Trading Journal (only my take)

NU pending sell orders

GJ pending buy orders

Both GJ and UC POs left with out me on board. They went in expected direction, but trade entry levels didn't trigger...both POs now scratched.

NU orders triggered and still in play

GU pending buy orders

Gold pending sell orders

NU both orders stopped out -40 x 2

GU & Gold triggered, all stopped out.

The extreme and unrelenting market movements have been challenging this week, which is not all that surprising given the chaotic state of the world at present.

Will any kind of normality return....probably, but not for a good few months.

What does this mean for traders?

I actually think the smartest and safest play would be going into hibernation for 6 months and let all the geopolitical crap simmer down before getting involved with the markets again.

Of course that won't happen in my case, and most others no doubt, which means we all must be even more realistic with the likelihood of experiencing more failed trades than successful ones, and that therefore means, at least so far as I am concerned, that getting the risk/reward aspect favourable to help offset the losses, which I believe are bound to be more frequent than before. No one, and even more so at this time especially, is immune to losing trades, I don't care what anybody else says about that.

How to deal with the reality in these uncertain times though will be the difference between enough success or too much failure!

Market direction appears to look pretty obvious in most pairs, and I don't think any particular TA is necessary. Decide on a retracement level for entry and follow the recent/current direction.

The only concern is that it is too obvious, which may mean that the market makers have something up their sleeve....an unpredictable opposite spike for example....who knows!

Anyway....GJ pending sell orders for me.

Some retracement appears to be going on with a few pairs today.....but we all know of course that appearances are designed to deceive!

ECHF pending sell orders

EU pending sell orders

The ongoing conflict is obviously terrible for all those directly involved out there. Indirectly we all feel the pinch. Normal trading conditions that we were all accustomed to only 3 weeks back have been blown away. Every hour has become a high impact event with little certainty of market direction at any given time.

The big winners in all this chaos are the brokers, who thrive on market uncertainty.

Amidst all this, we see threads where coders and the like peddle their junk oscillators. No oscillator rubbish is superior to the market price level already represented on most platforms. Deciding whether a trade is viable at any moment in time has absolutely got nothing whatsoever to do with second-hand oscillator nonsense. The price levels on the chart should be the only reference anyone should ever need to make a decision. An on chart moving average or 2 or/and a trendline are the only other objects that should be considered.

In short, accept there is risk involved, so simply decide upon a market entry level based on an assumption of what the market might do with appropriate stop and tp levels.

I emphasise........oscillator rubbish will not help you!

Both GJ positions triggered and stopped out, and 1 position on ECHF

3 trades currently left triggered and in play.

AJ pending buy orders

More threads posting idiotic oscillator indicators I notice. When will these muppets learn that the price chart itself is the indicator, oscillators are nothing more than a cheap second hand representation of what can already be seen in the main chart.
It seems their inflated egos supersede common sense judging by some of the immature comments I’ve read on a couple of what looks like similarly titled thread names, and the same muppets throwing stones at one another so far as I can tell….pathetic.
Time they grew up!

The objective of trading is of course to be profitable in the long term, everyone knows that.

That's easy part of that statement. Creating a well thought out plan to achieve the objective is crucial to any trader.

A well thought out plan can take many forms, and most people think that the more complex it is, then the better it must be. The strategies that I personally use are designed to be visually simple, but that certainly doesn't mean that particular criteria that are important to me are sacrificed in order just to make it visually simple.

We have all seen the complicated systems on FF....there's that one with god knows how many indicators going on right now for instance where the guy thinks of adding something else and makes some weird indicator for it that I'm sure most haven't a clue what's going on, and I don't think he does either!

There are many examples of that kind of thread all over the place....chopping from one thing to the next best thing every five minutes taking hordes of unwitting people along in the process.

The message here is, get back to basics....know what you think is important and then know what you want to see on the chart.

That's how I approach trading in general, ie keeping it as simple as I can whilst ensuring that I'm looking at the factors that are important to me and then deciding a potential entry level.

Ill post a chart or two soon

UJ POs in place based on nothing more than vey simple MA @ price div (MAD).

Some trigger in good time, some don't. Some lose, some don't.

Being ahead long term remember is the only objective

UJ trade stopped out...there was no stopping the upward trajectory for now.

NU sell po's in place.

There's no telling how markets will react in these challenging turbulent times, but I stick to my simple approach nonetheless which has proved a productive method for me over the course of time...no chopping and changing for me!

NU PO1 triggered and stop adjusted to make trade safe.

PO2 not triggered and will cancel this position if TP1 on PO1 is hit.

NU TP1 hit for a healthy profit.

PO2 now cancelled as stated before.

A number of other instruments look interesting to me right now. I'll probably post a PO as normal later on against just one of my selected pairs for those interested in trade progress/management updates, with stop and tp levels clearly marked.

As said, I will post just 1 instrument rather than the several that currently interest me.

Gold chart attached with relevant levels that fit my criteria for short pending orders.

The average trader which includes myself and everyone else, simply doesn't know what the market controllers have in mind, other than to keep the average trader guessing by generally luring them into the wrong direction. This is felt more by those traders who prefer to operate on small t/f charts where small stops are invariably applied and then taken out.

Anyway, more on that kind of stuff another time.

Probably be a while before my po's trigger. A fair likelihood of a period of consolidation for a few days I think.

EChf on my radar for a long pending order. Chart attached with my po levels, initial stops and tp's, which will likely change as part of trade management should the po's trigger I expect.

Both Gold and EChf po's appear to have left without me, and are now cancelled, so no gain or loss, and these are 2 good examples of looking for best price at the risk of a 'no trigger' pending order, and this occurs about half of the time in my case.

I'm well aware that most people like to be involved in the market all the time, and that's probably the single biggest reason why the vast majority lose imo, but that's another topic that can wait for another day.

GN chart attached with long po's stops and tp levels in place. It's obviously a volatile pair, so there's a fair chance that at least one of the po's will trigger before leaving without me, but that part is of course out of my control.