Thexder's journey to(ward?) freedom

I got in & out a few times to make sure I got something out of the move since each new thrust up retraced almost fully on itself.

Although it's not a proven strategy of mine yet, I was feeling lucky today watching that strong up move this evening, so I watched for a sign of M1 reversal and then went short.

I've locked in +11 as of now for a scalp if I get stopped.

A triangle is wedging in tightly now so it's soon gonna blow and either take me out or give me more.

This down move also provides a high for me to pull a swing to get the night started.

Here's how I got myself involved in the scalp short. I notice after a clean run that either goes straight up a long way, at least 100 pips, or at least stair steps with clean successive highs and lows, when it finally breaks down there's a good chance of a retrace to ride the other way, especially with a chart reversal pattern involved.

In this case the up move was almost 100 pips and almost nonstop all the way on M1 without stopping to find much support. Then a double top formed. I sold at the break of the double top and did the M1 stop trail, which got me +11 after spread and leaving room to grow.

This is a new concept I'm looking at, and maybe in the future I'd want to see more like 150 or 200+ pips before I take a reversal scalp since I only got +11 this time and maybe that was lucky.

If the move before the reversal is any smaller than 100 pips I'd expect maybe a loss on a scalp like this. This helps also avoid getting in a whipsaw condition trying to take reversals back and forth that are too small to work from.

Its dangerous trying to predict when a move is over. It works sometimes but other times it doesnt.

At the moment price is hemmed into a 50-60 pip range and not tradable for me. I'll be waiting for it to break off either 19620 or 19560. Or if im feeling adventurous i might go with a rebound of either level. News report due later today suggests it will drop, but i dont really understand news trading. Either way it doesnt matter, i just go with what price tells me

Went short at 1.9567, didn't like how it rolled back so far after almost reaching T2...

So I bailed for +1 and don't care if it goes back down now.

Update: It's going long, so I made the right choice and I'm probably done for the day.

Nice man, I just took 35 pips. Again far too conservative TP set. It was almost at yesterdays low though, so it made sense. Could be a lot of resistance there.

The M1 is still making lower highs so maybe...
Although new candle doesnt look promising now.

We gotta start putting our heads together so we dont miss these trades. There was a 90 pip down move last night at 21.00 my time. Im on GMT here so that would spread out the daily coverage

I tend to put blinders on sometimes when it comes to thinking about the larger time frame and where I should take profit if there's resistance possibly waiting like today.

Basically I'm so comfortable with the short term swing scalp even in losing trades, that I just take it blindly and use the M1 stop method faithfully. I hope I can use at least this scalp method to survive and then gain the experience and wisdom to add in the other factors.

But that's what these forums are all about, me posting my stuff and having others work on what I'm doing, just like how I got where I am from watching Bo and getting heckled by Skunny, keeping me motivated.

So let's see how the days and weeks unfold and what we can do with what we are observing.

Dude, i dont know about taking rebounds like that. Its dodgy territory.
You're getting into the realm of predicting price and thats where i start losing money...

Especially when we're in a downward move since the high at 19740 yesterday. Any long position id take now would only be a quick scalp.

Now I don't seem to have any anxiety trading, concerning GU with swing scalp. When a trade is triggered and I'm watching it on M1, even if it goes -20 on me, as long as it hasn't reached my most immediate S/R stop at the time of entering the trade, I just go see what's in the fridge while I wait for it to develop or get stopped.

I used to be afraid of taking a trade from a swing like today ranging almost 100 because the tentative arbitrary stop may be a big drawdown, but now I can get out with much less drawdown using M1 S/R, which seems to be successful for managing trades (not placing them).

This is the second last goal now realized, minimizing my fear and greed. Now to get to the primary goal of being net successful...then eventually adapt and work on better techniques.

I'm not thinking long right now. Just saying maybe some good places to jump out of the short with more profit rather than letting it roll back up and get stopped, if we could be aware of the resistance, then see price appear to dart away from it and just pull the exit trigger for better or worse.

Looks like it going for the daily high now.

