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Few things about me: As of 22. Feb. 2014 I'm not consistently profitable yet. I trade live mainly eur/usd spot forex but I make my trading decisions off futures charts only.
I will keep this journal flexible and I welcome you to participate in it.
Yesterday I had one trade. I sold eur/usd at 1,3751 with sl at 1,3766 and took profit at 1,3725. The entry was little early but the outcome was good and I made it according to my plan.
Some things about my 6E charts. Dark gray is Asian session from daily open to Frankfurt open (7AM GMT). Gray is European session from 7AM GMT till NY open 1PM GMT. Maroon is European-NY overlap from 1PM GMT till European close 5PM GMT. Brown is late NY session till daily close. Vertical lines are daily open. Horizontal lines are 1,3750, 1,3725, 1,3700, 1,3675 etc.
Lately I have been learning about human's cognitive biases and fallacies which affect trading and decision making. For example most of us know about hindsight bias: "Sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened." Now that I truly understand it, it's easier not to get too much emotional and do stupid trades after missed trade because I can't be sure if I could have been able to trade it as it happened. I just accept it and move on.
Another example is wishful thinking – "a specific type of appeal to emotion where a decision is made according to what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than according to evidence or reason." When I realize that I'm thinking wishfully, I know that I'm not trading as I should be and for example I have missed to take profit and the trade keep going further against me if I can't close it because of wishful thinking.
What do you think about those human mind "limitations"?
At Monday I shorted eur/usd at 1,3750 and the trade just closed at breakeven. The trade had been two times more than 30 ticks in profit but I couldn't close it and that made me wondering which entry and exit points I could trust more and I also came to the conclusion that I shouldn't hope for home runs, just take the profit that is available.
So I asked myself where could I enter trades that would be constant no matter what instrument, timeframe, (regular) bartype, volatility or anything else? Prior to my new method, I used round numbers to enter my trades but I had a feeling that they aren't that good and I can't trust them enough.
Session/daily/weekly etc. high, low, median etc. are maybe only constant levels no matter what tf, volatility etc. so I wrote two indicators to plot session and daily high, low and 50%(median) and 25% levels (if session range is big enough). I was thrilled to see them on my charts (see the attachement). I don't need to adjust them for changing market conditions or instrument by instrument. Those levels seems to be great levels and colors should help me to pull the trigger. Sure that is still all about discrection and experience in the end but that's the way I want it to be.
I can't remember how many times I have been saying "this is it" only to change things shortly after and I'm sure you can relate that with me. I'm going to keep my charts as they are now for two weeks and only then change something if necessary. If I can't trade them, charts are certainly fine and I should look in the mirror.
One trade today and I'm done for the day. Sold eur/usd at 1,3745 after it failed to move higher and took profit at 1,3695 for 50 ticks. I really like this new chart setup.
Shorted eur/usd this morning at new daily low at 1,3677 and took profit at 1,3657 for 20 ticks. I was about to sell 10 ticks higher at median level but missed it and then I was quite nervous to short new low but R:R was still there and yesterday's big move down was helping the decision. London kept selling so the trade went fine.
Let's see what the rest of the day brings. It could go lower, who knows.. I trade the market, nothing else.
OMG. I still trade spot fx because lack of funds and I only have one broker (Oanda). They have been really good for many years but today few minutes after I bought eur/usd at 1,3663 their trading platform, website and everything went down! My trade size isn't that big so I didn't try to reach them by phone, I just waited and read discussion on twitter what was going on. Well they were over two hours down (they said there was problems with their internet service provider) and luckily my trade was going well even I couldn't manage it anyway..
I decided to close my trade after the trading platform started to work without much thought and to put end for this episode.
That is fellow traders why backup plans needs to be in check, anything can happen.. And I'm moving to several futures brokers as soon as I have enough funds.
Update - On February 27th, OANDA's primary Internet Service Provider (ISP) experienced an outage and as a result our platform lost internet connectivity. We want to assure our clients that at no time was any confidential information breached.
At this time, we would like to report that through the outage our clients were protected in several ways:
-The platform continued to function throughout the network outage and executed stored client orders (Take Profit, Stop Loss, Margin Calls, etc.)
-Client orders triggered on these prices
We take this matter very seriously and are working with our network providers to add additional resiliency to our network connections, to ensure our clients have uninterrupted access to fxTrade. We are also working with our ISPs to evaluate their existing infrastructure as several of their other customers were also affected by this outage.
Simple bad decisions were made on Friday and I made two losing trades and one small profit. When London opened price crossed daily median line and I sold at 1,3710 and later eurozone CPI number came and my SL was hit at 1,3739 for -29 ticks. I wasn't flexible enought to reverse my trade at new daily high before the news and I took a little bit bigger loss because I didn't want to get shaked out unnecessarely. The price was moving so fast that I completely missed the train to the north.
Then I still wanted to short but daily 25% line was 30 ticks from the daily high and I thought that when daily range gets big like today, R:R-ratio for reversal trades becomes small so I added 12,5% reversal line to my levels which activates when range is big enough. 12,5% line was there when I shorted eur/usd again at 1.3800 and my SL got hit at 1.3822 for -22 ticks. Then I shorted one more time again at 12,5% line at 1.3809 but reversal never happened and I managed to get out at 1.3804 for 5 ticks.
At the start of the week when I tried to hold my short two days from 1,3750, I ended up breakeven. Wednesday's and Thursday's trades were great but I couldn't hold them further even they had the potential to move. Losing trades for me happens when I miss a big move and I try to trade against it for a big reversal which seldom happens. I need to be more focused to trade the market, nothing else like p/l, fear/greed, what I think about economic numbers or previous trades.
I started to trade those session/daily levels at Wednesday and I like them a lot. They give me clear levels to concentrate. I tweaked settings for them a little bit at Friday evening, added 12,5 % level, current week high/low and I wanted to see five complete trading days on my chart but the method stayed the same. When big daily range like yesterday happens, 12,5 % and 25 % levels should only be used for tp or just let a trade running, shouldn't try to short at them hoping for reversal.
Monday: 0ticks
Tuesday: -
Wednesday: 50 ticks
Thursday: 20 ticks and 47 ticks
Friday: -27 ticks, -22 ticks and 5ticks
total: 73 ticks
Even the Friday was bad, the week was positive and I'm encouraged to keep trading those levels. Great weekend to everyone!