Writing it down gets it out of my head...

Writing it down gets it out of my head...

This thread isn't anything special, just a way for me to type out my trading stream of consciousness: what I'm about to do, did do, should have done, scenarios I'm looking for, etc, while going about my daily trading. I really do need to get it out of my head because putting it on 'paper' forces me to think about and plan my trades and targets and communicate my reasoning. Planning a trade within a set of rules provides some discipline and accountability...especially if someone is watching, um, if anyone does decide to follow this thread. I guess this means I need a babysitter? So, thanks for babysitting me.

No, I won't give you my template. No, I won't tell you the name of the indicators I use or message them to you. No, I won't sell them to you. Most traders I've interacted with over the years, including myself, wouldn't do the simplest money making trading strategy someone handed them anyway. It's the old story about herding cats and 95% of people on FF are going to wander around for years like I did until I forced myself to stop jumping from idea to idea and system to system. Take what you know and put it together to make your own system, dig into it, dream about it, have nightmares about it, set up your trading rules within a trading plan and just trade. Yep, either stop wandering and force yourself to master something or quit trying to trade and go have a happy life dreaming about something you can accomplish...that isn't trading.

Cashbox? Aren't you thinking a little too highly of your trading abilities? Well, no, because the name was given to me as a teenager while on the basketball court and has nothing to do with trading. I couldn't make a basket to save my life, but they said I was money when it came to knowing where my team mates were about to be on the court and how I got the basketball to them so they could score. I was the assist king. So they nicknamed me Cashbox.

Hopefully, I can assist you while I get trading out of my head!

The original post is above this line. Since I have never done a thread before, I have no idea how this thread will evolve or what routine I might fall in to. My guess is, the most consistent thing about this thread will be my inconsistency as I find my way.

Notes and thoughts:
Do yourself a huge favor if you want a better chance at success in trading...don't focus on how many lots someone else is trading or if this is true or that is true...focus on the actual trading and what you can learn for your own system development because ultimately you will NOT be able to succeed copying someone else's system. You need to take bits and pieces of different things that you can see and put them together for your own system. If tends to reason that we're all different, we all see things differently, so why wouldn't it make sense that you have to develop your own trading system.

The 4 hour chart is my overall direction as to supply/demand boxes, trend lines, the big picture of what's going on. I take a quick look at the Day, Week, Month to make sure nothing is in the way.
The 15 minute chart shows me temporary speed bumps along the way and tells me if there's a potential reversal. I will look at the 30 and 1 hour from time to time to see if there's anything that might slow me down.
The 5 minute chart gives me a better entry area and sometimes the one minute chart, but these charts are too small for direction and are only used when markets are moving quickly. The price action at the 5 or 1 is helpful on entries because it shows me higher highs or lower lows, etc, at areas inside the 4 hour or daily charts where I'm looking for longer term reversals/swings.
Something i try to remind myself about often: follow the trend 90% of the trades and do reversals 10% of the trades...A reversal that goes with the larger (4 hr, D, W) trend is typically a huge move and is part of the 90% with the trend trades.

sl = stop loss, tp = take profit, all times are NYC eastern time, tf = time frame.

One of my goals is to find longer term swing trades and trade intraday within those swings.

A few things up front. This is a trading journal so don't expect me to interact very much. I will definitely block rude people, beggars, etc. I don't do one-on-one training, consulting, or provide trading signals.

I'm basically going to spew my trading brain onto this virtual paper via a keyboard. Don't expect me to capitalize properly, correct spelling, or care about proper grammar. I'm going to be trading first, typing second, posting pictures third (time permitting) and when I'm done trading for the day I may go over some of what I did or try to explain something that wasn't clear.

Fair warning: I'm going to mess up so please don't take the trades I take.

This posting will be edited as needed along the way.

I saw the pics you posted on that other thread with tdi. IMHO you're on the right track and have a good handle of it. Keep at it, master this and don't waiver. Happy trading.

good thread mate i do like post 2

In the future I will try to post a picture from time to time of potential trade set ups before I take them and will walk through the trade scenarios. It helps to get them out of my head!!!

