CoastalFX Trade Journal

Hi my name is Jackie. I am starting this journal to track my progress. You will get to follow my transition from demo trader to live trader and eventually Incubator fund trader to hedge fund trader.

I use a long term trading strategy trading from the Daily, Weekly, and sometimes Monthly charts. You will see that I usually make one to two trade a week. I don't use Take Profits, I use trailing stops and wait to get stopped out.

When I place a trade I place it in the direction of the long term trend with a 50 pip trailing stop and a 1000 pip Stoploss. At the end of the day if the trade is over 100 pips in the positive I increase the size of my trailing stop to 50 precent of the gains in an effort to give my trade more room to range, while giving me the oppurtunity to stay in a long term trend.

So for example I buy the EUR and at the end of my trading day it has run up 150 pips and my 50 pip trailing stop has not been stopped out then I will increase it to half of 150 (75 pip trailing stop).

This am I made my first trades for this journal

Buy EUR/USD @ 1.5474 currently 1.5530
Sell USD/JPY @ 103.52 currently 103.83
Buy GBP/USD @ 1.9612 currently 1.9609
Sell USD/CHF @ 1.0462 currently 1.0442

Thats it for now,
Jackie

Trailing stops triggered on the EURO and so far we are positive 34 pips

No changes to trades to note. Today was a good trading day. Let's see what tomorrow has in store for us. Tomorrow morning I will like open two more trades.

Take care,
Jackie

Euro was stopped out for +33 pips.

3 new positions were open this AM and are still running

Bought EUR/USD @ 1.5465 currently 1.5493

Sold USD/CAD @ 1.0035 currently 1.0027

Bought AUD/USD @ 0.9399 currently 0.9414

As you can see all new positions are currently profitable but that doesn't matter unless the trailing stops are triggers as they have been for the EURO so far. Let's just hope we can get some more profits out of that.

Update to come,
Jackie

Euro was stopped out yesterday for a 2 pip profit (hey pips are pips). I decided to place my first Buy Stop order on the euro.

I place a Buy Stop at 1.4500. Jacko, likes round numbers so I figured I would just pick a round number. I wanted to see some more momentum moving forward before I jumped into the Euro again. The rest of my rules still apply:

1000 pip Stop/loss with a 50 pip trailing stop. Although I have toyed around with the idea of having a 100 pip trailing stop initially. I may try this at a later time. For now I will just still with the 50 pip trailing stop.

So far it's been a slow trading day. All trades still in red but confident trends will resume so I am not to worried about trades that are down. Eur/usd buy stop still not triggered although it's very close.

One thing that definitely has bugged me so far is how my trades have all headed south shortly after I entered orders going with the trend. I have been doing some reading online today and some studying of the charts and have come up with a proposed solution.

It's not very often that that you see daily candles that alternate bullish and bearish. More than not a bullish candle is usually followed buy another bullish candle and a bearish candle is usually followed by a bearish candle. So I have decided to enter a trade in the morning on the day after I have a daily candle going in the direction of the larger trend.

For example using this strategy I would have entered a buy stop order on the Euro at the next round number (00 25 50 75) the day after I finished with a bullish candle. I hope that makes sense.

My reason for implementing this, is very simple. Before I can get into a longer trend many times I will make 50 pips or less on quick run ups that become quick reversals that will hit my trailing stops. That is fine and it gives me a chance to re-enter on another day. I would rather that happen versus ending up in a reversal that is deep in the red but still several hundred pips from my stop. When this happens I can be in a trade for days and sometimes a couple of weeks before that trade becomes profitable again. Overall that's not a bad thing most of the time the trade will end up profitable but it keeps me out of the market on that pair.

I would prefer to get knocked out of a ranging market several times with small profits versus having to wait it out in the negative. I think this new strategy of when to enter the market will help me with that objective.

Later,
Jackie

It was triggered during the night and ran into the profit zone with momentum as I wanted. It didn't run far enough for my trailing stop to be triggered which I suspect that will happen most of the time. Now that I am on this train let's see if it eventually heads north.

USD/CAD, is barely hanging on, it's so close to the trailing stop. It will be interesting to see what happens with that. New York open is coming up let's see what effect that has on my trades.

Good day,
Jackie

No new trades were made today since I am still in all 6 trades. However, since this am the markets have all nearly resumed their daily trends meaning that have about 3 trades that have triggered trailing stops. I am locking in pips as week speak. This may very well be my best day of trading since starting this journal.

It's exciting!

Jackie

I had two trades get stopped our yesterday for a total of +149 pips. I love this business! Brings my total pips since starting this journal to +183 pips.

I placed two trades today a Buy Stop order on EUR/USD at 1.5675 and Buy Stop order on AUD/USD for 0.9625.

