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

Let's talk about 12 pip stops compared to 30 pip stops. It has nothing to do with the stops and everything to do with the entries. We've all heard buy low, sell high, but we hardly ever do it. Instead, we get in at the top and close at the bottom.

Looking at the attached chart, you'll see I've made a huge mistake. I didn't get in at the bottom and ended up with a 30 pip stop instead of a 12 pip stop. The stop would be at the same price no matter if I entered at the right place or not. That's kind of the point. But now, if gj moves 30 pips, assuming I'm using a 1% risk to the account, then I'm getting a 1% move/reward, but if I had used the same 1% risk to the account and went in at the right place I would be up 2.5% thanks to a 12 pip stop and more lots.

With the stop at the exact same place, where would you want to get in? Would you want to risk the same 1% and make 1% or 2.5% on every 30 pips the price moves in this trade? Also, if I had entered correctly, I would already have closed half the trade and have a free trade. Ugh!

in chart below i should have gone long when price was held by the moving average (the purple line) on the 1 hour chart and pushed up. Instead, I got in 20 pips late. And, it appears it was not only too late, but it may be where a short should have been taken instead; making this a painful trade to watch. yes, i forced the trade. The punishment? I need to close the trade at break even if given the chance or take a loss. However, I'm not going to take the entire 30 pip loss. That would just be foolish at this point.

Also note the yellow line in the sentiment indicator on the 1 hour chart. It's too low to allow a short. Price needs to basically go sideways in a range for a while for that yellow line to ease it's way up toward the 50 and allow for price to move down below it again for another short. This, along with the fed news in the afternoon, may be why gj is quiet during Asia today (or vice versa).

Thankful to get out with 1 or 2 pips each profit.

BUT NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER FEEL SORRY FOR YOURSELF...FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX IT!
I bought more at the bottom!!! and am up 25 pips each on those with correctly placed trades and a 15 pip stop.

I was so excited that that trade worked out that I messed up immediately (probably should have taken care of my trading before posting on here) and forgot to close 2 or 3 of the 5 trades to cover my stop loss. thankfully, price never hit the stop, but it's pretty obvious I need to close, take the profit and stop trading for the day.

Sometimes when I look back at my trading for the day I'm left in awe...of how I had a plan going in and changed it and then traded horribly the rest of the day.

I knew all my trades should be short. I kept telling myself all my trades will be short. The information was right there! But, noooo, I got impatient and forced a trade long that got me backwards for the rest of my trading. Don't worry, I still had a winning day overall, but I had to correct, correct, correct. It was ugly...and that ugly was on top of the ugly of the charts the morning leading into the US Fed minutes several hours later at 2pm.

One would think, well I would think, that I didn't have a clue how to trade based on what I did today. I'm lucky I got bailed out three times partly because of the sideways channel and then because of that last drop after London open where I got in at what had been the bottom - thankfully price came back down and through that area and made some pips. I had ZERO to do with it.

Look at all those hits into supply that could have been shorted on the 1 hour chart time after time after time...and i know this. I KNOW THIS STUFF!!! I KNOW THAT I KNOW HOW TO TRADE!!! mIGHT bE gOOD tO sHOW iT sOMETIME. Okay, I feel better. I already hit the bike and thought through all of this in my head...walked through each trade and how I was backwards most of the night. Just needed to get it out of my head. HaHa, now it's in yours.

7:31pm 6/10/20 picture 2 NEWS? What NEWS? Supply and Demand determined, way before the news, which way the trade was going and big money was loading up for the continuation down for the week. News? What news?
Don't get me wrong...the news matters, fundamentals matter, facts matter. But, see picture 3, the big $ started their news trade Friday afternoon into Sunday night (eastern time). Look at the big picture then swing trade, day trade, scalp, whatever way you want to trade...with the big picture. If the big picture isn't clear...then don't trade. find something else to trade.

BUT, you have to believe in what you see on the charts. I have to believe that I'm good enough in what I do to draw the charts correctly and then trust what I did.

6 11 2020 entry and exit. Life is good when you're on the correct side of the trade.