I slept through the long move but looking at the M1 I could have banked an easy +30 if I were awake for that (from the break of the first high formed early on).

Tonight is crazy - all that volatility all session and now I'm in a long free trade. I set myself to break even as soon as I could because it suddenly took a 70 pip run up during the break out and if it were to correct before continuing up, the draw down would be too much for me. It reached T1 right away and consolidated a while just above my break even point so I was quick to take advantage.

Now I'm just sitting and watching. It's gone past T2 so I'm looking for another support area to move a stop for possible small profit if it bombs down.

Update: New consolidation hanging out beyond T2 at 1.9688 to 1.9695 I've moved myself to capture around +13 if it falls, but if I take profit now I'm just choosing a top. I want to see support and new highs before I move for any more profit. If I get out with just +13 instead of the +35 to +40 I'm at now, that's still something. Just 15minutes ago if I got scared and bailed, I'd have around +15 to +20 and chosen an early top. Let's see where this can go in one move before a retrace.

Update: Made it above psychological 1.9700, consolidating between there and 1.9707. I moved myself to get out with +21 now.

Update: It fell below the even number, forming a consolidation around 1.9683 to 1.9692. I chose a stop at the next lower little consolidation/hesitation that formed on the ride up, near 1.9672. This will give me my +21 if it continues to fall.

Update: It started climbing again, now leaving a clear support at 1.9678 to move my stop if it can break its previous high of around 1.9707, otherwise I'm still in for +21 if it falls through.

Update: NEW HIGH! 1.9717 and flickering upward. Still need a new support though, I'm still in for +21 if it fails. We're running toward intraday high now (yesterday's high). Consolidation is forming between 1.9704 and 1.9717

Update: Fell through the even number again, consolidating just above the stop area I'm set for. 1.9684 is the latest low of that consolidation. At this point it will either go back up or probably fall through and stop me for the +21 which is between T1 and T2, no complaints. Oh it's going back up now...this could be the head & shoulders that takes me out in the end. Stay tuned for the storyboard view of all this dialogue. I need to explain how I chose my stops for this one before any defined swing lows formed on M1 to pull a stop to.

Update: Getting a lower high now and my stop is being threatened by about 6 or 7. I think it's over...

And I'm out for +21 and no regrets to the method. At the highest point I could have almost bailed with +60 but so what.

Net Result: +21

I chose the swing as shown which fortunately contained all that volatility until the break out. I wasn't sure about taking this one because I could imagine it triggering a break out and then turning around on me for almost 100 loss or something but I was confident about where I located the swing as well as seeing all that chaos trapped within that space, it was bound to make up its mind and take a valid exit. I widened my initial stop to the other end of the swing instead of just at 50% pivot to start with this time, and I straddled with a swing high or low break, whatever happened first. I felt a long was most likely because most of the candle bodies were swing long biased and the down moves were just weird anomalies by the close of the candles.

Once the long was triggered it easily hit T1 and did the usual M1 consolidation period there. I know from other trades that setting a stop just below that kind of consolidation without actual new highs and lows forming on M1 with mini swings....isn't normally reliable because a slight dip could occur before a new high results, but I was very happy to move my stop below there because that would get me out for just over break even if it chose to spaz out - afterall it did take a 70 pip run from way down below swing low before running up and breaking the high, it might want to do a retracement on me and I'd bail out with fear.

So it luckily went higher after that first stall, and it stalled just above there (near the first red line) for a very short while, but it was where I ended up putting my stop in the future.

It went up again after the short stall, and stalled again (second red line), then it went up, stalled (3rd red line) and started going down.

All of these stalls, 4 in total counting the first long stall after break out, were part of a straight move upward with no retracement M1 swings - nowhere to pull a stop as things move up. But since the trade was young and volatile, and I wanted to get out without a loss if things go wrong, I decided to treat every two stalls as one normal M1 swing. So if there are no new lows and highs forming to give me a place to move my stop when the high is broken, I will trail my stop up using those non swinging stall points, buffered with a stall point between my stop and the highest stall point. This gives the candles a chance to form that proper swing low I'm waiting for without having me hold a stop that's too tight for a straight move up.