I also I have two trailing stops that have been triggered on two different trades so there will be profits made there soon as well.

I love forex,
Jackie

Yesterday was another good day in the currency market for us. Our
GBP/USD trade was stopped out for +49 pips. That brings our monthly
pip total to +232.

Our EUR/USD Buy Stop order was triggered during the night. We have
moved about 70 pips into profit on that trade so our trailing stop
is in effect as well.

The USD/CHF trade is up nearly 140 pips. Trailing Stop on USD/CHF moved to 70 pips from 50 pips. We are looking to stay in a profitable position while giving this pair room to pull back without stopping us out.

Have a great day,
Jackie

I am about to be on an airplane headed toward Orlando FL, so I am
placing and adjusting my trades early this am. EUR/USD, was stopped
out over night for +75 pips.

We widened the Trailing Stop on USD/CHF more due to gains from yesterday.
Trailing stop on USD/CHF is now 88 pips from 70 pips.

New Order:

Buy Stop orded placed on GBP/USD @ 1.9775 with 1000 pip Stoploss and 50
pip trailing stop. (only 2% of account used with 1:50 margin standard).
No orders placed yet on USD/CAD or USD/JPY.

Have a good day,
Jackie

We had two more trades stopped out yesterday USD/JPY +27 pips.
USD/CHF for +156 pips. We will be waiting until next week to reopen
these positions.

This brings our current monthly pip total to 493!

New Trade:
USD/CAD Buy Stop at 0.9875

(2 precent of account on 50:1 margin)

Have a great weekend,
Jackie

There are no new trades for today. All pairs that we don't have
a trade with are currently going against their larger daily trend.
We will wait for the larger trend to resume by looking for a daily
candle to close in the direction of the larger trend. On all four pairs
either the candle from yesterday is opposite of the trend or the candle
forming now is going in the opposite direction.

Update on current trades:

On Friday GBP/USD was stopped out for a profit of +8 pips. This brings
our total profit since this journal started to +501 pips.
Currently we have a trailing stop triggered for USD/CAD which means
we will have some profits locked in on that trade.

Have a great day,
Jackie

great

I agree!! Great job Jackie. I'm enjoying your analysis and trading success. Can you go into a little more detail on what you're looking for before entering the trade, what determines your stops, and how you like to trail? Thanks!!!

Great stuff Jackie

Keep it up!

Kind Regards
Steve

For those of you that don't know Steve is my hero! Thanks Steve, although I trade quite differently than you, you are one of the primary people that inspired me from the very beginning.


Thanks for your kind words. The way I trade is very simple. I use 2 precent of my account balance and 50:1 leverage.

Ever trade is entered with a 1000 pip stop/loss and 50 pip trailing stop.

I look at the daily trend, sometimes weekly, and monthly trend and ALWAYS trade in that direction. I open a trade in the direction of the trend when I see the last complete daily candle that coincides with the larger trend and if a candle is currently open I will trade as long as it still coincides with the candle from the day before and the larger daily trend.

Once I am 100 pips in profit I move my stop/loss trailing stop back by 50 precent of my profit in pips. So if on day 3 of a trade as I start to open new trades and one of open trades closed a new high and I am now in profit by 150 pips then I would adjust my trailing stop on that trade to 75 pips instead of 50.

The goal of this strategy is to stay in a long term positive trade as long as possible.

I hope that clears it up for you,
Jackie

Unfortunately, there are still no new trade set ups. Thank goodness,
I didn't break the rules of this strategy and try to force a trade yesterday
because we would have large floating losses on each trade. We will
just be patient and wait for these candle sticks to close in the right
direction.

I do have a floating profit with my two open trades on the AUD/USD
and USD/CAD. USD/CAD, isn't far from hitting the trailing stop.

Have a great day,
Jackie

This has not been the most active week for us in Forex. I just placed
a Sell Stop order on USD/CAD at 0.9825.

USD/CAD was stopped out yesterday for a 20 pip profit. That's good news and a lot better than a sharp poke in the eye.

Jackie

This has been a week of market watching and waiting for current trends
to resume. I did just place on order.

It's a Buy Stop on GBP/USD @ 1.9825.

2% of account used with 50:1 margin. 1000 pip stop/loss and 50 pip
trailing stop.

Our Sell Stop on USD/CAD was never hit and is still in place.
Have a great weekend and let's hope for a more exciting week next week.

Take care,
Jackie

No new trades have been placed today. Buy Stop and Sell Stop is still
in place but will likely be adjusted in the next couple of days. We
are in a hold pattern waiting for the larger daily trend to move in
it's historical direction.

For the month of May we earned 521 pips and we did not even trade the
whole month so we are looking for an equally profitable month in June.
In a later email I will give some more statistics on last month's
results.

Happy Pippin,
Jackie

P.S. Excuse the typo above please.