RIDING YOUR PROFITS... WHAT IF?

Trading gives me a lot of classic examples of human behaviors in various situation.

One of the thing is, apart from the losing experience, getting a winning experience is even more difficult actually. Most of the time, the winning trades are too mediocre to mention compared to losing trades which seems to be gigantic. Why can't it be the other way round?

In my opinion, riding profits are as scary as riding your losses since you can't afford to see a winning trade turns into a loser. Being too optimist or too hopeful will both kill you and your account. So how can we know when...

1. A losing trade will come back to our entry point?
2. A winning trade to keep on going till it gets tired?
3. Will the trade hit our TP or SL?

Can someone tell?

The reason I wrote this is due to 2 positions that I opened yesterday.

1. I had a winning buy position with UJ early in the morning and I quit at 40 pips in profits. The trade went all the way up to 200 pips. That was 160 pips LPO (Lost Profit Opportunity). Fine.

2. Later in the evening, I had a losing sell position with EU. I knew it from the moment the position was opened, but I just can't resist to give it a chance for it to come back and at least gave me 10 pips in profits. My stop loss was set at -100 pips and it went all the way up to -50 pips and stopped. It came back down to -15pips, I felt relief, but instead of escaping the position like I normally did before, I hope for it to go even further. But, the market never listened and it went back up to beyond -50. I have no choice. Giving it another chance to come back, I set the SL slightly above the 1st daily resistance and making my SL at -130 instead of -100. I shutdown the screen and went out, planning to come back after 4 hours.

After I returned, I took a deep breath and switch on the monitor. Bzzzzz! I felt like an electric shock, the trade has been closed and my balance is smaller than the last time I saw it.

I smiled and congratulate myself for making my point with the market. Now, I realized that quitting at -15pips 4 hours ago would be the best decision compared to this -130 pips. See, they have no mercy on me and I can never beat them. Luckily I set the SL. Otherwise, it went all the way up & it doesn't seem to come back, at least for the next few hours. Easy said than done, I have to eat the bullet now, oucchh, it hurts babe!

Ok now. After waiting for some retracement and analysing the probability, I opened a buy position with TP at 100 (1.4048) and SL at 100 (1.3848) as well. To be exact, I bought the EU pair at 1.3948.

At the time of writing, the position is at 40 pips in profit and the HI is at 1.3998 currently. Recalling my UJ experience yesterday, i decided to ride this one just to see what happen. Should I wait for it to hit my TP, or should I just close it? The daily bias seems going up.

Though it is hard for me to do this since usually I will take it, I make it a safe trade and setting my SL at ENTRY point and let the trade runs and see whether it will hit my TP or otherwise.

I shall update the result in my next post.

Update : Yes, I got it ! It hits my TP @ 1.4048 and went up another 90 pips at the time of writing. Phew! Yes, it was scary coz I put up 100k lot... that's 1k in the bank now...

Summary : It was a good decision not to go against the market today... thanks.

Weekly Summary :

Gain = 482 pips. Lost = 200pips. Nett = 282pips. Accuracy = 58.51%

TGIF.

LOSING IS JUST PART OF THE GAME...

I thought of waking up this early morning in order to watch the Champions League Final between MU and Barca. But it was already 5.30am intead of 3.30am set on my alarm clock. Rather than turning ON my Astro, I straight away jump to my pc and check the results from soccernet.com.

Huh... Not something pleasant to my eyes... Barca 2 - 0 Man United. I refresh the page and yes, that is the final result. Congratulation Barca! and I wonder what happened with United... so I read the match report.

All in all, I am not surprised with the result, but surely dissapointed. Barca is a great team too and it was pity I didn't wake up to watch the game. Perhaps because I slept too late last night due to my fx activities.

As for United, it would have been a nearly perfect season for them (since they're out from FA Cup) if they managed to retain the Cup. But what can we say, losing is just part of the game. The result shows that Barcelona is clearly a better team tonight, and that's why they won it.

3 English Teams in the semis and yet the Spaniard is the Champion. Kudos to them! They are meant to be...

Looking at the bright side of the result, I came to think about the beauty of losing. The pain, the regret and the thought of... if only I did this and that, if only I took that chances etc etc.... the day would have been different.

