Consistency Is Key

· A journal to share my trades and prove consistency to myself.
· A journal to gather my thoughts and opinions about trading.
· A journal to interact with other traders and learn from each other.

Please be respectful to everyone who interacts in my journal, as I will do the same.
There may be disagreements, but there should not be any disrespect towards others.

I am not too comfortable showing my personal live account openly to the public as I would like to keep my personal finances private. However, for the sake of being a bit more transparent with my trading, I added a trade copier EA to a demo account that will take the same trades I take on my live account.

I attached the Trade Explorer to this journal.

[4/19/20 - 4/25/20]

Closed Trades:

· USDJPY BUY LOSS
I had a strong bullish bias which burned me twice. Tough start for me this week. I thought the previous H4 highs will most likely have to be stopped out for sellers to have enough liquidity for another push down. So, I was expecting an early push up before a drop (if it does drop). Price went against me and as time passed by, price action looked uglier and uglier for bulls. I cut my losses. I saw a GBPUSD, EURUSD sell opportunity and at the same time saw some bullish hope on the H4, so I re-entered buys. The GU, EU trades won, but UJ price action turned ugly again for bulls. Cut my losses again.

UJ H1


· GBPUSD SELL WIN
Saw bearish PA. I was convinced price will continue down at least to previous H4 lows. Won.

GU H1


· EURUSD SELL WIN
Saw bearish PA. I wasn't too sure if price will continue down to previous H4 lows. Still saw a possibility that buyers may come in at some point, but still expected some sort of bearish move. Aimed for roughly 40 pips. Caught a piece of the move. Won.

EU H1


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Open trades:

· USDJPY SELL
Bullish bias changed to bearish bias for now. Expecting at least roughly a 30-pip move.

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Notes:

· I saw a shorting opportunity on NZDJPY as well, but I had too many positions open at the moment. I didn't feel comfortable opening more trades.

Looking at my trades, two things may be evident.

· My risk:reward ratio is not ideal.
I am aware of this. I understand it is "easier(?)" to be consistently profitable with a lower win percentage + good risk:reward. I try my best to get as close to 1:1 as much as possible and sometimes I do aim for more than that. However, a lot of my trades do not reach 1:1.

I have to trade what I know and what works for me. I need to trade the way I understand the market.

· I take multiple positions.
I take multiple positions depending on how confident I am in a setup. I may start out with 2 positions right away or add on positions as PA confirms my position more and more. I usually don't take more than 4 positions on one setup.

I normally take 0.5% risk per 40 pips. My TP/SL will be the same in most cases for all positions regardless of where I enter, as those price levels are where I see the whole setup as valid/invalid. My TP/SL pip amount will differ per position due to different entry prices, so the risk of every position would differ, but each position will vary around 0.5% risk.

When I only have one position open, I am obviously more comfortable just leaving the trade as a "set and forget" type of trade. When I have multiple positions open, I keep an eye on PA to see how the setup plays out. I tend to try my best to avoid taking the full loss when I have multiple positions. The SL in that case acts as an emergency hard stop.

This discretion in my risk management does make my trading a bit unclear to some people, but it works for me and I can still see some sort of consistency in my trading.

[4/19/20 - 4/25/20]

Closed Trades:

· USDJPY BUY BREAKEVEN
As mentioned before, bullish bias turned bearish. Was up +25-ish pips each on 3 positions. Missed TP by 4-5 pips and had a pullback. Just took a tiny win, pretty much BE. Still think it can go down further.

UJ H1


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Open Trades:

· AUDUSD SELL
Getting in late, but I see a further move down. Don't think the previous swing high will be touched again.

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Notes:
· A tiny bit frustrated that I missed a good EURCAD buy setup. I saw it before I fell asleep, but I got a bit scared due to starting the week with a loss.

[4/19/20 - 4/25/20]

Closed Trades:

· AUDUSD SELL LOSS
Expected the temporary trend to continue and have one more leg down, but I was wrong. Quick reversal stopped me out.

AU H1


· EURJPY BUY LOSS
Despite the overall downtrend, that huge candle tricked me into thinking there will be more upward movement to hunt for more stops. The downtrend continued. I realized I was wrong and reversed my position.

EJ H1

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

· EURJPY SELL WIN
Once I was wrong on the buy, I realized there will be more downward movement.

EJ H1


· NZDJPY SELL WIN
Despite the upward movement, I saw strong resistance and PA wanting to come down at least for a pullback. It was a close one, but TP was hit.

NJ H1

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

· AUDUSD BUY WIN
Uptrend. Nice PA. Aimed for previous highs. I was a bit doubtful about this trade because I questioned if it would move enough on a Friday. It was getting near market close, so I closed the trade in profit, but I noticed IC Markets demo server was temporarily down. So, it appears the positions are still open in the demo account. My trades are closed in my live account.

AU H1


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Open Trades:

None.
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Notes:

· Tough week. Reviewing my trades, my losses were really dumb trades with too much of a bias. I trusted my bias too much to the point where I ignored my entry rules. Almost gave away all of last week's profits at one point which got me pretty upset, but I managed to recover most of the losses. Just like everyone else, I really don't like losing weeks, but it's part of trading. I'll learn from my lessons and move on.

I look forward to trading next week with more discipline and a clear mind after having a relaxing weekend. Have a nice weekend everyone.

[4/26/20 - 5/2/20]

Closed Trades:

· AUDUSD BUY WIN
The buy positions I closed last week on my live account but not on the demo due to the server freezing closed as soon as the market opened. I still believed that the bullish move was not finished from last week. I entered again. TP was hit.

AU H1


· EURCAD SELL LOSS
There was selling pressure with some strong resistance which made me believe price will go down. The choppiness made me doubt my position a little bit, but I still believed in my entry. What got me was that I saw a sell opportunity on GBPUSD and a buy opportunity on USDCAD. The conflict between EURCAD and USDCAD made me question my position. I closed the EURCAD and jumped on the GU and UC.

EC H1


· USDJPY SELL WIN
While I had my EURCAD sell open, I saw a UJ short opportunity. I knew it was a late entry, but I still saw enough room to profit from it. TP was hit.

UJ H1


· GBPUSD SELL WIN
Although GU was bullish, I saw some resistance and thought it needed a pullback before moving further up (if it wanted to). TP was hit.

GU H1


· USDCAD BUY LOSS
Saw a buy opportunity. I was iffy about it especially with it conflicting with my EC sell, but EC was starting to look ugly and there was a GU sell opportunity which convinced me to go with the GU sell and UC buy. UC did go up to a certain point, but then reversed on me. I cut my losses.

UC H1


· EURCAD SELL WIN
After cutting my UC loss, I saw that it was becoming more clear that UC and EC wanted to go down. EC looked more clean and given that my previous EC sell setup was still valid while UC did not necessarily give me a short opportunity, I jumped back into EC. TP was hit.

EC H1


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Open Trades:

None.

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Notes:

The week started out relatively smoothly. EC and UC confused me a lot. I'm not sure if I could have done anything differently/better. It is what it is. I'm flat for now. I'll continue to look for opportunities.