Prez Forex (pres78) Trading Journal

First time here? Read this post in full and then head to post 19... Posts 2 to 18 are no longer applicable to me or how I trade. Second, third, fourth or one hundredth time here and have a question in your head please check here first and if it's not covered under the FAQ section (thanks Liam for this suggestion) and you don't recall reading it in this forum then by all means ask away and I will do my best to help.

VZA - Basic Rules and Chart Set-up for Intraday Trading - **START WITH THIS FOR TESING VZA BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANYTHING MORE ADVANCED

1. At the start of the new trading day (using NY close as a reference) place a fib on the highest volume 1hr bar from the day before (regardless of spread).
2. Take the fib's hinge (50%) and place a line at the daily ADR above and below the hinge.
3. Zoom out and find a zone at those lines to use as a target if we get an entry from our previous days zone. Again this target zone could be at, or slightly closer than or slightly further away than the days ADR line. This is simply a targeted point of interest where we expect some sort of countermanding reaction to what the trade direction would be.
4. Always place the most weight on the most current zones (yesterday's and today's as they form - both for new possible trade set-ups and also for signs that PA may be reversing on current positions etc...).
5. When starting out ONLY take longs from the H and shorts from the L, leave the 50% alone until you are comfortable trading the edges.
6. The entry signal (whatever that may be for you) MUST touch the fib level, we don't want floating signals as they are too unreliable and can often fail.

ABBREVIATIONS USED

I am tired of typing everything out so see the list of abbreviations I will be using in my posts. At times I may even combine these into a longer abbreviations (example - YVZH = yesterday volume zone high).

1. VZA = volume zone analysis
2. WRB = wide range bar
3. UHV = ultra high volume
4. VZ = volume zone
5. YVZ = yesterday's volume zone
6. TVZ = today's volume zone
7. Y = yesterday
8. T = today
9. H = high
10. L = low
11. M = mid or 50% level of a zone
12. ND = no demand
13. NS = no supply
14. NBP = no buying pressure
15. NSP = no selling pressure
16. 2BR = 2 bar reversal
17. R = Resistance
18. S = Support
19. ACC = Accumulation
20. DIST = Distribution
21. LO = London Open
22. LC = London Close
23. NYO = New York Open
24. NYC = New York City (kidding) New York Close

FAQ

Q1. Why do you no longer trade pure VSA?

R1. See post 19. The long and short I needed more than what VSA alone gave me. I owe where I am today to having learnt VSA and still use some of what they teach (certain bar patterns) but mostly I am grateful for having learned to read and understand volume and spread and the clues these two factors when they happen at the right location. This is what was missing for me from VSA and what I gain from VZA.

Q2. What is a pres78 2BR?

R2. A pres78 2BR is a 2 bar pattern that I love to trade. It is by far my favorite entry pattern. I had never seen or read anything on the web or in any books that had this very specific set of rules so I named it a pres78 2BR in my trading plan. For the sake of this response I will describe a buyers pattern.

1. Bar 1 is a down bar into either a zone 50% (if this level has become active) or the zone H. I like to see an increase in volume on this bar as compare to the last couple of bar THIS IS A MUST AS IT INCREASES THE PATTERNS SUCESS.
2. Bar 2 is an up bar which MUST, make a LL, be on lower volume than bar 1, close at or near it's high, close at or over 50% of bar 1 (bonus points if it closes over the open of bar 1) and close over the zone level being tested.

See the lovely example posted by VSAgav in this POST. Thanks gav! This will save people some time searching though my hundreds of charts and thousands of posts to find them.

Q3. What TF zones do you use?

1. R3.#1 For scalping and intraday trading (what I mainly show here) I use 1hr zones as my main zones (at times you will see me dissect the zone into sections using the 15min chart but I won't cover that here). If we have crazy spread or volume bars on 4hr and Daily chart (as we saw on EURUSD for example on Dec 3rd) I will also put them on as background zones so I am aware when we approach their levels.
2. R3.#2 For swing trading I use 4hr, Daily, Weekly and even Monthly zones. Obviously the higher the TF the less set-ups you get each year.

