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Trading Diary

Trading Diary — Daily Briefings & Market Notes

Twice-daily gold and forex briefings with every claim cross-checked against multiple sources, plus my trading journal: the setups I took, what worked, and what I got wrong.

3Editions
212Journal entries
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Daily Briefing

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Edition #291
Spot Gold XAU/USD4186.00▼ -0.21%

The weekend's biggest risk headlines produced the smallest gold response.

A tanker struck a mine and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz with 22 crew rescued, the US hit a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Oman, and flows through the strait fell to about 8.5mn bpd, some 40% below normal. Spot opened 4195.24 and was trading near 4186 by the Asian afternoon — below Friday's 4194.65 settle. That is not a small reaction to a large event. It is the eighth consecutive time this cycle that a geopolitical premium has been offered to gold and not taken.

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Edition #290
Spot Gold XAU/USD4193.84▲ +1.47%

The same variable that carried Friday has now deteriorated twice more.

Friday close (+1.47%) was credited to Trump ruling out a pre-midterm strike. Within 24 hours he said he may strike, and then over the weekend the IRGC declared a supertanker exploded after hitting mines in Hormuz while the UKMTO reported a tanker struck by an unidentified projectile as it exited the strait — while the UAE coast guard pulled 22 Asian crew from a separate burning vessel. Three separate maritime incidents in roughly 36 hours. The two reports have not been matched to a common hull, and neither is independently confirmed — but the direction of travel is one-way, and it is the one variable the close was explicitly resting on.

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Edition #288
Spot Gold XAU/USD4193.84▲ +1.47%

The bond story flipped - and gold did not.

The morning brief led with yields easing and gold following. Friday closed the opposite way. The 10Y actually rose 1.7bp to 5.24% and the 2Y rose 3.8bp to 4.79%, yet spot gold settled 4193.84, +1.47% near the top of the day. The yield-gold correlation that explained Thursday broke on Friday.

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From the Journal

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I Moved My Stop-Loss 3 Dollars. It Cost Me $12,000.

At 3:47 a.m. Singapore time, I widened my gold stop by 3 dollars. Twenty minutes later I was down $12,000. This is what I found when I audited all 16 of my moved stops.

gold tradingstop-losstrading psychology

I Moved My Stop-Loss 3 Dollars. It Cost Me $12,000.

Everyone says the problem was discipline. It wasn't. I moved my stop 3 dollars on gold and lost $12,000 in 20 minutes — here's what I actually got wrong.

xauusdgoldstop loss

I Moved My Gold Stop-Loss 40 Pips. It Cost Me $12,000.

I moved my XAUUSD stop-loss 40 pips past the level I wrote down at 9 p.m. Twenty minutes later, $12,000 was gone. This is what that night actually taught me.

xauusdgold tradingstop loss discipline

I Moved My Gold Stop-Loss $4. Then $4,000 Was Gone.

I moved my XAUUSD stop-loss 4 dollars lower. Twenty minutes later I was down $12,000. This is what that moment actually taught me about myself.

xauusdgoldstop loss

I Traded Head and Shoulders and Double Bottoms in Gold. Only Fibonacci Survived

educationgoldforex

Moving Averages Kept Lying to Me in Gold: The Four Trades That Sent Me Back to

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I Ran Bollinger Bands and RSI for Three Years. Then I Deleted Both.

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The Gold-Dollar Negative Correlation Is Not a Rule. It's a Phase.

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Trading Psychology: Why You Chase Rallies and Panic Sell

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The 5 Psychological Traps That Keep Blowing Up Beginner Traders

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Forex Money Management: Kelly and Fixed Fractional Risk

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Leverage and Margin for Beginners: The Mechanics That Empty Accounts Quietly

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