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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - A Real Trading Record

  • #601
  • Edited 3:42am Jul 21, 2025 3:17am | Edited 3:42am
Hi all,
A somewhat hasty but fortunate trade to show you today, incorporating two clear lessons in the value of an appropriate stop placement, and the value of not seeking to be too greedy:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250721_08.35.png Size: 19 KB

Market opens 8am around 24296, nips up to test the 330 level before sinking back to wobble in the 05-25 area before having a spike down below big figure 00, bottoming at 91. The immediate sharp reverse back over 00 makes me think we have seen a fake break of 00 and the market is likely heading higher.

I am thus tempted into a long at 03, this entry point selected as being above 00 and enabling my standard 14pt stop (this being 10x the round trip spread in this market) to be at 89, below the spike down low. This action is what saves the day as I am proven to be too hasty in entering, the market taking an immediate second dip down to 91 before reversing sharply as hoped. Only the stop being below the prior low saves me and I am subsequently able to take a 17pt, 1.2R profit as the market rushes up to test the 20 level again.

And not being overly greedy captures the profit as the market quickly reverses off this level to fall to fresh lows. A run up to at least the opening highs at 30 would have been a reasonable play here but caution wins out today at least.

I hope you can see some of my basic trading principles in here today that I believe are applicable to all trading, not just my method: the stop below the prior extreme gives you an extra safety barrier, a place where the market has to work to get to; and a very achievable 1R target that does not ask much of the market to get there. My analysis on this trade was not great - I was too hasty on the entry and was incorrectly tempted to let it run on to test 30 when in good profit - but careful stop placement and being happy to close at a cautious profit taking target made this trade a winner despite my otherwise pervasive incompetence. Proof that if you trade carefully you can still do OK even if you are not that good!

With that, time I think for a summer break from posting. I wish you all a sunny and prosperous time!
  • #602
  • Jul 28, 2025 3:27am Jul 28, 2025 3:27am
Hi all,
I know last post I said I was intending to take a summer break from posting but my trade this morning was so almost textbook perfect for my method that I feel obliged to show it to you before I do sign off for a while:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250728_08.56.png Size: 15 KB

Not shown on chart, market opens 8am at around 24480, touches big figure 500 before reversing and settling into a distinct downtrend all the way to test 300. There is a first bounce up to the 50 level, then a second four bars later to 54 before reversing immediately back below 50. This gives me a short at 48 with a stop at 62 and 1R target at 34. The market duly falls back towards 20 and I exit at 26 as the drop pauses for +22pts, 1.8R. Note that not being unduly greedy is a virtue here as the market did bounce sharply off the test of 20 and would have led to a scratch (if stop moved to breakeven) or a loss (if not). The market is fickle, don't try to be too clever with it!

Everything here follows the setup I am ideally looking for:
- Clear directional trend in place
- A first decent bounce against the trend
- A second attempt to pierce the bounce high that fails & reverses
- A stop above the bounce highs, making it harder for the market to get there
- A 1R target above the prior low, easy for the market to reach
- Good potential for a more than 1R winner if desired to try for it, without the need for undue greed

For my method, this is all close to perfection. All I have to do is: 1) develop the method; and 2) stick to it!

Your method will not be this one, it will have to be something you developed that suits you, your psyche, your timeframe, and how you view the market. The differences in method, though, are not what is important. What is, is that you have a clearly defined method that you can stick to, and you do it with discipline, consistency, and solid risk control. Wait for your desired setup to appear and then trade it unhesitatingly. It won't work all the time - far from it - but if your method has any sense to it at all, trading carefully like this makes it very, very likely you will have a positive return over time without having to assume large amounts of risk or deep drawdowns.