Well, there is no point to regret something that had happened. Eat the bullet, swallow them slowly and live with it. It is history now. There's nothing we can do about it.

The moment of truth was during the match itself. Just like in doing anything that we live for, it is what you did during the battle that counts. After it happened, you either enjoy the success moment or learn from that losing experience, so that you will come up better next time.

Just like in Forex or any game that we play, one more time, losing is just part of the game. Most of the time, it is the losing experience that teach us more than the winning one, provided you learn from it.

Nobody wants to lose but the fact is, somebody got to...

To the Red Devils, there's always next season Guys! Great job by the way....

LEARNING FOREX THE EASY WAY...

If you just begin your journey into the forex world, welcome and congratulation.

I have coached a few of my colleagues personally on how to become a profitable trader and it is sort of satisfaction to see that they could grab the subject quite easily from the lessons that I taught them.

Nevertheless, I am still learning on my own as learning forex is indeed a journey, something that you have to keep on doing in order to become a better trader each day. When I started, I hardly had a mentor of my own, so my learning is mainly base on the books that I read and the experience that I gained personally throughout the years, especially losing experience.

Above all, it is finding the best ways to trade that keep me amused on learning deeper and and deeper into the subject, while making (and losing) good money along the way.

The question is, is there an easy way for anybody to quickly learn the trading skills and becoming a profitable trader in shorter period of time?

I believe the answer is... NO.

But... if you got it right, the time and money spent could be well worth it. What I meant here is, if happen to be you find the right person to teach you apart from your own effort in mastering the art of trading, then surely there is a shorter and smarter way in enhancing your trading skills.

To make things short, if say you just started your forex adventures today, consider to do the things that I listed below in order to start your journey in becoming the top 10% of traders in the world. Well, at least that was my vision last time... and still is...

1. Read. Most new traders hardly adhere to this simple rule eventhough the fact is, there is no better way to gain knowledge other than reading. Online lessons could be found from babypips.com.

2. Do. Download any demo trading platform from broker of your choice and play around with them. Once you are familiar with the operation, get more serious by recording every single trade that you make. Treat the virtual money like your own money. Assess your performance base on pips gained against pips lost for the day, week and month.

3. Learn & Ask. Find someone who is already there for years. The longer the better, but make sure you filter what you learn accordingly. Not everything said by these so-called gurus are true.

4. Don't. Buy any so-called Expert Advisor (EA) or trading robots when you just started. Why? because you may end up spending more money on buying robots rather than learning to trade on your own.

5. Find. A system that is proven to be profitable. You may buy it or most of the time, you could get it free from various forums online. Try it on demo first. Trade with the system and back test if possible. If it can make money from your demo, it can make money for your real account.

6. Start & Play Small. Once you register a live account, I would not advise anyone to deposit more than USD1000. With various online brokers that offers awesome leverage and small deposit to start, it is the best way to start your adventure. There is no point in starting big and lose it all...

7. Control. Yourself! It is exciting indeed especially if you got it right in the first few trades. Once you experience the losing trades, then the real you will emerge. Remember this, in trading... you are your own worse enemy, not the market.

I guess that covers all the fundamentals as a start. Digest these 7 items and take it seriously. Chances are you will make less mistakes than I did.

All the best to your trading...

p/s: I'm doing great these last 3 weeks by trading defensively. Over 300 pips nett weekly with lesser and lesser losing trades. Syukurrr !

THE IMPORTANCE OF READING HABIT

When giving a career talk some times ago, I did tell students that attitude is the key to your success. Undeniably true, attitude is the key to everything, indeed. But then, simply talking about attitude, I came to a point wondering how does one's attitude can be built upon?

I believe reading is one of the answer. You are what you read basically. So if you don't read, I am not sure where to classify a person is, a 'mat rempit' perhaps? Just kidding...

A good leader especially, are coming from keen readers who read hundreds if not thousands of books throughout their life. The more they read, the wiser they became as more and more information are being stored in their memories.

Even as a muslim, we all knew that our prophet was asked to read or 'iqraq' in order to further enhance his knowledge prior to his tougher duties in spreading the religion among the ummah.

