my journal 3

[Yamato]

Ok, here I am again, still trading, account still not blown out.

I just spent the usual few hundreds for the server (paid with paypal), after having withdrawn about a thousand, given that I've also got the internet stick to pay, in case I travel and need it. So that's another 60 dollars per month.

Total is about 400 dollars per month.

So now capital is between 21k and 22k.

I have ongoing long 1 contract on JPY, GBL, NQ (this last one by the systems).

I'll stop writing here for today, because I've been writing too much during the trading binges / compulsive gambling / martingale trading. Also the readers are tired of reading the journal, judging from the decline in views, after the peak of 2 days ago.

I guess this period and compulsive state of mind seems to be over, and I don't get excited any more at the idea of having 20k. I hope I learned something in the process. The next loss of rationality will probably happen at 30k, if I'll get to it. That will be my next "uncharted territory".

GBL and JPY are extremely oversold and very promising for tomorrow and next week. Hopefully tomorrow I'll at least get back to 23k.

 

[Yamato]

You guys are lucky. You can go long on JPY after I have almost blown out my account by going long one week early.

I really believe this is the right moment to go long.

Weekly candles:




Daily candles:




Hourly candles:




8-hours candles:



Look: even if it weren't overdue for a real bounce, or even a reversal, it would still have to bounce up by 250 ticks, to be proceeding according to the downtrend schedule.

It clearly doesn't want to go below 1.0840 (it's been sitting there for 9 hours), so here's how I'll play it today. I keep one long contract, and each time it hits 1.0850 I go long until 1.0860. The most I can lose is 10 ticks anyway. Even in case of a "dead-cat bounce".

...



There's very few intraday reversals on JPY for some reason, probably the relationship between Japan's time zone and JPY's trading session.

I notice that the candles are much different from those of the other currencies, from all of them.

So it's not just that they're not very correlated, but the shapes are different, too. The daily candles show mostly "real body" and very little shadow (cfr. Candlestick chart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Although I haven't done a statistical study (not worth it right now), I can tell that this is due to the fact that they spend, much more than the other currencies, long periods going just in one direction, and within this trend, they spend the entire day going either up or down. So it's really a currency with "dead cat bounces". The worst currency to be doing martingale on.

Yet I am not forgetting it, and I am holding a grudge against it, because it almost blew out my account last week, so I am determined to get at least 2000 dollars out of it now. I would be too upset if I missed the reversal now. Now I can't miss it, not after risking so much on it too early.

 

[Yamato]

Ok, back home.

Usual crap. I was right about everything, but again, the systems have failed me. They're losing a combined 1500 dollars on GC, NG, CL, GBP.

While I was right about my JPY prediction. And GBL, too.

I keep losing faith in my systems.

They're profitable all right, but their drawdown is almost unbearable. Good thing I am making a lot of money with my own discretionary trading. Otherwise I'd have lost hope by now.

...

So, the systems are losing a combined 1500. What must I avoid doing now? Doubling up on losing contracts.

I must also avoid closing the profitable contracts so I can double up on the losing contracts.

I must do nothing basically. The systems are losing, so be it.

I must show that "serenity in the face of adversity" that I have been discussing in so many posts last weekend.

Furthermore, the systems, despite their awful drawdown, are capable of taking care of themselves, so I definitely have nothing to worry about.

...

If I can learn serenity in the face of adversity, and to forgive myself for not knowing the future, and if I can reward myself for making good risk/reward choices despite not being profitable or despite not picking the exact top/bottom, then I am ready to be profitable.

...

I've updated my index.html:
View attachment index.html

My blood is boiling now, because my systems are losing over 2000 dollars. I didn't break my back to make all this money and see it being lost by the systems!

However... serenity in the face of adversity, in order to avoid more damage.

 

[Yamato]

Wow, I was wrong again on JPY. It fell lower. I said it wouldn't go below 1.0840 and instead it fell all the way to 1.0795, and I am losing money as a consequence.

...

Yeah, and by the way, a few minutes after saying that I wouldn't do martingale on the negative trades by the systems, I bought an extra contract on GBP and JPY. Not exactly martingale but similar.

 

[Yamato]

That's it. I am tired of fighting the trend. If I want to keep being a discretionary trader, I'm going to have to stop fighting the trend.

Tonight was my last day of top/bottom picking. JPY taught me a lesson.

I am tired of challenges. From now on, it will be the easy way.

