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

gbp news at 2am eastern. scenarios: take the gj down during Asia to get a better price for a move up at the news or keep moving the gj up for a better price and move it down at the news. or go both ways and end up where it started. or move it down and keep it moving down after the news or vice versa.

the long term trend is down so any up move would be considered an intraday trade so a smaller take profit. a down move may be a larger longer move. will see what price actions says and maybe today i'll trade what i see.

i need to admit that i'm a little unsettled after yesterday's fiasco, but all i can do is try to forget that and just do my process. My process is all i can control.

took it short.
closed for a few pips. waiting for a re-entry higher. things just not looking how i want them to look. will try again on a tap back to the supply box if the price action and sentiment look better. by looking how i want them to look...i mean i want the moving average closer to price at the supply candle. it may take a few candles for this to happen.

will look to short again at 131.20/24 area if sentiment indicator looks right. if not, i'll look at going long above the supply box in the 131.295 area.
price tapped the 131.204 supply box. shorted, but still not really happy with the moving average being too far away.
Details: the 4 hour chart - price came back up to the previous high from earlier in the day and failed. news coming after a nice move up against the trend. green sentiment was up at the band. 15 min chart - new supply box just below an older supply box from 5/15. and green had gone through upper band and back down. 5 min - green came up under and tapped yellow for a bounce down.
Waiting now for price on the 15 min chart to get below the moving average.
upper area of the session open is at 130.87.
things i don't like: tap back to the new 15 min supply box happened while the moving average is too far from the box, news coming, huge move up yesterday, 5 min chart price broke the down trendline so must now ride the top of it down, 17 pip stop loss - i don't like large stops! means it takes more of a move before i can close half to cover the stop loss. need 17 pips so might have to close 2/3 of the trade. also, price has to deal with the 131.0000000 area. 00 areas are sometimes tough to get through.

11:01pm close half of the lots at 17 and 19 pips to cover the stop loss. Set take profits and going to walk away for the night and get some rest. Will report back tomorrow. Worst case i have a free trade. Best case i'll make pips.

11:12 it's moved down pretty quickly so closed a little more at around 29 pips (sorry, not going to go in and count it to be exact, but will post the trades if you want to count pips.)

pic 3 shows take profits are set, stops are set. shows i've marked up the first hour of the day. and have trend lines on.
pic 4 11:50pm took a 1/2 sized re-entry at the trend line area to see if it will come back down. will keep a close eye on it and close it with very little patience for a loss. ultimately price wants to stay within the trendline.
12:15am i put on another 1/2 sized short at the 00 area. with news at 2am i will not put on any new trades until i get some better direction after the news. my thought process is that any gbp news at 2am about unemployment will be looked at as bad, but that doesn't mean gbp will go down. a lot of times the market will move in opposite direction the news suggests it should.

i forgot to remind myself that price tends to go back and re-test a new box. that's what it's doing now. i should have waited to re-enter there.

1:50am closed out the two half lot trades at 00 and .90 for small losses offset by gain from one of the first trades of this cycle for break even all together. still have 1/6 of the original trade on with a 17 pip stop. Will leave it on through the news and see what happens. my gut says gj will go short after a quick pop up to 131.20 area.
stopped out on the final small size left from earlier.

2:32am shorted at 15 min supply box 131.71. Stopped out - should use close and reverse here, but I'm going to get some sleep.

i have no idea how the UK can add 856,000 people (175,000 more than expected) to unemployment and turn around and claim a 3.9% unemployment rate that is .1% better than last month. Where does this math come from?

i may need to stop running scenarios because nothing is normal right now. just need to focus on being neutral in my thoughts and trade supply demand boxes based on my system.

Do your process. Do you have a trade process?
Professional baseball pitchers have a process. They know for each pitch where their fingers are supposed to be on the ball, the motion their arm is supposed to do, the instant the ball should leave their hand, where each foot is supposed to end up at the end of the pitch.
Develop a process for your trading.
Don't try to copy me. It won't work. You have to go find the things that work for you. You might get one idea from me and other ideas from other things you've tried. Put them all together and come up with 1 to 3 trade set ups that work well for you every time. Take a screen shot of them and print them out and look for those and only those set ups.
I noted in the above journal entry that i was still a little messed up from trading last night, but was going to do my process. You could hear from what i wrote that i wasn't happy with the moving average. But I waited til price went where it needed to go and pushed the button.