Week of 6/14/2020

2:16pm eastern An uncomfortable short. When things are moving up strongly on the gj I closed my long and went short. It's very uncomfortable, but my system required me to short at the 4 hour supply box. Will it keep going short? I don't know. I added the 5 minute chart so I can remember and review the reaction on that chart to this uncomfortable short.

3pm there is definitely a fight going on at my entry area. Did I mention this is an uncomfortable trade? It went to 15 pips profit, but my stop is at 30 pips. I may close this trade at break even or take a small loss if price works its way into the 4 hour supply box. The other side of my brain is saying...this trade could be setting the trend for the week so I need to get it right. And, then there's the "I shouldn't be trading at this time of day" thought. I really should be exercising instead. It's okay, the big $ can fight it out and i'll just ride their coat tails no matter which way it goes. I have profit from earlier trades already this week so I will relax and let it do what it's going to do. The only thing I can do is my process. My process is a successful process a high % of the time and I do my process well. I cannot control what happens after I do my process because that's up to the market. I know what the reversal process looks like, how the market moves, what price does during the process, and know price will likely come back to my entry area a couple of times, but it would be nice to be able to close around half of the trade to cover my stop loss...makes trading a lot more relaxing.

3:24...I went ahead and closed at break even plus a pip...it's just too early in the week to take a loss and I need to stop looking at the charts in the afternoon. I have other things I need to do and need to save my screen time for when trading between 6pm and 5am eastern. Otherwise I'll be too tired when it really matters. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks I've apparently thought I was Super Trader and tried to trade in the afternoon. I will not trade in the afternoon. I will not trade in the afternoon. I will not trade in the afternoon. The risk is too high, the reward is too low. 5pm bank settlement destroys the trade anyway. My job is to see the first hour of the new trading day and trade off of that first hour and my system. My system does not include opening new trades in the afternoon. Time to exercise and get the logic side back in control.

8pm I remembered fighting the momentum a couple weeks ago so went ahead and reversed long for 25 pips.

1:50am 2nd chart picture below. finally got my gj short. I was about ten pips too late so I'll look to add more lots if price goes back up a little.

I was late getting in due to writing the following to catch someone up who lives outside of the US:
"No covid issues here. We don't know anyone who has had it. No one in our town has had it. The more we see the more we know we were lied to by WHO, China, the UN, and the US CDC/Fauci, etc. They only tested people who were already sick so it looked worse than it was. The stats now show less than a 0.29% death rate in the US which is less than the flu at 0.89%. Around 90% of the deaths have been people in nursing homes who were likely (not trying to be distasteful, just stating facts) to die the next time they got the flu. Also, people who have died had pre-existing conditions/illnesses. Because the government is paying hospitals for each patient the hospitals have been caught lying on the paperwork and blaming almost all deaths on covid even though pre-existing illnesses like liver failure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung illnesses, cancer, etc were the actual cause of death. Putting it a different way, pretty much no one is dying from anything other than covid. So, what happened to all the people who normally die each day from other illnesses? They're no where to be found. Our state is only averaging 18 hospitalizations a day due to covid for the last 7 days. There isn't a second wave.

What stopped it in New York City and elsewhere was the family doctors were giving the malaria drug and zinc (zinc allows the lungs to accept the malaria drug better) so people don't even need to go to the hospital. The research the extreme media keeps talking about is where they tested just giving the malaria drug and not zinc. And, they were only basing the research on people who were already in the hospital. It doesn't work after you're in the hospital because the malaria drug and zinc need to be taken immediately if/when you start having problems breathing...it only works up to the time you start having trouble breathing and it stops those issues within a few hours and it's been proven to work 98% of the time. Again, WHO and the US CDC are trying to scare people away from using it. It's stupid because they're killing people who are scared to use it. The malaria drug has been used for over 40 years with very few side affects and, even then, they know it only affects people with heart problems and the doctors see the charts and monitor people with heart problems who take it. We've taken it for ten days when we travel to malaria areas just like millions of other people over the decades.