Have a good rest of the summer!
  • #603
  • Jul 28, 2025 6:02am Jul 28, 2025 6:02am
Quoting Oldtraderman
Hi all, I know last post I said I was intending to take a summer break from posting but my trade this morning was so almost textbook perfect for my method that I feel obliged to show it to you before I do sign off for a while: {image} Not shown on chart, market opens 8am at around 24480, touches big figure 500 before reversing and settling into a distinct downtrend all the way to test 300. There is a first bounce up to the 50 level, then a second four bars later to 54 before reversing immediately back below 50. This gives me a short at 48 with a...
A world of wisdom and practical advice in this short post, Read and reflect.
Have a good Summer break OT
every Saint has a past. Every Sinner has a Future
  • #604
  • Aug 14, 2025 11:36am Aug 14, 2025 11:36am
Thank you so much for this thread - read all of it over the last week and I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed it.

Lots of wisdom and humility - thank you for taking the time to post!
  • #605
  • Sep 1, 2025 3:26am Sep 1, 2025 3:26am
Quoting ZenTrader25
Thank you so much for this thread - read all of it over the last week and I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed it. Lots of wisdom and humility - thank you for taking the time to post!
Hi ZenTrader25,
Thank you for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed the thread, hope there may be something useful in there for your own trading.
  • #606
  • Sep 1, 2025 3:41am Sep 1, 2025 3:41am
Hi all,
September arrives and I am back from a sunny break for some more trading. However, I do feel I have kind of exhausted most of what I want to say about trading my method that I have presented to you over the past few months. Thus, time for something a little different, perhaps.

I would now like to present you with a different method, really quite unlike what I was doing before. That was trend trading with the flow after a presumed failed bounce against that flow; this will be a reversal method, essentially trading close double tops & bottoms, ignoring the idea of flow. I will trade the same market, in the same timeframe, with the same risk parameters, so the methods are directly comparable.

What I want to demonstrate by doing this, is that the actual method is comparatively unimportant. As long as it makes some sort of basic sense it is sufficient to trade with, the keys are discipline, sound risk control and consistency of application. Also, a change is as good as a rest, so something else to talk about for a bit! Please understand, I am continuing with my core method in my own trading in parallel to this, I just won't be presenting you with any examples of it, this thread will focus now on the double tops & bottoms.

That said, on to today's trading in the next post.
  • #607
  • Sep 1, 2025 4:17am Sep 1, 2025 4:17am
Hi all,
Happened to be a busy morning for this new style of trading, a choppy market that generates lots of trades. I will show you the first four of the day, two wins, one loss and a scratch for an all-round introduction:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
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I am looking for a local extreme to be made, followed by a quick test of that extreme that just exceeds it and immediately rebounds. Entry is on the rebound, a close stop is just outside the extremes, 1R target remaining at 14pts for this market under normal conditions.

Trade #1 presents shortly after the 8am open with a double test of a 23980 low, the two tests just 4 bars apart. The immediate second rebound sees me long at 83 with a close stop at 75 just below the lows. This works at once and a 14pt 1R profit is quickly taken at 97.

Trade #2 comes shortly afterwards, a double bottom at 90 this time, only 2 bars apart, results in a very similar trade with another 1R win at 07.

Trade #3 is another local double bottom at the 20 level, but this time the entry at 22 fails with little progress and gives an -8pt loss at the stop at 14. This loss is only -0.6R due to the ability to set a close stop in this sort of trading.

Trade #4 is also a long, trading a local double bottom at the 10 level. Entry at 14 was a touch higher than desired due to slippage on entry in the fast rebound. This proves to be costly as the trade gets to within 1pt of the 1R target before the spike collapses and I am forced to take a scratch, having moved the stop up from the original 05 level to entry; you can't let decent open profits turn into a loss, the scratch is painful enough!