You can do this. You really can. Just stop messing around trying to trade for a few days and focus on putting your process together. Demo trade it until it works more times than it doesn't and you are doing it consistently. Force rules on yourself. Set up punishment for messing up.

You really very interesting post with your journey so far.
It is really nice seeing that. I know you will get hang to it soon. Keep doing this

GJ is trying to move out of a weekly supply box. May move back down before moving up and out. GBP news at 2am and 9:30 speaker.

8:44pm Shorted, but may be counter trend trade back to the top of the weekly supply at 131.50 before a bounce up and away. Forget the idea of where the pair may or may not go. Focus on trading and not guessing.

10:15pm Closed enough lots to cover stop. Closing enough to cover the stop means a trader risked 1 to get 1. or 1:1 risk/reward. 1:1 is the least you want because you can win half your trades and break even in the account over the long term. The preferred is 1:3 so you can lose 2/3 of the time and still break even in the account over the long term. My goal is to take trades with a 1:5 ratio. This means if i have a stop of 20 pips then I need the trade to move 100 pips. The idea is if there is enough room, meaning there isn't any area on the chart that will be hard for price to move through, the least I hope to get is 1:3 out of the move. So, I'm trying to get 5, but very happy with taking 3. By closing approximately half (depending on the trade and how far price moves) of my lots as soon as it hits 1:1 (or 3/5 of my lots = 1:1) it also allows me to have a free trade. So, if my stop loss gets hit the account breaks even for the trade cycle. (A trade cycle to me is from the time I open new trades, re-enter at the moving average/trendline and then close the trades.)

2:18 started moving so closed 1/4 of remaining lots at 00, top of 1st hour of the day and 1 hour demand.
11:42p picture 2 shorted again as price responds to the 1 hour supply.

1:43am closed 2nd entry at 7 pips. with red news at 2am there aren't enough pips to be able to close to cover the stop of 30ish pips so i'll take the pips and run. I'll keep the remaining lots on from the original trade because i sold enough to cover the stop so it's a free trade.

Reversal is set above the supply box in the 132.57 area same as the stops.

wow, so after that huge move up yesterday (with really bad news by the way) there was NO movement on the news at 2am today. It just goes to show that the big money can see the order book and knows where the orders are where all the rest of us have to find a consistent way to ride their coat tails...or close and reverse at the right area when we miss the clues and run to catch up. I'm not sure what to do or think other than go get some sleep and be back by 9:30am for the UK fed head to jaw bone the markets. jpy news at 7:50p and 8:30p eastern.

2:57am closed 1/4 at the bottom of the open of the first hour of the day. 61 pips. things started moving so i didn't go to bed.
trying now to get to the 131.50 area which is the top of the weekly demand, but it might not get that low.

3:37am If you're still wondering if supply/demand works...or if the big money uses it...they moved gj 20 pips up very quickly off the top of the weekly demand zone. missed my take profit by 1.2 pips. it takes closing a LOT OF Lots off all at once to push a currency pair 20 pips that fast!!!
See the 4th picture below.

4:01am had to close my 1/4 trade manually at 71 pips due to the pair not being able to get down to my take profit. Guess if you're going to ride the big money's coat tails you're going to miss out on a few pips here and their lots are bigger than mine. Happy to give up a a few pips to get 72. Great night of trading. Much better than needing to close and reverse because I missed something.

you may have noticed i removed the 5 minute chart and am using the 15 min, 1 hour and 4 hour (i may have had the weekly up for some pics because the top of that weekly demand zone was my target...and i needed a constant reminder of my target) charts today. The reason i was using the 5 min chart was because it helps me get more precise entries, but I found i was watching it for other things and that's not what I need to be doing. I need to focus on the 15 minute chart with the 1 hour and/or 4 hour as my guide

Okay, I'm going to bed. The remaining 1/4 of the original lots left after closing the break even lots is still on. The stop is still 19 or 20 pips above the high (supply box) of the day. I know I'm not supposed to predict where price goes so I remain neutral and don't get stuck trying to make a bad prediction happen and then trade poorly because i'm stubborn, but I'm leaving the lots on in case the boe fed gov moves the gbp down during his 9:30 speech.

