A very disappointing week for me this week. My worst week since I started working with Tom. I’m performing now like I did in the old days and it doesn’t feel good. Lots of reflection needed over the weekend. I did increase the competition account though, however I did manage to double it, but then lose all my gains so I’m up slightly on the week. Here’s the latest balance:
Not impressive
I took three trades this week:
Three trades
Not much action in the competition account this week. A couple of the trades did not get executed in it due to lack of funds, so only three trades were taken. I did increase the account from £29 to £70 so I more than doubled it. This account is not dead yet!
Here are the trades I took this week. All of them were shadowed from the main account, so I’ve just reproduced the screenshots from the main account here:
EURJPY Long
+57 pips (click to enlarge)
EURCHF Short
GBPUSD Short
Here’s a summary of those trades in my broker account. I don’t know if anybody else is bothering with the competition any more, but I’m keeping this account now as a shadow of my main account. I’m going to trade 50% risk per trade in it and see what happens, just for fun.
Week 3 trade summary
An interesting week for me. I took a week off work this week to spend time at home and found myself trading in a distracted way. I wasn’t really paying full attention to what I was doing, made lots of mistakes and suffered from directional bias. For some reason I wanted to keep shorting the aussie and did it three times in a row and got stopped out every single time. I have no idea why I did that and is something for me to reflect on over the weekend. The competition account got absolutely slaughtered this week and is now below the starting balance. It’s humbling to know what the markets will do when you don’t look for good setups. Here’s the account now:
Slaughtered
The side-affect from this dicking around in my competition account is that my main account has suffered too. I haven’t lost any money in that, in fact it’s grown a little bit (1.6%) but I have neglected it. I think I could have grown it 10% this week if I had been paying attention. Things I have learned then:
"I've done my cheeks"
So, there we have it, a crap week in the competition account. I am very tempted to close the account but I think I will just focus on the main account now and shadow my main account trades in the competition account and see what happens. I don’t want this account to interfere with my trading or my learning.
I offered the USDCAD today at 1.0255 and price really accelerated up into my offer. I really like acceleration into a level when there has been some space. These trades are quite hard to take for some people, but I’m very comfortable. Standing in front of a rampaging market can be quite daunting but is fine once you have faith and experience in the levels.
Trades like this are very difficult for new traders to take. Why would you sell into a strong up move? Answer – support and resistance with the big boys on your side. I was tempted to let this one run a bit longer but I am training myself to take profits at the best and nearest areas.
I’ve had some problems with the competition account that I’ve been playing around with. I ran it up to £320 from £50 in a week and developed some bad habits in the meantime. I also got a bit cocky playing with “the market’s money” and started to not take my trading seriously and neglected my real account. I haven’t lost money in the real account, but I’ve just been treating the competition account as a big game and not been placing good trades regularly in the main account. Therefore the main account has only grown 1.5% this month which isn’t good. I know we’re only halfway through the month, but I think I’m going to exit the competition because it’s affecting my trading. As a new trader I want to cultivate good habits and stamp out bad habits. A good gardener nourishes his roses and pulls out the weeds. The competition account has become a weed and must be removed. I will trade it until the end of the week and then close the account.
A week has passed since the competition started, and I think I’m doing OK. The strike rate hasn’t been spectacular perhaps because I’m not waiting for A grade setups, but the account is growing nicely. I’ve taken twelve trades in the first week and had four losers and seven winners with the losers being smaller than the winners. One trade is still open. I’ve made a 400% return in a week which isn’t bad at all! Here’s the latest realized account balance:
Not too shabby after a week (click to enlarge)
I currently have one trade open, long EURCHF which is currently showing an open unrealized profit of £65 right now. I will include this trade in next week’s update.
If you’re wondering what trades I took, here they all are with a summary at the bottom:
EURUSD Long
NZDUSD Long
Gold Long
December NASDAQ Futures Long
GBPUSD Short
GBPJPY Short
GBPUSD Long
AUDUSD Short
GBPJPY Short
GBPCHF Long
December Wheat Futures Short
SUMMARY
Trade summary for Week 1 (click to enlarge)
Tom has organized a trading competition among the traders in his room. We have to open a real account with £50 in it and the winner is the one who has the highest balance after 5 weeks. I opened my account and am looking for my first trades. The goal is to not be conservative, but to take on as much risk as possible to grow the account to the highest balance without blowing it. Sounds fun…
Starting balance