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My problem most likely stems from my methodology. I've never been successful with technical analysis and that's what I'm trying to use to daytrade forex. For my position trading I base my entry and exit decisions on historical patterns and statistical probabilities. Unfortunately I'm unsure...

Read lots of books and I've been position trading futures, stocks and options successfully for several years. I thought that if I made a fairly steady daily profit (and losses of course, but a decent average daily upward motion) that I would day trade, but it seems that over time I would do...

Well, that's it I've had enough! 3 losing trades today to bring my 2 week trading spree to around -10 points. Spending 3 hours a day to just breakeven over time isn't my idea of a business. No more daytrading for me.

I've been having some fun with BBs too. I'm using them along with MACD in two timeframes. In the longer chart (30 minutes) I look for a somewhat mild trend. For a long trend, MACD is positive but not overly so, and the price is trading slightly above the middle BB. Then I switch to the 3...

7/6/07 1 Trade (1L) Short USD/JPY Entry: 123.190 @11:03 EST Exit: 123.230 @11:46 EST -4 points Total P/L: +5.5 points Wow the market just went DEAD immediately after I entered this trade! I guess the Friday following the 4th of July isn't the greatest time to be trading the New York...

7/5/07 2 Trades (2W) Trade 1 Long USD/JPY Entry: 122.750 @9:53 EST Exit: 122.795 @10:01 EST +4.5 points Trade 2 Long USD/JPY Entry: 122.750 @10:10 EST Exit: 122.950 @10:34 EST +20 points Total P/L: +9.5 points Decided to stop early today.

My IB real and paper accounts behave exactly the same, never had a problem with slow fills. Although I noticed that the charts page on my XP standalone version of TWS was a bit slow around 6pm EST. All morning and early afternoon the charts were fine on TWS Java running on Linux.

7/3/07 2 Trades (2L) Trade 1 Long EUR/USD Entry: 1.3619 @9:40 EST Exit: 1.3609 @10:04 EST -10 points Trade 2 Long EUR/USD Entry: 1.3615 @11:35 EST Exit: 1.3610 @14:12 EST -6 points Total P/L: -15 points

7/2/07 2 Trades (1W, 1L) Trade 1 Short USD/JPY Entry: 122.39 @10:25 EST Exit: 122.30 @10:53 EST +9 points Trade 2 Long USD/JPY Entry: 122.33 @11:15 EST Exit: 122.27 @11:32 EST -6 points Total P/L: +1 point New rule added: When there's a strong trend take trades only in the...

I can't suggest any signal providers, but I can tell you this. Be very careful! The problem with following other people's ideas is that half think it's going to go up and the other half think it's going to go down. The Euro on Friday is a great example. Some look at it and say: "It's...

Well first things first, stop treating your trading like a video game where if you die you can just start over. Next, you have to figure out what you can do to occupy your mind while you're trading so that you don't get bored and start overtrading.

Not necessarily. Just because you're intelligent and good at what you do doesn't mean that success will translate to something else. I'm new to forex, but I've been trading other instruments for years. Success is much more about your emotional state than your intellect. When your money is at...

Good thing this is just sim. There is no way you should even consider trading real money! You seem to have no control over your emotions and you're constantly resetting your account and saying things like: "I must get revenge!" and "Today didn't count." When it's real money you don't get to...

Here's my 2 cents. I think it's nice if you are successful and choose to share your experiences. But you're definitely not under any kind of obligation to do so, moral or otherwise. This is especially true of someone who mastered their craft through diligent study, personal intelligence, and...

6/29/07 1 Trade (1W) Long EUR/USD Entry: 1.3521 @11:50 EST Exit: 1.3524 @12:03 EST +3 points Total P/L: -2 points Today was a lesson in patience. I waited for 2 hours and 51 minutes of my 3 hour trading window before this trade finally presented itself. I felt a lot more...

This post is about you putting other people down so you don't feel so bad about your own screwed up lifestyle. Or this "fun" life you say you have is entirely in your mind. Either way this post has nothing to do with work, whether good or bad.

Say no more, I completely understand. You make an excellent point about staying focused on your day to day discipline rather than your long term P/L. In your particular case you are down YTD and focusing on that could be discouraging and lead to an inability to pull the trigger. At the same...

Thanks datamerc! As soon as I'm a little more comfortable with my system and placing the trades I'll start doing what you do in your journal, commenting on how I felt about each trade. Did I follow my rules? Did I break them? Why? etc.

For the record, I know next to nothing about forex or daytrading. So we'll see if my simulated account survives while I learn! I actually placed my first order yesterday but didn't really know what I was doing and ended up losing 19 points. But ignorance is no defense so I'm going to include...

datamerc, I've read your entire journal and just wanted to say that it looks like you are really getting your emotions in check and becoming more and more relaxed in your trading. At the same time you seem to also be getting good at recognizing when you are moving out of that 'zone' and have the...