Michael's (zlabis) Journal [The Magician]

[zlabis]

Result of week 5 - 26.01.-30.01.2015 - live:

Mon. 26.01. + 52 Pips, 2.25 hrs
Tue. 27.01. + 12 Pips, 2.00 hrs
Wed. 28.01. +53 Pips, 2.00 hrs
Thu. 29.01. + 58 Pips, 1.00 hrs
Fri . 30.01. + 10 Pips, 2.0 hrs
------------------------------------
Result ....... + 185 Pips, 8.75 hrs

It was a great weak again, although not nearly like last exceptional two weeks, but it was obvious that it will come down to a more normal result.

So, January is over and I can make a short look back to my first month of live trading. After many taken trades at different market conditions and many tipps and tricks from Immy and AIMSters I've got the feeling that I start to move in the direction where trades according to tradingplan can be replicated if fearful and protective subconscious impulses can be kept under control. This is what I have to work on intensivly.

Result of January 2015:
Week 1: holiday
Week 2: +/-0 Pips, 6.00 hrs
Week 3: +277 Pips, 9.25 hrs
Week 4: +347 Pips, 10.0 hrs
Week 5: +185 Pips, 8.75 hrs
---------------------------------
Result: + 800 Pips, 34 hrs

[immy]

I wrote a 5 paragraph long reply last night and then some how I missed hitting the submit button. I could not do it again, it was late, but this afternoon I found the urge to write something again. So I've left something on my blog instead. This is something worthing sharing. http://www.itradeaims.com/2015/02/800-p ... ading.html ^:)^ ^:)^ ^:)^

[zlabis]

I wrote a 5 paragraph long reply last night and then some how I missed hitting the submit button. I could not do it again, it was late, but this afternoon I found the urge to write something again. So I've left something on my blog instead. This is something worthing sharing. http://www.itradeaims.com/2015/02/800-p ... ading.html ^:)^ ^:)^ ^:)^

Thank you very much for your extremly encouraging words. (hug)

[zlabis]

Mon. Feb 02, 2015

Screen time LO-session 09:30 - 11:00 and 11:30 - 12:00 (GMT+1) M1/M5 DAX only.

While I'm on winter holidays with family I don't ski this year because of a ruptured ACL and a forthcoming surgury in early April. So I found time this morning to trade the London session.

For february, I have the will to stay disciplined and to continue my way to a solid, profession-like trader with all the necessary efforts to take.

As usual at LO, DAX moved dynamicly and had enough volatility for good trading opportunities. Because I jumped in rather late for my standard, I was not there as there was a nice break out at 9:00 am. So I decided to jump in long at a rather late stage of up move and one period later short at a nice down fruit. Both signals were reasonable but failed. Third attempt was SAR the long trade and got stopped out at a rather untypical up-spike. Meanwhile there appeared a picture book Principle C (PC) in combination with a good up-fruit, which I took as well - rent. Later there was a nice down fruit at around 10:32 am which I missed due to a phone call, next.

While I was doing screen-shots and commenting them, there popped up this lovely M5 up fruit at 11:10am which was nicely to take on M1 with one add on. I exited add on at placing SL below a nice down fruit and trailed green gator for the init trade. In hindsight I should better have trailed candles but afterwards we are always smarter.

Today's result:
+ 7 - 18 + 5 - 11 + 40 = + 23 Pips

[zlabis]

Tue. 03, February

Today was such a beautiful weather that I couldn't stand temptation to ski. If conditions are worsening next days, I'll join you at London open again otherwise I'm back by next Monday at latest.

Have a great week and I wish you all many Pips to take out of the markets ;-)

Cheers,
Michael

[zlabis]

Result of week 6 - 02.02.-06.02.2015 - live:

Mon. 02.02. + 23 Pips, 2.00 hrs
Tue. 03.02. no trading
Wed. 04.02. no trading
Thu. 05.02. no trading
Fri . 06.02. no trading
------------------------------------
Result ....... + 23 Pips, 2.00 hrs

This week I was at skiing-week with my family. I thought that I would not ski because of a ruptured ACL but conditions were perfect so no problem with a slightly unstable knee. I only did some reading, analysis and self-reflection so it was still a productive week trading-wise.

[immy]

You did the right thing mate in my most humble opinion. You deserved to enjoy your success and just relax. I'm sure trading is a relaxing and enjoying process for you but we need breaks. Breaks only help us know ourselves better and we come back with more power, freshness and tend to really enjoy it. The tastiest steak can turn into yukky meal if you have it everyday for a long time.

We must all do something new every weekend. Bill Williams call it an IT. (Inner Trader Date). So we all need to do it. It brings creativity and it enhances our quality of life. That together with the 15 min breathing exercise as mentioned in the ebook Activating the zone, or the mind section or your Autogenic Training (for which I'm eagerly waiting thank you) or postive affirmations that encompasses not only trading but life as whole are great tools to keep us going. Of course I must mention here, that the existence of goals in ones life is a driving force that we must all possess.