Today's trade: GJ long (countertrend). i got in late, but that happens sometimes. it doesn't change the value of trade set up or being able to grab pips.
Profit is listed in pips. Example: 897 is actually 89.7pips, not $897.

picture 1 is the reasoning for the entry. my entry should have been at the demand area (green box) at the bottom of the 15 min chart.
2 is to show the process so far and show a second entry. the second entry is based on the pair going above the price from the first hour of the London session (pink dashed line).
3 is tiny pic with pricing on it and pips so far.
4 is a couple minutes later when i decided to close the re-entry trade in pic 2 and shows the re-trace area where i'm expecting price to go to so i can get in. but this will depend on what happens coming into the US session.
5 the re-entry at my target. used 1/2 normal lots because it's not quite US session and i need to lower my risk this far from US session, but i do see a high probability of the moving higher into the trend line.
6 took my pre-planned entry at the trendline and close to the high of the first hour of London session
7 this is a pic of the 15 min, 5 min and 1 min just to show what i do can be done on any timeframe
8 re-entry faltered but going well
9 proof of pips, entry times for all the naysayers.
10 back to the day, 4 hr, 15 min and pointing out the worry areas

the max is 10 pictures per post. keep checking back as i will edit each posting until either i'm done with the trade or there are 10 pics.
After that i'll start a new post for any additional pics and will edit that post until i max the pics.
probably won't post this many pics in the future. just wanted to get this first trade done with full coverage.

the max is 10 pictures per post. keep checking back as i will edit each posting until either i'm done with the trade or there are 10 pics.
After that i'll start a new post for any additional pics and will edit that post until i max the pics.
probably won't post this many pics in the future. just wanted to get this first trade done with full coverage.

i noted the pics as reversals, but they're more counter trend trades since the long term trend is short for g/j. This counter trade could be the beginning of a short back into the daily demand area at the 128 area.

picture 11 chart on the right is the 1 hour. will it stop the trade or just delay it. at this time of the day it's time to take some lots off as the US session can change trend.
12 pop off of 15 min trendline and demand, but i didn't add any lots. too high up in the move for me to feel comfortable and coming into US session.
13 unlucky 13? everything is tightening down...waiting for US open. my expectation is for price to come down to the second trendline on the 15 min chart and/or the demand area before taking off again. should price fall through that demand area i will probably close the remaining lots.
14 price came back and tapped top of London open high...took some lots long again. Now need to get back above the 15min chart trend line
15 first hour of US session is marked in yellow high/low. long more lots at the bottom.
16 closed everything at the 5 min chart moving average. too much human risk to continue...and i'm losing concentration after 8 hours.
Normally I just trade 2 to 2.5 hours a day.
17 list of trades taken
18 fourteen trades, no losers (now you know why i bailed out and closed everything.

it's very possible this will go back up and test the 133.18 area and fall back down into the overall longer term short trend for g/j and head back to 128 area.

Hope you liked seeing the process. I won't post as many pics in the future. Just wanted to get as much documented as I could this first time.
I will focus more on posting potential set ups before i take trades and then post a few pics along the way.
This was a lot harder to do than what I thought it would be, but that's okay. It was fun...and it forced me to stay focused.
Thanks for tagging along.

just shorted gj at a new 4 hour supply and old 15 min supply. stocks are squeezing down with retailers buying and institutions selling to them so we'll see if this is the correct place early in the week to get a 3-4 day swing trade lower should risk finally come off. it may take a while for this to develop into any real move as volume is slow this time of the day. Just realized my stop didn't go where I wanted it so have moved it up a few pips to get it just above the 15 minute box.

I will edit this post as the trade goes, but because this is a swing trade and not a counter trend trade during high volume, I won't be updating it as much. If it works out then great, but if it fails then that's okay too...I've already booked profit on gj on the way up, sunday open into London open (see the 2nd screen snip).

Other than trying to stay up on the news and knowing when the next red announcements are to hit, I read a lot every day. Then I try to combine everything into an actionable plan with scenarios both ways. My thoughts this week are that stocks are staging for a move back down to the previous low created by the virus. Treasury sec and others have stated they will pause for a while before considering any more US stimulus. I don't see it being prudent for the fed to start buying stocks unless/until the markets go below the previous low from around March 23, 2020.

A few of my friends don't like it when I predict things, but I'll state here what I've told them...a second round of bad news will likely hit to drive the markets back down. It's just how things work. The interesting thing is: is it the bad news (fundamentals) that will drive the stock markets down or is it technicals that drive it down? I ask that because the fundamentals seem come out when the technicals are already suggesting it's time for a move. We will see and act accordingly because I have scenarios for both ways.