I trust all of this is obvious enough on the chart and allows you to see how this method works. It is very simple to see and trade, and it gives the potential for large profits and tight stops. As such, its predictive ability can be zero, it will still make money if it proves to be an essentially random entry method (which I am pretty sure it will be over the longer term!). Anyway, enough for now, more discussion about it all tomorrow.
  • #608
  • Sep 1, 2025 1:49pm Sep 1, 2025 1:49pm
Hi Oldtraderman,

looking forward to the double tops and bottoms method!
On a side note, I think the risk reward ratio from above are a bit off, no? For the two winning trades you risked 8 points and made 14 points. That should be well above the 1R that you mentioned.

Cheers
  • #609
  • Sep 1, 2025 3:48pm Sep 1, 2025 3:48pm
Quoting AreAmEye
Hi Oldtraderman, looking forward to the double tops and bottoms method! On a side note, I think the risk reward ratio from above are a bit off, no? For the two winning trades you risked 8 points and made 14 points. That should be well above the 1R that you mentioned. Cheers
Hi AreAmEye,
Many thanks for your comments. Yes, absolutely right, I was still position sizing for 1R to be 14pts (and that equating to a 2% risk of my account), which is what I did for the method presented up to now that used a standard 14pt initial stop and target. The fact that this method can allow tighter initial stops than 14pts and thus better than 1:1 reward:risk is not something I have expressly addressed yet as just wanted to get set with a basic introduction to this new strategy today. But I promise I will address the matter in more depth shortly!
  • #610
  • Sep 2, 2025 2:28am Sep 2, 2025 2:28am
Hi all,

Before I launch into today’s trading, a little more explanation about the method I introduced yesterday. It derives from a long-established trading concept that I have seen presented in several guises, e.g. The Turtle Soup strategy from the 1980s book Street Smarts by Raschke and Connors; and the 2B or Spring strategy, originally attributed to the trader Vic Sperandeo, also dating back to the 1980s. I am quite old and started trading that decade so these are my formative examples, there are many more recent iterations, too.

The whole idea is that market movements are choppy rather than trending most of the time, so you can make money reversing levels of local resistance. Close double tops and bottoms are an indicator of such levels, and have the inherent advantage of permitting a tight stop to be set whilst allowing potentially large profits to be generated. This favourable risk-reward mismatch underpins the edge of the method, as does the idea that market choppiness is more prevalent than trending conditions.

Less desirably, there are some inherent difficulties with the method: what exactly constitutes a close double top/bottom is more subjective than you might at first imagine; over time, the entry method is unlikely to be much more predictive than random; the close stop can result in many small losing trades; being a reversal method, you are often trading against the market flow; and, equally, in trading a strongly trending market you can be caught for a series of losing trades - essentially trying to reverse over and over what are no more than small dips in the trend.

So it is by no means a holy grail method, it’s just a method. But if traded carefully, it does have enough going for it to be nicely profitable over time without having to endure long or deep drawdowns. You have to be willing to be wrong a lot of the time but, as in all trading, if you have the discipline and willpower to keep those losses small, you can do OK.

The method as presented here is of course my take on this concept and reflects my psyche, my attitude towards risk, and my subjective interpretation of market movements. These will not be the same as yours so please don’t take my trading as a literal template, it will almost certainly not suit you that well. It is just an example of how trading can be undertaken, for you to adapt and structure to best suit you. And if it really doesn’t talk to you, abandon it and try something else!

With that, on to this morning’s trading in the next post.
  • #611
  • Sep 2, 2025 2:58am Sep 2, 2025 2:58am
Hi all,
A quick one-and-done today and a good example of this method, though being reversal in nature, applying itself well to strongly trending conditions:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250902_08.33.png Size: 31 KB

Market opens around 23980 (well above top of chart) and immediately falls into a 160pt straight line collapse all the way to 23820. There we see a bounce to the 60 level and a close double top, the two tests of 60 only being one bar apart. But that is a sufficient setup for my method, a second test just breaching the first and immediately reversing. So I am short at 56 as the second test falls back with a close stop just above the tests, 9pts away at 65. The next bar is a worrying nudge up to 63 before the hoped-for reversal kicks in and I am quickly out at 41 for +15pts or 1.6R on the 9pt risk.

