Exiting the Rat Race

The purpose of me posting this at this point is for my own personal documentation. I am not going to explain my strategy in detail right now. I have no ego and am not trying to prove anything to anyone. I have one goal in mind: never work for anyone else ever again. No boss. No customers. No competition. No anoying co-workers or employees. Just me and the market.

Just a hint of how I trade, I am a price action scalper. I use a 1 minute chart and try to make a little from a lot of trades. I also use the fibonacci retracements and extentions. Occasionally I'll throw on the RSI just to confirm what price action is already telling me. I do longer term trades as well if I see an obvious pattern, but mainly my strategy requires screen time. I plot out support and resistance lines on a chart and watch how price responds to them and place trades accordingly. Most trades are from pending orders at key levels. I have back and forward tested my strategy extensively and it is consistently profitable. Even so it still evolves and improves as I learn more (as this journal shows). Now is the test to see if I can be disciplined enough to trade it profitably and make a living from it. I have no other job currently and I trade full time.

Pips
-26.1
14.8
10
22.9
18
-14.6
0.7
7.7
4
7.6
1.7
-3
-5
8.9
5.7
5
6.5
1.9
4.3
-6
8.1
14.2
9.2
7.5
9.9
-29.5
32.6
5.4
Total: 122.4

Not as much time spent trading, smaller day, yet profitable.

1.5
-0.3
-3.9
4
-1.6
2.1
4.6
7.9
14.1
0.2
5.5
5.5
15.3
9.8
Total
64.7

Ended up with +10 on this one, but was sweating it for 3 hours. If it would have climbed above the swing high I would have resorted to hedging. Used my trade CPR technique and ended up positive on a retrace at the 38.2 fib level.

In retrospect I should have put in long orders on the break of the range and the breaks of the highs made after momentum slowed on the up move (each new peak). I would have made money on my long positions this way and broke even on my shorts.

-0.2
-35.7
-33.6
-24.6
-21.6
-2.2
11.1
19.5
33.1
26.9
38.1
Total
10.8

I cant get the charts to upload, oh well.

My CPR technique is the very reason I don't use stops, I break even on my bad trades this way. It is based on adding to a loosing position when momentum slows and closing all positions when the inevitable retrace occurs.

This goes against conventional trading wisdom but I have used it successfully for a while. The trouble is when a gigantic move occurs, then CPR is more difficult, but so far I have never NOT been able to bring a bad trade back to life. It may take a while, but retraces are inevitable. That is just the pattern of the market. It only has to retrace a little in order for CPR to be successfull.

As mentioned before, retraces are inevitable. I am wondering when EUR will find a bottom. Perhaps it already has. It is always a good idea to go with the trend but EUR is so oversold right now it seems risky. Is this recent up move part of a major retrace? Time will tell. Meanwhile, watching the 61.8 level pulled from the bottom to the recent swing high for confirmation of continuation downward. If it holds perhaps we are in somewhat of a retrace, if not, perhaps the down move will continue, and I can scalp on the way down.

Rough day, 2 bad trades. Had to hedge the second one. The second one was a bad short. Pulled fibs, fibs indicated long. Set set equal amount of longs as shorts and closed longs at T1 then put on another equal amount of shorts for trade CPR. Ended up ahead with 140 total for the day. Wouldn't have come out ahead without the hedge. Made 268 on longs and closed shorts at .382 at net -260 or so. Pretty much broke even. Made a few pips scalping smaller moves to get the 140.

One thing I want to clarify, I am not counting pips like most traders do. I scale in and out of positions, so I add up all the pips from each individual position and combine them, so don't be too impressed by the large number of pips I am recording here. I am doing it so I can keep track.

The important thing is my account is consistently growing day by day.

Saw that Euro was obviously overbought, RSI 12 was above 70 on 1 hour. Also price was a bit above the 0.382 level from the downmove on the daily. Placed sell at market with buy above swing high as hedge and let it go overnight. Woke up with +190 pips, with market stuck in a range. Waited for price to reach bottom of range then closed at +205.5 .

Price bounced of the 0.618 level, on the way down, then bounced off the 0.382 level on the way up, each level as support and resistance. Momentum slowed so thought it was a good time to exit. Waiting for a break of 1.4084 to place another short, 1.4310 for a long. It needs to break out of this range in order to establish a more thorough direction.

Still cant upload charts. I wonder what the deal is?

I've had all winning trades today, that overnight trade combined with my scalps so far has me up +330 pips for the day. I scalped the breakout of the range on the Euro long and then placed a short on the retrace a little above T1 and rode it down for +70 or so (2 shorts).

Rejection of 1.4310. Market is still undecided but if the current fib holds on the 1 min chart and it breaks 1.4310 this time, then we may be in for quite the ride long. Perhaps all the way to 1.4666 or so (with bumps on the way of course) the T1 of the longer time frame fib.

Hovering around the .50 fib on the 1 min currently.

Still cant upload charts, so I'll explain. Traded breakout of tight range resting on 0.382 level. Placed long above range and short below (I expected it to go long, but the short was a hedge). It went long and another swing formed within the first one. Closed trade at T1 of second fib (4 pips higher than T1 of first one) for a nice 50 pips.

Currently negative 38 pips on GBP/JPY trade. Placed long above range, broke out, but then retraced. No momentum. I will leave this one and see what happens. I based it off the one hour chart.

1.Stay in the rat race..(keep ur full time joB)
2.Work double hard, in ur new venture trading FX.(read, learn,gain expereince)
3.Till the steady income by it.
4. Exit t rat race...


Sonic

I don't currently have a full time job, I do seasonal work, and the season is over, so I can do full time forex .

If I fail, then do seasonal work again.

My plan is to start out trading small positions, as I gain more experience and confidence trade larger positions until the income is such that I can live off of it (never over leveraged however).

Ended up hedging GBP/JPY trade. Closed short of hedge at -240 when market was at key fib level and looked to go long. It did, so I closed the long when it reached 240 so I broke even on that bad trade.

I had too large of a position on it so I didn't end up scaling in.

Made a few pips scalping Euro today, don't know how many exactly. I used my Oanda account instead of FXCM and it is harder to calculate pips. FXCM had a ridiculous spread on Euro today. Usually it is comparable to Oanda, but not today. But, all said and done, I made money again. Used fibs in conjunction with breakouts of tight ranges on the 1 min chart for entries and fib 138.2 for exits.

so how's your trade so far?

how much profit in % did you earn?

At this point in my forex business I am not calculating profit %. I am trading with micro lots and my goal for my first month in the business is to be consistently profitable. I have no monetary goal at first. I am risking an insanely small amount of my capital right now. As time progresses and I am consistently profitable, I will increase my position size and start calculating daily % as well as % increase from starting capital.

I have no need to risk more capital now, I have enough to get me by without forex, so there is no need. I don't have to make money this month, or this year for that matter, to pay the bills, so why risk it at this stage? I am taking a cautious and strategic approach. I am treating it like a business, not a hobby or get rich quick scheme.

Hello Jared, nice to see you are doing a good trading!

I've just a question (curious), from how much time do you trade?

Are you referring to time per day? Depends. As much as possible. Several hours each day. The nice thing about trading is I can do other things while I am monitoring my trades, so it isn't boring really.

Decent range in Euro. Grabbed 150 +or- pips. Got stuck in a short while it broke out long. Waited for RSI 9 on 5 min to hit overbought, then added more shorts. It came back down, bounced around a bit then i closed them out. Then I made a few more playing the new range and also shorting a trendline break, then going long on the retracement.