Trading 101

PA trader vs Indicator confirmations trader
You will see it again and again in the market.

No it is not about entering early but it is not about entering late either. It is about understanding market context and market structure

"Balance Checkers In my experience, traders who are obsessed with the value of their accounts during the course of a trading day are destined for failure in the commodity and forex markets. The reason deals with the nature of the leveraged markets. Undue concern with one’s account value will override market judgment and lead to defensive trading. Defensive trading never works. To be successful in the commodity markets a trader needs to focus on trading the markets (not his or her equity balance) within a framework of proper money and trade management (these subjects will follow). Trading commodity and forex markets is not for you if you would need to check your account balance frequently.

The Emotionally Unfit The commodity markets take no prisoners. If a person has a major character or emotional defect, the commodity markets will uncover and exploit it. Successful trading is an upstream swim or uphill run against human nature. It is fair to say that consistently profitable market operations require that a trader learn to overcome strong emotional pulls. In fact, most professional traders can relate how many of their most successful trades required action in direct opposition to emotional urges. Individuals whose emotions have led them into troubled financial decisions, personal habits, or relationships should avoid commodity trading at all costs. Trading commodity and forex markets are hard enough without carrying a load of emotional baggage"

Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader

Overall Risk Management
Successful trading operations are dictated primarily by how risk is managed. Many novice commodity traders assume each trade will be a winner. Professional traders manage their trading to assume that each trade may be a loser. Obviously, there is a major difference between the two perspectives. The Factor Trading Plan operates with several global assumptions, including: I have no idea where any given market is headed. I may think I know, but in reality I do not know. History has shown that my degree of certainty about a given market’s direction is inversely correlated with what actually happens. In fact, I think a trader with excellent money management practices could take the other side of trades in which I have a strong belief and make money consistently. About 30 to 35 percent of my trades over an extended period of time will be profitable. The probability of my very next trade being profitable is less than 30 percent. As many as 80 percent of my trades over shorter periods of time will be unprofitable. There is a high probability each year that I will incur eight or more losing trades in a row. There will be losing weeks, losing months, and even losing years in my trading operations. Important risk management guidelines have been incorporated into the Factor Trading Plan to address these global assumptions. The primary guideline is that the risk on any given trade is limited to 1 percent of trading assets, and preferably closer to half of 1 percent of assets. Because I think in incremental units of $100,000, this means that my risk per trade per unit of $100,000 is a maximum of $1,000. My trading assets committed to margin requirements rarely exceed 15 percent. I don’t recall ever receiving a margin call for the account used to trade my full program. If I risk 1 percent of assets per trade and am wrong eight straight trades at least once each year, it means that I will experience a drawdown of at least 8 percent with certainty, at least on a closed trade basis. A 15 percent drawdown is about as much as I can emotionally handle. I have encountered a drawdown of at least 15 percent in 9 out of every 10 years I have operated a fully implemented trading program. I find myself more risk intolerant as I grow older. At the present time, my risk management protocol attempts to limit the maximum annual drawdown to 10 percent (measured from week-ending peak to week-ending valley). I attempt to ignore intraday equity spikes because I have no desire to catch the bottom of each day’s high or low, and I do not want to waste energy in even thinking about it. In fact, as I will discuss in this book, I think it is unwise to pay attention to account equity levels on a day-to-day basis. I consider correlation between markets when determining risk. For example, a bearish trend by the U.S. dollar against the euro is also likely to be accompanied by U.S. dollar losses against the Swiss franc and British pound. A bull market in soybeans is likely to be accompanied by advances in soybean oil or soybean meal. In composite positions of highly correlated markets (grains, interest rates, stock indexes, currencies, precious metals, industrial commodities), I attempt to limit my risk to 2 percent of assets. All successful trading operations must be built on a foundation of overall risk management.

Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader

This is my way of analysing a chart...I need to find confirmed top/bottom and recent high/low..If you were to go long the recent high should be your target,,which is 250 pips from here. ,so the question is are you willing to have a stop of 100-150 pips for a gain of 250 pips.DD is relative imo..during my early days trading forex I had been watching this trader (not going to mention name) for nearly 2 years and he had stops of 200-250 pips but never let the trades go that far into dd but in the majority of trades taken he always came out winning,.EU,GU and GY were his "specialties"

just trying my luck here by setting a pending buy before market closed

Sure you can risk 100and200pips if you have confidence in what you are doing. Tight sl are killers of balance in your account just isn't easy to widen it up if you are not sure in yours judgment and analysis. I understand this from my own experience not for everybody big sl but is worth working on this.

the dollar index,

why M5 is not suitable for inexperienced traders. If you have taken shorts where I marked you would have lost some money..if you were trading M15 there were no indication of shorts and checking H1 you will notice the trend is up

with naked charts as some traders claim they use where will be your entries and how accurate are you. I use naked charts when I do analysis on htf but I will find it impossible to scalp without indicators

Sometimes anticipating to much that pullback started on ht frame or change of direction, what is not so often.! By now I know best is to follow ht frame and to trade in same direction, but sometimes you get tempted just because pa looks just to good. Until price moves some distance 10pips or so and I'm able to put sl at break even then is ok, just this that you get hit often.! Part of the game, I guess this is better as to trade with no sl !

Always take a look at H1 (the least you can do) and also H4..if you want agreement with H4 then you will enter later but I would say H1 should be ideal if you are trading M15 or below. You can also trade M15 alone like I shown below with bbma which gets you in with almost pin point accuracy and faster too..also use the cci 50 to guide you , only long when it's above 0..I gave you a winning method Don't forget to buy me lunch when you make money I just want to add gurus on the internet will teach you how to lose ,,,most of them use conventional techniques which any Tom, Dick and Harry know and follow and then fall into the majority of those who lose,,we want to do the opposite of what's taught by so called gurus

Thanks pips for your advises, appreciate I do watch ht always , but you can't avoid all mistakes, but if is well balanced mistakes and good decisions, you can live Talking about lunch, I got some for bread already, bacon and vegetables will have to waitAll this brexit saga makes prices impossible

Please remember guys to use a stop where it will in 90% cases will not be hit, We don't use stop knowing it will be hit, don't be afraid of he market..it bullies those who are afraid, nothing venture nothing gained

Which broker has this index? Does it have also other currency indexes?

There are many brokers with the dollar index. Pepperstone has yen and euro index besides the dollar index

What about all 7 indexes?

guess I made a mistake of taking profit too quickly, there was a gap down and quite often it gets filled quickly, that was my thinking

I think your thinking is right, I don't hold trade weekend, anything can happen in the weekend, for me best way to manage risk is not holding trade weekend.
Every week I start fresh