2016 recap

So, I traded 6 times in 2016, although I did not close 3 of the trades until 2017. From this 6 trades, I made a small gain of 286.29 and reduce my all time trading loss to (29071.61). I also managed to bring my trading loss to an all time high of (31976.73) before recovering a little.

I get my motivation back after I made some gains in the first two trades, alas it was short-lived. I get into 4 more trades and not long after that, on 25 April 2016, 1MDB rear its ugly head again. What happened after was only 1 way down. Instead of cutting my losses, I got fed up and turned a blind eye toward my own trading. Then I ran away. With my trading still in open position. Not a clever move.

For 2016, these were the lesson I got.

1. Never learn from my pass lesson – I kept on repeating the same mistakes where I let my losses grow bigger and did not take any action to cut it early.
2. Blaming everything else – I blamed everything else when things did not go the way I wanted. It was still hard for me to admit my mistakes and losses.
3. Close position first – If you want to run away, at least close your position first.

2014 recap

So, I managed to burn another significant hole in my pocket in 2014. I traded 5 counters, losing 11247.26 and brought my overall trading lost to (29357.90).

These were the lesson that I got, although I am pretty sure I have yet to learn from it.

1. Inaction –  The biggest culprit was my own doing. It was my inaction upon inaction that lead to catastrophic lost. I keep forgetting the first rule of trading, which is to protect my capital.
2. Not admitting my mistake – Every trade that I made, I always assume that the price will go up and that I cannot be wrong.
3. No clear exit plan – I have no contingency plan if and when I was wrong about my trading. All I had in mind was to exit when I loss 5 percent of that trade, although when it happened, I was betting that the price will always go up again. After trade 21 happened, I realized that I can only enter a trade once I have a clear exit plan.
4. Following the herd – This was trade 22. Everyone was talking about all the good things this counter will bring.

Losing almost 30,000.00 to the market really impacted me significantly. I lost the interest and motivation to trade, not to mention that I had no more capital to continue trading in the first place. I would not trade again for more than a year, nursing my battered confidence and feeling sorry for myself.

2013 recap

I was just glad 2013 ended even though I made only 2 trades. From the 2 trades, I lost 19499.65 dragging my overall performance since 2009 to 17803.34 in the red. These are the lessons I got although I am not sure if I had learnt from it.

1. Blindly trusting an established brand name and not bothered to examine its fundamental.
2. Overextended. I had put too many eggs into too few baskets. The outcome was catastrophic, which explained why there were only 2 trades this year. I was running too low on capital.
3. The recurring theme this year – Hope. They say that greatest enemies when you trade are Fear, Greed, Hope and Ignorance. I am pretty sure I did not heed the advice.

2009 Recap

More than 8 years after I first traded, I am finally evaluating my trades for the first time.

In the 3 months of 2009, I traded a total of 15 times, across 11 counters. I made profit in 13 of the trades, gaining 1046.93 in total. Although it sounds pretty good, I will say that it was nothing more than a beginner’s luck. I know that my trading system was far from perfect and needed to be refined both on how I enter and exit any given trade.

There was a fair share of mistakes and shortcoming I made in those trades.

• I am sure a few of those trades were made for the sake of it, entering despite there was no clear swing pattern.
• I added to a losing position instead of exiting it. Although the trade later moved in my favor, it was nevertheless a bad move that disregarded the 1st rule of trading – Protect your capital.
• If I am so confident that the trade I entered will swing up, why do I put a weird sell order of half the ATR (average true range) above my entry point? I should have let the winners run.
• When I first started trading, I did record all my trades in a spreadsheet. Price, volume, counter, date, profit and loss. What was missing though, was another column that states the reason I entered a trade. But this was a mistake that I did not realize for many more years, until this blog was started.

In what seems like a promising start to trading, it was a pity that I have to put all this aside as the events that were happening in my full-time job demand a big chunk of my time and energy. I would not trade for the next four years until things began to slow down a bit in my job.