Is this it? Is this what you traders wanted? I'll tell ya, it seems that all people care about is money money money.  Nobody wants to know about the valuable lessons learned in the room. Nobody wants to hear about the psychological battles we fought day in and day out this month. All you guys want to know is did we turned a profit.  Well then answer is yes!

Hey traders thought I'd joke around with you a little bit before writing this post, but as Rick said in the live room today. "Hey it's the last trading day of the month, let's all have a laugh."  As I mentioned, we were able to end in the green once again making us 3 for 3 since the room started in January (+26%).  With that being said this month wasn't all good. About half way through March we hit a tremendous period of drawdown losing 11 out of 12 trades at one point. Talk about being frustrated. But we kept doing what good traders do and that's continuing to pull the trigger. Being in a drawdown is no different than a baseball of basketball player being in a slump. The best way to get out of it is to keep swinging or keep shooting. After all, I'm sure Michael Jordan had a bad shooting day once in a while right? I also bet that missing a few shots (which keep in mind is very different from taking bad shots) didn't stop him from pulling the trigger on a wide open three pointer. I'm no Michael Jordan by far, but just like him we kept pulling the trigger in the room and as a result of staying consistent we pulled ourselves out of the draw down and ended up winning 9 of the final 15 trades taken for the month.

Although our winning percentage in the Live room was only 41% this month we were still able to produce a positive change in equity. Yup winning less than half the trades we took and still making money. Silly right? Currently we're standing at +2% with a single trade still in progress and waiting for either second targets or trail stops to be hit. If we're stopped out we'll end the month +3% and if target 2 is hit we'll be at +4%.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied for the month. Not only did we survive a drawdown (which you can't avoid), but we fought back and were able to make it a positive month. A 3% change in equity with a 41% win percentage may not seem like much, but that's right around the zone that I'm use to seeing on a consistent basis. Remember, trading is about slowly growing your account not getting rich overnight. Sure we had a major month in February and those are fun to catch every now and then, but what's more important is staying away from those big negative numbers. Aside from that, what I really use to measure whether I had a successful month or not is the feedback I get from my clients. Between the live room and the Syndicate program, I've received many positive emails and messages and no pip amount can make me feel better than knowing that I'm helping to chance lives. I can't even start to explain how proud it makes me feel when a trader tells me that they made 13% this month not because I told him what trades to take, rather because I helped them stick to their rules.  Win lose or draw, that's how I profit from the room! See you guys next month. 

---Akil

P.S. Please visit the homepage and answer the Poll Question if you haven't done so already. I do this site for you guys, so I would like your input on a new idea. 

 
Hey traders, it's been a while since I've updated this section of the site but I've been super busy with trying to put the finishing touches on an introductory trading project we're working on for the Forex Market Preview site call Trading How To: Something something something. As you can see I still need to iron some things out.  However, I wanted to hit you with a brief post, not because we've been destroying the market these past few days, but rather because yesterday I switched up my trading style for the room and we were still able to make some profits. Usually I am a counter-trend trader, which is a simple way of saying I go against the market. I sit back and allow the market to do it's trending thing then I jump in when I feel as if it's over extended and look to make money on the retracements.  There are many ways to do this such as trading a retest of structure, advanced patterns, abcd completions, etc. Even though I am a counter trend based trader I do know some trend following techniques and can adapt my counter-trend style to hop on an existing trend if need be.  That's exactly what we did in the room yesterday.   If I remember correctly, we missed out on a counter-trend trading opportunity, (and by missed out I mean that the market didn't give us a valid entry reason), so we decided to wait for a chance to hop in with the existing trend using a structure based technique. We had two trades like this and 1 of them made us some money. The other hit the target area that I project, but do to my risk ratio rules I couldn't take profit off.  So no it wasn't a big deal but I received a pretty good response from traders because we were able to make money a different way, yet still stay consistent in our rules and approach.  I've done this a few ways on my swing trading setups with the most recent one being the NZDUSD. (Syndicate Members know what we're talking about), but this was my 1st time testing it out on the day-trading charts. Anyway that's it. 

Keep an eye out for a post in the next few days. If you've been following me regularly, or are a member of the live room then you know that last month was very profitable and this month...well not so much. However over the past week we have made an incredible comeback and well... I won't say anything until we actually make it through the month. Fingers Crossed!
 
