Plan the Trade

Very well said Cableguy.

I was following Harold's video presentations he was doing a while back - everyday - until trolls came talking a bunch of trash, and Harold kinda said F#$^ all you guys then.... can't blame him one bit.

Interesting.... those trolls, QuadrapleX and Platypus..... that was their parting gift to Forex Factory. Neither one of them ever posted again. In fact, neither one of them ever even logged in again.

Total punks?? or Crim agents?? Maybe Harold was sharing a little too much??

Total punks for sure.

Yep, unfortunately there is a part of human society that wants to see others fail, but only because of their own failings. Thus it becomes obvious, that those who troll others success's are only proving their own inabilities or failings. Nothing more, nothing less.

Successful people, cheer on others or understand that, although they might be successful in their own right, they also know that they are never too clever to learn more.

You can learn tonnes about the character of another person in what they write.

It is also a waste of time trying to reason or argue with such. Let them do what they do, post what they want, each post, proving that they don't really know shit and concentrate on the process of becoming a better trader yourself!

It is for this reason, most traders are lurkers!

happy thanksgiving to all. trading is hard and it also easy at same time. when you have found something that works 75+% of the time you stick with it that's the easy part the hard part is putting the trade on because everyone goes through 1 common thing and that's the fear of putting on a losing trade. the way to overcome it is to remember the probabilities are 75% it will work in your favor

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Harold!)

Yes - they were great videos. You learnt a lot simply by watching and listening. A shame they stopped but no one, least of all people like Harold, should suffer trolls.

Traded two sessions on replay yesterday. Took another mauling. Well, i say mauling, it was a -3 (with 8 comm's) and a -6 (again with 8 comm's). Both sessions saw me at least +12 at one stage. I wont bother labelling and posting charts, but despite feeling somewhat disappointed, i recognise a couple of things.

Firstly, that despite calling it a 'mawling' due to many wrong trades, two sessions with a total of -25 (inc comm's) is not the end of the world.
Secondly, instead of feeling deflated, i see it almost as a positive. A challenge to work out why i took the trades that i did and what can i do to improve it (if anything).

We all know that taking losses is part and parcel of trading, but the ratio from those two sessions suggests something needs to be improved.

So, what did i learn?

Well, I realised that even though i have proved from time to time that i do have the discipline to sit on my hands waiting for favourable set-ups, the kind that i don't need to think twice about placing my order, by trading later, sometimes i can be waiting and waiting and waiting. There lies the problem.

By seeking a nice shaped 123, trigger and retrace for entry, it really limits the chances to trade. Ok, so sometimes the retracement level is a nice shape and seems stretched in one move back into the prior S/D zone and it is an obvious trade. The minimum usually is a decent enough reaction for a +1, even if it is not the reversal back into trend.

But.... how many times, it is less than clear? The pullback happens after a smallish 123 has triggered in the opposite direction. So now, is that an ABC corrective move? Or has main trend changed? Maybe no set-ups have occurred for 20 minutes or more (especially easy in the later session) and the desire to trade sways your decision making process etc etc

You decide to wait for a 123. It does indeed reverse but goes up in a straight line without you. No 123, just 20 ticks and you left it! Now the frustration grows, until you make a mistake. You take a weak set-up, in truth far riskier than several that you already let go earlier in the session and it ends up with a stop out. We've all been there.

That is probably what happened to me yesterday, although poor management was also partly to blame. Banking 6 ticks, waiting for the pullback to reload, which never came and the original target of +15 was met easily. There is 9 difference straight away. All that risk for 6 ticks. Why did i hit sell?

That speaks of a lack of confidence (and this is just demo!).

Anyway, I've been keeping a duplicate chart open in another screen with 1024 tick, just to be able to glance and see the bigger picture from time to time. It was about then that i looked at that chart in a bit more detail and the pin bars marking reversals were very VERY apparent, as were general reactions from prior zones.

In reality, viewing a chart in hindsight, your eyes are drawn to the pinbars that work, but in actual fact, there are many that occur along the way and fail. Hey, nothing is 100% though right?

I think they need to be combined with several other factors, not least that they should be used at places where you are already expecting a reversal, much the same as the 123, except you are far more likely to get either a pinbar or an engulfing candle as we discussed recently. The market can choose many different ways to trend, but it can not hide the simple facts that candles give away. On their own, i don't think trading candles makes for a good system. They will alter depending on what scale you are watching, but... when they occur from a reversal zone, it eliminates the risk that a 123 might not occur (and even if it does, i generally require a deep pullback thereafter for my entries).

