Calming 

Judging by its contents, the course seems to be for complete beginners. Can you please go over its contents and point which section(s) you meant. I've attached its table of contents in a .pdf. I assume you were talking about the last section "PRACTICAL TRADING PSYCHOLOGY".

I did the course in 2015 and it had less content. The sections 4.5 and 4.6 for record keeping and manual backtesting are the topics I was referring to.

Massive l 

You don't do anything. It gives you an idea of what to expect. You should also know your maximum and average risk exposure. How much heat do you take before price moves in your favor? This then gives you an idea of where your stop should be placed. I take my average risk exposure and double it. That's my stop. Your stop should not be more than your maximum risk. I can always get back in if the signal stays and price moves back into my favor. Increasing winning trades is not necessarily the goal. Increasing my expectancy is. You can't do anything other than to refine your skills as a trader over several categories. These categories include strategy development (reason for opening/closing trades), risk management (knowing your stats/rules), psychological management (following your strategy/managing risk). I want to win so I prefer strats that are at least 50/50. It's hard work and takes a 1000s of hours. I don't know if the 10000 hour rule applies to trading. It takes more than that because you have to prove yourself every year. Being successful with a positive p/l over a few years doesn't mean shit. You have to keep producing and it's 100% up to you and only you. Don't get too excited over early successes. Remain neutral and keep driving. It doesn't stop.

Very true. If all of us had really understood and believed just how much time, work and persistence was actually required to even get close to being a successful trader, then we probably wouldn't have tried. You have to work out what is relevant to price movement and utilise those things....and quickly dispose of things that you learn are irrelevant distractions. This takes more time than you think.

Fully understanding 'expectancy', 'edge', 'probablistic thinking' are a few (non chart) concepts that are critical to understand sooner rather than later. Understanding these will help you develop a realistic mindset that will assist with your work of getting a handle on price movement and how you might be able to exploit it to your advantage.

Massive l 

I trade using a 30 minute and daily chart. My average on the year is 35 points (140 ticks) per trade on 19 winning trades to give you an idea of how frequently I trade.

Impressive! And congrats on reaching such a level of proficiency!

It is, however, different from M5 that Brooks promotes. Looks like, your trading style is more swinging rather than day trading. I am yet to see how his principles apply to other timeframes.

For those of us who do not have access to the restricted section, can you post a couple of your trades? They could also be the most and least productive.

bobwest 

Well, it's what you asked to have happen when you put your stop at that level. Price traded to your stop and out it went. Then price went back down and left you out of the trade. (Not that anyone wouldn't want it to just ignore the stop if the bar is just going to turn back around . But you can't really know in advance, can you?) The only option would be to not use a stop, which is dumb, or not trail your stop down, or at least not so closely to the price bars. For example, if you keep the stop very close to the highs of the previous bar, as you did, you are guaranteed to get stopped out the first time price moves just enough to go above that prior high, which will be very often. Some people trail their stops behind the price movement, and some leave them where they were initially. If you trail them, you have to figure how close to do so, to avoid the small pullbacks such as what you got. If you don't trail them, you don't have an emergency exit in case price turns around before your price target is reached. So there are trade-offs and you will need to work out what you prefer. Probably you were trailing too closely in this case. But you can see that there is no sure way to know how big the pullback will be, and you don't know whether it is just a short-term pullback or an actual price reversal. Part of the game. Bob.

I was using two-point trailing stop. Increasing SL because of possible dojis like those emphasizes even more that one has to look for larger take-profits. The stakes are getting higher.

bobwest 

You seem to have some basic setups. So, do lots of trades with them. See what worked and what didn't. Fix and repeat. You can also expand your knowledge base, but there is a danger in getting too involved with too many complicated things. It's going to take some time. Go slowly, step by step. For instance, I noticed you have Volume Profile and VWAP on some of your charts. These can be great tools, and if you are using them, fine. Nothing wrong with mixing in different styles.... So long as you keep it simple enough that you can make good decisions. There's really no one "best" method, and I imagine that no one who has answered any questions for you so far has used exactly the same method as any other one. Just make sure that you can identify good reasons, as you see things, for your trades, and then execute them unflinchingly. And do a lot of them. Practice is the thing. Bob.

I am rereading Brooks' book to get a deeper understanding of his ideas and putting things in order in my mind.

About VWAP, cannot help but notice that it is usually a 2nd stop once the price action breaks 20EMA. Brooks does not mention it. I am still experimenting with it. Would you recommend getting rid of it? The same goes for Volume Profile.

Clearly, everyone here has come up with their own method. As I develop mine, I am looking for something along the lines of "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

Calming 

I am rereading Brooks' book to get a deeper understanding of his ideas and putting things in order in my mind. About VWAP, cannot help but notice that it is usually a 2nd stop once the price action breaks 20EMA. Brooks does not mention it. I am still experimenting with it. Would you recommend getting rid of it? The same goes for Volume Profile. Clearly, everyone here has come up with their own method. As I develop mine, I am looking for something along the lines of "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

You're right. Everybody has their own method and only some are profitable using it.
For me, as PA trader and based on the learnings of Brooks, I totally discard volume profile and VWAP. And in fact, all other indicators. Yes, in my years of losing money I had tried them all as many traders I know.

