No agenda - I am here to trade

Calling it an early day today based on my rules in post #15. Not great trading, but was able to grab some pips from the market. Shutting down the terminal so there is no temptation to get back in.

+16

Trading from the NY forex open:

Shutting down for the day. Today, rules were violated and I was rewarded for it. I violated my rules (4,5,6 and 7) from post #15.

The red news pushed price back near LOD to bring in my targets. I pushed out my stops instead of letting go of a failing trade and looking for the next set-up. At 9:45 when low impact final manufacturing PMI came out, price started to push down so I decided to hold for the 10:00 red news from ISM Manufacturing PMI thinking maybe it would be positive too and push price back into profit for me.


+29.5 total

Couple late evening (Asian) session trades. I did violate my trading hours rule since I aim to trade only the US open to London close session.

Problem was that I was following some of the threads on FF and saw people talk about some trades and decided I would look for any late night set-ups. Definitely going to bed now.

+8

Accumulation mode today just grabbing pips. Feels great to be flat in the market!

Going to reflect some and review rules again today/tomorrow. My natural self is cowboy style trading. The strict rule following does not come natural to me. I need to continue with the rules more closely until it becomes more natural and 2nd nature. That is the key to staying in the long game in trading.

+20 total

1st half at NY open: was okay. Grabbing pips.



2nd half at US equities open: Took some pips, but entries and execution were not great. Overall rules being followed not that great.

mc nice trading. Listen ask yourself 1 thing are you in this to make consistent money? if so stick to the plan

yep - that is the question. Easy to say yes to that, but have to back it up by trading the plan right? otherwise, it's hobby and gambling nothing more I guess.

you've have asked the right question are you a hobby trader or are you running a business

Stick to your strategy. +8 pips today, tomorrow might be -100pips lol. When you got into the trade i am sure you were not all very comfortable. For me i will be restless all through. At the end of the trade i would find the worries was really not something i want to have ever again. So i stick to my trading strategy that way if i lose out i will know i did all i can.

Catching up with 2 days worth of trades. Trying to get out of all trades and be flat by tomorrow for NFP.

Wednesday +20.9

Thursday +26.8

Took a few trades last night and let them close overnight. Took some pre-market. Also have a few orders that are still open and running and losing for the moment. Bigger TF orders.

Rules out the window this week. Have been profitable, but would like to be out before NFP tomorrow and take a cooling off period. Rules work better for me especially establishing specific trading times. Grabbing pips is fun, but would like to take less trades maybe and let them play out more instead of grabbing all the time, but the pips do add up. So do the commissions.

Rules are as good as the trader to keep them.
If you are breaking them more often than the rare occasions, they are at best become guidelines.
Non this matters, rules, or guidelines, as long the results are there.
Yet it is important to be honest to you, to know where exactly you are, and be comfortable with it.

Not much in the way of trading today. I was out of the office most of the morning. Took some late trades. 2 for Break Even and 2 more for +2.5 total. I was moving SL to BE after 2 and looking for price to move, but nothing really happening. If I were just taking grabs instead of holding for 5-10 pips, I would have taken 2-4 pips from each one. Sometimes I'm in the mood to hold and see what happens with a BE trade and other times I just want to grab some pips to get the balance increasing.

No complaints though. My first entry almost hit my SL by 0.1, but made it back to just above BE. I ended up getting stopped out after moving it to BE to watch it then go for +10. Last 2 entries were not the tightest. Back at the 1.1748 POC level would have been better entries.

+23.2 and 9 trades, thoughts are that I need to let the winners run longer, but grabbing pips works too.

+20.5 on 6 trades.

Interesting that my best trade of +7.5 was when I was not at the computer managing it and just let it go for the TP. I probably would have been itching to get out of that trade before the TP. Maybe I should let trend trades run to the TP if it's a reasonable TP and on counter trend trades just grab what I can and get out. Easier said than done.

Not as much NY open trading the last few days. Been slammed with my daytime job and less time to set-up charts and focus like I should. I took a couple larger trades over last Thurs/Frid. and closed last night during Asian session.

2 trades for +42.2, still have 2 other trades in the red right now. Holding for the moment. Will try to get back to NY open trading this week.

Able to do some trades today.

4 for +21.3, still holding some that are in the red, but taking trades when I can and trying to increase balance while holding the longer trades.

Rules in post #15 haven't been followed 100% and honestly I should probably revisit as I continue trading and modify more to match my style and something that I will actually follow 100%. No need to fool myself with rules that aren't followed, but we all have to start somewhere and tweaking along the way is fine with me.

Haven't updated here in over 1/2 a month. Sort of changed my strategy abit doing some testing and trying out. Of course, that did not end well. Day to day, it was working great, but only took a 2 day surge from last week's ECB to hammer down on me and flatten me out.

You can see at the beginning that balance and equity were very steady and almost no drawdown. That's when I was following rules to a T very closely. Then you can see after I put some more money where the dark blue vertical line is that I started carrying a larger drawdown. That's when I got away from the original rules. I hit a 56% drawdown at one point and then pulled it back to an average of 20-30% for the 2nd half of October. I actually was okay with that because I was keeping positions small enough to where I could average in and ride the trades back into profit so my equity was gradually increasing and balance gradually increasing all the while carrying a 20-30% drawdown.



As you can see below, it all came crashing down during ECB last Thurs/Friday. I should have shut it down before the major event because the strong move down was too strong to average in. I kept averaging more and more positions and then hedging trying to fight my way back, but it was too strong.

I've have a work training trip and have to be out of town for 1.5 weeks, but planning to make another run at it when I get back. Not sure yet if I'll venture back into EURUSD forex or go back into NQ futures. In forex, I really like the ability to hedge and make precision risk entries as my balance increases. With futures, you can't steadily increase risk as your balance increases so it takes longer.

Not sure yet, but will stay away from the averaging method. I really like it because it gives you much more freedom to have both longer and short term trades to continue increasing equity/balance while trading during a drawdown. It also gives more freedom to where your entries don't have to be precise, but it's much more wreckless and only takes a short period to wipe you out.

I plan to get back in and go back to Market Profile. No more averaging. 1 trade and 1 entry at a time. No more hedging.

1st day back to trading in a while. I'm doing the NQ futures again. I had a good morning session jumping in just before the 9:30 open and am going to stop while I'm ahead. Plus, I'm behind in my regular job work and need to focus on that. I won't trade every single day, but will when I can. If I'm busy on my regular job, I'll not trade that day or if I don't have time to prepare the charts properly. Don't want the added stress of trying to keep up with my day job and trade.

This was the trade I was waiting for and missed this morning since I cut off the trading. Actually had a buy limit there at 6332.50, but took it off when i quit for the day. Oh well. Going to shut down the charts so I don't get tempted and can focus on my day job work.