Pic 3: 5 min chart trying to reject price lower (my apologies, i'll try to remember to # and title the pics on the pictures in my 5 yr old handwriting)
pic 4: 15 min trying to roll over/down

at this point we haven't really taken out any previous supply/demand areas so the trade could fail or could take quiet a while to develop. However, there's a lot of potential reward in this trade down to the 128.05 area on the daily chart...that's 490 pips, but it will be tough to get there without a catalyst...so what's the catalyst? I don't know and might not be one.

pic 5: 5 min chart has higher low so in a danger situation for the trade. the 15 min chart, not pictured, hit the up trendline. just have to wait and see, but wanted you to see what i'm looking for during trading.

pic 6 speed bumps. (up trendline needs broken) For swing trades, it's important to know there are places along the way that may cause a speed bump during the trade. BUT, if you take a swing trade in the direction of the larger time frame trend then the speed bumps should not cause the trade to fail; they will just be pauses. Depending on where this happens on the 15 minute or higher time frames I may use some of these areas to add lots as intraday trades. i'll close partial lots on these trades and leave the rest on to run and close at the end of the swing.

pic 7: closed half the trade with Asia opening in a few minutes. This allows me to keep my stop out of the way in case price comes back to retest the entry. it also allows me to have a free trade with the 2nd half because i have booked profit to cover the stop.

pic 8: Looking to close half of what's left (a quarter) of the trade at the 132 area during the Asian session.

please see the next post for further pics as this trade develops. thanks.

pic 9: took a secondary entry based on a confluence of items.

pic 10: second entry good so far. want it to dive and push thru and out of the bottom of the lower demand boxes. don't want this to continue up and down between the supply and demand boxes.

pic 11: grabbed a few hours of sleep, woke up and closed parts of the 2nd and 3rd entry at yesterday's low. Still have the original trade open at 132.94 in picture 1. (it can be seen on the 4 hour chart.) gj did come back and try take me out as predicted...that's expected and is why i leave my stops above the box for a swing trade...the stop has to last 1-4 days. also, keep in mind, i took two trades to start the swing cycle and closed one of them to cover my stop loss for a zero loss trade. That's why i can sleep...no worries of loss because I already have a zero loss trade.
Note the yellow line on the 15 min chart. i drew those in on April 29 because price just sat in there for days...price is still obeying them!!!

pic 12 shows the partial closes of the 2nd/3rd entries...quite frankly, the re-entries should have been back at the top.

pic 13 chart review. focus on the 4 hour chart: on the bottom indicator, green is hitting yellow. green normally bounces off of yellow so i might lose my trade here. the other option is to watch for price to come up to a confluence of items on the 15 minute chart while the indicators catch up to price at the same time. then watch for another shorting opportunity. The g has low level news at 7pm eastern today and the j has low level news at 7:50pm so I have no idea what will happen, but it's okay because I have locked in profit along the way and all my trading is currently risk free. It's a good feeling!!!
More 4 hour info: price overshot, came back to and is now setting on the down trendline with one of my take profits just below. that tp is just above the Daily time frame box (not shown).
My goal remains, if i don't let fear or greed take me out, to get 500 pips on my original trade while intraday trading for another 500-750 pips. I'm 1/5 of the way there. BUT, I also want to be neutral in my trading...meaning, if I have a reason for a reversal, which i do now on the 4 hour green hitting yellow and possibly bouncing as explained above, then i need to be willing and able to pivot into going the opposite way. So, there are goals and there is reality...where do they meet and where do they change?

14 Let's review my bad 2nd entry. Yes, it's up about 70 pips, but it was a bad entry...the wrong entry. At the very beginning of this trade cycle I stated that price would likely come back and test my entry area at least one more time. It did. I should have entered there for the 2nd entry, not at the bottom of that first move down. let's walk through why a 70 pip in profit trade is a bad trade per the chart and price action: 1- price tends to come to and through the moving average i use and then rebounds on the next candle. I should know this by now of course. duh. 2- green was hitting yellow on the bottom indicator. (just like it is now on the 4 hour chart that i mentioned above.) So, that normally suggests watching for a possible reversal, but it should AT the LEAST suggest NOT taking a new short at that area. 3- there was an up trend line in that area - a rough one, but still, a clue not to trade short there! 4- really, who does stupid stuff like entering again after price has moved 60 pips when price hasn't retraced any?!!?? You DO NOT re-enter a trade unless it's on a retrace to specific confluence areas...you KNOW BETTER. Yes, I do know better. Thanks for the reminder. I will continue working to do better. Thank you for the reminder.