So my first stop upon taking the trade was down near the bottom of the run upward at that blue line near the bottom of the picture. Then I moved it to the second blue line for break even asap after the break out and first stall just above the buy line. Then things moved up and stalled a very short time on the 3rd blue line (beside the first red line). When things moved up again after that very short stall, and formed a 3rd stall beneath that second red line, my stop was still kept down at break even just above the buy line. When the 3rd stall ended and it increased again for the 4th stall sitting beneath the 3rd red line, I was finally able to move the stop up to the 3rd blue line beside the first red line, marking the second stall. There were 4 stalls and I was set to stop on stall 2 with #3 buffering me and allowing swing room....and finally things formed a swing low properly at the big blue line, then broke the high to form a new high at the top red line, allowing me to move the stop up on that big blue line.

No new swings broke that high so my stop remained at the first real swing low and I got knocked out for +21.

Thank you, Thexder
your chart let me know how to exit a order,
sorry for my poor English, I couldnot fully understand what you say,
but your chart let me know how
you are really a great man!

Net result: +30

Total today: +51

This time I pulled a new swing after targets were met on the first one today and a new high/low move was left behind as shown.

Once the swing high was broken, so was Intraday high, giving more strength and confidence.

I set the initial stop at a clear M1 low point to allow enough room to get started, then did the usual moving it up as I felt appropriate. It was the same as last time, there were no clear swings to pull to so I just moved up beneath stall points using my judgement and got out when it looked like it was going to turn around on me.

Net Result: +45

I should not have taken this trade because of the news - not because there was a volatile news release expected, but because 15 minutes leading up to the release I saw the sudden chaotic behaviour of the hourly candle within the swing range - going almost from end to end threatening to break out either side.

I was thinking about cancelling pending orders but I decided to go for it, and luckily it worked out. The short was triggered but my broker delayed my order until price had reached the fib targets, which scared me, but by the time the order was filled I was almost instantly up 15 pips and a consolidation formed there.

I set myself to break even asap and then trailed my stop up until I was at +4, +19, +32, and then there was another consolidation so I decided to set my stop under where it was forming for a long while, which is where I got stopped out for +45. No need to be greedy.

It's still trickling upward (against my direction) and no clear swing or horizontal resistance has formed, so it's possible the trade could end up continuing on short but I don't care, +45 is good, it's time to start the weekend.

If I count correctly, using Bo's training with a few of my own tweaks that currently give me confidence to trade my own way,

Net result for this week on Cable: +165

This is the first week I've traded full time all week, and I didn't trade everything, I slept through one missed NY session that I could have gained another +30 for +195 total this week.
So let's say I only got +150. I don't know if it's just a lucky week but if this were a regular thing, that's +600 a month, which is on par with my old estimates for the November PDF which was also a good month of trends.

The way I'm placing my stops now, I am curious how October's ranging month would have worked out. I counted +310 using T1 fixed exit points, but I think a lot of times the break out hit T1 and maybe retraced back within the hour, so if I were trailing my stop instead of taking profit, I don't know if I would have the same success rate - but then again, I think even in October there were some break outs that gave a small T1 success but went on to give much greater results if one had trailed a stop, so maybe it balances out.

And at this point I know how to sense a ranging period like October so I could probably modify my methods back to safe fixed T1 scalp if I need.

Funny thing, I consider my entire method as a scalp, but I have a scalp of a scalp method as a fallback.

Whatever works.

I wanted to post this setup (not traded, was done and satisfied for the day/week) from after the dust settled Friday. This is the next swing I would have drawn once targets were more than hit - candles turned around and headed up, and I'd consider the first move complete when candles reach as far back as the original break out point, or else once they again turn around and begin moving down in the direction of the original break out, leaving behind a new high as in this case, allowing a swing to be pulled across the low and high.