Nice to have a winner but it was almost a loser had the market just edged up a tad more. This is an inherent risk of using tight stops and you don't have to if you don't want to. I could just as easily set the stop further away and accept bigger losses when wrong and smaller R-returns when right. There is no inherent correct answer, it is up to the trader's own feelings and risk appetite. I do actually enter the trade initially with a default 14pt stop and then adjust closer to the double top level. Again, how you exactly operate the trade is up to you.

If I had been stopped out at 65 I would most likely have had another go short at 56 as it slipped down again. You are going to face this sort of situation many times if you trade like this, so do get prepared in advance for how you are going to deal with it. It will save you mental and emotional gyrations come the moment, you don't really want to be thinking too much then, more reacting in a planned way to how the situation unfolds, however it unfolds. Be Prepared is the Scouts' motto and it applies also to trading!
  • #612
  • Sep 2, 2025 3:18am Sep 2, 2025 3:18am
Hi all,
Trading over for the morning, I’d like now in this post to address the excellent observation made by AreAmEye in post #608 concerning risk and reward ratios of this new method.

When you put on a trade you have of course got to decide how big a position to enter. By ‘big’ I mean how much you intend to risk at the worst case outcome. Because I always use a hard stop and never move it further away from the entry price than its initial placement, my worst case outcome is the initial stop amount.

I use a default initial 14pts stop in this market, being 10x my bid-offer spread here. I use the quoted spread as a pragmatic measure of market volatility, and evidence from use suggests 10x the market spread is enough to give my type of trades enough room to breathe without giving unnecessary extra points to the market when I am most probably wrong in the trade. What you use as an intial stop amount will depend on the volatility of your market in your timeframe, and the nature of the trade you are putting on. A strategy looking to ride a big trend will probably require a bigger initial stop than a breakout method, for example. However you trade, the idea is to place the stop where your trade is most likely proven wrong. Closer than that you are risking stopping out good trades; further away you are just giving extra loss points to the market unnecessarily.

The importance of all this is to be able to position size and set a sensible initial target. I want to risk no more than 2% of my account on any given trade, so once I know the amount of my initial stop I can work out what size of trade will lose 2% at that stop. Equally, I do not want to trade with a less than 1:1 reward:risk profile as smaller ratios put undue pressure on trade success rate and I have little confidence that most of my trades are better than random affairs. And once I have set the initial stop, the 1R target level is obviously a similar distance away on the profitable side of things. That this new strategy can allow tighter stops I simply count as a bonus that can only improve my reward:risk scenario.

Strictly, I should work out any tighter stop at time of entry and use a proportionately bigger position size and an equivalently closer target if I wanted to preserve 2% account risk and 1:1 R:R for all trades in this method. However, I don’t want to be doing such calculations in the moment - see the discussion in the previous post - so I stick to a default 14pt basis initially, move the stop closer if I feel comfortable and enjoy the R:R benefits it brings (though not so much enjoying the increased risk of being stopped out!). All mentally lazy perhaps, but I like the simplicity, I like knowing my position size in advance, and knowing that reward:risk can only work out better than the default case, not worse.
  • #613
  • Sep 8, 2025 3:34am Sep 8, 2025 3:34am
Hi all,
A fairly friendly ranging market this morning, leading to an obvious trade:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250908_09.42.png Size: 45 KB

Markets opens 8am around 23740 and quickly settles into a range in the 40-80 region. There is a clear double top at 80 that almost fulfills my setup criteria except that they are too far apart from each other for me. I prefer the failure test to be within just a few bars, my reason being that further apart it becomes difficult often to work out which prior top/bottom you are referring to; plus, the longer the gap between tests, the less relevant they are for me. The most immediate data is the most important for me, so I limit myself to quick and close together tests. But there is nothing inherently wrong with trading the wider tests if that works for you.

