December 2014 Summary: R-6.5

Week 1: 1st-5th December 2014 : R-4.8. Started with no real method and because I insisted on continuing like this I did a number on my P/L over Monday and Tuesday I couldn't recover from. (Well I could have had I been a bit more confident on Tues PM,  not messed Thurs up.

Week 2: 8-12th December 2014: R-0.5. One of those weeks where life got in the way. Problems outside of trading happened, namely rented flat and health.  Got a little cautious at the end of the week but I'm not going to take this to heart. I have been under the weather and have had quite a bit of pressure from the flat weighing in and effecting my judgement and am certain it was just these two factors throwing me off.

Week 3: 15 -19th December 2014 R-1.2. Bitty week got Xmas'ed. Started well but made classic error of buying at supply. 

Summary: Don't really know what to say here, guess i just start from the beginning. Started month trading 3 pairs (EU/EJ/UJ) using highs and lows for direction, this was very time consuming and tiring (large loss in first week), Changed method middle of first week to something simpler (as advised by John) to one pair (EU) using more or less price action to 20EMA as direction giver and trading off S/R levels with 20EMA as a barometer for valid pullbacks and rallies. However the weeks that I was trading like this were not complete as I had problems at a property I rent out,  was ill and got Xmas'd last week.  So an incomplete month it terms of weeks and days and don't feel I can glean much from the data although I have managed to "dot the i's and cross the t's" with this new method.  Going forward all I keep thinking about is the importance of sticking to one method period because if I don't I am never going to be able to learn and get probabilities on my side.

November 2014 Summary: A Lot of Trading To Iron Out Method: R-11

Week 1: 3rd - 7th November 2014: R-3.9 (success went to head). Summary: Basic, basic, basic, stuff lacking! Trend! TSL! Realistic PTs! Last week's success went to head, was focusing on LT goals in session rather than what needed to be done, as can be seen above (more here). Even the journal suffered ( was misidentifying faults). May sound down on myself  but I'm not, I just really needed to hammer home to myself here that I can't let the in session focus slip even for a minute... Not going to dwell but will remind myself occasionally this WE of what needs to be done then focus on relaxing and being fresh for Monday.

Week 2: 10-14th November 2014: R-1.1 (Some Confusion, Some Anticipation and Trading Overtired). Summary: The Plan is profitable, I just failed to follow it! I've got to stop trading Friday morning's as I am over tired and struggle to follow the plan. Maybe when I am successfully following the plan for the entire week I can work it back in. Getting an extra reason to get long or short helps trade IE Support/Resistance + (20ema / .00 / .50 / Y Hi / Y Lo)
Week 3: 17th-21st November 2014 : R-1.1 (Not Following the Plan Or Gaining Experience) Summary: The fact is I have been avoiding loads of trades and I need to trade more, to enable me to learn and earn more....
Week 4: 24-28th November 2014: R-3.9 (Messing with Method). Summary: Teething problems (messing with method!) at start of week, settled down on Thursday; Took John's comment on board dropping my work load. waited till actually wanted to trade (US session). Used 20EMA as barometer plus S&R to take trades (meant more of a waiting than "working" game), preprogrammed orders for all trades, walked away for a good deal of the time (updated stop levels occasionally), felt good.

UPDATE:  With a little Hindsight I think its important to add that this was really the month where I started to understand 2 things. 
 Firstly the importance of buying at demand (low) and selling at supply (low). And secondly that my method doesn't have to be complicated.  at the start of the month I was naffing around on three pairs labeling every high and low,  updating S& levels all the time... just running around like a headless chicken.
 Later in the month I knocked my work down to one pair (EURUSD) I stopped trading Friday mornings! More or less stopped updating highs and lows (unless it helped in someway) and based my method around waiting, doing very little before a setup, so I was fresh for it (using 20EMA as a barometer with S&R) instead of being absolutely spent and overwhelmed by the time it came.

October 2014 Summary: R-3.2

0-4 Large drop due to still ironing out how I was tackling trading

7-11 Drop caused by not SARing when a trend went against me

18-21 Discretionary exit caused over trading (2 extra unneeded trades)

23-25 Drop caused by getting whipsawed on a HM (because I wasn't trading it correctly!) triggering more over-trading.

January 2014 Summary

PL: R-12.73%           £-283.20

Closed Trade P/L:		-283.20
Balance:		1 941.96		Equity:				1 941.96	Free Margin:			1 941.96
Details:
Gross Profit:		228.34		Gross Loss:				511.54	Total Net Profit:			-283.20
Profit Factor:		0.45		Expected Payoff:				-4.97
Absolute Drawdown:		283.20		Maximal Drawdown:				283.20 (12.73%)	Relative Drawdown:			12.73% (283.20)
Total Trades:		57
Profit Trades (% of total):								13 (22.81%)	Loss trades (% of total):			44 (77.19%)

Week 1: First BE week (Al Brooks),
Week 2: A spate of overtrading (S&R trading),
Week 3: a spate of Poor Entries (S&R trading),
Week 4: NA an emotional write off ending in a me seeking some professional help (S&R trading).

Summary: it's very clear to see from the equity curve above that problems began when I changed my plan from an Al Brooks Method to a purely S&R method so I am just going to revert back to the former method...

Psychology: As I write this on Tuesday evening I am starting to feel myself again.  I had a couple of hard weeks at the end of the month (I should probably say I gave myself a hard couple of weeks at the end of the month) and ended up in a bad place both mentally and physically. The specifics don't really matter, what matters was I had a melt down ultimately because I saw plan failure as personal failure,  put a daily equity curve on each post and graded my trades incorrectly. 

1. The fact is plan failure is not personal failure as one must follow a plan to see if it works, this is success (even if the result is unsatisfactory) because one has successfully tested it and can either make amendments to it or write it off and create a new one.
2. Looking at my equity curve at the end of each day has been a very sobering but ultimately good thing because it has given me far greater insight as to where problems are developing, for example my short summary above. But because...
3. I was grading my trades incorrectly I took the failure personally rather than placing the blame on the plan (where it belonged). This month I graded trades on 1 prep,2 patience and 3 discipline all of which are about personal performance. Fact is there are only 2 things to grade in a trade. 1 the plan that created it and 2. the execution of the plan. Sure I still made some personal mistakes but the fact is a lot of the losses and over-trading were attributable to the plan rather than my efforts and where the blame should have been placed.

The S&R Method definitely created over-trading and I found this quote by Brooks that I thought might be quite useful.

"when you're about to take any trade, always ask yourself  if the set-up is one of the best of the day. is this the one that institutions have been waiting for all day? if the answer is no and you are not a consistently profitable trader, then you should not take the trade either. if you have 2 consecutive losers within 15 mins or so,  ask yourself if those were trades that the institutions have been waiting hours to take. if the answer is no , you are over-trading,  and you need to become more patient."