Q4. What TF's do you use for entries?

1. R4.#1 For intraday trading (what I mainly show here) I use 5min, 15min, 30min and 1hr.
2. R4.#2 For scalping I use 1min and 5min.
3. R4.#3 For swing trading I use 4hr, Daily, Weekly and even Monthly entries. Obviously the higher the TF the less set-ups you get each year.

Q5. What items do you trade?

R5. I intraday and swing trade items with an ADR of at least 100 pips and average spreads of 5 or less. When scalping I like to focus on pairs with sub 2 spreads (this can make a huge difference in a successful scalp). Right now on my platform I am watching the following. EURAUD, EURCAD, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURNZD, EURUSD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, GBPNZD, GBPUSD, USDCAD, WTI (light crude), Mini S&P, Mini Dow and Gold.

This week I made 19 trades with 12 wins for 213 pips and 7 losses for 73 pips. This gave me a net gain of 140 pips.

Now I have set for myself a goal of 40 pips a day or 200 pips a week (some people might think that this goal is a little high but it has worked for me). Some weeks I hit it, some weeks I miss it and others I may even exceed it. Either way it doesn't matter as long as I end the week in profit. Having a goal each days just gives me something to shoot for and keeps my head on straight.



Now as you can see from the attached summary the week started out a little rough. 3 wins, 1 loss, 1 win and then a string of 6 more losses. By the end of this run I was actually -18 pips for the week, ouch...

I ended the day with a nice 43 pip gain during the FOMC meeting... yes I do trade some new releases if I feel the reward outweighs the risk. For this trade I had entered 6 hours prior to news with a bullish outlook and After much reading and following the news sites I felt that the FOMC was going to give a dovish report which would be bad for the USD... Everyone is busy right now trying to depreciate their own currencies so it was inevitable.

I got out of this trade way too early as this one hourly candle continued to climb another 80 or 90 pips past my target... This is truly my trading weakness right now. I still haven't been able to learn how to get in low on these big moves and ride them until they are done. I mean this one upswing went on for most of the nexy day also. Luckily I was able to get another 50 pips on two more trades during the huge move up. My issue is that the price rockets up, dies, moves down (this is when I get out), corrects, collects more buyers and keeps on trucking with me sitting on the side of the road. What scares me most is I have witnessed many times a huge move up or down after the news which does not continue but actually corrects and retraces all the way back to where it came from. I figure some profits gained are better than coming back to see that all of your profits have disapeared.

After my last loss I have been able to string together 8 straight wins pulling myself from -18 to +140...

A few of my trades could have been more like the 8 pip gain I made on the EURUSD on the 24th. I had to leave my computer (I trade around my full time job) so I set a trailing stop which saved me 8 pips when it retraced but the PA ended up carrying all the way to my original TP which would have given me 35 pips.. Again oh well. PA could have just as easily moved down and hit my original SL.

As you can see I don't always us SL. If I am there to watch the trade or if I expect some possible large swings up and down like during news I will leave them off. I have seen time and time again a jerk reaction down to news of 30-50 pips before turning a moving up the opposite direction 100-200 pips. I assume this is caused by all those on the wrong side dumping their trades before climbing in on the right side...

I am actualy demoing an indicator or maybe a script (I can't remember) that places hidden SL and TP and BE figures to see if I can utilize it in my trading.

One thing I would like to point out is that 5 of my 7 losses were caused by my own stupidy and because I let emotion take over (huge mistake). I opened a buy on the EURUSD on 9/20/2010 at 18:47 which eventually close on 9/21/2010 at 08:11 for a 15 pip gain. Well that 15 pip gain cost me 37 pips in losses. Now all of my reviews, studying and charts told me that price wanted to continue up but I didnt trust by own anlysis and I decided to take a hedge trade to try and grab some pips while waiting for the trade to go back my way. The first time I tried to hedge I opened a NZDUSD trade by accident for a 6 pip loss and then the correct EURUSD trade for a 20 pip loss. The next day I opened another 2 hedges for -11 pips and what happened after I wasted 37 pips? Yep you guessed it... it went up and eventually hit my target and kept on going up and up and up... but I have already explained my issue with getting out too quick.