Anyway, we duly see a break of the 80 level and a fairly predictable run to have a look at big figure 800. There is a quick double test of 00 that drops back immediately and I am happy to try a short at 93 as it does so, 00 being a natural barrier to the market for me. I start with a default -1R 14pt stop at 07 that I quickly bring to 01 just above the double top, and again down to breakeven 93 as the market continues to retreat. It is a matter of personal judgement how and when you start moving the stop closer - if at all, you can just leave it at the initial level if you wish. I work on the idea that you will usually see some sort of attempted recovery during the life of the trade so I often bring the stop closer in two steps: to just outside the price extreme once the market moves a reasonable amount in my favour; and then to breakeven as it nears the 1R initial target. I feel this strikes a fair balance between giving the trade room it needs to accommodate any attempted recovery bounces whilst reducing risk as quickly as possible. But it is very subjective - what is a "reasonable" amount for instance? - each trader will have to find their own personal path in this.

This trade works well enough, I get the stop to breakeven and get my +14pts at 79 soon enough. This does raise the question of what the R-return is on this trade: +1R using the initial stop at 07, +1.75R using the pattern stop at 01, or an infinite return with the stop at breakeven!? I tend to look at it as +1R, seeing my worst case loss on the trade at any point was -14pts. That I was able to progressively reduce that potential loss during the trade is just good risk control that will serve me well over time - I will end up with winners of +1R or better and losers of -1R or less. This takes a lot of the strain out of your required trade success rate, I will make good money with a win rate of under 50% of trades. Given I think of my trades as essentially random events, it is a good look for my anticipated overall profitability!
  • #614
  • Sep 9, 2025 2:57am Sep 9, 2025 2:57am
Hi all,
An early and somewhat messy one-and-done today, but giving some good insights into how this trading method works in practice:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250909_08.34.png Size: 39 KB

Market opens 8am around 23808 and quickly drops below the big figure 800 level to pause in the 70-90 range. From here I would usually expect either a collapse down (if the market decides to have a downtrend), or to have another look at 800 (if the opening dip below 800 is a fake). The market first bounces off 80, then falls to 72 before immediately recovering 80. It is enough of a double bottom pattern for me and I am happy to go long at 80 with an initial stop at 66.

This proves to be somewhat premature as the market immediately drops back to 71 a couple of times before holding there and launching into a big run up, proving the second scenario correct - it was fake dip at the opening. As the trade moves into profit I move the stop up to just under the pattern low at 70, it is not much of a risk reduction but still represents almost a 30% saving in the potential loss if the trade fails. By 'failure' here I of course mean price now going back below the prior low at 71; if the market has really reversed that low should be the low for the immediate future, a break of that invalidates my entry idea and requires me to stop out the trade. No value in wishing and hoping in trading, if you are wrong, you are wrong, so just get out at that point.

Having suffered the downward spikes on the trade, I am quick to take my 1R profit at 95, not wishing to take on the 00 barrier. Again, this is rather a premature action as the market easily breaks through and rushes all the way to the 60 level before reversing, so more than 4R additional profit left on the table. This method is one where you can make very large reward:risk trades; there is over 5R here for a 1R risk. It suits better naturally braver traders than me who are willing to let those profits run rather than wanting to cash in quickly all the time. Each to their own, but one reason I am trading this method at the moment (apart from wanting to show you that the exact method per se is not that critical) is to try to get myself to hold on to winners for longer in a hope for self-improvement. Just not today!

So, a rather messy trade today but a decent profit was extracted and I am happy enough with that. I trust you can see how you can go about managing a trade in this method, not all entries work textbook style and often you have to look after a trade carefully to get your profit or minimise the loss.
  • #615
  • Edited 10:01am Sep 9, 2025 9:40am | Edited 10:01am
This is just s shop talk...last 2 days you traded well with the new technique, but you left on the table profits that can last you for weeks, covering small stop losses that will be endured.