The point here is simple. Read all you can read. But do not trust every single thing that you read. Digest them and filter them accordingly. And be selective in what you choose to believe.

The thing is, I discovered majority of 'success-wanna-be' persons are so much into talking but zero in action. They don't even care to read and find relevant information that should serve as a kick-start to their success journey.

Trust me, reading is very simple actually. You can do it anytime & anywhere. That's the beauty of it. It is turning it into a habit that seems difficult. But once you grap the groove of reading, it is fun indeed.

Surely you can't obtain everything through reading as you may get the knowledge, but to obtain skills, you have to do what you learn from your reading.

Nevertheless, reading for sure will serve you with a good starting platform in whatever you are doing. So go find something to read now!

p/s: Thanks for reading. I knew you're a reader or otherwise you won't reach this line... ;)

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE 5 MINUTES SMA & BB

Most swing traders are using the 1 hour to daily and weekly chart for their trade positioning. But scalpers or day traders are mainly using the 30 minutes and below candlestick for their entry strategy.

SMA = Simple Moving Average
BB = Bollinger Band

In my own experience using the 5M charts SMA & BB for scalping, this technique has been significantly successful with high success rate. You just need to make sure that you stick to your tight Stop Loss strategy, normally between 25 to 35 pips only.

What is meant here is whenever the SMA and BB start showing a counter trend by turnng the other way and the BB is broken, it is either a good signal to enter or a warning sign for you not to hold your current position.

Yes, though 30 minutes or 1hr may still pointing to the current trend direction, but you must understand that everything begins with the ticker, 1 minute as well as 5 minutes chart. I am personally not recommending the 1M chart as there are too much noise in there.

5 Minutes, or even 15 minutes are better to use.

The reason I am highlighting this is because most of the time, when I am in a profitable trade (I always called it mini swing), say 30 pips in profit, I tend to look at the 30 minutes and 1 hour chart only. When 5M starts to alert me on the broken BB and changed in SMA, I tend to ignore them and still relying on the bigger timeframe chart.

At the end, due to my negligence in referring to the 5M chart SMA and BB warning, I either end up getting 5 pips or total lost on that particular trade.

Another example is when the 5M is telling you to enter when the existing BB and SMA gave me the signal. Since the main trend is opposite, I tend to ignore the signal until the moment I realized that the price has gone too far from the signals (ie 30 pips ++). By that time, it is either too late or too risky for me to enter (for scalping).

Surely bigger timeframe is better for day planning and strategy, but getting in with the best possible price is always better by using the 5 minutes candlestick. It shows the current price action regardless of what the main trend is heading towards.

Even that, be extra careful with whipsaws since smaller timeframe can be deceiving if you are careless. That is why a tight stop loss strategy must be employed at all time in order to protect your account.

Have A Nice Weekend!

WHICH PAIR TO TRADE & WHY ?

I received a text message from my elder sister this evening asking me on which pair to trade. Instead of replying her message, I decided to put it on my blog so that I can share with others and refer them myself later on.

Frankly speaking, the major pairs are GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/JPY and USD/CHF. Apart from these majors, we have favorite crosses in GBP/JPY, EUR/JPY, CHF/JPY as well as EUR/GBP, EUR/CHF and GBP/CHF. Some other most common pairs are AUD/USD, NZD/USD and USD/CAD.

Talking about my favorites, I am trading the 3 majors only that include GBP/USD or GU, EUR/USD or EU and USD/JPY or UJ. I do not have any specific explaination why I do not trade USD/CHF.

At times, I do trade GBP/JPY (GJ) as well depending on timing and market hours. I do not trade GJ on regular basis because that is the scariest pair among all others.

It could jump 20 to 50 pips in no time so if you ever to trade that pair, never ever put your stop loss anything below than 50. Check your timing as well. You would feel victorious if you got it right. Otherwise, it's like falling into a dungeon.

Normally the movement is in tandem with GU as well, depends. The optimum SL is always 100, depending on your trading style and strategy. Otherwise, you could be stopped every now and then by the market swing. Try it and you'll know what I am talking about.

Back to my favorites, let me justify my choices. This is solely base on my experience and opinion in dealing with these pairs.