The 9/21 GBPUSD at 13:25 and the 9/21 EURUSD at 14:47 loses were both just bad trades taken. Those happen and are part of this business. It is the stupid emotion based trades that I want to eliminate...

Thus this thread was born.

The markets are quite right now as all markets but NY are closed for the day. I have decided that rather than waiting until Satuday or Sunday to post for the whole week I would write down my thought now for Monday and Tuesday. I will update / edit this post as the week goes on if time allows otherwise I will finish it up this weekend. Also summary for this weeks trades will be attached this weekend.

I took 3 trades on Monday (one closed today) with 2 losers and 1 winner, not a great start. At the end of these 3 trades I sat at -20 pips for the week and +120 pips since I started this thread. I tried taking a couple of trades on USDCAD which I haven't really traded before so I don't fully understand it's movements. One was a -22 and the other a +10.

My other loss for the day was a long trade that I took way too late in the upmove at 1.3499 (dumbass). I held this trade (with very scary drawdown) until early London Session on Tuesday and gladly jump out with a -8 pips. In hindsight I should have stuck with this trade as price skyrocketed to 1.3590 during Tuesday's trading.

Tuesday has been better with 2 trades taken for 2 wins totalling 70 pips bringing my total to +190 pips since I started this thread.

Both were long EURUSD one from 1.3424 to 1.3464 and the other from 1.3462 to 1.3492 (I jumped out when price was struggling at 1.35 again) I was not able to get back in for the next 100 pip move up as I do trade around a full time job... Ah well C'est la vie! (That's Life)

Wednesday the 29th...

I took one trade today which was a bad sell at the bottom of a retrace. I closed the trade on the 30th for -54 pips. 136 pips since I started this thread (-4 pips for the week).

Thursday the 30th...

I took 2 trade and closed them both for -3 pips (-6 total). In hindsight if I left these trades open they would have both been good trades from 1.3657 since price climbed to just over 1.38. 130 pips since I started the thread (-10 pips for the week).

Friday Oct 1st..

I took one trade and closed it for 10 pips (bought 2 lots out of frustration... could have killed my money management). So I finished the week as such. 140 pips since I started this thread (even for the week on pips)

Well all in all the week may seem like a bit of a waste with 9 trades taken for 0 pips gained. But I end the week up a little in cash and even on pips and hey I LIVED TO TRADE ANOTHER WEEK.

See you next weekend...

update?

happy further pipping!

So far this week I am up 108 pips. Had a trade today that I had a TP of 30 pips with a trailing stop of 15 pips. I bought EUR/USD at 1.3874 with a TP of 1.3904. I set a trailing stop as I had to be away from my computer of 15 pips. PA went up hit my trailing stop level... went up another 11 pips (a mere 4 pips away from my TP)... reversed back down to hit my TS at 1.3885 for an 11 pip gain. PA then of course as you know continued on up well past my TP of 1.3904 to over 1.3940... Made 19 pips less than I could have but hey green pips are green pips and = money in the bank.

Full trade update will be posted this weekend for the week of Oct 4th to the 8th.

Thanks for taking them time to check out my journal.

looking forward for the update
what do u trade mainly? how much experience du u have in forex?

I look for opportunties on most pairs as long as spread is 4 pips or less. My main 2 pairs are EURUSD and GBPUSD. Other pairs I am still trying to get a feel for and seem to take more losses than wins at the moment. I have been trading live with micro accounts for a little under a year but have become more serious over the last few weeks since starting this thread. I have been studying and reading everything I could get my hands on for the last 2 years even before I really started trading. I am still working to find a system / strategy that I am 100% confident in.

And how has your trading been? How long have you been trading and what type of trading style / system do you implement? I see that you have a voucher from nanningbob... seems that is a good voucher to have as he seems to be a well respected trader / programmer around this site.

This week I took 12 trades with 10 wins and 2 loses for a net gain of 294 pips. This brings me to 434 pips gained since I started this thread 3 weeks ago.

Two of my trades were traded as double lots.