No picture, but just looked at the stock market charts and see that they finally gave up into the close to close lower which should support my current move down and more of a move down. Time will tell. My thought is the fed will not step in and start buying stocks until/unless the markets get below the stops that are below the lows of March. Again, time will tell.

16 (seems i've skipped a number after that tongue lashing) I'm going to let the lots left from the secondary trades close here at the Day Demand and up trend line should they reach that far. I might also close half of my remaining original trade that's up 140 pips at the moment...will just see how it reacts going into 5 eastern.

16.5 closed all remaining re-entry lots. closed partial of the last original trade. Yes, I'm okay with the pair continuing down. i don't know what's going to happen, but it's only monday...plenty of week left to trade. and you can't go broke taking profit!!!!

Quick 25 pip gj short. closed some lots, left the rest to see if it runs. very likely the gbp will move up due to news tomorrow. it may run up into the news and then sink again, but i have no idea...just need to plan for both ways and go with it. 250 pips down since i started shorting the last 4 hour supply box sunday.
The quick trade required waiting for a reason to short the pair. The reason was on the 15 min chart at the supply box. the 1 min chart (which i don't recommend using) showed the price action i was looking for so i shorted with the 15 minute demand box as the target.

Proof of trade: 2nd picture

Took London Long out of the gate...closed 2/3 of the lots at 16 to 17 pips. This is a counter trend trade so I don't ask for much. have 1/3 of my lots still on, but it's a free trade now because i've locked in about 2x my loss if i let it run to my stop. i expect it to come back to my entry area and possibly go up again. time will tell.
why did i take the trade? pair has been running down for a while and isn't done going down, but BOE gov talks at 6:30 am eastern so my plan was to run it back up so after he talks, no matter what he says, i'll run it back down. swing trades tend to start between sunday open and tuesday london and end friday london so i think there may be one more day of shorting gj before people get flat for the weekend. i doubt it will get down to my 128.00 goal by friday london though.

i've been wrong before so don't take my trades...i'm just building what if's, scenarios both ways and will act on whatever happens.

2nd chart picture: gj came back down as predicted so added two more trades. closed 1 at 21 pips to cover the stop. i'm going to move one of the remaining trades to breakeven+1 to protect the pips i've already made and will leave the stop of the other one where it is in case gj comes back down during the news and bounces up again and stays up. it's doubtful it will continue up, but nothing wrong with trying.

3rd pic...first tp hit thankfully before gj came back and tested demand again! that was the trade i set to be+1. with this being a counter trend i'm not all that certain the 2nd tp will be hit, but i may leave it on since it's interest positive if i hold it over for the day. i'd like to see one more hard fast lunge down before US session tomorrow, but it's thursday late in the us session so who knows what will happen.

i will stay focused on having a reason for taking a trade and trade what i see. i will work to update trendlines in a timely manner.

131.00 just above my last take profit is the magnet for gj. Going to walk away and get some other things done...like eating and exercise.

magnet hit! 2nd take profit closed (yes, i took the screen shot just before it closed...didn't want to miss it).
61 pips! Love supply/demand + sentiment + trendlines = grateful!

Thursday's discussion for Friday's Trade Scenarios, May 15, 2020.

Let's be very frank...Trading Friday Asia into Friday London and ending with the Friday US session can be a very tough whipsaw world where a trader can give back a lot of the week's gains. Why? By this time of the week, normal good trading confidence has become overly exuberant I'm-so-good-I-can-take-a-trade-anywhere stupid confidence. (Yep, I've foolishly celebrated my great week already and am now psyching myself out.) And then comes that Oh, crap! moment when volume suddenly dries up early in the US session, NOTHING MOVES after that spikey reaction to the 8:30 high impact news, and you're stuck in the worst trade of your life...again; wasting the rest of the day watching, hoping, praying, and begging the game known as trading to let you off the hook just one more Friday. And, thus, begins that repeated depressing 'I shouldn't have taken that last trade" weekend. And that gets in the way of taking the first trade of next week.

So, how does a trader set things up so they don't get destroyed by Friday's stupid confidence? Well, not trading is an option. Another option? Plan on Thursday for Friday Asia into London into US. Let's do that now:

Focus on the 4 hour and higher charts. Looking at the 4 hour, we see the nice counter trend trade we took on gj earlier today. It came within 10 pips of hitting the 4 hour supply and the moving average is now within reach (catching up to price). Also, green is close to bouncing off of or crossing yellow on the sentiment indicator.