First of all, I started trading the EU pair only. EU is the most traded pair in the world and hence the liquidity is high apart from low spread offered by most brokers on this particular pair. For new traders, it is always good to start with EU. Why? The movement is reasonable, gentle and quite predictable compared to GU and GJ. Daily average range is about 150 pips.

Later I realized that though trading one pair will limit my risk, it is also limiting my chances in making better profit. It is not that I have to trade the 3 pairs at one time, it is about seeking the best possible opportunity to make an entry that could be profitable from any of these pairs.

Hence the next recommended pair is UJ. UJ's movement is much slower than EU but once it moves, it hardly looks back. Hence, trading this pair requires a little bit more patience in waiting for the perfect setup to appear. Let the market comes to you instead of you chasing the market. The best is to watch out for the 4hrs candlestick with 12&6 SMAs plus RSI and Stochastic Indicators. Daily average is about 100 to 140 pips.

After you familiar with these 2, the next one I would recommend is GU. GU's spread is slightly higher and the movement is quite aggressive compared to EU and UJ. So watch out! These pair though not as brutal as GJ, but it does make a killer move from time to time. It can easily move 100 to 150 pips within an hour candlestick. So my advice is, careful and time your entry well. Daily average is between 200 to 250 pips.

Ok now, you may ask why am I trading 3 pairs instead of 1 or more than 3? I have my own reasons.

Though it is good to focus on one pair as a start, I tend to over-analyse the pair that I lost my overall perspective on the forex market. Apart from that, I am limiting my profitability by hanging on to one single pair only. Of course if you talk about swing trade, it could be better to focus on a pair. But for a scalper or day trader like me, sticking to one pair will only limit my profit chances. Though I am trading 3 pairs, normally I would only open 1 position at a time.

Now, why not more than 3 pairs?

If I were to trade more than 3 pairs, I would lose my focus easily. So 3 pairs are just nice for a humble trader like me. Trading too much pair without proper planning could easily cut your free margin if you're not careful. So, do not fancy about trading every single pair offered by your broker unless you try it on demo first. Get a feel about that pair and then decide.

I guess that answers the question. Start with the majors first since the 4 majors are the most traded pairs in the world apart from low spread offered by most brokers. If you wish to try any other pair, go ahead but make sure you analyse the pair movement plus any related fundamentals that could affect its movement for the day.

To me, this is very subjective. The choice is yours... The brokers and the market never cares after all... ;)

p/s: I made most of my daily profit from trading GU.

HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THE UNKNOWNS?

The excitement in trading forex is endless.

Look at the GBP/JPY movement today, over 433 pips in just a matter of 12 hours. If you opened a long position this morning at 9am (local time), you would have bagged over USD4000 by 9pm local time here (considering you opened a 1 standard lot). Imagined if you opened 10 std lots... USD40,000 bro in less than a half day.

Yeah yeah yeah... Easy said than done for sure. At the moment you could have opened that position, the trend and the likelihood of the pair was going down. So how could anyone supposed to know that the pair would make a sudden reversal by 9am? Could anyone tell?

Hence, the complexity and uncertainty remain as it is. We are talking about trillion of dollars transaction inclusive of hyper buying and selling activities by the banks, forex tycoons and traders like you. Not to mention billion of dollars on hard cash transactions due to global trading activities. It could turn to your favor, or it could turn against you anytime. Chances are you may get it wrong. Are you willing to take the risk?

So, how do we deal with these unknowns? If we are always remain in the dark, then how can we make profit in this market? Simply by guessing or gambling?

One way or another, in my opinion, yes we do have to guess. But for sure, we need to make an intelligent guess that is base on facts, figures and likelihood.

Hence when dealing with the unknowns, we have to take into account its probabilities of either going up, down or sideways. Definitely there are risks involved and you can never be 100% sure, but chances are better if you could carry out a good analysis on your own.

My advice, do not be too technical or fundamental in your approach. We have to consider both.

Why? The answer is simple. It is because the market is made of human being and hence humans behavior are quite dynamic in nature. There are certain patterns for sure like mentioned in Elliot Wave Theory. But during certain crazy days when panic or over-optimistic conquers the market, anything can happen.

