What is happening to the Apple giant?
To be honest, I don’t really know, but the chart told me that it was going to crash, so I just had to trust that something bad was coming up soon. Just like the case of Olam. The reasons will come later, but it would be too late to act by then.
The USD/CHF range play I suggested yesterday has hit the TP, and that range is over 45 ticks wide. Note what happened after I posted the short signal in the forum, as indicated by the red circle.
I was short EUR/USD and GBP/USD since yesterday, as mentioned in my previous post. As there was a slew of economic data and talks today, these currencies were more volatile than usual.
Unfortunately, because of the long wait during the day, I took out my profits too early when the actual move started, and it was a pity because I could easily have made a few thousand dollars more if I have the patience to wait a little longer.
I will continue to refine my setups and improve on my trading psychology. Even though I have been trading for many years, there is always still room for improvement.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne delivers his autumn economic startement in the House of Commons in London. This caused the GBP/USD to trade in a tight range most of the day. Will update more on this trade over the next few days.
This morning I saw a great short opportunity in Gold, unfortunately I ended up taking profit too early, and only made 3.2k when i could have made 5k+. On hindsight, I should have stuck with my original TP.
Later that night, I went long again at the bottom using the counter-trend fade (one of the 7 price action setups taught during the program), and made 2k in less than 15 minutes. This win was partly luck, because usually it takes longer for the trade to work out.
I have placed a limit buy order to go long again, gong to sleep now.
Remember that even when you have a winning streak, it is important not to become overconfident. Here is a good article to remind you:
https://synapsetrading.com/2010/12/overconfidence-bias-behavioral-finance-trading-psychology/
Here are some of the better books among the 200+ that I have read over the years, so if you want to learn the basics & foundations of trading by yourself, these might come in handy.
However, do note that trading for real is very different from textbook examples. If you are new to trading, you will realise the difference once you start trading.
If you are serious about learning this skill on your own, make sure you finish all these books before you start putting your real money into the market. That was what I did when I started my trading career. This is just the bare minimum, and anything less is likely to end in failure. Even if you finish reading all these books, it is unlikely that you will be able to trade well.
There are many things which cannot be learnt from books, such as “market feel”, behavioral analysis, applied price action, and real trading psychology. These can only be learnt by paying “tuition fees” to the market (paper trading or demo trading is a waste of time), or learning from a real trader who has mastered these skills and get them to guide you. Investing in education is a small price to pay to help you avoid the costly mistakes in trading.
Without further ado, here are the list of books:
Note: I will continue to add to this list as I discover and read more good books. Feel free to recommend any books not on this list!
Thanks! 😀
Looking at the “Trade Ideas” whiteboard at the centre of the trading arcade, I have updated the key directions for the day. The strongest currencies were AUD and JPY (missed out NZD), while the weakest was Gold. Note that this was updated at 2.30pm, before the major moves in these currencies actually occured later on.
I did a couple of swing trades using some of the trend plays and breakout plays, but my best trade for the day was gold. Looking at the chart above, I managed to catch the turning point just before the plunge.
Overall, today was a pretty good day, since I did not have any losing trades. I also came to a realisation that the stoploss and targets were only guides, and not an excuse to delay action. For example, the SL is only a last resort, the worst-case scenario, not an excuse not to admit you are wrong. “Take a loss when you want to, not when you have to.”
Notice that all the calls on the “trade ideas” whiteboard are spot-on. I have shared in the forum and we have placed our trades for tonight, let’s watch if the GBP/USD trades lower the next few days.