We know gj is in a downtrend, but we also know it's time for prop traders and others to close and get out flat for the weekend. But, it's possible, due to the up move today that sellers have already been squeezed out of the market as they hustled to buy back their shorts and lock in their gains for the week.

What news is schedule for g or j? J has news at 7:50pm tonight and there's nothing for g or j tomorrow. other currencies have high impact news at 10pm tonight, 2am and 8:30am.

After updating trendlines I see that there's now a HUGE 30 pip tail on gj from the 5pm settlement so that further complicates things.

So, now that we have some basic info, let's build scenarios:
1- my first thought is to wait to see if price comes up to the 4 hour supply box @ the 131.39 area and crashes because that would include hitting the moving average and the green would bounce off of yellow on the sentiment indicator. Otherwise I'll be looking for some convincing price action and confluence of reasons to take a short.
2- i don't really have a long scenario because 20 pips isn't enough reward to get me to take the trade up to the 4 hour supply. However, because price is setting inside the weekly demand area, if price gets above the 131.50 area and everything else gives me a reason to take the trade (meaning everything on my charts has reversed to a long) then I may be interested in that trade.
3- for a long, i would much rather see price come back and tap the 130.35 area before moving up.

it seems those are 3 very different scenarios which sums up a whipsaw friday.

Things I need to make sure I'm doing:
I will work to enter only when a reason to trade is present (confluence: a sup/dem box, moving average bounce, sentiment, trendline, etc). And I will update trendlines more quickly.

Here are the scenario's i laid out a couple hours ago in my last post:
So, now that we have some basic info, let's build scenarios:
1- my first thought is to wait to see if price comes up to the 4 hour supply box @ the 131.39 area and crashes because that would include hitting the moving average and the green would bounce off of yellow on the sentiment indicator. Otherwise I'll be looking for some convincing price action and confluence of reasons to take a short.
2- i don't really have a long scenario because 20 pips isn't enough reward to get me to take the trade up to the 4 hour supply. However, because price is setting inside the weekly demand area, if price gets above the 131.50 area and everything else gives me a reason to take the trade (meaning everything on my charts has reversed to a long) then I may be interested in that trade.
3- for a long, i would much rather see price come back and tap the 130.35 area before moving up. (if price action warrants it.)

Scenario 1 is what happened. Seems 2 also happened, but ya have to step away from trading sometime. I was not in front of the computer so got in late, but closed enough to cover my stop loss. Beware 10pm China news

Waiting to see if it will go back up and retest after the news. no real response so waiting for it to go sideways and hit the trendline and make a decision. Finally hit the tl and is pushing down. Hit the trend line again and again pushing down. Wondering if it will get through the last low at 130.90 this time. Really been slow moving. Looking for it to come down to the 130.80 area, the low of the day so i can close more lots and go to bed with stops and take profits on for the rest of the lots. Will see what the price action looks like in the last 5 minutes of this hour and go from there. It didn't make it to 130.80 so closed everything I had left on. Done trading for the week. Will spend tomorrow afternoon updating trendlines on the charts and prepping for next week.

Didn't want to sleep so watched the charts for another entry short under scenario 1 for 30, 29, and 25 pips. gj came over and hit the tl and moving average while the sentiment indi green was hitting up under yellow for a great set up!

It may have been wise to immediately reverse there for a quick 15-20 pips, but that's not safe coming into London open and i might have tried to get greedy and held the counter trade too long in what would soon be a potentially fast moving market. i worked too hard to get the pips and am not all that willing to give them away on a Friday.

I've thought about my last paragraph for about half an hour and have determined I was wrong not to reverse after closing my last trade. I thought it and should have planned it, written it down here and then should have done it. i will start doing it.

Reminders for me for next week:

If things move a lot on Friday...they will normally move a lot on Sunday into Monday. If things don't move much on Friday...they normally won't move much on Sunday into Monday (unless something crazy happened over the weekend).

Fridays are quick in and out trades typically for 30 or less pips. Close trades before US session and walk away.

See if there is a gap up or down on the Sunday open. If there is then trade to fill the gap and then trade back away from the gap after it's been filled.

While trading, if you think it then write it down...and then do it: if you think you should close partial or all at a certain spot then do it. If you think you should reverse a trade immediately after closing...then do it. You just lost 30 pips in 30 minutes by not reversing when you closed that last trade. It was an easy entry and you thought it, but didn't write it down and do it. It's on the improvement list for next week so do it.

