Confessional Booth Time: So I'm Not Really Six Figures...

Not being six figures... Does it make me any less? Does it detract from the hope that it could still one day happen to me - just like that, overnight?

And should I feel just as bad as John Mayer for wanting to take advantage of a market glitch that would have made my financial dreams happen with just one click? Is it just as bad as finding six figures of cash in your account and not reporting it? The thing is... price happens and if I had found six figures of cash that didn't belong to me in my account, I would have reported it just like I returned that diamond earring I found last year at LHR. But when price happens and we don't take advantage of it, I think it's our mistake - not the market's mistake. In a transparent market, everyone receives the same price so in a way, we're always going through Finder's Keepers Moments in our trading.

Anyway, my confessional booth theme this week is how I missed out on major profit opportunities by being too fraidy.

I used to think that trading was all about QU luck. But the more I trade, the more I realise it isn't. If you don't have sufficient capital, then it could become a moment of QU bad luck when you get QU liquidated. So I've been asking myself if I should just concentrate on the part of my trading that is consistently giving me trading plaisir. You'll notice that I actually do quite well with selecting equities that move in my direction relatively soon. After my Mine Your Own Business post on Wednesday night, the miners I mentioned all rallied significantly in just two days. I really should have taken my own advice there.



BHP about +10%
RTP about +5%
MT about +7%
X about +7%
AA about +5%

Of course, I've had moments such as ABK as well. I've bought those tops, but I've bought bottoms as well. In my ABK-like instances, I rarely lose that much in comparison with what I've lost before with my forex trading. I keep talking about chastity, but little did I realise that I actually lost my trading chastity years ago. It takes that one moment and it's gone, really. LOL.

So, I'm thinking I should just focus on equities rather than spending time and money on investments that don't seem to pay off. I've said this so many times and now in my third losing streak year, I hope I can finally have the discipline to either say: OK, I'm only willing to lose this much more on forex trading and I'm really going to do the best I can with this capital or just get the fork out of that kitchen until I can make it work.

John Mayer... a guy who wrote an uplifting song like Heart of Life but then turns around and says some pretty contradictory and provocative stuff.

ForexDiva... a woman who tells everyone we're all going to make it someday but then turns around and does some pretty contradictory and provocative trading.

John Mayer and I seem to be no different at this juncture.

Confessional Booth Time, Volume 230510

OMG... it's my third anniversary of forex trading! And I'm still acting like a forex trading virgin / bimbo and being absolutely naive! I know they say that angry sex is supposed to be really hot, but I wouldn't know. All I know is that angry trading is not.

So, I'm going to try to put this recent blow by blow blown up account incident behind me once and for all by first resenting with all my heart and then repenting. I'll take my fellow HSFT through a new trading fantasy towards the end of this post and hopefully, we'll all be having oysters very soon.

There's nothing we can do to change the past, but there's a technique we can use to trick ourselves into doing better on the next trade. The principle is that we go over everything that went wrong on this trade and then ask ourselves: if this were the perfect trade, what would I have done? This then focuses your mind on taking responsibility for the trade and then hopefully winning the next time round. It opens your mind to new possibilities as well. Expand your perspective, expand your bottom line - that sort of thing.

First, the resenting! I was recently doing some research for something totally unrelated and found some woman named Mrs Forex advertising the fact that she didn't know anything about forex trading, but was making six figures a year just by using a forex trading robot that does all the trading for her. It got me so ticked off that I was spending all this time and QU tuition on learning about forex trading, attending every webinar / event that I could, looking at charts almost every day and all I have to prove it are a total five figure loss and 554 pages of a forex trading journal where my BFF forex broker will always have a special place in my charts.

I further resent the fact that I spend all this time holding other people to a supposedly higher standard by criticising the FWFOCH for going all pork-wire and my Dad for taking miscalculated risks and abusing me. With my recent trades, I have become a FWF to myself and my financial future. I have succumbed to pork chops myself via my TETSOB. Moreover, I have become a bona fide financial hypocrite for running other people's stops for a month complete with the Bwahaha HTEL and the moment my pain threshold got hit, I became a raving two-year old Naomi Campbell with an anger management issue. I forgot what made me successful: a clear head and objective, rational thinking. I am highly disappointed in myself because this moment in my financial history is Total Second Runner-Up Material. I was emotional and I walked away from objectivity when the writing was clearly right there on the wall.

After my loss, I became like that Harvard imposter. I wasn't true to myself and I wasn't true to my principles, which should have been the true embarrassment. The loss itself didn't need to be embarrassing, but stepping away from what I believed in and not trading it was. The truth always come out - especially in trading.