Despite the 123 trigger and retrace being a great system, with both good probability and also favourable R:R, sometimes the market just does not oblige (even late on) when PA should be choppier. That, for me, leads to making mistakes.

When the market is trending strongly (impulse counts), pullbacks don't often end at somewhere obvious and fear that taking one only to see a bigger pullback materialise and stop you out, usually means sitting back and missing huge moves. I'm convinced reversal candles can be used with the same result as the 123 strategy, reasonable success rate (if combined with other methods) and a very favourable R:R ratio.

Here is a hindsight chart of yesterday's action and i've labelled as much as i can fit on just for illustration;



Yes, it's hindsight. Yes, that is the whole day. Reality will be very different, i'm sure, but...

The double tops, followed by pins, look like great trades. As it does when a curve starts to appear at a pullback location. Likewise, Regular divergence after a visible 5w count, means likely retrace and a pin can give that extra confidence...

Add the idea that a solid bank of candles in the same colour often get retraced fully (or at least back to the starting pin) and it means that shortly after open there was a great set-up for a +30. That looks like a slight variation on the pullback method, but it is still the same theory. Using a reason to get back into immediate prior trend.

I'm currently thinking that i need to investigate this further. On this tick scale and then on 512 and maybe on 233 too, depending on current volume.

I tried it late last night and had a +30 trading an open from a couple of weeks ago. Maybe i will be joining you all earlier in the day again soon! Cos there is no way i could spend an hour waiting for a pin on 1024 tick late in the day, which may or may not materialise if PA is grinding slowly!

Suddenly i find myself with loads to test out.

I know Harold thought that i was ready to switch back to live trading ages ago, but i don't think so. This is a different environment to my old Forex days and there is still tonnes to learn about the way the NQ trends.

I find this happening a lot after using the replay option. Here is the same 1024 tick chart of yesterday's action and look how it has changed! Same provider, same data and now the candles are all different! I do not know why it does that. I went back to the session that i traded last night and all the candles were different on that one. Close it down and go back to live and today's is now different too...

My purpose for this chart was to show again, how many times do we see out of hours action, where a steep move gets retraced (as i suggested in previous chart), all the way back to it's starting pin?!



Perhaps a great illustration of how different candles point to the same thing. Look how that first set-up now becomes an engulfing candle whereas, before it was a pinbar (hammer). Kind of what i meant, that sometimes it does not matter what scale you watch it on, candles reveal buyers or sellers taking control. Trade these out of a likely zone (double tops/bottoms or pullback levels etc)...

Combines yesterday and Wednesday profile for today

so slooowwwww

yes. good volume, not much movement. I might wait until Monday. Daughter is home from college and needs new tires.

I shorted 99.50, got out for +11

2b break pullback +10

I think our candles are different again H. I struggled with getting 8 if I had entered there with entry at 96.00.

yeeaaapppp shoulda taken that one

here was the setup tony

the action has come to a crawl I will take my ten and run

I quit to soon the pullback at is 9550 is working

Yup. Mine would have been at 96.25

Replay open 'live' from 06-11-17

Exploring using Engulfing Candles & Pinbar entries from expected retracement levels. Still undecided whether to take only these entries or still take the retracement levels too. Firstly gonna experiment only taking entries based on the candles.

Auto stops are initially -6 risk, then when +8 goes to +1, at +15 locks in +10.

512 Tick chart for open hour.

If trending strongly, SL trailed a tick below each completed candle. Discretion though depending on divergence occurring/general PA, speed, volume and current candles being printed etc.



Straight away an entry from prior Demand occurs, with no 123 thereafter. Thus a trade when i would not normally have got onboard. This is followed by a needless stop out being saved, where a prior 123 had triggered and retraced. At that stage direction uncertainty, but no Short candle, so no trade.

Pinbars and Engulfing candles thereafter.

Could have taken the third trade earlier as pullback level, but sticking to the rules. In fact, I was very lucky with entry as next candle triggered but pulled back quickly before clicking buy limit, otherwise would have been a -6. I am not sure that i have an answer for this. If you wait for a better entry, after a trigger, you will end up missing the ones which trigger and run. The volume was light prior though.

That's a lot of things to do . Trend pullback enter simple cg