Back Home

Made it back home yesterday from a 872 mile door to door drive. Besides getting up at 4 a.m. it really wasn't all that bad, and what was really great was to come home to a totally clean and organized home. I loved it.

Had some drama with people, which I spoke up about and ended up being kinda the hero. Annoying and unwanted person decided to go back home, simultaneously showing that their own comfort was more important than being there for their son and grand daughter to be.

Basically, my brother-in-law's dad came up to Washington to be there for the new baby that was due December 1st. (She didn't come until the 9th though, just after I left) Well, I was there mainly to be the buffer between the in laws and my Sister in  Law, as she isn't comfortable with her husbands dad. He is after all, a self proclaimed "Dick". The second day of their visit I was awoken and told I needed to diffuse a situation, as the Dad had pulled her and her husband outside alone, and proceeded to scream at them about their finances. By the time I made it to the living room my sister-in-law had thrown up and peed on herself due to the stress of it all. I spent 20 mins doing dished deciding what the hell to say. In the end, I told him that whatever the conversation was about was none of my business, but the results of that conversation where, meaning: Don't give my sister-in-law that kind of stress while you're here. 

I was extremely surprised that this abrasive redneck asshole didn't get all riled up and get in my face. On the contrary, he barely made eye contact with me. Long story short, a few hours later he was walking his bags out to the truck to leave for home. A 2,500 mile drive back to Kentucky, because he "Wasn't going to stay somewhere he felt he wasn't wanted". Of course, he couldn't say that to me, I had to hear it from his son, who was super pissed at me because his parents where now leaving because of me. I did what was in my heart and I stood up for someone who needed it. She was very relieved to see them go.

Had some drama with the car, which scared the crap out of me because I was seriously sure it was not going to make it back home. Thank God it turned out to simply be a seriously clogged EGR valve and I had brought all my tools and took care of it! I also took a look at the spark plugs and they were disgusting so I bought new ones and replaced them.

Had some drama trying to help a close friend of the family change the breaks and rear rotors of his Cadillac. He was supposed to meet me at the on base auto shop at 8 a.m. because that is when they open, and they fill up fast. He had been up working till 1 a.m. that morning and had a girl over as well, so I was pretty sure he wouldn't be awake. Problem is, I missed my 7:10 a.m. alarm somehow.... I woke up with enough time to get to the shop @ 7:51. When he finally answered my 10th call, he said he wanted his friend to come a long so he would meet me back at the house. By the time we made it back to the shop, all the lift bays were taken and I had been telling him since the day before "We don't need a lift bay to change brakes and rotors", but he responded saying "My dad broke the frame of his Cadillac lifting it up on a jack". Yeah... because cars aren't made to handle their own weight...

Anyways, because he was determined to use a lift bay, we drove to another shop about 15 mins away. I called on the way and out of the 10 bays they had, 8 were already gone, and when we arrived all of them were taken. We had to drive back to the original place and start the job 2 hours late. It was kinda frustrating, but getting the job done (With only a jack and stands btw) was satisfying. He had also purchased new calipers because some tire shop told him that his were ceased when they inspected them. Turns out they were perfectly fine. When shops suspect that you know nothing about cars they will try their best to take advantage of that! Luckily, he returned the calipers (Which were the wrong ones anyhow) and by a stroke of luck he had bought them on sale and the store made a mistake and gave him back twice what he had paid for them... Pretty funny.

Had some drama with my trading, due mainly to trying to trade on my laptop, and lost about 4%. What's worse, is that I entered a trade that would have made all my losses up plus a profit. It was the last trade I took and it went nearly to the profit target I had set, and came all the way back down to break even. Had I just held my stoploss and accepted the risk, I would have made a profit that day (EUR Rate decision). BUT, and I call attention to this for all of you traders reading, I do not regret moving my stop to break even. It was my decision and my plan and I followed it, which is what matters.

You can see by the chart below that the move was huge and took place over a few hours instead of mere minutes like usual. Part of the reason I lost so much money was because the buy and sell order windows kept disappearing on me, so I had to go down to the task bar and find them again. It really screwed up my timing.

Nothing else to report at the moment.

