The PriceBob Strategy

Testing cTrader from Funded Trading Plus, a CFD prop.
Unlike Futures prop (Tradeify for example) they don't seem to have a consistency rule - must make at least 25% - lightening funded etc?
Nas, sp500 and gold.

Side note : out of interest apply Vids 0.618 target

Comment welcome please.

Day #8:

Gold Short: 7.30 - 8.00 AM fixed bar (TP hit)

This is one my favorite posts from you Vidvad. I know I haven't posted in while. Instead I have been concentrating on my own success. I won't say what I trade, or what bar I use. That is not what this thread is about. But I love knowing exactly when I need to trade each day. It is so much better than watching for a particular setup all day. I haven't reached my target yet. But slowly but surely I am confident I will get there. Thanks again for this wonderful thread!

roadmap will always hold a special place in my heart.

I wouldn't have it any other way, Belgrath. This isn't a thread where FF'ers should move in camp out for years. This is where FF'ers should come to fix themselves, fix their trading, and then get on with life.

Congrats! I'm very proud of you!

Day #9:

Gold Long: 7.30 - 8.00 AM fixed bar (TP hit)

Notes: Price broke the fixed bar high very fast within seconds. Luckily I've got an entry slightly higher than fixed bar high but daily profit target reached. Need to be faster from next time.

Have a nice day y'all.

Another thing to track in your spreadsheet is where is price relative to any of the six key pivots: Today's open, yesterday's close, yesterday's high and low, and last week's high and low. The open/close pivot cluster is especially noteworthy in my experience.

When price is moving into the close of the bar and ABOVE a pivot which is intersecting the reference bar, then the trade direction is very likely to be in the direction of the that closing movement.

oday, for example, that reference bar was moving UP and though it had struggled against the open/close cluster for most of the life of that bar, price was breaking above as the closing seconds ticked by. It is at that point nearly a 99% certainty that price will break the eventual high of that bar soon after it closes. On subsequent 20 trade sample sizes, you might want to consider training yourself to get that order in when there are a few seconds left before the bar closes. If your trading platform has a bar timer, use it. IF you get the order in AND the trade triggers before the close, be prepared to EXIT at the MARKET if the trade then fails the pivots. Add this only after you complete the 1st 20 days.

I've gotten good enough with Ninjatrader that I can usually get these orders in as the bar timer hits 0:00 and before the first tick of the next bar .... but not always. You can amend a futre trading plan to state that in such case you enter the trade with a market order OR you place a limit order at what would have been the entry price and then let that order fill if price retraces to it BEFORE it hits the take profit. If price hits the take profit without you, then you missed that trade. Cancel orders and come back tomorrow.

Day's like today also illustrate why it is essential to train your attention on one instrument only. You will learn how that instrument beaves around its pivots. You will learn to recognize when it is in breakout mode and likely to continue in the direction of the breakout, and you will also learn to recognize its traits that indicate that the breakout is failing.

You hired yourself to perform a job. If you apply yourself diligently to becoming the best you can become at that job, you will get better at that job over time.

Just be mindful that you don't allow yourself to "outthink or overthink.

You are an observer not to react to the minute by minute. The rules are still the rules.

Ohh interesting, I see that there is atleast one pivot level nearby during session openings (hmm definetely not a coincidence). I'll do some more backtesting and make sure to implement in my forward test after 20 days. Thanks Vidvad

Vidvad what would you do in this situation?

The first fixed bar (7.30 AM to 8.00 AM) trade is ongoing and there is second trade opportunity in the opposite direction of first trade. i.e., at 9.00 AM to 9.30 AM fixed bar. The price broke the low of second fixed bar but first fixed bar gave long opportunity which the price didn't hit neither SL nor TP.

Hey Rorex, Vidvad will be along shortly I am sure. The premise of this thread is straightforward, so straightforward in fact that it is challenging people. I will try to throw my opinion in here..... If *your* rules tell you to take a trade then take the trade. There should be no grey areas, no what-if's, no 'but if it is the third Tuesday of the month', you have made the rules - abide by them - rigidly - no thinking. Fixed bar/range entry I believe is the best way to test your discipline as a trader, what you evolve to be as a result of your own determination starts here.

The more you learn about the markets, all you do is introduce reasons for doubt and failure. Most of what you learn is not 'wrong' but it is an interpretation that you can or you cannot make work for you, and the truth is, most cannot. Nobody knows what the market is going to do when you place that order...... the art of it is find an edge and manage what happens to that order when it is filled.

