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Quick update. Watching the trade too much as I always do. Moved one part of stop loss up to lock in 10 pips or so. Counting on 1.3650 holding as support for a test of 1.3680.
See 1.3650 is Yesterdays High and this is the 5th attack on this level.
Emotions
In general like the look of the trade, feeling nervous its going to come back and take me out for tiny profit.
Need to not pile on so much pressure over a single trade. 1.3670 looks tough to crack with Daily R1 and W-Mid (50% fib).
Expansion bands are turning up on the 8 Range chart
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
EURUSD trade played out reasonably well. Got chopped out of one mini-lot for 11 pips and hit my +50 pip target on the other half.
A lot of unecessary emotion and watching trade was had to get those pips. If I had left the trade to play out, the outcome would be the same, except I wouldn't have been chopped out of a contract on the way up.
Anyway, it will do for this week. Getting happier with my trades nearer the end of the week. Why ? I feel like I am getting a consistent set of charts together, and this is the foundation of my trading system, I believe.
Easy to be positive when you didn't lose, lets see what I write when the trade goes against me.
So also attached is weekly summary of trades. For the whole week, earned $4.10. Cool!!! But, what I have learnt is much more valuable. The trade on the 10th was a good short entry, but I was on the wrong side of the market in the end. Should have had smaller stops, but easier to say that after the trade has completed.
Thanks Mike for the prompt I have been following markets, but mainly trying to finalize my chart setups in Ninjatrader. These will be the setups I will use to start trying to form a trading system and plan.
Before I recap that, what else have I been doing with regard to trading. Well not too much, in terms of following the markets, from a fundamental/news perspective I pretty much only follow forexlive and forexfactory economic news. Apologies if this is considered advertising or something, if so please let me know.
I also watched over a couple of days posted by kbit ( A Trader's Guide to Self-Discipline) by Dr. Brett Steenbarger. Very interesting with the concept of vertical split personality. I recognise a large degree of self sabotage in my trading and am working on my emotional triggers for a while. What I havent been able to do is have any real constructive approach to address these issues. The video helped me to see this and look at taking note of emotions and what triggers me to impulse trade or take trades without a consistant signal. Of course, if you have had the time (or interest) to read my journal so far you will know that the lack of system is one of the root causes of this lack of consistency.
Anyway, so I know I have a heap of emotions to deal with in my trading, and I have moved from overtrading or trading on impulse to not wanting to pull the trigger on many trade ideas I see, due to lack of confidence and NOT WANTING TO BE WRONG..... Pure poison to a successful trade. Thing is though, as I standardize my charts and follow the market looking at signals, I seem alot of great trades, many of which play out. I'm not in the trades, but its the consistent view of a price chart that I am currently interested in.
I realise I write alot of detail, but I find it very cathartic and it helps me focus on what I should be doing in developing my trading plan. As usual, its getting late, 10pm here in Australia, so I am going to chuck a couple more posts in on my chart setups and the 2 trades I have taken so fact this week.
1. I prefer short term trades, ideally 1-5 hours.
2. Happy to hold longer if trade is going my way, but so far never been able to hold for longer than a day or two.
3. I have a strong interest in price action and my use of indicators is largely as a guide to assist in following the price relative to its value. I largely do this by following daily, weekly and monthly pivots, as well as weekly fib levels.
Charts
Single Pair
For a complete view of levels and price action I have 4 charts of different timeframes on a single screen. Not sure how they will load but 1st attachment shows the 4 screens in action on EURUSD, bit of a gigantic chart as in full HD mode (sorry). I will go through each chart individually, 1) For indicators on the chart 2) My reasoning for choosing this chart.
1. Daily (1440 Min)
Daily chart for overall trend (of course).
Indicators
SMAs (50, 100, 200) - Green, Blue, Red respectively ATR (14) anaPivotsMonthlyV37 - Important Monthly levels, also shows Previous Month levels. You can see that EURUSD has been trapped in a range from 1.3850 - 1.3480 until a break lower today. anaCurrentMonthOHLV37 - Dynamic Fib Levels.
2. 60 Min
I did originally have this as 240 min chart, but felt that given my preference for intraday trading that 60 mins was better at allowing be to see the trend. It probably looks quite busy, but when I really want to study I will maximize the single chart.
Indicators
BarTimer - When's the next hourly candle going to close. anaSuperTrend - Just look at the clean intraday trends supertrend has shown in the last few weeks. Very helpful indicator to guage price. Entries still need refinement, but my trading style would probably try and enter near the trend change level (i.e retest) rather than when the signal is first generated as that by its nature will generate false signals where you buy at the top, sell at the bottom etc. MultiPeriodCandles - Really like this one, I have it set to 24 periods, so each larger shaded candle represents a days trading. Look at Mon, Tue where both daily candles were formed with straight sell offs. Todays candle is red but the market has bounced around to form that candle. anaPivotsMonthlyV37 - S/R levels anaPivotsWeeklyV37 - S/R levels
3. 30 Min
Down to 30 mins now and I can also flip the time on this to 15 min, 5 min etc when looking for entries.