Ugh! I'm on here typing and I know the gj is going to go up for a little while off the weekly demand i closed at and should have paid attention and grabbed those pips. an easy 20 pips. Grr.

Oh, well, you've read this far so please see picture 5 for a little bonus.

10.9

GJ Drops 500-800 pips or it rallies back up from the top edge of the weekly demand area (131.50).
While I was sleeping, GJ went up for the boe gov's talk and then came back down to again rest on top of the weekly demand zone at 131.50.
Price action isn't reacting like it's going to go back up strongly at this time so I'm going to leave the remaining short lots from last night's trading cycle on for the long term. it's likely i'll move the stop down to be+1 (break even + 1 pip to cover commission)...just for fun i put a 3000 (300 actual pips) trailing take profit on it to remind me my goal is for this to move quite a ways into the weekly demand area as all that demand is churned through. my target is either the 128 or 127 area, but if, over the long term, gj can eat all the way through to the bottom of the weekly demand it could go to the 124 area. While I continue trading what i see with new trade cycles i will try to leave some lots on with the hopes of price continuing to run down. It's okay if i don't make money on these remaining lots. ok, it's really not okay, but i'm willing to not make money on these remaining free break even trades in exchange for the possibility of gaining 500 to 800 pips for trading work I've already done. That's potential of 5 to 8 x what the profit currently is on this trade.

May 21 (trading day starts at 5pm eastern on the 20th so i use the next day's date after 5pm)

GBP news 4:30 and 6 am. JPY news 7:30pm

8:31pm picture 1 Took a long out of the bottom of the demand box. it may or may not run so I am doing this as a counter trend trade to start with and proceeding with caution. It is, however, coming up out of the weekly demand so this could be a stronger move. So, this could go either way. I will close and reverse below the demand box if I'm wrong. stop loss set at 131.349 13 pips.

If things go the way they used to go then gj will move up into the news at 4:30 am and then reverse down hard or the opposite. I will stay neutral and be ready either way things go.

9:18pm i moved the stop up 5 pips, closed and reversed.

9:36 planning to close some at 131.27 area to cover stops. coming up on the 4 hour moving average so this could get messy.

9:59 closed all of the new shorts i took. price tends to go in the opposite way when the new hour opens and we're too close to the 4 hour moving average for me to risk not recovering my losses. close and reverse covered my losses. still have 104 pips on the trade left from yesterday's trading cycle.
10:05 picture 2 now i'm waiting to see what happens at the moving average on the 4 hour chart. how price reacts to it.
10:31 picture 3 gj setting on the 4 hour moving average for 30 minutes. this could go on for a while - until news changes it. i don't know.

review...i showed up too late to go short at the top this evening. that happens. it's okay.

1:15 4th picture shorted off the 15 min supply and moving average with the current trend down. Might not work out due to setting inside the weekly demand area. Target for some of these lots is 130.88 area for the top of the day supply. 8 pip stop loss.

Picture 5 WAR OF THE TIME FRAMES!!! The week is trying to go up out of the demand box, but has neutral sentiment. The Day sentiment is hitting under yellow and looks like it's trying to turn down for a while, but only has about 40 pips to it's demand box. The 4 hour sentiment is trying to bounce upward and price is setting on/at the moving average which should move up. So, which one wins today, tomorrow, next week?
The Month is short so I'll go with the biggest time frame in the end, but that doesn't mean it will go down today.

2:10am closed and reversed...lost about 5 pips each trade. gbp news at 4:30. euro news at 3:15, 3:30 and 4. I may bail at the 131.50 area and let everyone else fight this out. Not worth the whiplash. 131.51 is the low of the open for the day.
I forgot one of the rules...close and reverse needs to be done during high volume times...europe open is not a high volume time.
2:25am but i went ahead and took a few extra trades as gj came back to the new 15 minute demand box. watching to see if it works out.
odd that it's a french and german (eu) bank holiday...and they have huge news releases while the banks are closed
2:04am take profit hit to double my loss on the close and reverse. some lots still running. price just hit low of session so may bounce back and down.
keep in mind that the top of the weekly demand is 131.49. sometimes there is fighting to keep a pair inside the supply or demand area. some fighting going on right now at that area.
3:33am picture 6 left a couple runners on through the news. Keep in mind...the job of the markets is to move...no matter what my opinion is of the news and whether price should go up or down. now waiting for eur news at 4am, gbp 4:30am news so the big money can decide where i'm headed next.
3:49 picture 7 the War part 2: the 4 hour is trying to go up while the one hour is trying to go down...at exactly opposite sides of the same indicators.