Just one useful reminder - don't try to outguess the market force too much. At times, the best thing to do is simply do nothing & follow the flow... but of course, be extra cautious with its volatility and brutality... ;))

Surely the market have no mercy on your account... it doesn't even know you are there...

OUR BETS & THE RESULTS... AF7

This is written during the live concerts...

My bets

1. Hafiz

2. Isma

3. Akim

4. Aril

5. Yazid

My Spouse bets

1. Hafiz

2. Akim

3. Aril

4. Isma

5. Yazid

And the results is...

1. Hafiz

2. Aril

3. Akim

4. Yazid

5. Isma

None of us 100% correct but our guess on who's the Champion was spot on.

Congratulation Hafiz! See I told you the world is unfair... I have to study for 5 years and work another 5 years before I can even drive a Honda (not buying yet). That's 10 years Bro... you spent 10 weeks in AF and you won 20k plus a Honda Accord, vacation etc etc... Fortunately you are talented Hafiz, otherwsie I would have made a public complaint... haha...

;))

OH NO! IT STILL HAPPEN AGAIN...

Please accept my apology as the picture may be deceiving. This post has nothing to do with MU and Ronaldo. I just want the expression shown. By the way, tonight is a deciding game between them and Arsenal and I can feel that title will be retained at Old Trafford. Only 1 point is needed. If they can't make it, no one else to be blamed for sure. (UPDATE : YES, THEY RETAIN THE EPL TITLE! CONGRATULATION!)

Anyway... back to my trading...

This week was rather good as I have been on defensive mode from Monday till Friday. Even with defensive style of trading, it was at 96% profit level before I opened my final and losing position.

It should have been a net gain of 302 pips for the week but then, still I just couldn't resist that one last trade in order to make it over 100%.

Guess what? Rather than making that aditional 4%, I lost 50% of my weekly profit by losing 100 pips just before New York closed its curtain last night. EU was seriously driving back south 3 hours before the market closed. Mmmm, why didn't I just follow... I wonder.

Though the week is ended up with a handsome growth of 46% of my equity level, I still regret on what happened.

Well, perhaps this is something that people say as endless learning process. Me and myself are the biggest enemy to my own success.

The reason I hold on to the trade was because the 30 minutes SMA trend were still heading North. The 5 minutes has clearly shown reversals but I chose not to obey.

As a consequence, I lost the trade. Last time when I followed the 5 minutes sign, it happened the other way. What can I say? Perhaps I could tell myself that I was unlucky in order to justify this losing trade, haha.

Anyway, I can see that each day the logics behind the 3 main elements in trading becoming clearer as now I have seen the connections are getting even better from one to another. You need all three in balance or there'll be no chance for me to survive in this market.

The 3 elements are:

Psychology - 60%

Risk Management - 30%

Trading System - 10%

Why psychology is the most important? It is because it is you and your psychology that triggers any trade that could lose or add money to your equity. Handle this element wrongly and get ready to be burned out, instantly!

Enjoy your weekend!

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

It's been 2 years since I started trading the forex market and still, some of the market elements remain as wonders for me to really comprehend.

Questions like:

What really moves the market?
What makes traders buy or sell that particular pair?
How come when a breakout occurs, market could gone crazy & rally like there is no tomorrow?
At times, it doesn't move at all. Why?
How to know when the currency pair is undervalued or overvalued?

And so on...

One thing I realize for sure, it is all about psychology, what you and I believe that matters. That is why trading gurus always put psychology as the main constitution in the trading world, at least 60%.

At first, I didn't agree. But later I understand the reasons why...

When I started, I always thought and believe that a good system and money management shall do it, psychology is the least part that should be mentioned. But after days, weeks and months watching the market and price behavior, I can tell you that I am actually watching human's behavior instead of lines and numbers.

The story line is always about the buyers aka bulls versus the sellers aka bears.

Hence, in relation to psychology, it is worth mentioning that the 2 everlasting human components are fear and greed. It is easy to say, even a thousand times, for a trader to control his fear and greed in the market. But in reality, huh, flying a jet fighter could have been easier.

Like I wrote before that "It is fun to watch unless"... till today, still the points written in that articles are worth to be mentioned again. Once you are in with real money, admit it or not, your adrenaline will slowly pumping in, unless of course you are playing tiny lots or in with a deep pocket.

