ColeTrades.com

I have made an attempt to write this blog post a couple of times now. However, I just never made it very far until now. My days are jammed pack and it’s been hard to keep up with everything. My Forex trading has taken the biggest hit as I frequently opt to sleep instead of attending the live trading sessions at 2 am CST. The currency market, like the U.S Stock Markets, has been insane to trade these past couple of months. So although I have made a few trades on the EUR/USD recently, I have walked away with rather small profits each time.

On the up side, I have finally figured out which trading strategy works best for me in currency trading. When I have time to watch the charts, I wait with patience for the trade to set up. I only enter the trade if it manifests while I am at the computer. (The market has been too volatile to park your FX order and walk away in hopes of getting filled later.) Needless to say, I have missed a few great entries because I was off doing other things… But I’m cool with that.

Last Friday was options expiration day and I had both bearish and bullish plays in for the week. I got out of many of them with small profits. I did have two bearish spreads that I will go back and repair and one bullish trade that just didn’t work out. Then there was one other position that I managed to get out of at a break even. (I guess I did take a small loss as I will lose my commission fees.) This has been a hard market to read lately

August went down in trading history as the third worst August on record. Then September, which is typically bearish, was the most bullish September in 70 years. October is also typically bearish, but the bull rally continues to move the markets up although the trading volume just isn’t enough to support this current rally. Eventually some day it will make a more substantial pullback. Yet, since the market is obviously wanting to move up, there is a good chance that the pullback will be short and the bull rally will continue to run hard.

These choppy markets of late have been great for me. It has forced me to seek out and try new trading strategies. From what I’ve seen, the retail traders who are making money right now are those that are nimble and quick on their trades. They are able to flip from a bullish to a bearish stance from one day to the next. I have been trading both sides of the market simultaneously and have made huge profits on trades that last from 20 minutes to just a few days. In fact, I have a great example: I recently made the exact same bearish trade on Amazon (AMZN) 5 times in 5 days while the market overall was bullish. I made a minimum of $1 per contract every time.

I have also been making great profits on trading the OEX weeklies. I usually enter a spread trade on Thursday morning and then exit it the next day with profits. However, in an attempt to capture the top of this bullish market, I have been making bearish trades earlier in the week. This past week, I actually made a 51% rate of return on my investment. Due to this proven success rate, I have been working towards freeing up more of my portfolio to do more short term trades on the OEX and other stocks offering weekly options.

I’ve been having lots of fun trading these past weeks. It seems that I spend every day expecting to see a huge pullback which never seems to manifest. During this time I have made bearish and bullish trades at the same time. At times I have made quick profits, yet, just last week, I also experienced some rather large setbacks on some positions. I have realized that it’s not a big deal though. I can’t win every time.

I have learned to be patient and wait for the trade setups to come to me when having to repair trades gone bad. Best of all, I realized that I have my confidence back. And that is the best feeling of all. I forced my way through this year to get back on top of my game after those terrible few months I had in the beginning of the year that clobbered my portfolio. I didn’t give up and I had some great trading friends who never stopped encouraging me even though they had taken similar hits in their own accounts and were feeling just as shaky as I was in their ability to make profits.

So thanks to all of you who have been riding along with me on this bumpy road chocked full of potholes. It reminds me of that scene in Cars when Lightning McQueen has laid his first lane of asphalt and Mater tries it out. He just skips along as his entire frame shudders… Yep, I hate roads like that. They make my old Suburban rattle something fierce.

Here’s to cruising on some fresh, beautifully paved roads in the days ahead!

Filed under: Trading Tagged: | day trading, determination, encouragement, finance, Forex, market, options, Spread Trade, stock market, strategy, Trading, women