MJ12's Trading Journal

I have decided to start a Journal on FF. I have been keeping my own private Blogger journal since November last year where i have posted every trade i have made on demo.

I Have decided now that it might be better for me to post charts of my trades where other traders can see them. Firstly so i can hopefully get feedback from experienced traders and secondly so i think about how silly it will look on my journal before i make a really bad trading decision

since Nov 5th I am now trading only retraces of PA on the longer time frames as this is what i have had most success with and i feel more comfortable with these. I am also looking into trading retraces and breaks on the shorter time frames so i will be posting my trades from two separate accounts with these if all goes well.

I will be posting my results in the form of myfxbook to prove i have taken the trades posted so there can be no funny business or temptation to omit silly mistakes on my part.

I trade Gold and 20 currency pairs on all time frames from 15 minute to 4 hourly and the dailies, weeklies. I also look to trade oil and the main indices but since i am using Oanda as my main broker i don't day trade them at the moment.

My method involves trading PA (mainly pins like in j16) at highly confluenced areas, PA with strong momentum and breakouts with a rounded retrace and PA. I have also developed my own system for lower time frame trades. Most of my trades involve a touch of a confirmed trend line and a good support and resistance area. I won't be posting any rules. I don't consider myself consistently profitable so therefore i am not in a position to give trading advise.

I am starting this thread primarily to improve my trading. I believe i have an edge with the method and that the only thing holding me back is myself. This is my quest to overcome myself.

Entry Candle or area is indicated by the Arrow and i use a small shaded blue area to indicate my exit.

Let the trading begin...

I won't be posting future trades until i have made my exit but just to get the chart ball rolling i will post the only trade i am in now from last week. Price looked to me like it was going to make an attempt at a double bottom here and i liked the way the pin reacted off the trend line.

It was a good start today. I took 3 three trades and they all ended up being winners. Only problem is i changed my mind about the first 1 and came out due to some silly correlation thoughts. i should not have and it would have made good profit. This was the GJ trade.

I am in one other trade which is at BE very close to my TP but i am not posting a chart until i have made an exit. Looks like i will end up 2% for the day. Not bad considering i have not been trading mornings as i am recovering from a throat operation.

This is Max Cohen from the film "Pi" its a great alternative independent low budget movie from the same director as 'The Wrestler' and 'Requiem for a dream'

Its about a mathematical genius who is trying to find a formula for predicting the stock market. It drives him mad and in this scene he is attempting trepanation (drilling a hole through your skull to allow more oxygen to reach your brain which is supposed to increase mental powers). Well worth a watch if it sounds up your street. Probably a bit weird for some.

Last trade today. Probably made an early exit here but for now my exit strategy is a very simple 1/1 and i like it that way. I count it as 3 winners today if i did not make a silly exit.

Not such a Good day today (Tuesday). Two trades and two losses. Back down to BE. Pin was probably not that great on the AU. CJ was more of a breakout pullback with a trend line and i have found these usually work well.

Pretty boring day today and had to stay out the market because of news. There were some trades bright and early but i was not awake for them.

I took last week off as i had to go to my sisters for her wedding and it was right in the middle of the week on a wednesday. I have alos decided that from now on i will be trading a lot less and only trading 1H - weekly timeframes. I have spent the last 18 months focusing solely on trading and it has been a very difficult period. I have learned an incredible amount and i am completely addicted now so there's no chance of me quitting.

18 months is a long time to go without making any money and i really can't continue to eat into my savings. Also i am going away to egypt in december so i want to make some decent money before then so i can enjoy myself. I play online poker for a living but i needed a break and along came trading - i thought like every other beginner does that it could not be that hard and after a few months i would be making enough to live on. I should have known better coming from being a professional poker player and knowing how long it took me to get good at that.

Still i have been enjoying my journey and i have spent the last few days ensuring that my trading can continue while i play poker. It will be tough going back to poker after 18 months of freedom but i will just have to muster the enthusiasm from somewhere. I have setup mt4 so that it automatically skips through the markets while i play and i can keep an eye on things. i'm not sure how it will work out but i have to try. my trade plan is to only trade the trades that stick out like a sore thumb and stay away from anything i have to look twice at.

Bottom line is i need to keep my capital tools sharp and that has to take priority right now whether i like it or not.

Rant Over.

Anyway, here is the trade i took today. i think i came out too early which is one of my many improvement areas. still its nice to make a bit of profit as i have just started my new account for my new more conservative trade plan because of reasons stated above. 0.4R in the end but it will probably go for more.

here are all the rest of the trades i have taken this week. pretty happy with all except the AC.

This was a quick trade today for 0.4R would have made a good touch trade to. had to take profit before oanda hiked their spread but price did go all the way down to .9650.

i will be posting something similar every week so i can't cheat. i'm hoping this will help with my discipline.

Really messed up a trade yesterday which i took a few seconds before a major news release. I had just came back from some shopping and was checking out the charts and completely forgot about the late US news. A huge error and my first of this kind in a year. I will have to review now and see how i can make sure it doesn't happen again - obv i cannot rely solely on memory. I will post a chart later.

LIVE TRADE

Just took this TT on my aggressive account with a 30 pip stop. Looking for bounce of 30+ at this strong area.

Break even on this trade, so close to taking profit and i should have taken some profit before news cam out on the cad.

These are the two losers that have sent my account into negative. the first one was a mistake i took before news. the last one which just happened i am only annoyed about because i stupidly moved my stop. such i fine lne in trading and its these type of mistakes that lose me money. got to just keep trying to make less of them.

I am starting this journal to improve and this means admitting all my mistakes and being honest at all times with myself. In one of the trades i moved my stop and as a result a lost an extra 0.5% of my account. this was a mistake i must stop myself from repeating somehow. Next time i move my stop i will stop trading for 3 full days and focus solely on poker for those 3 days. i will log this in my blog and i won't be able to hide this because i post all my trades in here.

The other mistake i made was not remembering the news which i had previously looked at in the day but somehow forgot about after going out. i have a bad memory!

from now on i will write down the news events of the day and pin them on my monitors so the times are burned onto the back of my retina.
If i make another news mistake that is so obvious i will punish myself with 3 days away from the market focusing on poker.

two bad mistakes and its stuff like this that really gets to me and stops me being profitable while daytrading.

back to break even after this trade i took last night. played a very aggressive entry on my 'gambling' account (i don't post these trades here as that account is for messing around) which did very well indeed but i will settle for 1/1 here as i don't hold trades over weekends.

Weird week as i feel like i traded really well and let myself down by making 2 mistakes which cost me my profit as i failed to follow my plans. I only really allow myself to get annoyed when i don't follow my plan or make awful mistakes. Then you just have to try and take some sort of measures to make sure the mistakes don't happen again (or as often is more realistic).

These are two trades i entered and exited for a tiny profit. one ended up a nice winner and the other i was glad to have second guessed. Was not really much going down i thought i monday and i was possibly guilty of wanting to trade to much. Must watch that.

one winner today which i was happy with. could have held it but i like to take profit quite early and look for high percentage setups at this stage to build my confidence.

No trades today despite plenty of opportunity because i went out for lunch with some old friends. took two trades yesterday.

It seems i may have developed a problem though as i seem to be coming out of winning trades early. i am trying to be picky, i may even be being too picky and second guessing my original calls after over analysis.

That would have been 4 wins in a row if i didn't come out of 3 of them.

just entered GJ on the break of the pin. i will also add another position if it retraces to my limit order.