Today was a very exciting day in the market. So excited that I started the session a good five minutes early in order to hop in a trade. Usually I would wait until the 8:00 hour hits to start day trading, but this opportunity was to good to pass up. What I came across was an abcd pattern, at a 161.8 extension, with a double bottom containing RSI divergence. I mean, what else can you ask for to start your day off with.  After entering the trade I began making my way around my other pairs and noticed another pretty good potential setup.  I rarely take an aggressive trading approach, but for some reason I felt really good about this trade so I went ahead and set my limit orders.  While waiting for both of these trades to play out we had some pretty good conversation in the room, but to make a long story short, the trade that I was in came within 6 pips of target 1 (75pips) then came back down to break even. While this was happening, the trade that I set limit orders for just missed getting filled by 1 pip before rolling over to achieve what would have been another 75 pip target 1.  So what was a break even day in the room for me (some people grabbed some profit) could have easily been a 150 pip day.  Sometimes we just come up a little short. Great test of psychology though. ;_
 
It feels like forever since I've been in the Live Room. Although I did host a European session for three days last week, it just didn't feel the same. I'm not sure if it was the time difference or the fact that I was in a makeshift office, but today I felt back at home and back in my comfort zone. I also ended a 1 win out of the last 9 trade drawdown streak from last week by bagging 2 winners out of the three trades taken today.  More importantly than ending our drawdown, (which would have happened eventually), we proved once again that each pair should be looked at as an individual by simultaneously entering the GBPUSD short and the GBPJPY long. 

Trades like these are often difficult to take, especially when you're a young trader.  At first glance we automatically want to assume that if the GBPUSD is going long, then every other GBP pair should be long as well. It takes time to break this mindset, but trading days like today start you on that path to free thinking. 
 
Today was a very interesting day to say the least. If you're a member of the live room, or have been following my latest post that you know that I'm out of town for the week. Yup, I'm down in Myrtle Beach South Carolina in a fabulous beach house right off of the beach. I'm also with a group of 45 college athletes that I coach, but let's pretend that they don't exist so I can continue with my peace of mind. Anyway, because of our practice schedule, I had two choices; cancel the live room for a week , or trade the London session. 

This morning I woke up bright...well dark and early at 3am in order to prepare to trade the London session. To my surprise I didn't feel as exhausted as I thought I would feel. If that being said I didn't feel as sharp as I usually do.  Today's session was pretty rough as I went 0/4 in trading.  On the bright side of things, the room is still up for the month and this triggered some pretty good discussions about risk ratio's, targets and other trading psychology topics with the best being dealing with draw down months.  Despite losing money (which comes with the territory) I was happy with how everything went. I even did a half hour of overtime discussion with a few of the newer members of the room. Hopefully tomorrows profits will match up with the rooms positive vibe and I can write another good post. 

Trading at this time in the morning is a new experience for me and many members of the room were happy we made the switch because it works better with their schedules. As I told them, I can't see myself making a permanent switch to trading the Euro-Session consistently, but I wouldn't mind doing it every once in a while.

See you tomorrow traders and Insiders if you haven't done so make sure you check out the Syndicate post I put up earlier this afternoon. 
 
I really struggled to get out of the bed this morning. I don't know if it was because I had an intense workout yesterday or if it's because I just wanted to sleep in. Either way I was pretty upset about getting up, That is until I turned my computer on. The first two things I don when I wake up is load up my charts and check our Facebook Group Page . After loading both up, I was pretty excited to see that all of my limit orders were filled which meant that target 1 profits we obtained. Two of these trades were Live Room trade and gave us 175 more pips of profit. (Not to mention a personal trade of mine). 

Needless to say there were some very happy characters in the room this morning.  Not only did they take profit off of those two trades but they also made some good pippage off of a few other trades that we discussed during the session. 

As far as trades taken in the room today. Well there were none. And I'm completely fine with that. As a trader in the room said this morning "no trade=no loss." Despite not having any new signals, we had some really good conversations about sports and trading along with some training on different entry techniques. All in all it 
 
About darn time! I'll say that again, ABOUT DARN TIME!. For those of you that have been following me in the live room, you know that as of late I've been involved in some epic battles with the AUDUSD and have lost.  Some of you have even shared that pain with me.  Well today we finally got some revenge. Three 5min chart trades were taken today with the two winners both being on the AUDUSD in total we were able to get 65 pips out of that pair on two consecutive moves and you know what, it felt darn good. Aside from the second position leftover from a trade taken in February we only have two wins for the month so far. Sounds bad, but the account is still up 4%  so I'll throw that win percentage out the door as long as the account stays green.  Anyway great job traders and hopefully we'll have another good day tomorrow.