When I say Trading is 80% mental it means I want to say that we need to exert 80% of our efforts towards understanding our mind, in other words understanding ourselves because your mind is YOU. Understanding your mind is understanding yourself. so give 80% importance to your mental analysis of your mind instead of technical analysis of the chart. Read this again.

It takes a while for this paradigm to find its way into your "consciousness" into your state of awareness but boy oh boy when you finally understand that successful trading is not a function of great technical analysis rather a function of great mental analysis, everything changes...

Everything in the universe is Fractal in nature. So we need a break between sessions, break after a few weeks of trading, and break once a year. Likewise, we have single trade stop loss, we also need stop loss for the whole session, e.g. if you lose 5% of your account in one session, that's it. you stop for that day and come another day. then on the macro level you need to put a stop loss for your equity drawdown. e..g if you lose 30% of your account you must stop and reassess before you resume.

[zlabis]

Mon. Feb 09, 2015

Screen time LO-session 09:00 - 11:00 (GMT+1) M1/M5 DAX only.

After a week off, I was really looking foreward to trade again and DAX started at LO as we are used to it. Much volatility and good movement was already present and we only had to wait for a break out in the one or other direction. Anyway I was ready for it with Trade 1 and Trade 2.
Trade 2 was a rent but Trade 1 turned out to be a perfect start of the week with + 99 Pips with init trade and add on.
At the bottom of this initial down move I was able to take out some more Pips and at 1hr20min I was done with a nice profit with active trading.
Although I had much office work to do after a week off, I stayed in Skype room for some chatting and chart observation. It was more fun than answering tons of E-Mail and working through my calling back list ;-)

With beginnig of February I increased pos. size slightly from 0.3% to 0.5% per trade with an avg. SL of 15 Pips and I can say, it doesn't feel different. I can stay rather calm and relaxed. Daily excercises of Autogenic Training ("mantra" is following later - have to transscript it from German to English first) seem to show some impact on my mental shape.

Today's result:

+ 99 - 21 + 9 + 40 = + 127 Pips

[zlabis]

Tue. Feb 10, 2015

Screen time LO-session 09:00 - 11:00 (GMT+1) M1/M5 DAX only.

DAX started at LO somehow unusually undecided for more than 20 minutes. There was a slight down range with two false break outs which caused me 3 rents, what is perfectly fine for me because I usually can catch the final break-out in any direction. But this time, my mind was obviously blocked that I didn't see that beautiful and clear S1 entry at 9:22 chart time - what a s**t. Catching break-outs like these makes me normally unconcerned taking a row of preceding rents. As I was emotionally tensed after that, I decided not to force entries at that down move and waited until the end of the wave, I took a coffee break of 15 minutes.

At the bottom of this nice down move, after some minutes of relaxing and calming down, I was ready to trade with clear mind again. The first attempt (Trade 4) at a fruit to catch the up move failed and the following SAR (Trade 5) as well. Finally at the next up fruit I caught at nice move (Trade 6).

As it was obviouse that we were in correction at that time, after Trade 6, I stayed out a while. Somehow I was more biased to the down-side, so I didn't take up-fruit at 10:32 but I took AA down-fruit a little bit later (Trade 7). It was a very nice signal: good angle, right at purple, ready for w5 down - but it failed. Was not a big problem because meanwhile there appeared a nice Principle C bullish divergency bar (PC-BDB) which I took as well (Trade 8) which brought me, together with one add on, some nice Pips. That's the way I really enjoy trading and I feel confortable at - I don't care about 2,3 or 4 rents in a row, if I can finally catch the move - what usually happens.

I'm totally happy with my entries and exits because they were all according to my rules - even in hindsight. The only point to analyse and further think about is how to avoid mental "black-outs" as occured when I missed lovely break-out at 9:22 (my chart zime)

Today's result:
- 37 - 20 + 21 - 12 + 47 = - 1 Pips

[zlabis]

Wed. Feb 11, 2015

Screen time LO-session 09:00 - 11:00 (GMT+1) M1/M5 DAX only.

Another uncommon LO-session with one bigger up-down-movement right at beginning of LO-session but then it crawled slowly in a tight down-range with only small break-outs which stalled again after one period, probably as result of EU financial minister's meeting which has taken place today which was maybe without results until that time.

I took break-outs (Trade 1 + 2) at this up-down-spike but there were no exit signals at it's bottom/top when I was in + with around 20 Pips each. Instead of +30 or +40 I only got - 19p out of it, but it was ok for because I followed my entry and exit rules with discipline.

The rest of my LO session was a mixture of rents and little-paying winners, but for me there was no chance to get more Pips out of it. Maybe I should use trailing candles as exit rule in combination with more add-ons while market is bound in such a tight range or I should stay out completely for the session. I will check it in simulation at the weekend.

Today's result:
- 14 - 5 - 16 + 1 + 10 + 12 - 13 = - 25 Pips