Nice journal you got here Cashbox. Keep up the good work!

May 21, 2020 Part 2 (ff only allows 10 pics per posting so i ran out of room in post 1)

4:52am Picture 1 finally got it done! 30+ pip trades from the 2nd close and reverse. What a grinder tonight! had to close and reverse twice to finally get a direction. still have one running. yes, i overloaded on that last trade.

Picture 2 I'm interested in buying at the 131.33 area (1 hour demand) again should the pair come back down. Why? because price action took out the 131.77 area which means it had a lot of strength and big $ behind the move. and, if price gets down there again, it's likely that big money will step in again to protect where they bought the first time (two huge bullish engulfing candles pushed price away from the demand area).

time to sleep.

5:26am wait! picture 3 tp just hit on my last buy lots! bonus! (still have sell on from yesterday's trade cycle.)

chart picture 3 Look at that reaction to where i just got out!!! BOOM!!! Tell me supply and demand doesn't work!!!

11:35am picture 4 shorted broken up tl, sentiment short for a little scalp london close.

12:18pm closed the short...for 2 pips...lost patience with it so shut it down. haven't traded london close in while and didn't like that i wasn't in at an extreme high or low. very uncomfortable because there was no real room to close and reverse.

done for the day

15.2

May 22, 2020 Fridays haunt me. Can I overcome my fear of trading Fridays and donating my earnings back to the market?

(edit: my apologies, i just realized i forgot to write the numbers on the pictures to coordinate them with what i write. I will try to remember to do the numbers. The journal entries and pictures are in the order in which they happened.)

8:30pm Asia open. Price is at the top of the first hour of the new trading day. jpy had news at 7:30 and has tentative news who knows when. gbp has news at 2am. and jpy has another tentative event in the US session.

shorted, but may be a little early because there's a trend line a few pips above.

Due to it being Friday's trading i was using half of my normal trade size so decided to not close and reverse until the 131.666 supply box is removed on the 15 min chart and took more shorts at the trend line. i might be in trouble here because i didn't go with the current trend. will know soon!

Okay, that was some very ugly trading. Looking at Picture 1: one the 15 minute chart #1 is the original entry at the top of the first hour of the trading day, #2 is the entry at the trend line, #3 is the entry at the 15 min supply box. i took my normal 5 trades at each location, but each was half of the normal lot size. yes, i'm spooked by friday asia, london and us session...pretty much hate trading fridays. so i decided to do them with half of the normal lots. (i use 5 trades so i can set take profits should there be a runner.) as price came below the #1 trades i closed those trades just a little in profit. then i closed some of the #2 trades with a few pips and have closed 3 of the #3 lots. anyway, don't try this at home! not worth it. i got very lucky.

i really need to get over being spooked by Fridays!

10:10pm Moving forward, i'm up 36 pips on the 3 remaining trades of today's trading cycle, but we're nearing the 133.324 one hour demand where i said yesterday may be a good go long area. Will watch price action here and see how it goes. if it breaks below 133.215 (the bottom of the demand box) then it may go down hard because price would be through both the hour and the 4 hour demand zones.

10:15 decided to close the remaining 3 trades.

Picture 3 It's late in he asian session so am going to watch price action and see whether to go long or go to bed early. price could also drop through bottom. this is the trade yesterday i said i would be watching for today.

i need to remember i still need to make a decision on the shorts that are on from a couple days ago.

10:33 picture 4 i took that predicted trade long. had a higher high on the 5 minute chart.

Also, closed my short from a couple days ago.

