This month has been pretty bad so far, with last week being the worst of all. I have placed 6 trades, the first four of which were all 30 pip losers. Never a good thing, but I was happy with them because they were all sensible positions and as we all know, losers are a perfectly natural part of trading. The next two trades however, make me nauseous just thinking about them. I was in positive territory on a short USDCHF trade, but decided to cash out on a pullback for 30 pips, only to see it fall away for another 120. I then I entered a short trade on the USDJPY and exited for just 4 pips, only to see it drop a further 300. I exited both of these trades in the middle of the day, and if I had only left it until the following morning I would have gained around 260. So as the month stands, I am down 86 pips, where I should be up at least 170.
Despite all my rhetoric, I have allowed emotion to dictate my trading this week, and it has cost me a big winning month. The JPY trade in particular was sickening because as you can see, it was an absolutely perfect set up…

What made me cash out was a sudden panic that the trade wasn’t moving as quickly in my direction as I would have liked. Had I not been checking my MT4 trading app on my phone, I wouldn’t even have been aware of it until the next morning, by which time I could have closed out for a 150 pip gain.
I’m hoping that this feeling of disgust can be turned into a positive. One thing’s for sure, I am now imposing a complete ban checking my MT4 app during the day. It’s strictly set & forget from here on in.

First trading month of the year over. Here are the headline results…

After a hectic start, the last few days of January got a lot quieter. Having already bagged 146 pips for the month, I was less inclined to take much risk, and although there were a few potential opportunities, I felt they were a little too 50-50 for me to risk eating into my profits.

I’m in two minds about this. Although I feel positive and content with my tally going into February, I still have a nagging sense that I’m thinking too short term, and that I’m still placing too much value on what is essentially a completely arbitrary target (a monthly target).  I won’t beat myself up too much about this. It’s been enjoyable to put my feet up and watch from the sidelines for a few weeks, and those potential opportunities didn’t turn into anything anyway.  Monday is Feb 1^st and I’ll be back on the court for real.