Trading Results For The Month + Misc Thoughts

I think it wasn't a coincidence that I came across this article yesterday: Why It Is Important To Fail. I remember feeling that it was such a great article and even saved it as a document. How was I to know that it would be an encouragement to me today. You see, I have a goal to achieve 5% profitability on my account every month, and not only did I fail to do so this month, I failed badly.

Statistics For April
Winning %: 9 wins, 5 losses.
% Account Gain: -1%

I actually made a 1% loss this month, and I'm still feeling very down about it. Especially so because I was still up 1% yesterday but a trade I took cost me 2%. It doesn't pay to wallow in self pity so I'm going to do some reflection on what went wrong.

1. I kept changing strategy. Believe it or not, out of the 14 trades I took, only one failed to at least hit a first trouble area for one to take partial profits and move his stop. This means that if I had traded exactly the same way I did last month, my trading statistics would be 13 wins 1 loss and I would definitely have hit my 5% target.  The problem is that I kept varying my trade management method and because of that took full bar losses on 3 trades, something I would never have approved of last month.
2. I lacked knowledge of the big picture. In other words my chart reading abilities are inadequate, and even though I managed to spot setups, I failed to identify the environment and higher time frame story. 
3. I have a tendency to babysit my trades. I will take a trade based on the daily time frame and then watch it on the various lower time frames. I did learn a lot about the fractal nature of the markets by doing so, but it also caused me to make inferior decisions, primarily by getting shaken out of a trade too soon. So I could be short based on the daily, but when a double bottom form on a 5 mins I get nervous and take profits before my original target is met. I came to realize that almost all the time my target would have been met if I had held on.
4. I need to work on my psychology. I'm experiencing a lot of fear, especially in the last week when I was afraid I wouldn't meet my target. Yesterday was so bad I had to go for a walk to calm down. It shouldn't be so, good traders should be collected and emotionless.  

Nevertheless, I'm generally quite happy with my entries. I'm disciplined enough and even though I had losing trades, it wasn't due to poor selection but poor management. Moving forward, I have a feeling things are going to change big time. I do not know how to put this in words, but stumbling upon ReadTheMarkets has drastically changed everything I previously conceived about trading. It is truth, more truth than anything else I've ever come across. James16 is great but to be honest, I think this trumps even James16. I don't even know how to describe it.... Its like, you can throw away all the indicators, trend lines, Fibs etc, the only thing that matters is Supply and Demand. It makes so much sense and is so apparent on the charts that there is no way to refute it, absolutely no way at all. I've stopped reading other trading books and in fact find traditional TA equivalent to babe material. Supply/Demand is what the institutions and professionals are using, it pays to run with them. I might create a separate post to illustrate this.

I have some knowledge, but it is floating everywhere and I need to assimilate it to formulate a system. In fact I know that this distraction affected my trading performance (Imagine entering a trade based on System A but trying to manage it based on System B).  Although I feel sore about my losing month, there is this huge excitement and anticipation of what is to come. I've learned so much in the past month, both from RTM and from my personal trades and chart time. Seeing certain patterns occur time after time reinforced my confidence of them.

This is going to sound unrealistic but I've just refined my long targets. I used to think that traders who can make 10+% a month are considered the cream of the crop. I'm no longer going to target just that, I want to believe that I can make 20+% monthly in a few years time, I want to strive to be a really good trader. How do I know it is possible? Check out what one of the top traders (Doctor) of ReadTheMarket said: 

"If anyone can understand the how and where to trade and fund an account with sub 10k, within 5 years they should be very well off. Common investment funds believe 16% gain on an account in a year is a good performance. I would consider 16% on a Forex account in a week a poor return"

I was totally shocked when I read that... I'm still trying to figure out if he was exaggerating. 16% a week compounded means you literally double your account in 5 weeks, it means you turn a 10k account into 1 mil in 8 months! It seems like bullshit, but when I look at the trades these guys take, it does seem possible... Because they're so precise with their entries/exits that they're able to enter a move right at the start, their risk is very low and reward is very high. 3-5R a trade is not uncommon for them because they scalp on time frames as low as 1 min but ride a trade to where they think it should go based on the higher time frames. So imagine 3R for one trade, 5 such trades a week would be 15R. 15R x 2% = 30% in one week. I highly doubt James16ers will be able to achieve that because they only trade on higher TFs and that severely reduces the number of opportunities and profit margin (Making 3-5R even on a 4H chart would likely require months). Of course that kind of returns belong only to the very best.

I know it still sounds very inconceivable, but screw it I'm going to aim for the sky, I know that the human mind has a mysterious way of creating ideas and ways to achieve a target once you've set one for it. I also know that it is not a mechanical method or some secret that allowed these guys to trade so damn well, it is years and thousands of hours of chart time and experience. All I can do is to try to pick as much as I can from their experience and hope that it'll accelerate my learning curve, there is no substitute or easy way to success.