This is just going to blow out my account, if I keep going like this.

Tonight I will withdraw a bunch of money, a few thousands, I will pay my little 5k euros debt with my bank, and start with the remaining capital of 15k, but just discretionary. I am fed up with these systems eroding my capital now that it's not so much that I can afford seeing it eroded.

****.

No debt with the bank.

No fears from the systems. No having to make up for their losses.

Just me and the markets. And hopefully, no more top/bottom picking, unless it's really called for.

...

It could have gone another way (better) if the systems hadn't persisted in serving me bad trades for the last 3 weeks. But at this rate, I cannot afford another bad week, with the risk of blowing out my account while trying to make up for their losses.

...

The debt

Once Upon A Time In America - YouTube

That debt, however smaller and smaller (I get charged 200 euros every month), however small, might have bothered my trading. You see, I could have 24k at IB, but if I have that debt on my other account, I feel like I am living on borrowed time and my debt sooner or later will catch up with me.

It feels better to have 10k and no 5k debt, than to have 30k and that 5k debt.

It's funny.

I'm gonna pay it, because at any rate, I am not going anywhere with my systems, for the simple fact that right now I cannot afford their drawdown and I feel like disabling them as soon as they produce a bad trade.

...

I'm gonna close all these mother ****ing trades that are destroying my account, including the morbid bottom-picking JPY trades. I cannot bear the thought of seeing another 100 ticks down on monday.

I am fed up with all these trades. My account is now at 18k, thanks to a couple of trades by me, on JPY but mostly thanks to a system on GC, which is causing me a loss of 1000. How did I lose the rest? No idea.

Oh, wait. Trade on GBP, losing 800.

JPY losing 2000, and I am done with it.

Yep, that is almost 4000.

Oh, trade on GBL, also by the systems, losing another 500 dollars.

So, given that I wasn't even at 22k, now I am at 18k.

So, half of these 4000 i lost in just a few hours is mine, and half is by the systems.

i can't bear this crap any more, mentally.

Neither can I bear my top and bottom picking, on JPY in particular, nor can I bear to see any more losses by the systems.

If worse comes to worse, I will stop at this level, close all trades, and have 18k left.

At this point, I'll transfer 4k, and pay my debt. Make that 6k.

I'll be left with 12k, which I'll easily bring to 24k again, if I don't do anything crazy. The systems suck anyway. Or rather, for sure I can't afford their drawdown, mentally, as well as financially.

Ok, let's do it. A few more minutes, closing all mother ****ing trades, transfering 6k, and then I am done and I can finally sleep.

Let's do this, before I blow out my account out of mental instability.

...

Desperate move for desperate mood

Reservoir Dogs - Little green Bag - YouTube

Yep, I didn't do it. I thought at how much blood I'd be leaving on the ground... and I said to myself: **** this. As usual.

Here's what I'll do instead. I disabled all systems. I won't wire any money to any account.

I'll keep all the mother ****ing trades open.

2 JPY long
2 GBP long
1 GBL long
1 GC long

Let them go wherever they feel like going.

I'll try to keep them all open until my account reaches 30k or similar.

Too bad I'll have to keep running the systems, and check out the margin calls from IB from time to time.

The weekend could turn things around.

Gold looks like it wants to go up.

With JPY it is a huge gamble. I could blow out the account with just those 2 contracts. But it is way too oversold to close it now.

Same applies to GBP.

GBL, too, looks like it wants to rise.

And these are not too correlated among one another either.

So yes, I might blow out my account in the span of a week, I am aware and it wouldn't be the first time.

But I feel like doing it and I don't feel it is that crazy.

Of coures this action shows a lot of problems with my money management.

I shouldn't have been placing trades that could produce losses that would mentally keep me from closing them.

But today what happened wasn't just my JPY, which is a 50% of the problem. Today the problem clearly emerged as me not having enough capital or enough mental strength to bear the losses produced by my systems.

Total failure of uncle-point money management today.

Maybe the account will survive and thrive, just because I get lucky.

I could easily find my account at 25k by the middle of next week.

If I do, I'll probably close all of them and give it another try with my systems.

I don't know what I'll do.

But right now, despite contemplating the extremely opposite alternative for 5 minutes, and precisely because of it, I feel totally positive that this is what I want to do. Just for the record, in case I later say that it wasn't a good idea. I totally want to do this.