Thursday

Not much to report today so far. Took a winner, still waiting on others. Very cold outside. I am excited for snow, yet well aware of the biting chill that will course through me as I take Juicy out for rides. She likes the cold for sure because she runs pretty hot. She is prepared for the high possibility of me dumping her on accident haha, we'll see.

Feeling much better today. Good thoughts all around. Scott Welsh is almost done with his new trading course and I will likely drop a large sum of money into a portfolio of successful consistently profitable robots. I am becoming much more at ease with the idea of just handing the majority of my trading over to a robot. They never miss a trade, they don't get emotional. My only job is to keep checking in to make sure it's running, and to not get emotional about drawdown myself. Anyways, here are my charts.

 Sold some Kodak shares for $94 profit.

EURUSD came up to resistance and rolled over last night as I had mentioned it might.





More good news is that I went to the dentist yesterday and am finally getting around to getting my crown done soon. The implant is healed and I'm going in on Nov 4th to have it exposed and getting a mold of my mouth done. It will be very tight on timing as to whether or not I have it before I leave town December to go to Washington, Chicago and Michigan. If not I'll have that stupid flipper to take out when I eat... Never liked that part.

Shitty dreams and a Trading Day

For the last few years I have regularly had strange and very negative dreams almost every night. As a younger person I would have called them nightmares, but somehow I am usually just able to live in the dream and be a part of it as if it were normal and not scary or anything, even though it feels 100% real. Last night I had a significantly difficult dream. I dreamed that it was night out and I was in a strange country walking in the dark with a flashlight towards a gated off airstrip runway. As I approached the gate, several two headed animals approached me, like tigers and hyenas. Their heads weren't side by side like most two headed creatures, but rather stacked on top of each other. I was afraid of them, but they just approached and sniffed me and let me be. I entered the gate to see a few black men dressed in green military uniforms greeting me, as if we were acquainted already and I had been there several times. They opened a door and we began to walk into a tunnel. It was a cramped tunnel with no lights and a muddy dirt floor, as if it had been flooded or raining recently. I was very uneasy emotionally as I was walking down the corridor trying to avoid puddles that had formed in all the deep muddy footprints. As I reached the end of the Tunnel there was a little cupboard or closet type space and I opened the door to find two children inside wearing nothing but diapers. I realized that one of them was my son and he was blind. He was in the dark, and he went to lay back down after I opened the door and shined the light on him. He looked just as he did the last time I saw him, a little blonde-haired, blue-eye toddler.... I felt so bad to watch him lay his body down on the cold cement inside that little closet in the pure cold darkness.... He just laid back down as if that was all he wanted to do, as if it was all he ever did...

No one was there to take care of him. He was abandoned... I had with me a few small pillows and I spoke to him "This is how I like to sleep" and I showed him that I like to sleep with a pillow between my legs. He didn't respond and I had to once again realize he was blind, so I touched his body and positioned the pillow between his legs and put another one in front of him to hug... It was devastating. And then I woke up and wanted to cry. I've done some pretty horrible things in my life, and as much as I try to forgive myself for them and realize that I am human, I obviously have not forgiven myself.

There are few things that hurt worse than having a dream in which your son is blind and abandoned in a freezing cold concrete floored closet. Just watching his tiny bare chest touch the floor sent chills through my body and instantly reminded me of the time I was in jail. They keep it so cold there, and no one cares about you at all... period. They live a totally separate reality on the other side of that cell door. You may as well not even exist. And that's how I interpreted the cold silent moment with my son... I felt his helplessness... but what was even worse, I watched his innocence shroud him in not being able to understand anything about what was going on, and only knowing and accepting it as reality.