10:58 okay, market makers just took the trade through the bottom of the box to pick up some stops or just scare traders into closing longs or going short. this is now an official institutional trade in my experience. long. it's also now a divergence up trade where price is down, but sentiment is up. let's see if i'm wrong...and, if i am, it's okay because i know this is a strong area and if it breaks below i will just do a close and reverse. In my experience, it's very likely price will return to test the area again so i can't chicken out when this happens. stops are about 24 pips from where i opened my trades. i should have opened more about 5 pips lower, but i stepped away for a few minutes. this happens. it's okay.

i have 2 of the 5 trades set with take profits in the 131.65 area which is a couple pips shy of today's session first hour open high (just go the the 1 hour chart after 6pm and drop a line across the top of the candle and the bottom of the candle and you have the session first hour open range.) the new 15 minute box just appeared so i am hoping to buy more at 137.32 to 132.37. keep in mind there is news at 2am.

11:40 i made a few mistakes. 1- if i'm taking a supply demand trade off of the 1 hour chart, then i need to use the 1 hour chart for the price action. 2- i saw what i wanted to see and didn't remain neutral. 3- i wasn't patient enough. 4- i forgot there has to be a blow off bottom or top (price pushes further with large volume). 5- i also didn't wait for a few things: moving average close to the demand box and yellow line in the sentiment indicator close to or through the 32. And, the wrong time to be aggressive...too slow. I can do a lot better than this!
i'm still good because at least i set my stop based on the one hour demand box. let's see what happens.

12:22 forced to do a close and reverse. ugh! I got this one sooo wrong. more things i missed: 4 hour is supposed to be my guide. price is under the moving average and the time frame is in an obvious down trend. went with my normal trade size for the reverse. thankful i only lost 23 or 24 pips while using half my normal trade size. LSWH (let's see what happens). Trade what you see, not what you think.

3:06 close and reverse works again! closed 3 of the 5 trades using full lots so covered my losses and have 2 runners left on! remember, i used 1/2 my normal lot size, due to my fear of Fridays, on the original trades and lost 24 pips each and then closed 3 trades at full lot size for 24 pips each. anyway, all that matters is that i covered the losses plus some.

3:22 closed 3/4 of the lots in my 2 running trades for 38 pips. wanted to lock in profit while still allowing them to try to get to my take profit areas. stops are at be+1 so these are free trades.

27.3

Let's briefly look at my Close and Reverse Theory for Supply/Demand. With Supply/Demand, you put your stop loss on the opposite side of the box: If you're long you put the stop loss underneath the box. If you're short you put the stop loss on top of the box. It can be as few or as many pips away from the box as you want. I mostly use 6-8 pips.

Please see picture for more explanation. Use at your own risk. Normally I use the same number of lots and the same size stop loss which equals the same exact risk as my losing trade. It doesn't matter how scared I am that it won't work. I just do it. In my experience it has worked 90% of the time, but I normally trade at extreme highs and lows so if price breaks through the box it's going to keep moving for a while. I also only use this concept during high volume fast moving times. Not at 5am eastern or 3pm, etc. I've seen it move as little as 1x and as much as 11x my loss. You're experience may vary.

yes agreed mate.....same as a breakout strategy......draw ur box around consolidation (or a decent supply/demand area), trade the breakout....usually if one side fails, the other side will give you the move u r looking for. Obviously on some days, u can get whippy action that just pokes out both sides again and again - and those days can hurt u. But in general you will get the move away one way or another

Things to work on next week.
Write an analysis of the next trading day at 5pm each day. (Example: Post 11 above)

Week of May 24, 2020
Starting trading May 26 (Monday May 25 after 5pm eastern)

Looking at supply/demand: the week, day, 4 hour, 1 hour all either have or are in the process of having higher low/ higher high. All of them coming up out of or off of demand areas. My guess is the 4 hour candle close will provide more info in 25 minutes.

9:06 going to short around 131.75 to 132.00 based on the 4 hour supply zone if things look right...131.914 on the 1 hour.

Picture 1 This is a very uncomfortable short. Will see how it goes.

This is from post 26: "1:15 4th picture shorted off the 15 min supply and moving average with the current trend down. Might not work out due to setting inside the weekly demand area. Target for some of these lots is 130.88 area for the top of the day supply. 8 pip stop loss." Price came down into that area on Friday and is bouncing. My overall bias is short for gbp, but things can always change. We'll see...the bottom line is...if i get stopped out I'll just reverse the trade.