I spend many years working only my stats with MM, understanding what works for particular instrument and what does not.

I am of a different frame of mind that worked for me last 5 years, trying to squeeze as much as possible out of ongoing trade.

As we all know, every trade outcome is random, so why would you think that the trade will not continue your direction? Each day of the last 2 days, it would of. You may want to look at the way to continue with the trade taken, until smart MM can take you out.

As an example, simple(but not really simple), why not follow your trade with narrow trailing after RR1:1 is reached? This is not a question, just a suggestion.

Cheers and a good trading to all of us!

I am posting this Dow Futures 5 Min TF trade from September 2 just for reference...I could of stopped at RR1:1, but once again, every trade is random, why stop?
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  • #616
  • Sep 9, 2025 4:23pm Sep 9, 2025 4:23pm
Quoting driven18
This is just s shop talk...last 2 days you traded well with the new technique, but you left on the table profits that can last you for weeks, covering small stop losses that will be endured. I spend many years working only my stats with MM, understanding what works for particular instrument and what does not. I am of a different frame of mind that worked for me last 5 years, trying to squeeze as much as possible out of ongoing trade. As we all know, every trade outcome is random, so why would you think that the trade will not continue your direction?...
Hi driven18,
Many thanks for your comments and example. Trailing a close stop is indeed a way to let a trade run but it is something that has never worked well for me. For my style of trading I find reversals happen far more often than massive continuations and, over many trades, taking reasonable quick profits both suits me better and makes me more money overall.

More generally, it doesn't bother me at all if the market goes a zillion points further, I'm not playing for that so it's of no consequence to me. Others like to trade for the big winners, both strategies can work and it all goes to prove there are many ways to trade successfully. But, however you trade, you have to trade in a way you are comfortable with or the stress will become intolerable. I'd of course like bigger profits but not at the price of an ulcer. Money really isn't everything and I have no desire to be the best or most profitable, just to be profitable enough for my needs, achieved in a way I enjoy and am comfortable with. Doesn't mean I can't try to improve modestly, though!
  • #617
  • Edited 6:41pm Sep 9, 2025 5:14pm | Edited 6:41pm
Quoting Oldtraderman
{quote} Hi driven18, Many thanks for your comments and example. Trailing a close stop is indeed a way to let a trade run but it is something that has never worked well for me. For my style of trading I find reversals happen far more often than massive continuations and, over many trades, taking reasonable quick profits both suits me better and makes me more money overall. More generally, it doesn't bother me at all if the market goes a zillion points further, I'm not playing for that so it's of no consequence to me. Others like to trade for the...
No ulcer, for sure. However it is a very good feeling when trade is in profit 100 points(notice not 10 or 20 points) and you are at BE and start trailing closer, taming that beast we call "The Market"...love that feeling . Good Luck with the new technique .
  • #618
  • Sep 13, 2025 3:29am Sep 13, 2025 3:29am
Quoting Oldtraderman
This does raise the question of what the R-return is on this trade: +1R using the initial stop at 07, +1.75R using the pattern stop at 01, or an infinite return with the stop at breakeven!? I tend to look at it as +1R, seeing my worst case loss on the trade at any point was -14pts. That I was able to progressively reduce that potential loss during the trade is just good risk control that will serve me well over time - I will end up with winners of +1R or better and losers of -1R or less. This takes a lot of the strain out of your required trade...
Just adding to the RR debate... I used to struggle with setting my TP to 1R because most advice was to shoot for 2R+. I trade in a similar way to you in that I tighten up my SL as the trade progresses and often get out at break even. It was only when working out the stats after a series of trades that the penny dropped for me. Of course by trading this way, the overall RR will always be more than 1, and often it is much higher.

