This month I’d give myself the grade: C-
Starting balance: £7,070.10
Target return: £255.50
Actual return: -£64.75
Closing balance: £7,005.35 -0.85%

I’ve been itching to get to the end of the month to see how I did since I started trading more markets.

All I can say is WOW, I did pretty badly! Before I crunched the numbers on my performance, I actually thought I’d done OK this month. OK being, checked regularly enough, had a few trades on each week, handled the increased number of markets, traded the right markets, kept up the journalling, etc. However, I have hugely underperformed the strategy.

Daily

On the daily charts, I only traded 30% of the set ups. I under performed the strategy quite badly.

	Actual	Win Loss %	Trades taken	Win Loss %
Signals	10	-	3	-
Winners	6	60%	1	33%
Losers	3	30%	1	33%
Still live	1	10%	1	33%

4 Hourly

On the 4H charts, I only traded 29% of the set ups (under performing badly!) What’s worse is I managed to catch over half of the total losing trades! 😐

	Actual	Win Loss %	Trades taken	Win Loss %
Signals	38	-	11	-
Winners	22	58%	3	27%
Losers	11	29%	6	55%
Still live	5	13%	2	18%

Given that I have underperformed this strategy so badly, I’d have to put the whole thing down to my psychology (second guessing trades) and lack of discipline (not being routine enough, when I check the markets). The psychology is probably my greatest issue, I keep wanting to put wider stops on, which skews the RR and puts me off the trade (especially around MAs and support lines).

I think my most significant changes for next month will be tighter stops (10 pips), getting back into markets and downsizing position sizes at ambiguous areas. This will be my number one goal for next month – if I can consistently do that, I reckon I will make some money.

March Trade Log

Here’s the break-down of my trades this month.

#	Date	Mkt	Pos	Acc Rsk	Open	Stop	Stp Pips	Tgt	Tgt Pips	R:R	Close	Fnl Pips	Fnl R:R	Days	P&L (£)
1	27 Feb 17	Gold	Short	0.3%	1254.8	1266	112	1235	198	1.75	1234.8	200	1.78	2	39.68
2	01 Mar 17	GBPCAD	Short	0.4%	1.6469	1.6529	60	1.6374	95	1.6	1.6374	95	1.6	1	47.90
3	02 Mar 17	AUDNZD	Short	0.4%	1.0740	1.0792	52	1.0565	175	3.36	1.0792	-52	1	2	-29.19
4	03 Mar 17	EURUSD	Long	0.4%	1.0515	1.0475	40	1.0595	80	2	1.0594	79	1.97	8	54.25
5	06 Mar 17	FTSE	Short	0.6%	7359.0	7416.0	57	6943	416	7.29	7416	-57	-1	11	-78.06
6	07 Mar 17	GBPUSD	Long	0.6%	1.2206	1.2149	57	1.2383	234	4.1	1.2149	-57	-1	2	-43.41
7	09 Mar 17	GBPUSD	Long	0.6%	1.2160	1.2110	50	1.2358	198	3.96	1.2150	-10	-0.2	5	-6.87
8	10 Mar 17	EURAUD	Short	0.6%	1.4096	1.4139	43	1.3978	120	2.88	1.4139	-43	-1	1	-46.37
9	14 Mar 17	AUDNZD	Short	0.5%	1.0936	1.0969	33	1.0875	61	1.84	1.0969	-33	-1	2	-33.39
10	16 Mar 17	EURUSD	Short	0.7%	1.0709	1.0757	48	1.0618	91	1.89	1.0757	-48	-1	1	-47.40
11	20 Mar 17	AUDUSD	Short	0.6%	0.7725	0.7758	33	0.7641	84	2.6	0.7644	81	2.45	3	110.78
12	22 Mar 17	EURUSD	Short	0.3%	1.0810	1.0830	20	1.0714	116	5.8	-	-	-	-	-
13	22 Mar 17	EURCAD	Short	0.4%	1.4447	1.4478	30	1.4347	100	3.3	1.4478	-30	-1	1	-31.10
14	23 Mar 17	GBPJPY	Long	0.3%	138.65	138.13	48	140.28	163	3.4	-	-	-	-	-

Summary of what’s working and what isn’t

Here’s my summary of what worked and what didn’t.

What worked

1. I covered more markets and feel I am getting a better feel for those markets (mainly volatility).
2. Managed my risk pretty well – I averaged 1.95x RR on my winners – so despite losing twice as much as I won, my drawdown was only 0.85% this month
3. Didn’t close any of my trades early. Once in a trade, I kept to the system.
4. My journalling has been consistent so I’ve been able to look back on trades and review what I did.
5. My market scan note taking is working for me. * indicate levels worth watching, ** indicate a set up is forming and *** indicates a set up is in play. Good for reminding me of correlating markets and managing my exposure.
6. !! indicates a trade is on. Again helps me to manage my exposure to a currency. I’m sure as I trade more I will need to make calls on total exposure to a currency.

What wasn’t so great

Quite a bit 🙂 !

1. I missed set ups through lack of discipline and rigour with my morning and evening market scans
2. I second guessed a number of trades (in particular the GBPUSD) which in hindsight was a golden opportunity. Would’ve been a great winner but felt stupid at the time, trading into volatility ahead of the fed rate decision.
3. Tampered with my position sizing too much! My losers were generally larger size trades than my winners. I shouldn’t really started tweaking my position size until I’ve endured a more sustained drawdown.

Changes for next month

1. Get a small position in the market on the open of a valid candlestick and place the bulk of the trade as an order at a better price. It won’t always be a full trade but it’s better to be in the market
2. Make sure I’m back in a trade after a loser if the signal is still valid. This is so important, especially when you get an additional divergence, my confidence in the trade should increase. It won’t always work out but it usually does.
3. Don’t get too precious about how price enters the bands after move higher, it won’t always be text book (Think about the FTSE trade)
4. Rigour & Discipline. 10pm should be my main scan of the day, morning to validate any set ups forming, lunch time to check on price alerts. I also need to keep a better eye on the higher timeframes, I’ve ignored them too much.
5. Trade smaller stops and be prepared to jump back in if the set up is still valid

I would also consider upping my position size for double or triple divergences but I think I’ll keep this back for another month.

Monthly trade overview

Here’s my run down of the markets I traded this month:

• Blue circles are winning or open trades taken
• Red circles are losing trades taken
• Black circles are missed DST set ups (they appear in pairs or triplets)
• Dotted black circles would be missed DST trades that would’ve been a loser (just for context)
• Grey circles are DST set ups I chose not to take

EURUSD

EURGBP

EURJPY

EURAUD

EURCAD

EURNZD

GBPUSD

GBPJPY

GBPAUD

GBPCAD

GBPJPY

GBPNZD

AUDUSD

AUDNZD

AUDJPY

NZDUSD

USDCAD

USDJPY

XAUUSD

FTSE

Trade plan updates

I need to update the plan to include:

• The change in markets markets
• Revise my goals to be achievable for next month.
• Add a section on routine (Morning, Lunch and Evening quick market reviews i.e. 10 minutes)
• Start adding calendar reminders to review my plan at the beginning of each week
• Set alarms to remind me to check the 4H charts when they are setting up
• Get better at setting alerts