Okay, had to reverse the trade. I'm a little better than even. Time for some sleep.

In case FF is reading this: FF, please note that the fake news you put on this site is disgusting. It's sad that you've become a mouthpiece for a one world order that you will not be a part of. That's the funny part, all of the idiot news organizations, politicians, NGO's, social media boards, etc, will be destroyed because there will no longer be a need for you. You're literally committing suicide.

Got lucky...I don't normally hold trades over the weekend, but these were leftover runners from the original trade.

2:47am Shorted into the 135.18 London Open after taking around 328 on the previous runners held over the weekend.

3:48am closed half at 30 pips to cover stop. I don't like large stops, anything above 6 to 20 pips, so I'm thankful the pair moved enough to cover it. Keep in mind, if you risk 2% and your stop is 30 pips and you close the entire trade at 30 pips then you make 2%. 30 pips is a long way to go. But, if you risk 2% and your stop is 15 pips and the pair quickly goes 30 pips then you've made 4%. that's a huge difference

I really have no idea where this is going to go. 300+ pips is a big move for a pair without much of a rest/correction/consolidation so with a free trade at what could be the top of the move with a lot of space down below...I'm going to let it run and look at taking profit back down at the weekly demand around the 131.50. It probably won't work out, but that's where the tp is for now. Time for some sleep.

Chart 3 If i can learn to be more patience i could have picked up another 1/2% (15 pips). I need to remember that covering my stop loss is nice (this is my first goal - smart money management that ends with a free trade if I'm wrong), but doing what normally happens is even better (this should actually be my first goal instead of being so focused on just taking enough to get free trade by covering the stop loss). In chart 3 below you'll see 2 circled areas. price tends to come to the the purple moving average line in the chart which is normally the same area as the green line hitting the yellow line in the sentiment indicator. Then, if price is going to reverse for a longer period of time, the sentiment green line will move to the red line and then fail at that point and price will move back down, forcing the green line to the other side of the yellow line for a continuation of the reversal.

Chart 4 shows why i keep my stop above the supply/demand box instead of setting it at break even. Before confirming a reversal, price tends to move back up to test the origination/beginning of the trade. My first inclination is this is where more shorts are setting, but it seems more likely this is where people put their stops AND this is where the big money protects its position. It's also where there is less and less buying the higher into the box price gets which leads to buying exhaustion. And, if people are closing their longs in the same area then they're selling.
On the same chart I'm also looking for a higher high in price and a lower low in sentiment...which typically leads to confirmation of the reversal. It might not be a long term reversal, but it's enough to make some consistent pips. See chart pic for more details.

Keep in mind...and I've mentioned this before...trading takes some imagination in the pre-planning. Charts look great AFTER the fact, but very very different during live action. It's important to get thousands of hours of live chart time.
chart 5 is the 5 minute chart setting up for divergence
chart 6 is the 15 min chart setting up for divergence along with a view of what the hour, 4 hr, and day charts look like at this point.

And, yes, my trade could still fail, but it's a free trade because i closed half with enough pips to cover my stop loss. AND, if i'm wrong, i will reverse the trade at my stop loss area. So, why do i wait to reverse the trade until my stop loss is hit? Why don't i just close the trade and reverse it while price is still inside the 15 min box? Because you'll see a lot of times where price comes right to the edge of the box before finally failing and my stop isn't hit. You have to let the price action play out and act accordingly.

I only control my trading process. I don't control what happens after I enter the trade other than where my stop and my take profits are. The market is in control of everything except my process. That's why i work very hard to do my process and only focus on what i do, not what the market does.

Do you have a written process of how/where/why you open trades, where your stop loss goes every time, where your take profit(s) are, and what happens if/when you get stopped out? How many times have you done your process? You have to do it enough so it becomes automatic. Do NOT trade a live account until you have this set up and mastered. If you do then you're just wasting your time and money.

The trade stopped out at -30 pips for a break even trade. Had I been awake for the reversal, gj went up 100 pips from the stop for 3x my 30 pip stop loss. So, trading 2%, keeping the same lot size and stop loss as my incorrect trade, closing half for 1% at 30 pips and closing the rest at 136.48 for another 3%. That's a 4% day with very little risk.

