Moe's Trades

This thread is solely a trading journal. Just to document my own trades and write feedback on them. For the purpose of improving my trading.
Definitely not a trading signal.

Discussions can be a part of it.

Rules for myself.
(Of course will be edited through this journey.)

1- Monday trades are not encouraged. Throughout history, my Monday trades rarely worked out.
2- If there's news for a certain currency, always wait for at least 30 minutes after the news. Let the dust and all the hype settle. After that there are gonna be setups. Don't rush. Trading is all about patience and discipline.
3- Friday trades are only encouraged when we've got news and if that news gives us setups. Fridays are mostly take profit days.
4- Always stick to the system. Which is a combination of the great tools learned from great experienced traders.
5- Holding on to trades, without acknowledging the obvious price action is not allowed. Cut the loss or the profit. Hope can destroy your dreams in the market.

Next week,

Almost all currencies are at play this week. So there can be a lot of opportunities. Which can sometimes be a bad thing if greed gets in the way and wanting to trade them all could result in losses.
So in order to not fall victim to that, we're gonna just be watching for good setups. Those which are near perfect according to our systems.

The system is a combination of squaring the range method taught on Time and Price Forecasting by Swede and DiamondMiner. Forever grateful, specially of Swede who is very helpful and generous for explaining and teaching me this method. I encourage anyone who's reading this to check out the thread because it is a gold mine.
In addition, I use weekly pivots taught by Davit who is an experienced and disciplined trader. He has shared lots of great stuff which has helped many traders. Do check out his thread which is by far the most progressive on ForexFactory.

Two possible setups.

Will have to monitor these two currencies for the first two days of the trading week.

NZD's rate is projected to rise. So the downtrend could be at its end. Something to be mindful.

Updated AUDUSD chart with the "correct angles"



I found that the best way to find the impulse leg in order to square the range is to find an impulse leg after a major move is finished and it has turned into a range.
(Example above) After a big long move down, price retraced a good move and didn't continue down. It created a range for some time.
So we'll take that swing as our initial point.

With RBA annoucement closing in, these lines can be good entries.

Looking at the previous RBA Statement in September, this is the initial point which spiked for 5 minutes, then reversed for 2 weeks.


Waiting for an initial spike and possibly and entry.
More updates will be posted.

(Decided to go with the impulse and the grid that provided the most accurate angles with the most touches.)

Update,


Was able to buy 15 minutes after the initial spike down of RBA. Went into drawdown between end of Tokyo and start of London. For which a good stop loss worked out. 27 Pips.

Targeting the ADR for the exit. Will see how conditions develop.

Update, closed at 0.72924. 20 pips profit acquired.
Reason: at previous resistance and round number 0.73, needed free margin for NZD trade.

Missed opportunities because of being hesitant.



Note to self, spike after a news can be very quick and never again give you an entry. So get sharp and enter when you feel is right.

A reflection.

I sold this pair at the end of the day (which is a bad time to trade).



I watched as price went against me and before Frankfurt open gave an actual buy opportunity which I ignored.
That 1 hour candle that I saw and took pleasure in being in my favor, actually was a pullback to our line for a buy!

Let this be a lesson for future. Don't ignore the PA against you. A lot of us just wanna ease that pain when price is against us. So we ignore the facts that are not in our favor. A classic psychological mistake. One that Mark Douglas often talked about.

So for future trades,
Lesson learned: Don't ignore the Price Action that's happening against you. Sometimes those can give you excellent opportunities for an opposite trade! (Like a buy on this NZDUSD)

Note to self, you wanna see quite a few 5 minute candles as a pullback to your setup to get a good entry.
Don't jump in after just a couple of candles. You'll end up in drawdown.

If you wait until 4-5 candles form a good pullback, you'll get a more accurate entry with smaller drawdown. That way the whole waiting part is a lot easier and the opposite moves wouldn't upset you as much.

Note to self: Update your grid lines when needed. My filter: Put your chart on 30min or 1hour, update your grid in that timeframe; in a way that your grid is visible when you have your chart on. Works better this way.

Another important note: Only trade when there's an active session. Don't trade at the end of the day even if there's an "amazing" setup!

And as always, don't rush entries. Don't be too hesitant either! Wait for a reasonable amount of time on 5 or 15min timeframe.
A pullback is usually a beautiful half circle move. So wait for that to form. That'll give you a greater entry therefore minimizing your possible drawdown.

Note to self: This kind of consolidation behind a line usually means a breakout. So when you see it, if you're in a buy in this case, get out. It's probably gonna break down and you're gonna be stopped out. Which is fine though. However if you want to minimize the loss, get out manually.

Wait for a retest of the line and try the opposite side.

Note to self: For profit taking, unlike entering when you have to be patient for the price behavior, be quick and emotionless. When it comes near your target, close it soon if it seems to stall. Doesn't matter if it keep on going more after you close. What matters is the moment of decision making.

Note of the day: Missing out on a fast news trade is so much better than losing hundreds on the fear of missing out and hasty entries.

Most important events of the week are, AUD CPI, BoC rate decision, USD GDP Growth.

Eventful week. Better be sure not to enter too soon or too late. Just when you feel confident enough, pull the trigger and get emotionless.

Tip: after being stopped out, don't trade for at least 15 minutes.

Entered a long position on this NZDUSD. If I see consolidation behind that line (like the USDCAD trade above) and feel like the bulls can't push up, I'll get out.

Just like this one. Will keep an eye out on it for sure for the NZD long trade.

NZDUSD Long update: Very important note learned!


This is what happened, we got a great entry in Tokyo.
However, in the middle of our target, price came back out of nowhere! Like Why?! Everything was going great and we were gonna hit the next line for the profit target.
All ok with our analysis right?
NO!

What the mistake was, the square was way old! It was good for last week, but for this week we needed to find another good square which is recent. That's very important.

See below. The NZDUSD long stopped right at the angle made by the recent square.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

So this happened. I sold GBPUSD at the line which my sixth sense was telling me, "hey it's not broken though... they keep attacking it but it ends up closing above the line"

So of course after I closed the app, it went running for my stop lol.

Lesson learned: When you get in at Tokyo, before you sleep take a look and see how price is behaving. If you don't like the behavior or think it's gonna go for your stop, close it before sleep. That's better. Try New York then.

Also keep paying attention to that line of yours before making the decision. It's very important. Like this one, if you trusted the inner voice and closed it before you went to bed, you didn't have to get stopped.

Lessons learned after a psychological error and 5% loss in a day.

Most important one: When you take a loss, maximum 1% in a day, end your trading day. That's it. Even if you have another setup. End the day. Try tomorrow.

Change from 5 minutes candles, to 15 minutes. They're more consistent and the randomness is less.

Go for 1 percent a day. Minimize risk this way. Sure there were times you profited 3 percent in a day! That felt great! But then there comes a day when you lose that 3 or even worse, 5 percent!
So think in terms of stop loss, NOT TP. That's one hell of a mindset to achieve.

"Professionals think of managing risk. Amateurs think of the possible profits."