The first one was a news trade on the AUDUSD that I tried to get in much lower on the retracement but by the time my broker opened my position I was at the top of the first 15 min spike candle. Fortunately I was able to get the 15 pips (30 total between 2 lots) I wanted to grab from the trade (it just took a little longer).

The second was on the GBPUSD during the NFP. This trade was a bit riskier as NFP data could come in at good or bad and good and bad data could drive this pair either way depending on risk on / risk off / QE2 etc... I got in fairly low and rode it most of the way up for 90 pips (180 total between 2 lots). Actually it was a weird one as it went up 50 or 60 pips, reversed all the way back down and the went back up further than the initial spike. Normally for news that is USD bearish you will see a small spike down, large 50-60 pip move up (sometime more)... a 20-30 pips retracement and then it continues up usually for the rest of the day pending any further news whether posted or breaking.

Jumping around a bit we will stay on Friday... I opened a trade on Thursday the 7th on the GBPUSD on what I thought was a retrace after the first test of 1.6000. I opened the trade at 1.5970 looking to pick up an easy 30 pips on the re-test. I was away from my computer after I opened the trade and was not around for the drop in unemployment claims for the US which proved to be very USD bullish. Also I had not set a SL on this trade so when I can back to check I was horrified when I saw how far south this pair had travelled. I look at PA, checked higher timeframes to see if we had gotten low enough to break the clean uptrend we started in September...

My analysis left me comfortable that the uptrend was still intact and another re-test of 1.6000 would be in the cards and saw the opportunity to possible take advantage of the NFP to drive this pair back up and gain pips while cutting down on the losing trade. I ended as you can see by cutting the losing trade at -20 pips... very easy to swallow after where it was less than a day before.

The rest of my trades for the week are pretty straight forward get in, get ourt for 5-20 pips with the exception of Mondays trade for 45 pips on the GBPUSD.

Two other trades I want to keep in the back of my mind was the 11 pip gain on the EURUSD. I was going for 30 pips (which I would have gotten) but I had to be away from the computer so I set a trailing SL of 15 pips which got hit at an 11 pip gain before moving up to and beyond my target TP.

The other one was my USDCAD trade on Friday that I closed for a 25 pip loss which eventually went on to hit my 30 pip TP and went another 30 or 40 pips past it. I closed this trade after some mixed news on the CAD pair (lost jobs but improved rate)... scared me into closing. I should have left this open through the NFP based on my trading bias that the news would end up being USD bearish...

The last thing I am trying to forget that you may notice in my summary is the 3 trades I had as pending sell orders for the EURUSD and GBPUSD. I saw the 1.4000 and 1.6000 levels as major phsyc, profit taking levels that could cause some big retracements. PA reacted to both levels exactly how I thought they would as both pairs dropped the 100 pips shown on my TP and then some. I had it set to take 2 on GBPUSD as it was closer to the 1.6 level at the time then EURUSD was to 1.4.

If I had only trusted my analysis and judgement and left the trades to run their course I could've been 300 pips richer. In this business you have to trust and stick with your analysis in both winning and losing trades or you risk losing out on those good trades and are left on the sidelines saying "man I wish I was in that trade... oh wait I would've been if I had just trusted myself"...

What will next week bring? Time will tell and with the way the market is right now it should be interesting.

See you next weekend.

Today has been a quiet day with some market holidays so I have decied to start posting my updates perhaps daily. It is hard sometimes to sit down on the weekend and remeber exactly how or why trades from earlier that week actually played out the way they did. I will however post my weekly statement at the end of the week with Friday's update.

Monday Oct 11th...

I took 3 trades during the first 9 hours that the market was opened with 3 wins totaling 102 pips. This brings my total pips gained to 536 since I started this thread.

All 3 trades we EURUSD shorts taken based on bearish PA and the normal market reaction to close the big opening gap.

I sold at 1.3982 with a TP of 1.3975, I sold again at 1.4001 with the same TP of 1.3975 when a large 15min bullish candle went against my first order. My original TP was 1.3952 but I adjusted it when I opened the second trade.