Exercise, eat right, keep the emotions in check by exercising and eating right. Sleeping more than 4 hours a day would probably help so work on that.

Continue working on developing an improved routine of all the above.

Did you do your Friday chart work? Are you reading enough to keep up on what's going on in the world so you can judge risk on/risk off?

Review work:

picture 1 week in review stats. Please explain the losing trades: 1 trade was entered late due to being indecisive. and that led to two bad trades the other way. which totaled 3 bad trades in a row. the 4th losing trade was a stop out where i moved the stop loss up too early.

Hello, the short position won percentage is disappointing

Hi, your sharing is much appreciated, hopefully you continue the sharing.
Thank you very much.

Regards,
KS

Reviewing this week's trades

Reviewing scenarios from post 11, 12.
1- my first thought is to wait to see if price comes up to the 4 hour supply box @ the 131.39 area and crashes because that would include hitting the moving average and the green would bounce off of yellow on the sentiment indicator. Otherwise I'll be looking for some convincing price action and confluence of reasons to take a short.
2- i don't really have a long scenario because 20 pips isn't enough reward to get me to take the trade up to the 4 hour supply. However, because price is setting inside the weekly demand area, if price gets above the 131.50 area and everything else gives me a reason to take the trade (meaning everything on my charts has reversed to a long) then I may be interested in that trade.
3- for a long, i would much rather see price come back and tap the 130.35 area before moving up. (if price action warrants it.)

Please keep in mind that looking at a chart after things have happened can be much different than looking at the chart live. It's easy for anyone, including me, to point to a place on a chart and say whatever about it. That's why I try very hard to show charts as I go along in trades.

Imagination is a great attribute while trading live because it's almost a requirement as you have to picture what may happen based on the history of what has happened in the past at that same point in the chart set up. Then, you have to become automatic in what you do about it...press the button!

Scenario 1 is in Picture 1 for the 4 hour view.
Scenarios 1, 2 and 3 are in Picture 2:
Price did what scenario 1 called for. Went up and hit the 131.39 area and crashed 180 pips
Price did what scenario 2 called for. Went up and reversed at the 131.39 area for 25 pips
scenario 3 and the reversal process if it's a losing trade (don't ever give up on a trade, just go the other way if you're trading during high volume times and the price action says to.)
If I'm trading during a big move my goal is to stay with the trend even if my last trade is a losing trade, but if I do happen to take a counter trade and it doesn't work out during high volatility times i'll just reverse the trade using the same risk %, lot size, and stop loss size (number of pips) as the trade that just went bad.
There are several reasons I would not have taken the trade in scenario 3: late on a friday, price action was wrong, if the trend is short you only short into the moving average, if the trend is short you only short into the moving average, the sentiment green line is hitting the upper band so it's too late in the move, etc.
The info here for this scenario is just to show how, where, why to close and reverse when I'm wrong.

What is your trading process?
As you probably realize by now, I'm not on here to do anything other than get this stuff out of my head. I'm a better trader for it.
Never try to trade like someone else...trade like you. Take the things that work for you and put them together. It's been 14 years since my first demo account and spending money on training. See the 3rd pic - I just checked and that company is still around, but I'm a long way from what they taught. I just didn't get it so I moved on like we've all done so many times...jumping to the next thing, next thing, next thing. Is that why you're reading this now? jumping to the next thing. Well, my thing won't work for you either, but maybe 1 thing you see here will make sense to you and you can put it with a couple other things you already know or will learn soon and then things will make sense. Are you committed to the 10,000 hours it takes to become a professional?
The bottom line is a trader needs to develop their trading process. Not to be confused with a trading plan.

What is your trading process? When do you enter a trade, where, why? How do you get out of your trades, what reason is used for closing at a profit or loss, what reason is used for setting your stop loss and take profit, what reason is used for closing a losing trade before your stop loss is hit, when could or should you move a stop loss closer or to break even+1, what is your max draw down/risk allowed per trade, per day, per week? Do you have a picture of your best couple of most consistent trades that work for you time after time?

There are several successful traders on FF: digger1 shows his process via the pictures he posts and tells his reasoning in the comments. Aussi shows his set up and process in his thread. I show my work in my thread. we're all different. We all arrived in very different ways. You're different, but you can become a successful trader in your own way.