This is more where I will be looking for entries.
Indicators
BMAEnveloperExpansion - Love this indicator. Finding it very powerful for price action, generates alot of signals particularly of the Base bar (black dotted). The fib lines allow you to too how extreme the move is and set targets and stops around those bands. Still refining how to enter and exit, but again this is about have a standard setup and sticking to it. anaCurrentWeekOHLV37 - Usual reasons.
anaPivotsWeeklyV37 - Usual reasons. anaPivotsDailyV37 - For intraday, again a good picture of where we are. For example, EURUSD today opened just below PP, market went down to 1.3428 through Asia session, then came all the way back up in Europe to kiss 1.3560 which is daily PP. Still holding bearish....
4. 8 Range Bars
In a way the chart setup is quite similar to the previous one, just this time we are focused on just price not time.
BMAEnveloperExpansion - Main indicator for this chart, again very reliable, especially when market is trending intraday. anaPivotsWeeklyV37 - Usual reasons. anaPivotsDailyV37 - For intraday, again a good picture of where we are. For example, EURUSD today opened just below PP, market went down to 1.3428 through Asia session, then came all the way back up in Europe to kiss 1.3560 which is daily PP. Still holding bearish.... anaCurrentWeekOHLV37 - Usual reasons.
So there you go, probably looks overly complex for most people, but it is actually simpler than it looks, as it is largely pivots and fibs automatically plotted. I guess the issue it does cause me is which timeframe to I take my trade in, relative to stops and targets ?
The answer to this I do not know yet, but what I like is that I have many options with this setup and largely they all focus on the same principles. Well, we will see how we go with it, but I am happy that I have finally fixed on something that I am comfortable with.
Trade 1 Long EURUSD at 1.3650. On the 30 Min chart the EURUSD was in a strong downtrend, so why did I take the trade ? Well there was an hour or 2 pause around that level, and 1.3650 has been quite significant in last few days, so was counting on a bounce at least to 1.3700 (which was my 1st target). Stop was 30 pips but I has to mini-lots.
I had set an autobreakeven strategy on the 2nd lot at 25 pips profit, just to be save, but it didnt reach it as this trade happened overnight when I was sleeping. Chart is attached. With hindsight I shouldn't have taken it, as price was below BMCollective line, but as it was 2 fibs down a retrace looked possible, but not enough.
Trade 2 Long EURUSD at 1.3450. This was today and I had been watching the market on and off while working from home on other stuff. EURUSD certainly got hammered in Asia and it looked ripe for a retest of at least yesterdays low (Y-Low) at 1.3499 before more downside. Well as I had had a loser earlier in the week, I went to a single contract and put a stop just below the low of the week (made in asia earlier that day). The chart tells the picture where it took me out before doing the move I was trading for (and then some)......
So I got punished so far this week, but not majorly. My first trade didnt turn out well, but then since being stopped out on monday it still hasnt come back up to that level, so without the discipline to take the loss, it would have hurt alot more. So very happy that I kept to that plan.
2nd trade - these are the ones I don't like. When I first started trading I would say, ooohh the broker hunted my stop :-) Yeah right....by entry level was ok, but my stop was not wide enough thats all. Painful, but thats the joy of trading. Next time I will do better, or I might lose again, just make sure I know why I am taking the trade.
Well I seem to keep going for countertrend reversals.
I have got 3 2 mini lot orders in the market at the moment. Bit of a trading experiement, if they all went against me it would be like 3 % account loss. However, the EURUSD 30 Min is a straddle trade. If it pops up, i'm counting on some good selling pressure around the 1.3640-1.3650 level. Other buy order is at 1.3554 if trade triggered first, then will cancel the other one.
AUDUSD short order at 1.0111. Quite a significant level in last 2 weeks. Looks like I am going to be in that one in a few minutes. See attached chart.
Emotions : Little bit worried that I am going to miss the AUSUSD short, or be totally wrong and be blown through. All 3 entries are good levels of S/D levels. I am going to record emotions as I watch this trade idea develop.
Any outcome is a good outcome if I stick to my trade plan. I'll write out the ATM strategy attached to the trades as well.
Emotions: Think I have missed the AUDUSD, short if drops far and returns, maybe cancel order. I don't have a criteria in my trade plan to cancel a limit order when missed in a certain range, do I need one ?
Cancelled the AUDUSD short and the EURUSD short, but EURUSD long triggered, hence reason to cancel the others to reduce risk.
Immediately broke through my by level and bounced off 1.3520, which has been important this week. With hindsight, I should have looked at a long closer to that level. But whenever i look at taking a trade I think I am going to miss the move. BMACollective is ast 1.3520, with my stop at 1.3510. Ok, well Im going to let it play out but probability is I will be stopped out for 80 pips or 1.3% ... boooooo! That would make no winning trade for the whole week.
No worries, its demo, and I am not making stupid trades I am waiting for the market to come to me, so I am learning, you cant always be wrong and and you cant always be right.
Ok, gonna let the market decide, easier with demo, but I need to go to sleep and its not over till the fat lady sings.