 

[Yamato]

Very bad shape for me this week, like the previous one, but this time mostly because of the systems, because I cannot take four bad weeks in a row.

Anyway, here's their performance since the start:



They took 3 beatings, and each time lost around 5k.

I wonder if this is the end of it, or if there'll be one more week.

I wonder if I'll be around.

Margin call liquidated the long GC contract. Too bad because it looked great. The GBL position was losing too much, it switched to full margin, and they closed my GC position.

Capital below 18k now.

...

No system has failed of those I am trading, so it's really hard to pick one to get rid of. So I won't. I disabled them all.

If next week, with my crazy trades (long 2 JPY, 2 GBP, 1 GBL), by Wednesday I reach 25k, then I'll exit them all, otherwise I'll try to keep them until things go my way.

I am tired and I feel like doing this.

Can't do otherwise. That's the way I am.

Who knows, maybe this mother ****er on monday finally rises 200 ticks, and I make 5k in one day:



If I let things run I could easily make 10k in one week, or lose 10k in one week.

The problem is that if I monitor, what I do is cut profits short and let losses run.

Anyway, today's loss on GC was a loss by the systems. So other than those ongoing trades, I don't have much to blame myself for, so far.

 

[D70]

Hi Travis,

Sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations today (this week).

But you've inspired me and the result is that I have managed to code a working strategy in tradestation. Well, the first parts. TS is throwing out a performance report. Now figuring out how to turn it on and off. Feel like I've accomplished something thanks to your encouragement.

 

[Yamato]

Thank you for letting me know, and congratulations for doing this work by yourself. Initially I had problems even just configuring all of tradestation's parameters. It's a huge feat even to just make tradestation accept and read properly historical data.

 

[Yamato]

Here's my plan.

Blowing out account

or

Not closing positions before Tuesday
Not closing positions before they reach a combined 23k

Then closing only positions that are making > 1000 dollars

The others will bounce later: wait to close them (unprofitable positions on Tuesday) until they're 1000 dollars profitable

Get rid of all systems that have less than 60% of wins, less than 1.5 for sharpe ratios and profit factors, or a bad back-tested sharpe ratio.

Resume trading the systems.

...

Done. I got rid of 5 of the 30 systems.

If the account will live, drawdown should be bearable, not because it's much lower, but because it is caused by systems I trust more.

Now let's hope I don't change my mind and accept exiting with less than what I've carefully planned.

 

[Yamato]

the state of mind of the compulsive trader

Given that the journal has been appreciated lately, more than in the past, I feel like writing this post, too.

Also, given that I am losing money anyway, risking my entire account because of my irrational compulsive behavior, I might as well leave a record of it here, of my state of mind.

How am I feeling in the weekend between the week that will either increase my account by 5k or blow it out?

In one word I would say depressed. That's why I slept so well both today and the previous Friday night.

How could I think it would have been the last compulsive martingale weekend? I didn't think about the impact of the losses by my systems, which caused a chain reaction.

Wait, actually, from that chain reaction, all I've lost is money on the second GBP contract. The rest is money lost from JPY and from the systems on GC, but without my interference.

Let's say that the mistakes from Friday are that I added a contract to JPY, and I paid for the mistake of having enabled, weeks ago, systems that I wouldn't take a bullet for.

In the weekend I can't do any damage, so I might sound healthy and stable. And what is unhealthy vs healthy anyway? When it comes to trading, many seemingly healthy instincts produce disasters. I could be healthy in every aspect of my life except trading.

So, let's call them simply "profitable" vs "unprofitable" behaviors. And by this I mean "profitable in the long run", because you could have a good behavior that in the short run produces a loss and viceversa.

idea2develop

Another interesting thing to mention is, as said before, about the counter-intuitive nature of many situations in trading.

For example, martingale is perfectly reasonable, even without knowing what it's called and that there's a theory called "martingale" - which makes sense if you have infinite money.

Even without that theory and without infinite money, here's the logic according to which you implement a martingale behavior without realizing it.

You find it convenient to buy an asset at 10, and you buy it. Then, why wouldn't it be more convenient to buy it at 9, and then at 8? There you have your martingale.

Of course, if you are so unlucky that it falls even lower, you might blow out your account before it comes back.

However, if you instead use the stoploss and place trades on different markets (if you kept placing the same bet on the same market, it is the same as not exiting the initial 1 contract), you might also blow out your account.