My third order was a sell at 1.3962 with a TP of 1.3953 (all 3 trades could have been held to a much large TP) as this gave me 102 pips which I was more than happy with on a holiday Monday.

My first 2 trades were 2 lots and my third trade was 4 lots. This is higher than my normal 1 lot per trade but with that huge gap up I felt the risk was worth the reward.

No further update this week as I haven't traded since Monday... missed some crazy PA but oh well.

I have decided to take a few weeks off trading as i am back to the drawing board on my trading system. I am doing a complete overhaul of my system to try and come up with something a little more user friendly for someone who works full time and can't mointor the action at all times. My current system has some holes in it that could really burn me if I get caught with my pants down so to speak.

I have been toying with a few ideas over the last few weeks and it's time to put some of them to the test by re-vamping my charts / templates and bringing in some email alerts for trigger times to get back to the charts without having to be right there at all times.

I have some good thoughts and am very excited to see how this plays out over the next few weeks as I tweak my system to better suit my needs and trading style. Back to paper trading off my live account as I don't believe that demo trading gives you the whole story.

I will be back once I get 100% happy with my updated system.

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and prosperous Forex New Year. I will be back in 2011 with a New Trading plan and some great new ideas.

wish u merry xmas and a happy new year as well !

looking forward to it

hello
so what s up with 2011 training plan?

To busy executing it. I started studying VSA over at Malc's thread and now that is all I trade. My trading plan is based on it and I was participating a lot over there and now more focused on my trading. Time just isn't there to keep up this journal also.

ah ok
are you sharing your trading plan over the other thread?

Not my trading plan per say (decided to keep that private) but I have shared how I trade using VSA (tons of charts posted) and how I set-up my charts each weekend for the upcoming week.

Chart Dump...

Figured I'd revive my long dead journal (from a different time in my trading career) as a quiet place to share a few thoughts and a few charts with whoever cares to stop by. As I trade a mixture of VSA with my own twist that I call VZA I guess here is as good a place as any.

Outside the VSA thread since as I've clearly stated many times I don't trade pure VSA but as that was my real home here at FF I continued to share at that thread. However it's been brought to my attention that after all my years there I'm not supposed to post anymore as I don't trade pure VSA. I was also advised that my method is a joke and my method is a losing method too.

Who knew? Not me.

So here I find myself off the main drag in the journals section. Probably not all bad. A nice place to spend some time in between or while in trades as they play out. Will most likely be pretty dead in here but then again the ol' VSA thread has barely had a pulse for a long time now.

I am not here to post trade calls and I will post some after the fact charts, some live charts, some in the trade charts and some here's what I am watching charts but not on an consistent basis. In my years at the VSA thread I've posted loads of trade calls and levels and quite frankly I am not here to prove myself, nor my method (which is why I am not starting a trade system thread) as I've been there and done that enough already.

I am also not trying to push the way I trade on anyone. I have a method that works and that others have had success with too so I continue to share what I know and what I do in the hopes that a few others may pull something of use out of how I trade.

Ok enough chat, now a chart.

GBPJPY 1 hour chart, took a long after that lovely 2BR off the Friday zone high. Had room for better than 1:1 to the next zone above (Thursday) and currently locked in at 2:1 which is further back than I normally would trail (this trade has hit 5:1 so my normal trailing would have me at 3:1 but I liked the 2:1 area for the moment as it was a nice transition point within that Thursday zone and below 50% of today's zone).

Simple, repeatable process that I use day after day, I've shown hundreds of charts and this one is no different.

Will let this one run a while before re-evaluating.

And to save someone wasting their and my time stating the obvious as some like to do, yes I know that my MT4 Forex volume is tick volume and not real volume. Also I don't care.

Closed out for 3:1 after we got the highest volume of the day 15 minute bar right at the days high, PA closed below the low and printed a 5 minute ND. That was enough short term weakness for me to want to get out. Moved my SL up to 185.25 locking in 3:1 which was below 50% level of today's highest volume 1 hour zone. I was stopped out on the push down through back towards that $185 level (Shared Level).

Hit 5:1 at the highest point, banked 3:1. Can't complain for a Monday.