Bad Assed Trader: I blog from a "bootcamp" today. Rising at 04:00 does, I think, prove my dedication to the cause of trading. I've been here now since 06:30 with another 40 or so traders to trade together with two professionals, one of whom is my coach, Emmanuel. He is doing a great double act with another professional, Isaac, and oh my word is the spirit of trading thriving in this room today.
We have already taken what we call a sniper trade short (selling) on the Euro (EUR USD) which plummeted from a peak of 1.3558 to its current price of 1.3468. That's a 90 pip drop in just over an hour. Of course we can't catch all 90 pips as we have to wait for our set ups to trigger. I entered at 1.3530 risking a pound a pip and, over 50 pips later, I'm still in the trade. I stuck to my rules so I'm pleased with myself. So far I've moved my stop loss to 1% and cashed in half of that which means I'm up half a percent and have locked in another half but hopeful I can squeeze a bit more out as it seems to be moving decisively today. I'm keeping my cool and watching price action for my exit signals.
We've also placed a few other orders for trades to kick in once our criteria are met, one of which - EUR GBP (Euro pound) has already triggered for a short (selling) trade. Right now, the pound is looking stronger than the Euro. I'm not an economist so I won't offer an opinion as to why, I just interpret the charts and am happily being guided by these two young chaps who really seem to know what they're doing.
I also had a session last week with a "Life Success Coach" - my fourth coach this year! This one is different to the other three - she's a girl (Jules). I only had the one session but she was very helpful. We focused on how to optimise my learning style to improve my trading performance. This means recognising that I'm a "creative visual" learner - someone who remembers things through visual information but I have to create the visual images in my head rather than recall them (which is more like photographic memory).
Jules' advice was that I create images that work for me in terms of my trading journal and the key things I want to learn. It's all about training your mind in a relatively mechanistic, repetitive way, using the techniques that your mind is most receptive to. It may sound like airy fairy woolly nonsense but hey, I'll try anything. In fact I already have - my trading desk at home is now surrounded by notice boards on which I've pinned charts of exemplary trades I have taken (to reinforce my successes as well as what good trades look like).
I'm ashamed to say I could only find two. When I looked back over my winning trades most of them really seemed down to luck rather than good judgement. The silver lining to that cloud is that I've clearly learnt a lot since then...
To make up for the gaps on my noticeboards where the missing exemplary trades should be I have put copies of the training material supplied by the company training me, stuff which tells me how to counteract negative thinking, how to deal with the emotional side of trading and get it under control and other similarly wise advice which I am committed to follow.
Let's see how much impact that makes over the next day or two. I'll let you know...warts and all...
We have already taken what we call a sniper trade short (selling) on the Euro (EUR USD) which plummeted from a peak of 1.3558 to its current price of 1.3468. That's a 90 pip drop in just over an hour. Of course we can't catch all 90 pips as we have to wait for our set ups to trigger. I entered at 1.3530 risking a pound a pip and, over 50 pips later, I'm still in the trade. I stuck to my rules so I'm pleased with myself. So far I've moved my stop loss to 1% and cashed in half of that which means I'm up half a percent and have locked in another half but hopeful I can squeeze a bit more out as it seems to be moving decisively today. I'm keeping my cool and watching price action for my exit signals.
We've also placed a few other orders for trades to kick in once our criteria are met, one of which - EUR GBP (Euro pound) has already triggered for a short (selling) trade. Right now, the pound is looking stronger than the Euro. I'm not an economist so I won't offer an opinion as to why, I just interpret the charts and am happily being guided by these two young chaps who really seem to know what they're doing.
I also had a session last week with a "Life Success Coach" - my fourth coach this year! This one is different to the other three - she's a girl (Jules). I only had the one session but she was very helpful. We focused on how to optimise my learning style to improve my trading performance. This means recognising that I'm a "creative visual" learner - someone who remembers things through visual information but I have to create the visual images in my head rather than recall them (which is more like photographic memory).
Jules' advice was that I create images that work for me in terms of my trading journal and the key things I want to learn. It's all about training your mind in a relatively mechanistic, repetitive way, using the techniques that your mind is most receptive to. It may sound like airy fairy woolly nonsense but hey, I'll try anything. In fact I already have - my trading desk at home is now surrounded by notice boards on which I've pinned charts of exemplary trades I have taken (to reinforce my successes as well as what good trades look like).
I'm ashamed to say I could only find two. When I looked back over my winning trades most of them really seemed down to luck rather than good judgement. The silver lining to that cloud is that I've clearly learnt a lot since then...
To make up for the gaps on my noticeboards where the missing exemplary trades should be I have put copies of the training material supplied by the company training me, stuff which tells me how to counteract negative thinking, how to deal with the emotional side of trading and get it under control and other similarly wise advice which I am committed to follow.
Let's see how much impact that makes over the next day or two. I'll let you know...warts and all...
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