Talking about traders inability to take small losses when wrong, I do realize that the fact of losing money or losing anything is something that we, as human, do not fancy at all. The problem is, new traders hardly realized this fact, unlike the pro's and the seasoned traders who knew what it takes to survive and prosper in this market.

Reason being, it is easy to say that 'learn to take small losses' etc etc. But once you are faced with a losing streek (especially if you are new), you knew it is not that easy at all, even if it is a small small one.

So, how do we improve our weaknesses on this? Perhaps the best answer is to learn from a mentor, experience as well as try not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Unless you start learning to conquer your own fear & greed, admitting your mistakes and taking responsibility in your own decisions, I knew by heart that there is no way you can survive in this market.

And yes. It is true that Trading Psychology is the mother of all trading skills.

The beauty of it is, it is within you and it is you who are ultimately responsible for developing it.

WE DO HAVE CHOICES IN LIFE...

People develop their maturity based on what they learn and experience throughout life and formal education. Some make it to the top but most will either remain average or unsuccessful in their endeavors.

The questions are;

Why couldn't everybody becomes successful?

What does it take to become successful?

What separates successful people from the unsuccessful one?

Is it so difficult to be successful?

Don't we have something like 'one size fits all' formula that could be applied to be successful?

Is success a journey or a destination?

Why can't every MAN OR WOMAN be on equal basis?

And so on...

Young fellas especially, are confused on the importance of being successful. Most have the 'Poor Dad' attitude in which rather than asking themselves on 'how can I afford that?', they instead telling themselves every now and then that they can never afford that.

They put the blame to the karma that they are not meant to be successful in the first place.

They believe in this so much that they never even thought of putting the slightest effort that could turn their lives around. They live day to day without having a clear purpose and meaning on their lives. They believe in this so much and there is nothing can be done about it.

This is very wrong indeed. As a matter of fact, we do have choices and options in life. It is us who creates our own destiny. Though certain factors and handicapped are undeniably true, but the fact of whether we achieve what we want or otherwise are very much depending on what actions that we take in the first place.

Did we do something about it? Have we done enough? Are we doing the right things?

Ask yourself and surely you'll find the answers within you. It is not only action that counts, you must also believe that your actions will direct you to your final destination. Otherwise, you may be driving forward, but instead of going north, you may be heading south... unintentionally.

In short, be clear with your choices as well... or you will probably end up going to the wrong direction.

WE JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT'S COMING...

I was partly using the FXCM Dailyfx Plus service (since I am an account holder) and to be honest, their trading strategy is pretty good and accurate, but of course it is never 100%.

Last Tuesday (5th May), I followed one of their trading strategy after some careful analysis of my own on the EUR/USD pair. And guess what, it was a bad entry. From bull it changed to sideways and I was down to -108 pips before the market came back to my entry level at 1.3354 after 43 hours waiting.

It did come back twice before that but I wasn't there to close the position since I still stick to my original TP at 1.3554. Even my original SL plan at -50 was changed to -150 or otherwise I would have hit my SL already.

Later when the market return to my point of entry, I was kind of nervous if it ever goes down again, so I closed the position at 1.3568 after the ECB interest rate decision (cut to 1.00%), taking in merely 14 pips in profit. Considering the -108 pips that was encountered before, I guess saving the position in profit is already a bonus.

Later, I thought it was a good decision since out of nowhere, the market suddenly dipped back to 1.3261 (from 1.3361 - that's 100 pips bro) within 5 minutes at exactly 8.35pm local time here. Phew... I was lucky then... but then, from that 1.3261, it shoot up over 200 pips to 1.3464 within the next 1 hour, around 110 pips over my original point of entry.

All of sudden, sense of greed came in and I felt that it was not really a good decision (to pull out) since if I stick with it a little bit longer, I would have banked in 100 pips instead of 14 pips. Yeah of course I could say that since the market spike back to bullish trend.

Anyway, no position was open later on since I have no confidence looking at the market condition. Even the Dailyfx Plus does not suggest any trade for the day, so I waited till Friday until NFP released at 8.30 pm.