The riots, looting and protesting are not based on race...this happens every time a Republican president is running for re-election and has been happening since 1968. Also, the Floyd family stated from the beginning that there was a grudge between the cop and their son. The killing likely had nothing to do with race. It was the result of an on-going grudge. The two had worked together at a club and already had issues. The family stated the murder was premeditated. But that doesn't fit what the extreme US media, black lives matter (they say at their protests to kill cops - not peaceful like the media says they are), antifa (a now proven communist anarchist organization), and the big money that's funding them want people to believe so it's been hushed. The family stated it again in Washington DC last Wednesday, but no one in the extreme media (CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNBC, any newspapers, etc) is talking about it. It's easy to find on line though. All of what I've typed can easily be found on line and verified from more than one source and they're not anonymous sources like the extreme media likes to use.

The question now is where is blm and antifa getting their money? 80% of the arrests in Minneapolis were people who don't live there. They burned down black owned businesses and killed black people during the looting. the riots and looting have been proven to be pre-planned. They have been ready for months to do all of this. They even had bricks brought in to the riot areas BEFORE it started. Big money is funding this. It's about the election, not race.

Interesting stats for support of the current president: The most support a republican president has ever received from black voters is 12%. The current president has 40% of black "likely to vote" support and 45% of Hispanic "likely to vote support." He only needs 13% of the black vote to win so he is well ahead even though the media polls try to say otherwise. November will be a landslide for him because of the idiots rioting and killing the same people they say they are "peacefully" protesting to protect.

Well, that should catch you up on the facts of what's going on. Everything I've said affects the world markets and can be proven by more than one source online."

2:37am closed half of trades at 31pips to cover stop loss. see the 3rd chart picture and the trade journal below it. I have no idea what happened, but price ran down very quickly! The news was at 2am? kind of a late reaction. Ah, just saw it...they finally did the jpy press conference at 2:30...and reports of explosions near north korean border. interesting how things work in trading supply and demand mixed with sentiment at the correct time of day...unlike my earlier trading in the late afternoon and evening.

3:25am closed a trade at 71 pips at the touch of the top of the opening hour of the new trading day (5-6pm eastern). see 4th chart picture and journal below.

5am 5th chart picture below: shorted again at the 15 min moving average, green close to yellow on sentiment indicator, 1 hour should reverse back down for bearish engulfing and green breaking below yellow on sentiment indi, 4 hour has a new supply box and green is outside of top blue band on sentiment indi, day green should come back through and below yellow on sentiment indi, week green is hitting up under yellow and trying to turn down.

Following up on gj trades 6/16/20
I needed some sleep so I did something I don't normally do...i set the trades to break even plus 1 pip profit (b/e+1).
Why did I do that? Trades had already closed for some good profit so I didn't want to give it back. The reason I shouldn't have done with the second entry is for exactly what happened...price tends to retest before continuing its move. The initial entries were safe to draw to b/e+1 because they were protected by a new supply box on the 15min chart. So, don't set your stops to b/e+1 unless you have a new supply/demand box between your trades and the current price. Even then it might not work out, but there is less chance of getting stopped out.
Was it the right thing to do? Yes and no. Here's where I made a mistake: Normally I use the profit from my initial trades that are still running as my break even on the entire trade cycle for the day if I do a secondary entry. This means I didn't close half of the 2nd entry to cover my stop. i had at least two opportunities to close half. So, I'm going to change something in my trading and close part of the secondary trades to cover my stops just like I already do with my initial entry trades. This will allow me to not worry about wasting my profits from my initial trades and lower the risk of losing that profit. So, instead of stopping out on my secondary entry i would have around 29 pips on the first half and still be in the trade instead of 1 pip and not in the trade. Taking part of the profit and having a zero loss trade is better than taking zero profit and getting stopped at b/e. A bird in the hand.

Moving on from making that change, I'm very happy with my trading today. My initial entry was 10 pips late due to writing that email, but it was worth it.