Whether martingale is convenient or not depends on whether your chance of blowing out your account with diversified bets is higher or lower.

Maybe the only real problem with martingale is if I pick the wrong market to do it on. Or even that I tend to pick the wrong market to do my martingale on.

You see, if you diversify, sooner or later, you'll come across the right market, so you could lose on your first trade because it's the wrong market to do top/bottom picking (which is my type of trading) on. But you lose, you move on, and you find the right market.

If you use the martingale approach, what happens is that you do your trade and, as soon as you incur a loss because you picked the wrong market, you will not move on, but invest all your capital in it. That's why martingale is so infamous, because it's like you keep banging your head against the wall.

idea2develop

I guess this is it. Too bad that when you're stuck in the middle of it, you don't realize this. Statistically, however, martingale has a tendency to make you invest more in the bad trades, whereas the try-and-exit-if-unprofitable method is neutral. The problem is that, given that martingale makes you insist on every trade, you also have the feeling that it's good for you, because it is, provided you didn't choose the wrong market.

As a summary, with the stoploss method, you have 20 different trades before blowing out your account and, for each of the 20 trades, you're more likely to make money (if you have an edge). If all your 20 trades are wrong, you blow out your account. With martingale, you increase your chance of being right on the next trade, but, given that you only use it if you lose money and get out of it as soon as you're profitable, your downside risk is huge, and you get nothing in return, because even if you pick the top/bottom, you're going to exit it soon after it's profitable. Otherwise, I don't know how it rates, as it might even be better. I mean, you pick the bottom, and stay with the trade for months... that's almost better than having to make money by picking single trades.

But you see, on Tuesday, if I see 23k, I get out, whereas I risked my entire account to get to it. So, the math here gets very complex, the probabilities are too many and too many unknown things, and/or things I ignore. But, overall, the "x sum per trade" approach works best. The problem is, once again, that, when you're in the middle of it, and of course feel very confident about the trade you're making, at least for me, maybe because i am proud and stubborn... it's nearly impossible to realize. Just like when you're from a plane, you can see the city clearly, but when you're walking in the street you might get lost in that same city.

Dream On [Lyrics] - Aerosmith - YouTube

In the weekend, when the markets are closed, I am on that plane, and I can see the city below me clearly.

During the week, when I am at work and cannot trade, I am like sitting on a hill.

When I am at home, with TWS open.. it's like walking in those streets during the day.

Once I have entered a trade, it's like walking in those streets at night.

idea2develop

 

[Yamato]

Sandy Hook - An American Coup d'état - 1/4 - YouTube

This guy says, like Benj1981 argued recently on this journal, that they're trying to get caught. They're giving us clues so we find out that it's a hoax.

Still, it doesn't covince me. I am not convinced but I am keeping an open mind.

He says they're trying to cause civil war by showing us the clues so we react. Dude, it doesn't make sense, because then why did so many witnesses get killed for speaking out on 911? They could have simply let them speak the truth, so it would have angered us. The truth in my opinion is that they do suck in implementing their plans, and have sucked for over a century, given that now we have media and recently the internet to expose their mistakes.

The clues just get away, because people within the elite are not all united and not all intelligent, so either out of stupidity or out of disagreement, some truth gets away. This is my theory now, but subject to change.

Between JFK and now, hundreds of witnesses have been killed to keep the truth from reaching us. So in my opinion there is no way they're now trying to get caught.

 

[Yamato]

Pretty interesting documentary with max igan (the guy from the previous video) and my hero ken o'keefe:

Max Igan & Ken O'Keefe - 10 Days in Gaza - YouTube

 

[Yamato]

studying JPY and praying...

I am trying to find out what's my chance of this trade turning profitable on Monday:



What came after big red candles? Not good. Mostly more falling (8 falls and 4 rises).

What came before a rise?



Mostly red candles just like the one we had yesterday. So, it's not that a big red candle rules out a rise after it, as this is almost obvious, because I define a "rise" in my chart as beginning after a fall (the only question is if there's a doji, a hammer or whatever else).

Rather, it is that in a downtrend like this one, rises are rare. So, once again, if the question is: what is likely to happen after that big red candle? The answer is: more falling, two thirds of the time.

My rationale, my only rationale for this trade is not the candlestick pattern but the fact that it's been falling "too much". Sometimes this makes sense, other times it doesn't. My channel, that I drew yesterday, didn't work either. It didn't work yesterday, because you can skew it however you want, but of course now the channel looks even more promising:



And once again, it is not saying anything, because these channels are definable by formulas even less than the candlesticks.