Please see my next post for adjustments I need to make that will help me turn 4% days into 8% days.

(Please look at the last picture of the previous post for some background on this post)

Adjustments I'm making to my trading:

After all a journal is for looking back at and discovering ways to improve. The funny thing is that i know the things that need improved because I used to do them. So, this is more about getting back to what I'm supposed to be doing, adjusting back to being the best trader i can be.

1- trend goes on longer and further than we think it will. 90% of my initial trades should be with the trend. Instead of looking for where price/trend will reverse, I need to look for places where the trend will resume. This could be a supply/demand box, the moving average, the sentiment indicator, a trend line, etc.

2- the chart from today's trading is below. Had i been awake and did the reverse process it would have been a 4% day on 2% risk instead of a break even day. Don't get me wrong, the first job of a trader is to protect their capital. I'm happy that I protected my capital and had a +1 or 2 pip day. but the chart shows I can do better. I'm not trying to be perfect. No one is perfect.

3- Now, let's talk about how that trading should have been done. Do we really 'know' when a trend will end? No.
- I know from experience that price goes to boxes and then back to the moving average so i know the areas to trade even if i don't know when the trend will end. counter trend trades can be taken back to the moving average (trend line) and then trend trades from the moving average (trend line) back to and through the box for the next level up. Or, if I'm not fast enough or confident enough then i should take trades that only go with the trend that's showing on a higher time frame (4 hour or day).
- the chart shows 850+ pips of profit on a 230 pip move (it's more like 950, but you can't catch exact highs/lows). Can i be awake for all of it? No. Do i know where price is going every time? no, but i have a pretty good idea of how price acts.
- i need to have more faith in my trading ability, actually read the price action and act accordingly, not be so short sighted, allow myself to not just see change in trend more quickly, but allow myself to release the old trend belief and move to the new trend belief ASAP.

More information is in the chart pictured below. This is how price moves in during a trend.

could it go to 137.15? that's what the weekly chart suggests and it's what a measured move suggests.

11:05am Hit the 137.15 target.

If you get lost while trading the refer back to the opening hour of trading. Are you above it or below it? Some traders use the opening hour of each trading session (Asia, London, US), but that hasn't worked well for me.
In the chart below you'll see how the first hour lends support to the gj long scenario for three longs worth 250 pips.

8:17pm eastern June 4 (June 5 trading day)
shorted GJ due to traders protecting profits into non-farm payroll at 8:30am eastern Friday. Will close and reverse if needed 6 pips above top of 15 minute supply. Should that need to happen then I will look to short again into London if price action suggests it.

8:57pm picture 2 closed 2 of the 5 trades to cover stop loss for risk free trade.
sometimes i get so focused on just covering my stop loss that i don't pay attention like i should to the 1st hour high/low (yellow horizontal lines at 137.569 high, 137.299 low). Had I paid attention it would have netted me 11 more pips. So, where is the balance? I don't know and it probably doesn't matter. What matters is i closed 2 trades and the profit from them is covering the stops for the 3 trades i have left on. The stop is around 17. When trend reverses, price tends to go back to where i've opened my trades. That's why i can't move my stops down to break even. If a couple of supply boxes form on the way down on the 15 minute chart, I will start moving my stops down about 6 pips above the boxes depending on how close price is to the 50 or 00 areas.

10:28pm pic 3 gj is struggling to get through the 137.299 area. it's broken the down trend line on the 15 min chart, but i'm going to give it some room and time because if it gets below the 137.25 area it has a chance to move down hard and fast because it will be outside the bottom of the daily supply. if the moving ave on the 15 min chart doesn't keep price moving down then i'll consider closing 2 of the 3 trades i have left and let the other one go through non-farm while leaving the stop loss above the 15 min supply.

12:34a shorted again at the 137.70 area (supply on the 15 min chart). 3rd trade journal pic below.

