, strong, weak, etc. After hearing such phrase as “Much lower than expected” on CNBC I though to myself, lower, so sell! As I anticipated to get in and get out for quick profits, I saw my number turn into uncomfortable reds and had no idea why. As it kept getting lower I just thought to myself that the market was very noisy, not too strange especially after a news release. And finally I repeated to myself, “Lower than expected……… unemployment”… DUH! It’s a double negative!! How could I be so stupid!

So that happened, then I lost even more money trying to pick a bottom for this ever falling GBP/USD. Why was it falling so hard and so much? No idea, still don’t know. But that’s just how the market is sometimes. Luckily I gained back some dollars in the afternoon, but still ended the day with a painful minus fifty something dollars.

Lesson learned: lower unemployment good, higher unemployment bad…

Day 18: Panic from the FOMC

-$104.34 $389.76

Man…. you never really felt stress until you see your hard earned money fly away right before your eyes. Before the FOMC announcement, my day was mediocre: got in a nice dip from the EUR/USD then was hit by a reversal, and also rode the GBP/USD down along the channel and trying to catch the bottom here and there. And then came the FOMC release.

During the inital announcement of the neutral and passive FOMC news, I was ready to click toward the direction EUR/USD was going to, which was north. Closed my position about three seconds later for a $20 profit then was ready for another entry, except this time it shot right down, then shot up, shot down, shot down again, then shot up, shot down…you get the point, it was very confusing. At this moment panic hit me and I just started raising my position sizes to cover up for the small loses… BIG MISTAKE. As I was caught in this chaos, it felt as if I was in a broken elevator shooting up, then down and up again knocking me out unconsciously as I surrendered for a triple digit loss.

I really want this blog to become a zero to hero “Successful Forex Journey” instead of a painful “Demise of my Forex Journey” and its a lot harder than I thought. Having a hard time recovering psychologically and focusing without panic. Every negative day just takes away the motivation and drive I had in the beginning. Taking a break for the rest of the day, can’t even stand to look at charts or anything Wall Street related.

Day 17: Great start, bad finish

-$30.19 $494.10

Usually I always wait till after 9:30 to trade, but today I couldn’t resist to ride the falling dollar as it beautifully bounced off the 8 and 20 Moving Averages. The predictable trend started about 7:00 am, which I caught around 8:30 when the negative Core Durable Goods number helped the falling dollar on the EUR/USD,GBP/USD, and JPY/USD charts as the candlesticks bounced off the moving averages. It was almost too perfect and too easy. Off the bat I was over $20 in profits before the morning bell rang.

Oh but the trend could go on for so long, and was interrupted by a previously thought reversal from the better than expected news from CB Consumer Confidence number and New Home Sales. Lost money on the fake reversal as the dollar continued to fall despite the benevolent news. As it reached after hours and the steam slowly slowing down, I thought it was about time for the dollar to rise so went long dollar, however, wasn’t a pretty pop so closed out of fear too early.

Day 16: Slow and steady wins the race

+$38.22 $524.29

Snowy day here in the east coast as a blizzard is coming our way. As the markets opened yesterday, Euro had a small pop, Pound was consolidating and Yen was bearish against the dollar. From my pessimistic view of the dollar last week, I decided to go long Euro, Pound and Yen against the dollar. The Euro and Pound worked beautifully but had a little resistance with the Yen. However, as the steam wore off, I caught the reversal as the dollar gained back strength towards the afternoon.

After such a horrible loss last week, I decided to play things safe and slow for now until my capital recovers a bit. All in all, not complaining about today, feels good to see those green numbers instead of red.

Day 15: Survived and Weekly report

-$3.19 $478.77

Looks like the reversal of EUR/USD happened while I was asleep. If only it reversed a little earlier yesterday afternoon, my account wouldn’t have been too down.

Anyways, I started off the morning by attempting to short the EUR and GBP against the dollar. Since yesterday, I was very hesitant to buy EUR against the Dollar but decided to ride the bullish channel up anyways. I was about -$20 at this point trying to short the EUR. There was even a moment where a false breakout faked me out thinking it was going to reverse, that caused another -$10, so in total I was looking at the horrendous -$30 for the day.  When steam lost around 1.12843 for EUR/USD and about 1.50300 at GBP/USD I knew it was time to go long dollar. I held and held and finally got from -$30 to         -$3.19. What a day..

Week 3: -$139.81   -22.6%

Start: $618.58

Finish: $478.77

This week was 4 days instead of 5 trading days due to MLK. I was very pessimistic about the rising dollar, thinking that it was bound to fall, however, it was such an impulsive move. Next week I’ll be less aggressive, more patience, and aim for all positive days to regain some of my capital back. I’m bearish on the EUR and CHF. Perhaps I’ll trade long USD/CHF next week, we’ll see.

Day 14: ECB announcement and…. didn’t do so well

-$107.00 $481.96

So the ECB QE announcement came out this morning stating that ECB will spend €60billion per month of assets until end of September 2016.

So commons sense will state QE = lower EUR which means buy dollar, sell euro. Easy enough right? Actually made some early profits in the day, but stubborn me kept trying to counter trade on the EUR/USD. I was thinking that even with the QE, the dollar was way to high and there was too much downward pressure on the euro. I was hoping for a pop or a quick retracement, however, the euro continued to crush down on those support lines. I have to stop counter trading so often.

Next news to look out for now will be Greece elections.

Day 13: CRAZY VOLATILITY

+$24.65 $588.96

Yes! Feels good to end on a positive balance after a brutal losing streak. Today’s market was like no other. European markets started the dollar off on a downward slide, and then around 9:30 a.m came a crazy whip saw action on the EUR/USD while the GBP/USD was coiling onto a pendant.

What caused this obnoxious move on the EUR/USD was because of a ECB leak that stated they would buy bonds of 50 billion Euros every month. And another crazy move worth noting was the USD/CAD trade where the BOC Governor Stephen Poloz, mentioned about cutting rates. Crazy crazy moves in the market today, and anyone who is trading should be aware and ready for the ECB QE announcement tomorrow.

Day 12: Need to focus!!

-$54.27 $564.31

Started off well shorting EUR and buying dollar for obvious reasons. However as the DXY dollar index started to rise, I thought it would pull back. USD/JPY saw a reversal around 10:00 at 118.335 while EUR and GBP continued on their downward spiral. As I kept getting pessimistic about USD, it was still a risky move to short. Didn’t see dollar slow down until late afternoon. I just need to focus and focus.

Day 11: U.S Markets closed

$0 $618.58

Today’s MLK day and the US markets are closed. I don’t like trading during low volume so decided to take a day off. Ready for the markets to reopen tomorrow, happy MLK day.