If this present channel worked, and, as in the past few weeks, the beginning of the week coincided with a rising JPY, then we'd have a rise of 200 ticks. That's 5k, which is exactly what I need to close these trades.

 

[Yamato]

I revised my plan. Considering that I've wired about 1000 to pay for expenses, I could be happy with closing my trades with just a combined 22k. So, here's the new plan:

Blowing out account

or

Starting on Tuesday
Starting with a balance of 22k
Close each position as soon as it is making > 1000 dollars
Once all positions are closed, resume trading the systems.

 

[D70]

Hi Travis and Jazeonli,

When testing a strategy. Which outputs do you deem important?

For instance:

- Profit factor
- Total profit
- Expectancy
- TS Index
- Average $ per trade
- % profitable

And are there any major things I need to look out for that are giveaway signs that the strategy isnt as good / as bad as it looks.

Thanks,

 

[Yamato]

After many years of dealing with these benchmarks/ratios/measures, with the premise that I do not have a scientific background, and that's why I studied math online for several months (cfr. beginning of this journal), I'd say that the ones I got used to are, in order of usefulness:

1) absolute profit
2) maximum drawdown (and biggest loss)
3) sharpe ratio
4) profit factor
5) percentage of wins
6) frequency of trading
7) margin required

This is it more or less. The others are too complex for me. For a long time I've tried discarding the sharpe ratio because it seemed unnecessarily complex to me, and it is, but somehow I found myself still using it, because I know by looking at it, how good my systems are. But they all have many limits.

If I had to know just one thing out of all these, it would have to be absolute profit, and it's always the first thing I look at.

Yes, regarding the second question, the most important thing is to use these 3 samples:
1) back-tested sample (roughly half of the historical data available)
2) out-of-sample, the second half of historical data, preserved from back-testing in order to verify if the system turned out to be profitable in the unknown past (if it didn't, usually I discard it)
3) forward-tested sample, which is a period I require my systems to trade live before trading them with real money: preferably 20 trades.

In these terms of synthesis and conciseness, that's about it. If I had to take it to one level of detail further, it might take me 20 pages, so I'd stop here.

 

[Yamato]

I revised my plan once more. The biggest loss I can live with is not having capital at 23k, or 22k, as I initially decided and later revised. I can live with having as little as 21k. If I can see my capital at 21k again, I am willing to let go of my crazy compulsive martingale positions. And as I decrease my demands of fate, I also increase the probability of my account surviving. I also remove the limit of it happening by Tuesday. If there's a rise earlier than Tuesday, I'll be glad to exit my trades, all my trades. Also, no individual requirements from the specific positions.

So here's my new plan:

Close all positions as soon as account balance > 21k
Once all positions are closed, resume trading the systems

Now, to make this happen, all I need is for JPY to bounce 130 ticks, which it could do in one day.

Alternatively, I'd need JPY to get some help from GBL and GBP also rising.

If JPY goes down, instead, I am screwed. Because at the rate it goes down, I don't think GBP and GBL can do enough to recover the loss.

On GBP I could expect a rise of 100 ticks, easily. At which point I'd make 1000. Same for GBL, where I could expect 80 ticks and 1000 dollars. But that still wouldn't be enough to recover the loss.

But if they go my way for 2 days, and JPY doesn't move down further, then I could recover the loss from them alone.

How likely is it that they'll all keep going down together, after how oversold they are?







High-density hourly candles.

I know that, being in the game, I am biased. But they look good. I know it. Also, Tuesday bond futures rise usually. And Monday is often a change of trend. I don't know. I know I am involved. But they all look great as candidates for a reversal.

Then again these are the least ranging markets there are, and maybe it is not a coincidence that I am stuck doing martingale on them, because only when you're losing you do martingale, and with ranging markets I would have been right about a bounce and would have made money. So you end up doing martingale in the worst markets for it.

For example, what are ranging markets? Stock indexes usually.

All right. As soon as we hit 21k, I get out. And resume trading the systems.

 

[Yamato]

Hey, guys. Back.

You know what I was thinking? I've blown my account enough times.

If I set the objective to 25k or I don't get out, my chances of blowing it out again are huge.

If I set it to 24k, they're less.

And so on.