There was a 2 pip breach of the high that, depending where a pending order is placed, could have resulted in a failed long trade, but the next short trade would have worked. I verified it on my own broker, it was also 2 pips difference between the swing high and false break, although both numbers were one higher on my broker's data. (MT4 demo chart shows a swing high of 1.9618 getting breached at 1.9620, my broker had a swing high of 1.9619 being penetrated at 1.9621).

This could be filtered by noticing the candle before the false long break was one of those big ranging candles that almost span the swing range. I noted in some examples in the PDF notes that in cases like this it may be best to sit it out because the break out levels are being tested so closely from candle to candle that any slight "normal behaviour" glitch spike could cause a false break out like this. Either sit it out (not being too greedy after such a trade before this) or set a pending order a few more pips away to allow the breathing room.

Another thing in favour of giving this pending order the benefit of the doubt, looking at the M1 time frame during that breach, it was one of those very fast "flicks" upward to that breach price. Sometimes the charts flick up or down one pip but the "actual retail price" stays unchanged - maybe this breach wouldn't have registered at all and we'd be safe. Sometimes when I'm watching a live pending trade about to get executed, if I do see strange behaviour like this, and a breach is on the chart but I'm not in the trade yet, I'll manually increase my order to give another 2 pips of breathing room.

In looking at the lower time frame to observe how I would have handled the false break, depending where I would choose to panic with M1 support levels, I could have lost between 20 and 40 by allowing it to breathe before it failed, and if I took the next short trade I could have earned back maybe 20 to 30, so overall by following my methods it would have been a minimal hit, and a normal acceptable nature of the business to take hits sometimes anyway even without having the chance to immediately recover from it by taking the non-false side of the break out.

At this point I've posted several images showing the method of managing the swing trades so I will probably now only post the trade info unless there's something special to note, like today.

The swing setup started out with all the candles hovering too close to the low break out level, making it hard to declare that a firm "swing" low. It was a horizontal support level but it is hard to set a swing when there is no swinging.

Also this support level was sitting just above the round number 1.9500, making a short without proper momentum risky.

I finally decided to take it because there was a sudden break from the several hours of consolidation when a candle reached 38.2% retracement of the swing, then started heading down. I went for it and ended up breaking even but at least it was managed by my typical rules.

When I took the trade the first blue line would be the stop resistance area, and it was almost threatened but resistance held and formed the second blue resistance area to move a stop once the first red line was penetrated.

There are lots of peaks and valleys but the reason I chose the red and blue lines as drawn is I was waiting for each new red support to fall through, then I chose the most extreme resistance leading up to that fall through, and waited for the next support break.

Eventually it fell through the 3rd red line and then spiked up briefly to the red arrow, which coincided with a break even trade if I were to get stopped there, so I took that as a safety measure because things were too back and forth. When zoomed in, it is technically an up and down swing rather than just a minor stall zone. If it weren't a proper swing I would have had the stop at the 4th blue line still.

Maybe in times of noted high volatility, an extra S/R level could be added to allow these larger than desired swings to develop, it's just a few more pips from one level to the next high resistance in this example and it may be worth the extra cost - either get stopped out as normal but lose the few extra insurance pips, or have a more successful trade if it can develop with the rules it decided to follow that day. It can do what it wants. I'm the one who has to adapt to what is going on. If I had decided to allow one extra Resistance level to provide the volatility this day seemed to require, I would have kept the stop at the 4th blue line and I would have at least lasted somewhat longer and still could have chosen to get out at break even or some profit level.

I'm also improving with spotting risky times to be trading and choosing to stay away for a day. I knew this day was bad news and I got out in time.

And in my back testing I was "trading" the scenarios all through the London and NY sessions to see what could be captured. At least for right now I usually am satisfied after the first trade of the whole session. Trying to pull the next swing and get in on something else seems to feel risky (usually by then a big move has occurred) and feel like over trading, also making it risky. The only time I might consider trying to catch the next setup in a single day is if I missed one, failed one, or didn't get very much on the first one of the day.

Last week was successful by sticking to the rules and mostly only taking the first trade that came along, then calling it a day.
This week started out bad but I expect to recover by the end of the week with something to show for it.