There are a ton of reasons why I went short last night. Some of the technical items were so very minuscule they are hard to see on the charts, but if you go back to the 1 hour chart from the previous post you can see that green had crept under yellow in the sentiment indicator. That's why I stayed in through the 8:30am US news and the fed head testimony. Also, I remembered the reaction to the fed head last week where risk assets lost. Maybe it's because he's not saying anything new or giving away any new cars yet. (sarcasm)

The circled items on the chart show the reasons either for going short or for staying in the trade. Compare them to the previous pics of the charts and you might see some interesting things.

6 17 20
pic 1 gj shorts still open from yesterday.

j news at 7:50pm, g news at 2am

8:47p closed the rest of the trades from yesterday. I'm not currently comfortable going long or short on gj...so decided to close and walk away.

Possible Dow Scenario between now and the Nov election. Trade what you see, not what you or anyone else thinks or says.

June 18, 2020

Red news for G at 7am eastern. I expect either a fast deeper drop leading into the news and a reversal or a fast move up into news and a reversal. but what I expect verses what happens could be totally different. Trade what you see.

6:41pm took 7 trades short out of the 15 min supply box with green in the sentiment indy hitting the upper blue band.
7pm to 7:21pm started closing some trades - see first trade journal picture. I'm a little skidish due to the news in the morning so am acting like it's going to reverse on me around the 8:30pm asia open. first chart picture: One trade left on is currently at 30 pips profit. stop is at b/e+1.
I went ahead and set a take profit a couple pips above the low of 134.011. that's 1 risk to 2 reward should it get there.

8:03pm take profit hit see 2nd chart picture and 2nd journal picture below.
Got my goal for the day so I'm done trading until the charts tell me otherwise. This may be the area the pair reverses during asia. I don't know.
I guess I'm just thinking I don't want to take a long and fall in love with it and get burned, but I am interested in a possible reversal here.

8:52pm took the retest of the 134.00 long. see 3rd chart pic. 1 hour squeezed down on the sentiment indi at the 32 (lower area of the indicator). will see how this goes. just cannot fall in love with this trade!
I'm wondering if aussie news at 9:30 will move things to a risk on scenario temporarily overnight...says the trader that doesn't want to fall in love with this long trade. I'll take off trades at the moving average or when the green sentiment line hits yellow...whichever comes first.
9:24 I was too slow to close when green hit yellow and it reversed on me so I had to take a loss (see 3rd trade journal pic) and close and reverse.
9:38 closed 1/2 of the close and reverse shorts to cover the losses. (see 4th trade journal pic)
some day i'll finally realize to just go with the trend and stop thinking. It's pretty cool though to know when i make a mistake it's made at strong supply and demand areas that allow for large enough moves in the opposite direction to be able to handle the stop loss and reversed trades and still get 1 to 11 times my loss. This one also happened to be at a double 00 (134.00) area which then broke. Very grateful for figuring this out a while back...you cannot trade scared. Have to trade with a plan in mind for when you're wrong and not react emotionally, just react quickly.
10:17 closed rest of the shorts from the close and reverse cycle. yes, i clicked a lot of sells there.
I'm going to sit and wait and see if the green line in the sentiment indicator gets above the yellow line on the 15 minute chart and comes back and tests a demand box. Seems that fast deeper drop in my first sentence tonight happened...maybe I was one push down too early for the reversal. I'll wait for the charts to prove it to me.

I made a change yesterday to my trading and i'm going to make one today too: Instead of closing half on all trades to cover the stop loss...I'm going to close half on counter trend trades, secondary entries and sideways channel days and not close any just to cover the stop if I'm with the trend (out on the larger time frames). Instead, if i'm with the trend, I'll let it go until there's a natural place to to do a partial close.

11:42pm shorted again. I'm not very comfortable after that strong of a move up so I'll aggressively close trades if I need to.
I'll continue this on the next posting...have reached my max 10 pics for this posting.