Within the span of 24 hours, I went from expecting 30k from these trades to just... the latest one was 21k and now I am bringing it down to 20k.

Of course if I contented myself with 15k, I would not blow it out for sure.

The same with 18k on Friday, but I could not live with a daily loss of 4k.

I don't want to blow out my account for the umpteenth time, but I don't want to feel like an idiot either, for closing JPY trades that could bring me a fortune within the span of just two days (look at how oversold JPY, GBP and GBL are).

But I cannot afford to blow out my account either.

So I'll be happy to get out with 20k.

Here's my new plan:

Close all positions as soon as account balance > 20k
Once all positions are closed, resume trading the systems

Of course depending on when I come home on Monday, and given that I inserted no LMT orders this time, I could very well be much higher than 20k, and hopefully that'll be the case.

But I cannot live with the idea of missing an opportunity to get out of my compulsive trades at a capital above 20k. So I'll take it.

Now, with this new state of mind and modesty so to speak, all I need is JPY to rise 100 ticks and the other two to stay still.

Or I need JPY to stay still, and GBP and GBL to gain 100 ticks.

 

[Yamato]

I guess it's time to walk the walk and set the LMT orders for Monday, just in case they get hit during the night while I sleep.

I said I'd be happy with 20k.

This means that I'd be happy to make two thirds back from JPY and whatever is left from the other two (one or both). In case the neither of the other two makes it, then too bad. I'll live with closing slightly below 20k.

Ok, so what does it take to make 1500 back from JPY?

Dude, with a rise of 80 ticks and two contracts, I make about 2000 dollars. That's more than enough.

I'll content myself with a rise to 1.0855 (cfr. chart above, two post above).

For GBP, I am setting a LMT 100 ticks away, just in case JPY doesn't get triggered. I mean, I am expecting some sort of a bounce on all of them.

For GBL, I am also expecting a huge bounce, but I am willing to exit without... ah, forget about that one. I can keep it open, because it rises on Tuesday, and it's oversold. So GBL stays open even if I do recover and get to 20k just with JPY. I am setting takeprofit 65 ticks away.

So, ok, I am done:

1.0855 for JPY
1.5788 for GBP
142.22 for GBL

Make it a 1.0839 on JPY. You never know. Let's not be greedy and regret it later.

And make it a 1.5777 on GBP.

Also, make it 142.11 on GBL.

If they all get executed I make 700 on GBL, 800 on GBP more or less and about 1800 on JPY. That's more than enough.

You know...

idea2develop

I am growing as a trader. I can feel modesty growing in me, and expectations and pride decreasing. I'll fully mature when I'll be able to let go of trades even when they're losing, even without seeing any bounce.

I will keep on working, as long as I have capital, on reducing my ego, and increasing my ability to accept losses.

 

[Yamato]

Hello. Back.

I am about to revise my plan for the third time and further lower my profit expectations of the market.

This is in order to increase my probability of not blowing out my account, after my latest martingale trading binge.

This is what I wrote yesterday:

1.0855 for JPY
1.5788 for GBP
142.22 for GBL

Make it a 1.0839 on JPY. You never know. Let's not be greedy and regret it later.

And make it a 1.5777 on GBP.

Also, make it 142.11 on GBL.

Here's the new values, probably final ones, for tomorrow:

1.0830 for JPY
1.5745 for GBP
142.10 for GBL

And by the way, this is why martingale fails. Because you never have the guts to go with the bounce, but only have the guts to increase your risk until you recover from losses.

...

Wait... eureka.

I just changed my mind again.

I don't have the guts to go with the bounce because I have so many contracts.

But what if I sold 1 contract there and 1 contract higher?

Ok, deal.

I am going to lower the levels even further for the first contract, and hold the other 1-contract positions open until Tuesday as per my initial plan.

1.0815 for JPY but just 1 contract, 1.0895 for the second contract just on Monday (to be raised for Tuesday)
1.5725 for GBP but just 1 contract, 1.5774 for the second contract just on Monday (to be raised for Tuesday)
142.35 for GBL just on Monday (to be raised for Tuesday)

To avoid temptations, I will start the systems (just forward-testing because they're all disabled from real trading) tonight and won't look at TWS until tomorrow night, no, actually until Tuesday morning.

Here's a song I wrote, a long time ago, about the hellish nature of martingale trading. This version, interpreted by Eagles, is my favorite one:

Eagles - Hotel California - YouTube