You can see more details in my journal, but I have a 5m chart on, EMA20 and EMA220 (hourly). They work fantastic for me on the Bund.

I have volume on their as well which I use to confirm my idea about profit taking of bulls and bears. That means, at some obvious target (a measured move or something), if I see big volume, that's probably going to be close to the end of the move.

Similarly, a breakout closing on its high or low accompanied by some heavy volume just gives me a little confidence, but I usually don't look at volume at all.

Linds 

Fully understanding 'expectancy', 'edge', 'probablistic thinking' are a few (non chart) concepts that are critical to understand sooner rather than later. Understanding these will help you develop a realistic mindset that will assist with your work of getting a handle on price movement and how you might be able to exploit it to your advantage.

Welcome to our discussion.

Massive l

...

has kindly defined 'expectancy' for us. Can you, or someone else, give simple definitions to 'edge' and 'probablistic thinking' as they pertain to trading?

Calming 

I am rereading Brooks' book to get a deeper understanding of his ideas and putting things in order in my mind. About VWAP, cannot help but notice that it is usually a 2nd stop once the price action breaks 20EMA. Brooks does not mention it. I am still experimenting with it. Would you recommend getting rid of it? The same goes for Volume Profile. Clearly, everyone here has come up with their own method. As I develop mine, I am looking for something along the lines of "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

The best advice is to keep it simple.

What Brooks uses is one set of ideas. There are others. People on FIO have used just about every conceivable thing, and, over the years, the same methods have worked for some but not for others. Probably the individual trader's use of them is more important than the method. You will get totally contradictory advice on how to trade, from well-meaning and successful traders, and if it confuses you that one says the exact opposite of another, well, that's because methods that contradict each other can still be made to work, and work well.

This may not be too helpful. Sorry. But it's true.

As to your questions:

Volume profile can get very involved. At this point you have invested some time in price action concepts. I'm not saying that you can't branch out into new ideas, but focus and experience are probably better now. You could start to look into volume and market profile concepts as something to study and eventually decide whether to add it or not. But it probably will take some learning before you are ready to apply it. You will encounter people who tell you it's the only way to go, and then others who tell you it's worthless. Refer to what I said about contradictions just above.

VWAP is a simpler thing: it's essentially the average price for the day, weighting by the size (volume) of the trades, so bigger trades have more impact on it. It can be support or resistance, and/or it can be a marker of whether price is currently exceeding or returning to its average. Interpretation of VWAP and its associated standard deviation bands can also get involved. Many people do put it to good use. Is it better than a regular moving average? Possibly . Depends on how you use it, and that may take some study also. If you wanted to think about VWAP in terms of S/R, that would be a start, and you could see if it helps or not. Just don't get too tangled up in trying too many things at once.

So the best advice remains to keep it simple. Also, stay with something you can understand and apply consistently. When you are doing the same thing, consistently, you can have enough feedback from your trading to know if it is working for you. Then you can make changes, which can include adding new things. Right now you're pretty much using what you found in a book, with some semi-random comments on this web site. You need to do more now. Then you'll have something to think about and work with.

I know you're looking for concrete advice, but the best advice is: do more trades. A lot more.

So make trades, post them, refine your execution, and gather real-world information from trading. Repeat.

Bob.

Brooks rarely mentions volume. One place he mentions it is when discussing trend channel lines at key turning points. I assume he has it on his graphs, or easily accessible, and use it as confirmation rather than a sign.

For those who cannot access your journal in the forbidden section, is there another place to take a look at your examples? One or two would suffice.

Pa Dax 

You're right. Everybody has their own method and only some are profitable using it. For me, as PA trader and based on the learnings of Brooks, I totally discard volume profile and VWAP. And in fact, all other indicators. Yes, in my years of losing money I had tried them all as many traders I know. You can see more details in my journal, but I have a 5m chart on, EMA20 and EMA220 (hourly). They work fantastic for me on the Bund. I have volume on their as well which I use to confirm my idea about profit taking of bulls and bears. That means, at some obvious target (a measured move or something), if I see big volume, that's probably going to be close to the end of the move. Similarly, a breakout closing on its high or low accompanied by some heavy volume just gives me a little confidence, but I usually don't look at volume at all.

KISS all the way! (people can look up this acronym

For now, I see at least two ways to make more trades. 1) Continue daily sim, 2) Do 90-day backtest. Once I figure most common pattern, I'll start on this one.

bobwest 

The best advice is to keep it simple. ... I know you're looking for concrete advice, but the best advice is: do more trades. A lot more. So make trades, post them, refine your execution, and gather real-world information from trading. Repeat. Bob.