There's a lot that goes into this and no one can fix it for you. When I hit a specific % of loss for the day I lose trading privileges for the rest of the day. If I do it again in the same week or I hit a certain percentage of loss in a calendar week I am not allowed to trade live for the rest of the week and the next week and have to go back to demo. That's the punishment for me being stupid or allowing myself to be distracted or not following my process or whatever other excuse a human comes up with for either not having a process or not following the one they do have. The market doesn't care about you getting your money back. You should not care either. Only care about the process because it's the only thing you control.

If you have a repeatable proven trading process and you follow it...that's the best you can do. The market will do what it wants after that. My job each year, month, week, day, and each trade is to do my process. I can only control whether i do my process which ultimately includes opening and closing trades. After that it's up to the market to determine what happens.

What is your trading process? (I'm not suggesting your write it on this thread.)

Week of May 18. What's next? Prep and Building scenarios for the coming week.

If you go back to post 7 you'll see that my first trade for gj last week was at 132.55. We ended the week at 129.68. That's about a 300 pip move. I mentioned in that post that the potential goal is 128.00 for a 500 pip move.

Scenarios for the week:
A Cashboxism: if price is moving on Friday, price will move on Sunday (Monday Asia). If price is slow on Friday, nothing happens until Tuesday London (exception: wild news event). Keep in mind gj price is inside a weekly demand box so things can change rather quickly if/when price hits the bottom of the weekly box 124/124.60.

news this week:
jpy sunday7:50pm; monday 12:30am; Tuesday 12:30am, 7:50pm; Wed 7:50pm, 8:30pm; Thur 7:30pm
gbp monday at 9:30 and 11am; Tuesday 2am; Wed 2am, 4:30am, and RED at 9:30am; Thur 4:30, 6am, Fri RED 2am

Before the market opens it's easy to assume, based on the strength of Friday's move down, that there will be a gap down. If that's the case I'll wait for the pair to try to fill the gap. A different way of looking at filling the gap is to realize the moving average needs to catch up to price and price needs to move over to the down trend line before moving on down. On a gap down, price will move up and over to meet the ma and tl.

Other than minding the gap, I'm staying with the 128.05 goal mentioned last Monday (with a possibility of the Daily 127.10 area) until price actions says reverse the trend).

Picture 1 shorted gj with the trend after gap down was filled. Might not move down much for a while so will close enough to cover the stop loss. Just too early in the week to get excited about any big move down. May need to let things (ma, tl) catch back up a little more. Stops are 6 pips above the red box...had to go back and put them in after posting the pic. Always keep your stops out of the way because it's likely price will come back to the box a few times before price moves hard and fast away from it. Asia is a very technicals driven session and sometimes slow. Just relax and let the trend line and boxes do their thing to move the pair down.

9:26p getting close to my stop so may close and reverse if it doesn't move down in the next 30 minutes or it hits my break even. the stop is still 6 pips above red box, but will close manually if it doesn't go my way. It's just taking too long to develop. One of my weaknesses is that i tend to 'get married' to a trade and hang around too long.

thoughts at 6pm Eastern: gj moved down 300 pips since last monday...enjoyed the ride.
wondering if we'll get another 200 to 300 this week.
2am Market makers during europe open just went stop hunting above the filled gap so i'm thinking normal move going into london open will be to go the opposite way and crush it down again since they've already explored the long side. Might be wrong, but UK announced they are considering negative interest rates, etc over the weekend so short is still in the cards. Will trade what i see, not what i think. (as you'll see from the notes below...i didn't trade what i saw. didn't even close the bad trades! let them stop out. i rarely let trades stop out. normally close them before the stop out and actually trade what i see. grr.)

need to write down everything i did wrong tonight: - i got married to what i thought would happen and didn't act - thought there would be a strong continuation down on gj after info coming out that the UK is considering negative interest rates. wasn't prepared technologically due to moving things between laptop and pc, not mentally prepared, not rested well enough, i don't normally start trade sunday night unless i have a 4 hour supply/demand alert and the chart looks right, forgot to mark up the first hour of the open so i missed the long from the bounce off of the top of the first area.
didn't do what i wrote, didn't trade what i saw: 1- missed at least 35 pips not going long to fill the gap and beyond 2- didn't close anything to protect my stop loss so i'd break even the way i normally do 3- removed my stop loss because things tightened down going into london on my sentiment indicator so it looked like the market makers were just stop hunting 4- also missed at least 25 pips when price bounced off of a demand box on the 15 min chart. and, somehow, i took an extra short i didn't know about (this could have been due to having the account open on the trading pc and the laptop at the same time?)