Your original question is questioning two separate trades, connected by absolutely nothing, except your perception. Why you should relate one trade to another is something you should think about...... you might be correct, or you might be trying to predict rather than responding.

This IMO this is one of the most valuable threads on this forum, and as such, I believe your enthusiasm is well placed.

Your entire post is excellent and much appreciated. However, this particular sentence has a bulk and a weight that is rare to find here at FF. I wish I had been the one to write it. I am grateful to have had the chance to read it.

You answer this question first: What did you do?

Answer us that, and then I'll respond to your question in a video.

I still want to know what you did, but I wanted to do this video tonight because I won't have time this weekend and I wanted to use today's price action as it appears without the price activity that will commence Sunday night.

I have closed the first trade(long) in small profit because I thought it rejected from last week close. Then I entered second trade(short) at second fixed bar which ended up in SL. Thanks for the video, I'm yet to watch it.

Thanks Rogerha, Noted

Wow, I had to say I've taken couple mentorships and none of them made this much effort as you did. Thank god I've found you and people in this thread. I guess the only way I can give back is to follow the rules strictly. Apologies if I'm asking inappropriate questions, there is aloooot that I need to learn.

Thank you,
Rorex

Okay I messed it up clearly. I will restart the 20 days challenge from Monday, 24th Nov (until Dec 22nd). Here are the updated following rules:
1. One trade a day
2. One symbol: XAUUSD
3. One fixed bar: 7.30 AM to 8.00 AM EST
4. Fixed Sl and TP: 0.618R
5. No more thinking!

Note: Based on my backtesting for 3 years for this strategy the winrate is around 60%. I believe it's not ideal for 0.618R but let's see if I get any refinements after these 20 days.

It does not matter what gold was doing a year ago, two years ago, and certainly not three years ago. Three years ago I was trading M15 reversal bars on gold.

There will always be a fixed bar at some time on some instrument.

The purpose of tracking stats on price behavior in the beginning is to learn, not to refine. Refinements are a by-product of good data and empirical observation that lead to revised hypotheses. The real purpose of tracking the data it to know when it is time to change the bar interval, the timing of the reference bar, or even the instrument.

Read your post to yourself. You are still thinking like 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of forex factory members. You say "No more thinking;" and rather than leave it at that, you're compelled by nothing other than your ego to write that "back testing for 3 years for this strategy the win rate is around 60%. I believe it's not ideal for 0.618R."

From "no more thinking" to "by the way, here's what I'm thinking."

Why did you do this? Because you get to publicly hedge against a possibly unprofitable outcome of the 20 days. That is all there is to it. "I'll do it, but if it doesn't yield a profit then it isn't MY fault, it's vidvad's fault because a proper conclusion from MY three years of back testing is that it won't be profitable."

However, that is your ego talking, not you.

You are in fact the awareness behind your ego, but your ego is still strong enough to convince you that his thoughts and fears are your thoughts and fears. They are not. So long as He (your ego) is firmly in control of you, you will continue to experience those thoughts and fears as though they are your own.

The purpose of this exercise is in large part to teach you to recognize when your ego is stirring up trouble. He did it to you on Friday when you cut your sim trade short for a small profit, and then you took a trade in the opposite direction of your signal because your ego was more concerned with gambling on the noise than betting on the signal.

This is a self-awareness exercise as much as anything. The skill required to become a consistently profitable trader is the skill of becoming mindfully aware of your ego, then resisting its commands, and finally quieting the ego and letting you, the awareness behind all that you experience, take control of your perceptions and behavior.

"No more thinking," you say. And then instantly your ego sets you back to thinking his way. And in trading, that is death. I'm not criticizing you here. Not at all. I am trying to make plain to you what was instantly obvious to me, and to anyone like me who has fought and, at least for a time, won the fight with our own egos.

When you are not trading, your curriculum should include reading Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone or The Disciplined Trader.

At the very least, watch, re-watch, and study this:



Watch, re-watch, and study this:



And finally, you should add meditation to your life. A few minutes in the morning before you get to your trading station, and then a second time in the evening. I suggest that you begin this practice in silence, with no music while you are practicing mindful meditation - you want to focus 100% on your breathing and your awareness of your breath. Also, you need to be aware when other thoughts drift into your mind. Don't engage those thoughts, simply allow them to float away. You are the awareness of thought. Not thought itself.