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price action
Price was in a steady downtrend with lower highs and lows. It then formed a clear first leg pullback consisting of 2 bull bars, then a clear bear bar with a lower low (L1). A second clear pullback of 2 bull bars followed and is near the ema and bear trendline. A bear reversal bar cum inside bar formed just below the ema. I decided to take a short because there has been a clear 2 legged pullback to the ema and trendline and the signal bar looks convincing.
entry
I took an OCO stop entry order. The stop was placed at the signal bar high and the target was at a prior pivot low. The risk is 7 ticks and the reward is 6 ticks.
trade management
I let the trade run its course and did not feel the urge to interfere with the trade. I felt a bit uncomfortable when price was close to the prior low but started to retract upwards. Nonetheless, i did not interfere with the target level and looked at other web sites to keep myself distracted.
exit and post trade PA
Price hit the target
Result: 6 ticks
Price continued its downtrend and made a pair of lower lows and lower highs
On review, this trade was ok. I followed my rules and took a trade which had a good looking setup and signal bar. In my earlier post, I had mentioned that i would be dropping pullbacks from the setups i look out for. However, this setup just looks so obvious. It simply pops up on the chart.
Hence, for pullbacks, i will only take those which are identifiable on first glance on the chart. If i have to focus and make an effort to see it, it probably isn't a good pullback and i will stay on the sidelines. One thing I will look at is that the first and second leg pullbacks have to be obvious with a clear with trend bar separating the 2 legs.
I agree that i should have bought after the first strong bull bar. There could be a follow through after such a first strong upmove. On reflection, i should not have bought when price was grinding up with lots of dojos. It was not after a first strong upmove and the channel was not convincing. I think i was trying to see things when actually there wasn't.
According to Al Brooks the "High or Low of the day" occurs in the first 5 minutes of the day 20% of the time (for the indices). Hence, whenever i see a strong Trend Bar in the first 5 minutes (on the 5 min. chart) I always respect it....thinking that it could be the extreme of the day.
It goes along with Linda Raschke (Taylor Trading Method...which i am just starting to study) that the market has a tendecy to trade High to Low or Low to High.
I am continuing with the journal after a few months off. I made a switch to euro-usd spot forex, opened an account with CMC markets and continued to trade on the 5 min timeframe using price action analysis.
So far, 2014 has not been good. My trades in January have been erratic and ended up break-even for the month. February got off to a very bad start. I made 5 trades today and lost all 5. Reasons are exiting trades rashly, hence affecting my rational thought, not being disciplined in following my criteria in accessing PA setups and pure gambling.
Worse is, these bad trades I made caused my account to fall from being in the green to break even. All the good work done in the last few months was gone in a couple of hours.
Worst of all, I ended up quarrelling with my wife moments before i wrote this post. Feeling lousy and down because of the bad trades was a big factor in the quarrel.
Anyway, the disastrous trades below:
Trade 1 was a L3 pullback to the ema. I entered on a market sell order below the prior bear bar low and got a reasonable entry. Price went down a bit before going back up to form a bull outside bar. I simply panicked and manually got out of the trade even though the stop was not reached. I lost 4.8 pips. This was the start of the downward spiral.
I then made a second trade (Trade 2) on the same bar which I exited the first trade. I "saw" a bull breakout from a bear channel based on a weak reasoning of there being 3 pushes down already and the prior pullback consisted of 4 consecutive bull bars. Price went down and hit the stop. 10 pips was lost.
When price went down to hit the stop for the 2nd trade, I felt foolish and demoralized. I then saw the price may have broken a bear trendline (not shown) and was now testing the prior low to form a potential double bottom. I took a long trade. (Trade 3). Price went up a bit but formed a lower high and went down to form a lower low, hitting the stop in the process. Another 10 pips was lost.
I was feeling idiotic and was in revenge trading and "chasing price" mode now. I felt foolish that i was too focused on trading and seeing reversals when the downtrend was actually a strong one. I should be trading pullbacks all along. After a lower low, there were a few sideways doji bars below the ema. I saw a potential L1 setup after a prior bear doji bar with an upper tail. I took a short. A sideways bear bar followed and price made a sudden big bull gap up. Yet another 10 pips lost.