yet, somehow i'm not mad about it, few emotions at all - it's taken a lot of work to get to the point of not getting upset. i'm still in the original trades at the moment and have my backup plan if the trades go against me. they haven't gone against me...yet. will update later. (edit: one would think i would have closed these trades at worst at this point, but nooooo! where was my head tonight? i thought the idea of a trade journal was to write thoughts down so you will ACTUALLY ACT ON THEM!)

i was stopped out. My back up plan for getting stopped out during normal higher volume times is to close and reverse. This is going to be difficult today because of how poorly the market is moving. (hmm, you think maybe you saw the price action of how accumulation happens before a nice move in the opposite direction? you'd think you would have recognized that before!)

5:56am Thanks to the nature of supply/demand I have around a 90% success rate of going into profit 1 to 11x what I lost by reversing the trade when i get stopped out. Normally, i don't wait for the stop out...i would just closed and reverse, but tonight I just wasn't mentally prepared to trade as you know from reading above. The concept of the supply/demand close and reverse that I figured out from watching the charts for 10,000 hours of my life is if price has the ability to go through the box and stop me out on the other side of the trade then it will have the strength to continue far enough to return my loss and make a profit for me. That's what just happened. I recovered my loss and grabbed another 1/3 of the loss as profit. I need sleep so I didn't let it run too far past what I needed to recover. My guess is I may miss out on a lot more pips, but when everything has gone wrong and you need sleep...then you go conservative and get some sleep.

It still amazes me that i was watching price and not the sentiment of the market and the actual price action. crazy. that's not me, but obviously it was me tonight. huge waste of time....12 hours! not my best trading, but the end result is i recovered, did my backup plan and made a profit! So, now i'm going to get some sleep.

I put comments on the chart picture. CAUTION: hUMAN tRADER! (trades from last night are attached in case you want proof of what i did.)

I was an observer last night while trading. Sure, I took a trade...but then I just sat back and watched until forced to use my emergency close and reverse after the supply box was broken and my stop area hit. I was happy to get out alive with some profit, but left 13x profit (yes, i did the math - you can see it written below and on the picture) compared to what I lost, on the table because I had not properly prepared over the weekend (sleep, scenario building, exercise, completing some computer things, taking a break from the screens, etc).

The moral of the story is...a newbie trader can observe and not ever push the button. A seasoned trader can observe and not move on AFTER they've pushed the button. We're both in the same boat...we are observers.

We need to move from observing over to acting on what we know and we are to be engaged, re-evaluating constantly from a neutral and bigger picture view so we can pivot as needed. Push the button. Pivot as needed and push the button again.

Here's what I thought per what I had written leading up to trading that I didn't do:
#1 in the picture - i didn't take the trade to fill the gap - 40 pips not made
#2 i took the correct short at the correct time at the top of the gap fill, but didn't close and reverse when I had 2 opportunities to do so - 20 pips not made
#3 i failed to mark the opening the one hour of the session (the yellow lines)
#4 because of #3, i missed a 170 pip move from a tap that I had the opportunity to get into TWICE!
#5 i missed a short coming from a divergence signal and proper price action - 30 pips not made

Now, would I rather make 260 pips (13x what i made) or would i rather barely escape a losing day? hindsight is always 20-20.

Please don't think I'm mad or upset with myself. Am i disappointed in myself? Yes. Did I miss out on a lot of pips I would normally get? Sure.
But, I'm actually quite happy with my performance. Well, part of it anyway because I recovered from being human.

Here's a statement you won't hear anywhere else:

I am the most confident losing trader in the world.

(Keep in mind, this journal is to help me...so I'm going over this concept again for me; to get it pounded into my obviously thick skull so it stays an automatic action in my trading.)

I am the most confident losing trader in the world.

Why?

Because a few years ago I figured out a great thing within the supply/demand concept. Due to where stops are put in supply/demand, if price has the strength to go to the other side of a supply/demand box and stop me out, then 90% of the time, in my experience, the trade will continue going in that opposite direction for at least 1 to 11x my loss. Well, what about the 10% of the time it doesn't? That's taken care of by the 1 to 11x the loss on the other 90% of the times it works for me.

A concept i need to remember...closing a losing trade leads to a higher profit for the day.