I feel torn up inside, even right now, imagining that situation and that I am the cause of it. If I had any sense at all, I would have picked him up and taken him out of there... but for some reason, as in all of these terrible dreams I just follow the script because that's what's laid before my eyes... I wish in that dream and all others like it that I wasn't just a human on rails following a locked in destiny of my morbid unforgiven mind. I should have been the hero that rescued that boy instead of assisting him in his imprisonment. I am so mad at myself, and I try to tell myself it was just a dream... this one hit so close to my heart. I shared so much love with that boy, and I went from being #1 in his life to not existing at all... I have my reasons, and they stand firm, but there is a price to pay for every choice made. My choice was to stay completely out of his life knowing he would be well taken care of, rather than being someone he loved so much that only had the opportunity to be in his life a few times a year, if that. I'd rather him forget about me completely. I'd rather have these horrible dreams, if I can wake up knowing it's just me guilt tripping myself and not him agonizing over me in real life. At this point I've been gone for over 5 years, and that is how long I've been beating myself up about a decision that was supposed to be best for him. No amount of money, or personal success will ever take the burden of that decision off my shoulders, as well as other decisions I've made in my life. I hate that these truth's attack when I am supposed to be resting. I need rest. My soul needs rest, and I don't know how to find it.

Skip a head several hours later and many attempts to sleep that were unsuccessful...

Here are some trades I am up in at the moment in the stock market and my trading EURUSD Rate decision trading day.

I would really love to have the balls to trade this awesome action, but I don't have those balls AND I have a dentist appointment for a crown consultation soon and I don't want to get stuck here at the computer.

Trade Update and completion

The other day I saw that the EUR/USD was near resistance from mid February and reversing, so I took a position short and placed my stop above the highs for a quick stop out if I was wrong. Currently sitting @ +200 pips. I've moved my stop to break even plus a few pips. If this trade were larger I would probably just take a part of the position off for a little profit, but it's rather small so it will either hit my take profit or stop me out at break even. Here is the chart.

By the way I have also found a rather sweet website for free advanced charts. It's kinda like the facebook of Trading. Very cool, check out Tradingview.com and see what I'm talking about!

UPDATE 5.20.2015

I looked at the chart and was like "Well, what's a little bit more profit really going to benefit me in contrast to risking no profit at all? Technically the floor was hit and I didn't set my profit target according to the more recent area." So I took profits. Never mind the box on the left chart, that was just for me to see how price behaved around the zone. Could have had a few martingale winners.

UPDATE 5.21.2015

Initial target was hit. The orange rectangles are from a new tool I found last night that allow you to draw zones and get alerts when price is near them. May come in handy so I'm trying it out.

Quick trading update

Took a few trades while back . been too lazy to report on them but here they are. hopefully it is clear to understand. any questions just ask .

From Blindsight to Hindsight

What you are looking at is something that crossed my mind while talking to a friend the other day.

I said "Remember that 35 loss in a row post? I wonder how far away price actually moved since then..."

Well I looked it up today and sure enough, the very last trade from that post here was in fact the very last time the market was at that price since then, and it has moved 1,981 pips south... so... in the end because of this insane trend we have going on here, those 35 losers would have been nothing.

But, given that hindsight is worthless it also must be said that looking back at the past on a monthly chart shows ample reason to have taken profit. It makes sense that significant support from years back would be relevant to some degree, but we blew right through it.

In the end, although those loses would have easily been recouped by an insane amount, we can't bank on things like that happening. Regardless it gave me a laugh to look at :)

Hilarious

In town today so I decided to trade the robot with martingale today. Took 2 losers and then a winner, but what cracked me up was how far and fast the market dropped after I got out. I only made $20, and the market moved another $240 in a few minutes right afterwards.

Getting out of the trade is not something I regret at all. When trading this way, where you increase your risk every trade, the goal is to take what the market gives you when it's there without getting too greedy and having to take another loss. I got out at an area of support where the market could have easily reversed and given me another loss. Especially because today the FOMC is meeting and discussing policy. Markets can go sideways a bit until information impacts things.

If I was trading a smaller fixed position size for each trade, then I would have still been short during this move down more than likely as my risk would have been much much smaller. here is the chart!

A quick trade on Non-Farm Payroll

Somehow I screwed up my off-duty time last night so when I woke up this morning I still had an hour and forty-five minutes before I could go on duty. Then I realized it was non farm payroll today so I took a look at the charts. I felt it was a turning point so I opened the robot. first long was a loser for 10 pips. Second trade was a short and I started running out of time and the chart was stalling so I just took the 20 pips for a net gain of 10 pips today. very small, but I followed my plan and made a profit. thats what matters.

**Update**