Now, I was feeling hopeless and couldnt care less about losing money. After the big bull breakout, price formed a series of bull inside bars (could be a bull flag). My mind said enough is enough but my emotions overruled and i still placed a buy trade anyway in the hope of a bull breakout. Needless to say, price fell back to cover the gap and the gamble was a 12.8 pips loser.
Result for the day: -48 pips (5 trades)
Typing this made me feel a bit better though overall i still felt lousy and am low on confidence now.
On review, my biggest problem was lack of discipline and control and poor reading of price action. I think i am looking at too many aspects of price action. Being a jack of all trades while being a master of none. Overtrading is a problem which has been creeping up since Jan 2014.
My review and to-do till it becomes a habit now is as follows:
- Take only ONE good trade for a trading session
- FOCUS on pullback and flags/triangle breakout setups only. Ignore the rest.
- Trade smaller size. Half of what I currently do now.
Ignore reversals for nowbecause from my trade reviews, my success rate for reversals is not good and it is a very tempting setup to take. My journal records (handwritten) show that I took more reversal trades than other setups and lost the most money on reversals.
After the disastrous trading session yesterday, my aim was to start afresh and to focus on making 1 good trade and to look at only pullback and flag/triangle setups if there are any.
When I took a first look at the market, it was in the midst of a possible trend reversal from a bull to bear. The pullbacks were long and bearish, a lower high formed and the bear trend line was broken in the midst of a strong bear pullback. After an upswing from a support level to form a lower high slightly above the ema, it was followed by a bear bar which was also a L2 bar. I saw it as a pullback and looked to enter short.
I entered on a market sell order (yellow arrow in the attached chart). RR ratio was initially 1:1
Trade management was not good. I was still influenced by the losing trades yesterday and adjusted the target level until it was less than half the risk. Price was likely to be in a downtrend and could form a lower low but i was worried about losing and shifted the target up to the prior low, in case price found support there and bounced up strongly.
In the end, price hit the target and went down more. The original target would have been hit if i had not meddled.
On review, today was an improvement. I focused only on pullback or flag/triangle breakout setups and was prepared to sit on the sidelines if price was behaving otherwise. I was patient, waited for the proper setup to appear and did not jump in even though earlier on, price was moving in the anticipated direction while i was still waiting on the sidelines.
Trade management wise, the RR of the trade was poor. I should not have meddled with the target level. The RR level has to be 1 or better.
I find your journal interesting, as I trade the E7/6E/M6E, alot of the price action is similar to the Forex pair. I just posted my trades in my journal.
After the first bull rally, I really looked to enter on each bear leg in the bear channel that was forming. I took my first trade not for sure what was really going to happen, but after it was successful, I was able to enter on each bear leg.
Patience and looking for the correct entry is a great key to successful trading. Also learning to trust your read and not move profit targets is another. I try to only move a profit target if price confirms that my target is unobtainable.
Also on my notes for the trade, I note where 50% profit is, so that way if price comes within a few ticks or pips of my target an waivers I may look to lock in that 50% target with my stop. I also do this in preparation for trading multiple contracts, so I can scalp one out at 50% and bring the second to B/E to allow it to swing for the original target.
I took a look at some spot fx charts on the daily timeframe and spotted a possible setup on the usd-chf pair. Price was in a downtrend, broke the bear trend line and formed what could be a double top bear flag. A lower high formed and it could be a bear pullback in a downtrend.
As usual, there is a possibility that the setup could fail. The risks are that price had broken the bear trend line and there is a higher low after that. The factors that support a continuation of the bear trend are the possible formation of a double top bear flag after the trend line break, the trend line break is not large compared to the length of the trend and there is a lower high which could be a double top pullback.
On the higher time frame weekly chart, there was a series of lower highs and same lows and it could be the formation of a descending triangle. The trend line break was not obvious on the weekly chart.
I placed a stop sell order at 1 pip below the bear signal bar after the lower high.
E: 0.89595
S: 0.90812 (1 pip above the lower high, 121 points)
T: 0.88327 (prior extreme low, 128 points)