When NFP kicked in, I applied my normal NEWS trading technique (as per Avis Frister method) on GU and EU pair and managed to bank in 56 pips from ultra-short term scalping, mainly from long position. Not bad and I went out for dinner.

Later when I returned, right after London session closed, I saw that EU pair is approaching a major resistance line @ 1.3590 (provided by Jeff Wilde). Instead of going long as per few strategies proposed by Dailyfx Plus service, I decided to create a sell pending order at 1.3578 (12 pips lower) and set my profit limit at 1.3528 (+50 pips) and SL at 1.3628 (-50 pips).

I didn't wait for this entry to happen so I just went to sleep, with some confidence and hope that the trade would kick in and hit my TP when profit taking activities dominate prior to New York closed this Saturday morning.

As the morning comes and the yawning done, I quickly rushed to my pc and guess what. The trade did kick in but instead of hitting my TP, it hit my SL at 1.3628. The EU went as high as 1.3632 before closing the day.

Instead of gaining 50 pips, I only gained 6 pips for the day, offsetting my earlier gain of 56 pips during the NFP. Oh no, not again... But then, what can I do. I couldn't resist not taking that trade, though I knew the consequences if I'm wrong like this.

I just ask myself, how was I suppose to know? When I blindly follow the trend, the market did reverse. When I did not follow, the market continues. Am I f*****g st***d or what? Will this take forever before I can really master the market?

To take things easy, perhaps the best thing was just go to sleep rather than creating that bad pending order. Mmmm... still in the novice level I suppose. Best of all, sticking to my original trade opened on Tuesday would the greatest option since not only it hit my original TP at 1.3554, it even goes higher.

I guess I am just a normal human who doesn't know what's really happening next... sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, just like anyone else.

Well, looking at the positive side, we still have next week, don't we?

Have A Nice Weekend Guys... ;)

p/s: I wrote this right after I woke up on Saturday morning, so that I will not forget...

DO ALL YOU CAN DO...

In reaching your dreams as a normal human, there are plenty of obstacles and challenges along the way that you need to clear out before you can get to to your final destination or goals.

Most of the time, you will probably not reaching there at all especially if your efforts are not supported with proper tools and sheer determination.

What does it take to become successful in anything then?

Regardless of what you are doing at the moment, in order to become successful, I realized that the first thing that you should understand is the overall puzzles that define success in the first place. Most of the time, this is very subjective according to individuals.

Say for example, you want to become a successful forex trader. What does successful means and what does it take to become one?

Base on my understanding and definition on the overall puzzles, successful forex trader means:

A trader who could earn over USD20k average per month and make trading as his full-time career.

Then, in order to achieve the vision that I mentioned above, I listed out all the possible things that I need to do in order to become one. Among the key things that need to be done are:

1. Learn the market basics, terms and definitions.

2. Continuous learning and understanding on what the market is all about... easiest way is through reading.

3. Really understand on how do people make money and lose money here.

4. What risks involved in pursuing my goals in this field

5. Continuously searching and scouting on what do I need to know to become successful.

6. Find a role model and duplicate his technique. If it works, stick to it. If not, keep searching.

7. Develop my own plan according to weeks, months and years to come. What should be achieved by certain period of time should be foreseen upfront in order to accelerate development.

8. Detail course of actions in case things are not going well according to plan.

9. What level of equity is comfortable to me before I can do it full time. This has to be defined now.

10. Read... read... read...

These are only part of the puzzles, the major ones. Of course, if you break it down further, there are numerous things like technical analysis, fundamental analysis, market collective psychology, money management, news etc etc that need to be fully comprehended.

End of the day, all you need to do is just do all you can do to become successful. Most of the time, this is very much depending on your own attitude in perceiving things that you are doing. Success will not come easy, or may not come at all. But knowing that you have done everything you could within your power will provide you with the satisfaction knowing that you have tried your best.

This is more meaningful especially when success shows itself at the end of the day.

But be careful not to define 'try your best' too soon as many people only attempted the tip of the icebergs but claimed they he had done everything he could. Rather than effort, this is more like an excuse for not being successful. Surely you can deceive everyone else except... yourself...

BELAJARLAH BERSYUKUR...