6 18 20 continued

12:32am closed 1/2 of the current short from the 15 min supply for around 20 pips each. Closed when the 15 min green line touched the yellow line on the 15 minute sentiment indicator. Keep in mind it might not look like green is touching yellow in the picture, but in real time it touched and bounced as you can see from the candle wick. It's important to keep in mind that charts are historical...trading happens in real time so charts can look a little different.
12:48 i went ahead and closed the other half of the trades at 10 pips each because i may have a reversal on the 15 min chart.
12:50 yes, a reversal long is official. see 2nd chart below. i should have closed all and bought when green hit yellow! grr. too slow sometimes! i was 20 pips late on my long entry. That's unforgivable!
chart 3 below: price will go through supply and take it out this time. I'll buy more at 134.03 if it comes back and tests it.
This is the first time a reversal has happened while I've been at my computer trading since starting to post on here. This is huge!
This is what i was too impatient for earlier tonight...it's what i was supposed to be waiting for. This happens typically before huge news like the g is going to have at 7am eastern. Big money moves the pair really hard and fast with one more lunge in its current direction and they're closing trades all the way through this last lunge. At the same time they are closing old trades they are opening new trades in the opposite direction. This quickly drives price the opposite way of the trend, creates this reversal set up and goes for some decent pips. So, let's sit back and watch what happens in London session. Again, if i can pick up anymore lots at the 134.03 area i'm going to load up even more than i already have.
1:17 supply taken out! Blue box i drew in is where supply was. it's been broken so the original box has disappeared! let's see what it does from here. There will be a battle here because gj has to take out the 4 hour down trend line that's it's hitting up against. It's a process. A longer term reversal is a process.
Note to self...remember their is almost always one last big move to get price to a supply or demand area before price reverses. It's typically a box inside a box inside a box. in this case it was the 1 hour inside the 4 hour inside the daily. lunge and reverse. happens a lot several hours to 3 or 4 days before the news may affect the pair in the opposite direction.
1:51am i was able to add trades at the 134.03 area!!! the pair has now obeyed/bounced off of the 15 min tl. The struggle is breaking the 4 hour down trend line. a reversal does need to break trend lines after all. also, note the 15 min moving average...it's holding. it's purple and at the top of the green box. All things point to lift off during London. I'd much rather have London run this up than have the eu session run it up for a half hour to an hour because London will drop it on me. We shall see where it goes.
REMINDER that i don't want to fall in love with this trade. it's likely the 7am news will move gj short again.
2:38 had a little run to the upper line of the first hour of the new trading day (yellow line). closed some there for 20 pips. waiting for the next run up and through that area in london. the 3rd trade journal below.
6th chart picture: Note the cupping the moving average is doing...it's holding the candles and keeping them from falling through it. trend line is right there with it.
Just posted the last picture for this entry. It's the 4 hour chart and the concerns of breaking the down trend line and the sentiment indicator green is hitting up underneath yellow. This again suggests i do NOT want to fall in love with this trade because the news may send it screaming back short and hard and fast!.
Please catch part 3 of this trading day in the next entry below.

6 18 20 Part 3

London is opening. I'm hoping to close more trades at the 134.44 area after London tries to scare me out of this trade.
3:04am bought more at 134.03 to replace what i closed earlier.
if the lower tl breaks with a closed candle then i'll consider close and reverse.
there's the scare. now everyone thinks it's going down. let's see if it gets back above the tl ...looks like it will.
price moved down the 15 min demand at 133.835 so i did not close and reverse. it's very rare for me to not close and reverse and be okay with a potential loss. Thankfully, i have profits from trading today so i'm okay. i'm very uncomfortable, but okay. do recall that i entered 20 pips late to begin with and this is what happens when one makes a mistake...draw down.
4:12am took some profit at 134.15. Thankful that all trades are in profit at the moment.
lucky to have the opportunity to get out of the trades.