1:48am had to close and reverse to long.
That was a really fast move. Recovered what I lost plus some. Still have lots left on. I was too aggressive on shorting that second series earlier at 12:34a. Seems I still haven't made the adjustment to just go with the trend. Making pips, but could be making a lot more pips if I can get back to how I've historically traded. This issue kind of makes me wonder if I should stop posting on here. Is this too distracting? Or should i be doing something live where i have to constantly talk through what I'm doing and why?

Thankful to get 2 1/4 x what i lost...looking to go short London open. Will watch price action.

4th chart picture: Finally got my short after a London open bull trap where they popped price up hard and fast to sucker all the retail traders in while big $ shorted and left the little money holding the bag. We'll see how it plays out. Institutions/Prop traders need to close their profits for the week and get flat for non-farm payroll news at 8:30am eastern. I'm not big on chart patterns, but this might become a head and shoulders pattern with price ending up back where it started the day.

Week of 6/7/20

6/9/2020 (after 5pm eastern on 6/8/20)

7:33pm Shorted GJ after it peaked above the first hour of the new trading day.

8:37pm closed half for 25 pips to cover the 20 pip stop.
9:05pm picture 2 monitoring the 4 hour demand to see how it reacts. This is the 2nd test. Right now the 15 and 1 hour are showing divergence so things could reverse on me.
Price broke through the 4 hour demand and then came back up. Waiting to see if it follows through to the down side. It may take a while for price to move over to the down trendline or the moving average to be forced to make a decision up/down.

3:41am Picture 3 closed half of remaining lots (1/4 of the trade) for 155 pips at the 4 hour and 1 hour demand. Going to read and sleep and let the rest try to get to the 136.06 area toward the bottom of the 4 hour demand. 10:30am gbp speech/news event.

1:33pm Picture 4 price came up to the 1 hour trendline and moving average and the 15 minute sentiment looks weak to the upside. I don't like having a 30 pip stop, but the remaining 1/4 of the original trade will cover it for a break even trade if needed. Edit: I'm not a fan of taking trades this late in the trading day - it's not the smartest thing I've done, but I have to trust that it's the right thing to do or close the trade. I did make a mistake Sunday evening. I don't like trading Sundays after non-farm because I want things to settle down, but I had taken a short Friday and did well with it (I'll post it as the 6th picture down) and should have at least glanced at the charts...they would have told me to short again at the top. It's okay, no one can catch all the trades when sleep is involved, but I wasn't asleep so will check from now on. The missed trade is picture 7 below.

picture 5 gj Day chart. Just trying to get a feel for where gj is. Anything can happen, but my bias is short for now. I'm wondering if, due to Brexit, gj will work its way into a narrower and narrower range over the summer. Will see how it goes and trade based on what I see, not what I think (or what other people, the so-called 'experts', who are wrong most of the time, think).

I do have to wonder what the US fed meeting minutes will show. My guess is the fed will try to slow down the stock market while continuing to soothe it. That's hard to pull off. The charts suggest the market has gotten ahead of itself.

4:55pm not the smartest time to trade, but closed the re-entry with 7 pips. this isn't my normal time to trade so that was a mistake all by itself. time to step away, exercise and relax a little.

Still holding 1/4 of my original short. The US fed finishes their meetings and announces rate decision at 2pm eastern tomorrow. This could be risk on tonight which means g down against the j. will trade what i see.

Trading the Fed Minutes 6 10 20

What will the US fed meeting minutes show Wednesday at 2pm eastern. My guess is the fed will try to slow down the stock market while continuing to soothe it. That's hard to pull off. The charts suggest the market has gotten ahead of itself (Price to Earnings P/E is more expensive than before the market tanked which means no one cares about the reality of these companies making money due to the Fed backstopping the markets), but I will trade what i see and not what I think (or what reality is?).

7:30pm Still holding 1/4 of my original short for the week at 94 pips.

J news at 7:50pm, news for both g and j tomorrow evening.

9:24pm closed the remaining 1/4 short for 107 pips and went long. The 15 and 1 hour charts show the moving average supporting price to the upside and the down trendline is breaking. I may be wrong so we'll see what develops. This is one of those trades where I feel like I'm wrong and went long at the top instead of going long at the bottom. This trade was taken inside the area from the first hour of the new trading day and that also makes me very uncomfortable. So, this could get ugly.

Please go to the next posting to see the developments from this bad trade.