So there! I think I've had enough of my resenting and should like to do some repenting for all my trading sins. If this were the perfect trade, it would go like this:

It would be about the time I'm in Switzerland checking out the Rolex (and the Tall European Men) instead of the forex. I am in a GBP/USD long from around the 1.51426 area. I average in at 1.4828 and get a very nice retracement back up. This time, instead of shooting myself in the foot by getting out of one mini lot prior to the Scream It From the Rooftops UK GDP announcement on 30 March and taking profit for only +97.4 pips, I allow the Guys of London to brush their pips against mine some more and get out on any of the bearish divergences happening on MACD at the 1.53 area, leaving me with over +300 pips.

I would then slip into my little red dress bullish divergence at 1.515 again and start brushing my pips against the Men of New York with my little black dress bearish divergence at 1.55, banking another +350 pips. Since people started talking about the GOL's Hung Parliament around the time of mid April and we had the European Debt Crisis mounting at that point, so I could probably have done a S&R with the Men of New York at 1.55 and used all that downwards momentum in favour of my account instead of against my account. We would be doing something totally daring and innovative, but the potential trading plaisir would be too tempting to resist.

This would have been especially relevant when I first noticed Bernanke floating the USD bull boat on 27 April. The more alpha me could have sold even then at 1.53 something, riding the Men of New York instead of the Guys of London for a very tantalising spin that gives us a minimum +1100 pip win.

By this time, I'd be up +1750 pips with a bike sized account, which is my version of Financial Heaven. I'd be my BFF forex broker's biggest client. Well, maybe not quite.

My toes would be curling, I'd probably be noisier than usual, and I would be the bona fide Queen of Pips + JBQ + Miss Equities 2010. All of the GOL would be buying me drinks and all of the Muscular Men of New York would be giving me winks. I'd reject them all except, possibly, for the most special one.

So back to forex trading reality... this proves to me that I could have been a lot more disciplined with this trade. I could have been a lot more imaginative too. It also shows me that there's still money to be made by just doing what I've been doing all along- only with more variation. Who cares if that Mrs Forex is really making six figures with her trading robots? My positions could still be very hot if I just once in a while put the TETSOB aside.

Tomorrow, I've got a day off and I'm going to spend an hour of it attending Professor Brian Dolan's webinar. I am looking forward to growing up now and becoming an adult in the trading world. I may still be chaste, but all of my hard work won't go to waste.

Last Friday's report card:

+3.41% on the SBA
+2.70% on the Roth IRA


This week, I have to make my way back from Fool to Cool.

Confessional Booth Time, Volume 180410

I'm pleased to report I'm officially on champagne basis with my local Hermes boutique. They're the Louis Roederer type, so yesterday's visit to Hermes was pure fun. It wasn't Cristal, which is actually produced by Roederer, but I'm sure that's in my foreseeable future. In case anyone's wondering, they were the ones serving moi champagne. What? It wasn't like anyone can accuse me of stalking my very own matching Hermes Kelly handbag + wallet. I was in the neighbourhood and my Hermes representative told me I can have my initials engraved on both my Hermes Kelly handbag and wallet, so I had real business to discuss.

Anyway, my -82.2 pip loss at the beginning of last week was at the back of my mind all week. In hindsight, I did not have to pluck myself like that. It just goes to prove my theory that in most cases, it is better to trade yourself out of a move like that. If anyone else was following GBP/USD, there was still a lot of give and take between the bulls and the bears. The market doesn't deliberately set out to kill everyone's price action. If you've got enough Tory Glory, you can trade yourself out of a move against you most of the time by targeting key retracement points - even if your account is the size of a bike, as mine is. However, some of these losses are perhaps necessary. I was countertrend and the move up was quick and racy. In other words, I got Fraidy.



Honestly, I am feeling much more comfortable at this point with the Guys of London hugging my prices so closely. How do you know if the Guys of London love your prices? They'll keep touching them. And they'll give you perhaps a gentle 30 pips to begin with and retrace and the next time, they'll touch your pips a little more. This time, it'll be a lot faster and a lot less subtle. You'll just know. Blood will be rushing through your veins every time you think about how they gave you 67 pips and then retraced ever so slightly and are now even getting ready to do your bullish divergence.



So, we've got a very smokin' bullish divergence on the GBP/USD 15 minute MACD. Plus, we've also got a very nice bullish divergence on the GBP/USD Weekly that I nearly didn't notice.



Why is the Man Who Broke the Bank of England mum? Is it because he is about to become the Man Who Took the Bank of England to Financial Heaven? Who knows? But so far, I've got divergences, seasonality, and the Most Alpha Guys on Earth on my side.



If they do the whole dark suit, dark tie, dark rimmed glasses thing, they'll totally have the whole sexy professor look down pat. They've already got the accent.



Here's a smokin' chart to rev up your engines...

And if that's not enough, listen to some Young Forever or some Ma Place Au Soleil.

As silly as it sounds, this Confessional Booth Time is actually helping me so much in my trading. I'm admitting my mistakes and thinking about ways on how I can improve my trading the next time 'round.

That's how it's done in Belgium... and I'm hoping the Guys of London do Chinese girls!