How to break all your rules in one morning of trading:
- trade against the trend
- open more trades than you should/over leverage
- fall in love with a trade (hold it too long)
- get into the trade 20 pips late
- don’t get out when you do get to break even (you had many chances to do this)
- don’t take the correct trade when you should be getting out at break even on a bad trade
- don’t close and reverse when your trendline is broken
- keep trading before a news event
- stop following your sentiment indicator because news is coming up & you think news will reverse trend
- forget that your favorite trade set up only works when it’s reversing to go with the trend
- forget another important rule of your favorite trade set up
- try to type on two FF threads at once (it’s not your responsibility!)
- making updating your thread more important than trading so you enter trades late, miss trades, don’t close trades, miss a close and reverse
- be willing to risk everything you’ve made for the day
- don’t put stops on
- don’t put take profits on
- don’t close trades to cover stop loss
- don’t update trendlines
- trust that the news will allow you to recover from your inability to trade by your rules
- allow what was your best trading day ever to become your worst
- tell someone how you’re trading is going (it always jinxes you)
- have the five minute chart open (too much noise, distracting)
- don’t exercise for that one day (it’s not okay to skip a day because you lose your brain)
- be a spectator and commentator instead of a trader
- loose all ability to think ahead with if this then that scenarios

I'm sure i've missed a few rules i broke, but you get the gist.

Non farm payroll is Thursday instead of Friday due to Friday being a bank holiday for US Independence. An independence that needs to be fought for and won again.

6 29 2020

6 30 2020

7 1 20
gj shorts during Asia

3 trades closed at take profit that i moved down a little based on what I was seeing.
closed 2 manually at the same place.
have 3 trades left on at 74 pips each.

closed the rest at 84 pips. flat and waiting for London open.

interesting tidbit...with all the large moves in June, GJ opened July only about 100 pips above the open on June 1.

2nd short entry, but i'm not comfortable because there's pmi and other news every 15 to 30 minutes out of europe so I won't be holding this very long.

out and done for some quick pips. it may go to the 133.06 area, but I'm going to shut down for the day.

The chart picture is my journey trading gj this week so far...it's the flow of the market where you can see the big $ people coming in and reversing the trade direction. You can see where they were accumulating to go long from Friday through Tuesday. then Tuesday they were done and the marketmaker released price from it's sideways action. Price went up, first profits taken to cover stops. Price came down 50% to a double zero. Edged up, came back to the double zero area to fake retailers back short, but sentiment shows bullish divergence so take it long (if you're not asleep) and back to a double zero 134 area.
I've documented these individual trades above via chart pics with trade journal pics as I've taken the trades. this chart pic puts those trades all together to show the flow of the market so far this week. It's fun...i rather enjoy it! If one can be patient and watch and wait and grab onto the institution's coat tails it can be a rather fun ride.
Institutions don't trade non-farm or other red news events right when non-farm happens...they start trading it a few days before. And, it doesn't matter what the big news announcements end up being (which way we think price should go) because the big money has already made their moves to position for where they want to be. So, if a retail trader thinks 'hey, that's positive news for the pair, price should go up, i'm going long' and price goes the other way...it's because they're trading it a few days too late, the institutions are using the retail trades to close trades, and the retail trader is left holding the bag once again...an empty bag.
There are typically six "news trades": 1 - several days before as $ positions for the news 2 - a day up to several hours before the news as price comes back due to prop firm traders get flat/get out before the news to lock in profits 3 - going back in the original direction after the prop firms have gotten out and given you a better price coming into the news 4 - a couple minutes before the news (two ways to play it: go with the direction of sentiment at a 15 min or 1 hour supply/demand box or set limit orders with sentiment at 1 hour supply/demand boxes. 5 - seconds after the news (rarely goes well due to whiplash and sudden fear) 6 - around a half hour after the news when price comes back to and tests the moving average on the 15 min chart (you miss the whiplash)
Which of these 6 "news trades" do you want to participate in? I've done all of them and #5 doesn't work consistently. the biggest moves in order of lowest risk are 1, 2 and 3.

I find it very interesting that the markets are and have been acting the opposite of the media's fearmongering about every little thing. Can you imagine how good things could be in our world if we had facts instead of fear! i get that the media needs to make money so they only report on the extremes so they get clicks and views, but wouldn't they make a ton more money if they weren't against everything and the economy was allowed to grow instead of being cursed by them on a daily basis?

Do traders really know more than the fear mongers? Seem so.

Happy Fourth of July! (Um, but only if the marxists still allow us to talk about US history and freedom.)