Dalam kita mengharungi keperitan dan keghairahan hidup sebagai seorang manusia, seringkali kita lupa akan nikmat yang dikurniakan oleh Allah SWT terhadap diri kita.

Antara nikmat mudah yg hampir kita semua nikmati tetapi seringkali kufur terhadapnya:

1. Kesihatan yang berterusan

2. Rezeki yang tidak putus dan bertambah

3. Isteri yang sempurna paras rupa dan kelakuan

4. Anak-anak yang comel

5. Kenderaan yg selesa

6. Pernafasan yang sempurna

7. Tidur dan rehat yang tidak terganggu

8. Ketenangan hati

9. Penglihatan yang terang

10. Negara yang aman damai

11. Mempunyai ibu bapa yang bertanggungjawab dan sanggup berkorban utk anak-anaknya

dan banyak lagi..

Persoalannya, adakah kita bersyukur dengan segala kurniaan yg diberikan oleh Yang Maha Esa ini? Dan apakah cara kita menyatakan kesyukuran kita itu? Adakah cukup dengan sekadar bertutur Alhamdulillah? Adakah cukup dengan mengerjakan tuntutan 5 waktu kita dalam sehari?

Hakikat kehidupan di akhir zaman ini tidak boleh lari dari aspek riba', maksiat dan godaan hawa nafsu yang melampaui batas. Sebagai seorang muslim yang sejati, kita harus ingat dan menyedari bahawa cabaran untuk menjalani sebuah kehidupan Islam yang sempurna adalah amat sukar pada hari ini.

Lihat dan renung sekeliling kita... cukup dengan memandang pada pakaian, makanan dan hiburan (ie. Astro).

Sekiranya kita tidak kuat dan berhati-hati dari segi pegangan agama, ekonomi dan ilmu pengetahuan, sememangnya amat mudah untuk kita terkeluar dari landasan yang sebenar. Tekanan dan bebanan hidup yang dihadapi sekiranya tidak diuruskan dengan betul, amat mudah untuk memesongkan akidah seseorang itu untuk melakukan perkara perkara yang bertentangan dengan ajaran agama.

Aku bukanlah seorang Ustaz, tapi dari mata kasar aku sendiri aku boleh nampak pemimpin-pemimpin yang ada gagal memberikan contoh yang baik malahan penuh dengan skandal dan aspek kemaksiatan. Ulama' dan mufti-mufti pula kebanyakannya bergaji dan berkepentingan. Maka siapakah yang layak dan harus dicontohi? Memang mudah untuk kita menyatakan sesungguhnya Nabi Muhammad SAW adalah contoh yang terbaik, tapi hakikatnya ramai yang pandai berkata kata dari melaksanakannnya.

Apapun cabaran dan hakikat kehidupan pada hari ini, orang tuaku selalu berpesan sentiasalah bersyukur dengan mengerjakan tanggungjawab 5 waktu tanpa gagal, kerana itulah tiang agama. Walaupun jumlah keseluruhan 5 waktu itu sendiri tidak melebihi 30 minit dalam sehari untuk dikerjakan, kerap kali itulah antara perkara yang sukar dan senantiasa ditangguh dan dilekakan atas sebab dan urusan-urusan dunia yang lain.

Adakah kelekaan ini semata-mata kerana godaan syaitan, ataupun ini ada bersangkut-paut dengan sumber makanan yang kurang bersih (dan halal) yang menyumbang kepada terbentuknya darah daging yang kurang baik dalam diri kita, yang secara tidak langsungnya menyumbang kepada hati dan jiwa yang kotor?

Atau adakah ini semata-mata hakikat seorang manusia yang secara lazimnya suka mengikut kehendak hati dan hawa nafsu didalam memenuhi tuntutan dunia yang sementara dari mencari bekalan untuk hari kemudian yang pasti datang dan kekal abadi? Atau adakah kita sama-sama menantikan bala dan azab dari langit sebelum kita sedar dan menginsafi segala perbuatan kita? Pernahkah kita berdoa agar hidup kita diberkati dan segala bala bencana ini dijauhkan?

Cuba kita renung-renungkan...

p/s: Aku sering termimpi dilanda ombak tsunami setinggi langit datang mengejar dan menimpaku... apakah ini suatu petanda atau sekadar mainan mimpi?