For example, using your SLs/TPs in pips, say over 10 trades I had 3 full wins, 1 full loss (unusual), a couple of smaller losses and a lot of break-evens (I record them as a loss of -0), then we would have:

+14
-8
+14
-0
-0
-5
-14
+14
-0
-0

This is just a random example, but gives stats of:

Total trades 10
Total wins 3 (30%)
Average win 42 / 3 = +14
Average loss 27 / 7 = -3.9
RR 1:3.6
P/L +15

So now we have a RR of 3.6! Trading this way makes much more sense to me now, rather than trying to shoot for 3.6 from the outset.

Just my perspective, hoping it adds to your thread, which I am very much enjoying by the way
  • #619
  • Sep 13, 2025 4:19pm Sep 13, 2025 4:19pm
Quoting ZenTrader25
{quote} Just adding to the RR debate... I used to struggle with setting my TP to 1R because most advice was to shoot for 2R+. I trade in a similar way to you in that I tighten up my SL as the trade progresses and often get out at break even. It was only when working out the stats after a series of trades that the penny dropped for me. Of course by trading this way, the overall RR will always be more than 1, and often it is much higher. For example, using your SLs/TPs in pips, say over 10 trades I had 3 full wins, 1 full loss (unusual), a couple...
Hi ZenTrader25,
Many thanks for your post and your kind comments. You give quite a fair conceptual representation of how I go about managing trades. I don't start by looking for very big reward:risk trades, just set an initial and easily achievable minimum 1R price target and then look to both tighten the stop and/or stretch the target, depending on how the trade pans out. Over time you get average win bigger than average loss; add this to a net success rate (i.e. wins vs losses after ignoring scratches) of hopefully a bit better than 50%, and you will be making decent profits overall.

I find it usually quite difficult to see at the time of entry how a trade can obviously be a big R-multiple winner; you just have to see how a trade develops. Seeing a 1R winner is normally much easier for me to imagine and so I base my trading around that idea. Of course, as driven18 points out in his posts #615 and #617, if you can run on some winners for big R-multiples then that is even better. Unfortunately it is not naturally my style, I am happier with smaller, steady, bites. Each to their own, all that matters in the end is that you are happy and comfortable trading your method, and that it turns a consistent net profit over time with an acceptable risk and drawdown profile for you.

It happens that the current method I am showing here is capable of happily accommodating both styles of managing trades, so it will be interesting going forward to see if we can both keep steadily plodding away and add to the party by holding on for some bigger winners every now and then; an ideal outcome!
  • #620
  • Sep 15, 2025 2:59am Sep 15, 2025 2:59am
Hi all,
Another early one-and-done today, and one that raises an interesting question about how close in price should be a double test for this method:
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Germany 40_20250915_08.26.png Size: 36 KB

Market opens 8am around 23790 and starts with a couple of quick looks at the pre-opening local low down at 70. The market bounces off 65 to 80 and then breaks down to 51 before quickly jumping back up. This I counted as a double bottom at 65 and so went long at 68 with my standard 14pt stop at 54, actually higher than the pattern extreme at 51. The trade happily worked immediately and the 1R profit is taken at 82. The market goes on up to break 00 so, again, lots left on the table, apologies once more to all you big move players out there (but at least you can see there are moves to run if you are up to it)!

The interesting point for me in this trade is the fact that I have taken the two low points as 65 and 51, some 14pts apart, and with long entry at 68 it means the usual 14pt stop is actually above the second low. This is not ideal - you want the stop to be outside the pattern extreme - and so, in my mind at least, it would have been perfectly OK to ignore this setup as not fulfilling all the necessary requirements. I took it because it was at 14pts apart just about OK, and I guess I was feeling in a comparatively aggressive mood this morning; another day I might well have left it.

It does raise the question of exactly what is a double top/bottom? As you can see, it is not always so obvious to define and it comes down to a subjective judgement that each trader needs to work out for themselves. But, whatever you decide, do make sure you are comfortable with it and can follow your rules each time.
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