PATIENCE - Key to successful trading

As they say: "Rome was not built in a day".

Patience might be viewed from multitude of points. However in trading it translates into several most important points to be respected in order to build a sustainable trading performance.

1. Staying Power -- as Jay told me many times it's all about managing your position SIZE so you have the staying power to let your idea/scenario play out into the market.

I noticed that my performance tends to be tightly correlated to the Position Size I operate with.

As a self-educated trader my goal is to become a professional while following an approach based on a sound frame of rules for developing trading ideas and for managing my risk exposure to the level that I would preserve my capital while taking advantage of the high probability setups as they present themselves in the market.

The Key to sustainable success is Patience.
- Patience to wait for the setup.
- Patience to start small and test the market first, then add on confirmation.
- Patience to use Stops in a comfortable level where a random whisaw or spike will not affect my idea.
- Patience when I am very profitable.

>>> I'd like to leave a mark here of this phenomenon I observe as a psychological profile:
I tend to become overconfident once I pull out of the market a nice profit. Next day I always feel unsatisfied with little profit and want to achieve a better result. That makes me enter with larger position and once in the trade I become more vulnerable from psychological standpoint.
I like to describe this role as a Victim of its own Success. I tend to dislike and I'm working on correcting this issue as it tend to open a self-destructive spiral.
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I read Castaneda today (Tales of Power, 1974). Don Juan tells little Carlito that to be sebsitive and succeptible to Knowledge he has to be achieve a Personal Completeness.

This similar to the Concept of keeping Oneness and being Centered in Daoism.

And common sense people call it Peace of Mind... Patience and Peace of Mind are the 2 sides of the coin. Once you have stillness in your mind toy own a clear viewpoint. That translates into sound judgement and ignoring of emotions in the decision making process.
> It also makes the odds of being lucky higher maybe just because you DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK.

As Lao Tzu admonishes in DaoDeJing the concept of non-action helps you achieve your goal 'effortlessly' - which means without rush or strain but waiting patiently for the parts of the puzzle to fall into place.

My Father likes repeating to me:
"Wise man said: Only fools rush in!"

EURUSD Falling Wedge pattern

The Falling Wedge is deemed to be a Bullish Reversal Pattern.

Logically enough for me to enter Long position on the break with stops at the M1 pivot point at 1.3444. Target for this trade is the Channel Upper border around 1.3650.

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Previous trades in USDJPY and AUDJPY were closed for small profits as the consolidations didn't tip extended corrections at the moment..

AUDJPY Short Trade

Approaching the Uptrending AUDJPY with the assumption that a Short term distribution phase is in its due course. Therefore I entered a low leveraged Short position. 

I work on the premise that Descending Trinagle consolidation is a Bearish formation with a tendence to produce a breakout on its flat side. Allowing for the mode to unfold with stops comfortably above the Trendline Resistance I target the 50 - 61.8% Fibonacci retracement area.

This is what I would call a Support convergence area -- marked by the Rising 89 hourly MA. The sustainable trend progress angle suggests that once the correction meets that cluster of support it will be a good buying opportunity for trend resumption on the Upside.

However let's leave guesswork at the doorstep. 

USDJPY Short Trade

This is a short term trade based on Hourly chart. The nice Uptrend Channel is meeting the multiday resistance Trendline from the March 05 -- High 99.67.

Playing safe with stop above that TL.

 I target a logical 50% corection of the parabolic upmove reassured of the natural inclination of price to rotate back to its mean in a given period of time -- in this case the 89 Hourly MA is a clear mark as it coincides with the 50% Fibonacci retracement target. This might take probably 2 days to play out..

Sure enough a break above 98.56 Daily High negates the correction setup.

EURUSD Running into Tight Cluster of Resistance

Global Stocks rally along with USD weakness brought EURUSD up.

However the psychological effect of the latest 'Bailout plan' might be losing steam in the end of the week. 

Charting of various geometric angles of Support & Resistance tells me that a pending second test of the 200 day MA (1.3872 now) may fail again as the parabolic upmove might lose steam in the cluster of Resistance trenlines.

I assume more Rangebound trading in the 1.3350 - 1.3750 area.

24.03.2009 - EURGBP 8H flag consolidations

looking for tradable patterns -- accumulation and distibution phases are clearly observed while the price is vibrating at an ever-changing scale

GBPUSD 4H Channels