Beer Fund

Hi all,
I have a couple of reasons for starting this journal -
I am at a juncture in my career. I have recently been made redundant and the job market is not looking favourable at the moment. I am not really ready to trade full-time from a knowledge perspective but needs must and all that.
I would also like somewhere to record all my own trades as to date I have not been very good at keeping history and learning from it.
Trade History
I have been “punting” stocks with CFD’s since about Oct07. Not using TA at all, purely whether I thought the stock looked cheap or expensive – needless to say this was not all that successful. Whilst I was not so busy at work, and knowing that the recession was just around the corner and likely to be one of the worst in a very long time, I decided to look for a way to make myself “recession proof”. So in Aug 08 I started to trawl the net, on trading forums etc, until I came across a thread on Trade2win.com started by Trader_Dante. Basically he is an advocate of Price action and a student of the James16 thread. So having read his thread through I am now about half way through the James16 thread.
These guys have basically turned my trading around and I am finally making some headway. There have been many on those threads that have spent their time to help me and for that I will always be grateful.
However I have been struggling as my account has been very small – I started with about £200. Have taken that down to £47 then back upto £800 then down to £300 etc. You get the picture – no money management!!
I have found trading a small amount really makes a big psychological difference to the way I trade, and to date I don’t have the discipline necessary.
Therefore I will be starting this little adventure with about £2000 - £3000. This time though I am hoping to install money management techniques that I have learnt on these threads.


Methods
I will be using Price action as a reason for my trades. I will not be using indicators, apart from either the MACD or RSI for divergence. I will be looking for Price Action at areas of confluence, where previous support/resistance has taken place with other factors such as fibs, trendlines.

I mark up my charts by looking for these pivot point zones, on the weekly, daily and then 4 hourly timeframe. I normally view charts using candlesticks, but have found recently that using bar charts for marking up my charts is clearer to me.
I then wait for the Price to come to my PPZ's and look for Price action here.

For now I will use the knowledge that I have acquired from these two threads. I hope to join the James16 group private forum as soon as I have been through the public thread.
Basically keeping things as simple as possible.



Tools
I am using IG index on a spreadbetting account. Reason being this is a platform I am familiar with. Whilst I was at work I was unable to load software onto my machine and IG provide the best web based charting package. I also have an ODL demo account. Whilst I now have more time on my hands I will hope to become more familiar with the MT4 platform.

Thanks to all who visit here, and hopefully this may even be of some value to others someday.

Cheers

Simon

Not sure yet on the trades that i wil take, but these are the areas i will be interested in when the market opens.

EURJPY
on 4hr chart descending trendlineand S/R line seem to intersect

EURUSD
on daily 2 trendline intersect with PPZ

USDCHF
broken through TL on 4hr also through weekly PPZ, 4hr PPZ and 50fib confluence - not sure if will be a bounce at this point or continuation of recent trend.

USDJPY
large Pinbar

Best of luck Simon!

My wishes are with you

I'll be watching this thread closely! happy full time trading, hope i can be where you are someday

- what? up sh!t creek without a paddle
thanks to you guys i reckon i'll find my wayout

good luck, I hope to start real time trading in the next month will check up to see how you are doing.

Wondering what is your trading plan?

IMHO this should guide you and help remove some of the uncertainty that I detected in post#1

I wish you the best !!

So your edge is PA off of various PPZ levels. Are you limiting which time frames you will be trading?

What about money management, what kind of position size are you willing to give away on each trade?

Hi saskgui/regsklongshort

Sorry maybe i should have been more clear about my method. I do have a trade plan, that i wrote some time ago, my problem to date has been making myself follow it.

The timeframes i will trade are the daily, 4hr and maybe the 1hr (but only as an entry point if the PPZ's that i drew on the higher tf's are hit). I will however be keeping an eye on the weekly and monthly, but not trading these at this stage as my account size using IG would not allow this. (Min bet is £0.50 per pip).
Like most beginners i have had to ween myself off the lower timeframes and now i don't look at anything below 1 hr. This in itself is a great achievemnet for me, for despite the fact that many had advised to stay away from them, the draw always seemd too great. I just seemed to want to trade the whole time.
It's almost laughable really, I would normally suggest that someone who made the same mistake over and over again was stupid. Yet i kept on going - I don't consider myself stupid, so go figure? The thing i love about this business is the challenges that it presents on so many different levels.
Initially putting on a winning trade was like a lottery, now, thanks to James16 thread, that's the easy part. So I am now working on my trade management, money management and psychology of trading.

But back to the question - money management, this is a new arena for me. I am going to have to get upto speed on this asap. For now I am taking the smallest size i can, but will be feverishly studing this today. I know i should have takled this much earlier, but unfortunately I didn't because my account size was too small to do it - actually that's a poor excuse.

I guess like many blokes i suffer from the "I know best" philosophy. I'll always try to build an Ikea flatpack without looking at the instructions then wonder why there are bits left over.

Hopefully when i start to post some trades things will become a little clearer. Although I know my big problem is saying one thing and doing another - ie I don't stick to the plan for the trade. Usually due to the fact that i just want to take profit.

Hope that gives some more insight. For more there is a whole 1000 odd pages on the James16 thread

USDCHF IB4
I was watching this as per above post. The main reason i have taken this is that it has broken the trend line and the 4hr PPZ. The IB4 was used as my entry point.
I will be keeping an eye on the next fib down (this is drawnas a retracement not a projection) so 61.8 or 11624
My 2nd target is 11490

Simon,

The very best of luck with your new challenge. My only advice to you is to get a hold of Van Tharps book, Trade your way to financial freedom. It will seriously help you with the MM aspect of your trading.

I'll keep popping back in here to see how you're getting on. There are not too many of us trading on a SB platform using the J16 techniques.

Good luck

Paul

Good luck mate. I too have followed pretty much the same path, from TD's thread to J16, and have experienced the same problems with spreadbetting on a small account. How do you find IG? I was with Tradefair but the minimum positions size is £1/point so I'm looking for something else to reduce my risk.

Cheers

Rob

thanks will have a look at that over xmas

Hi Rob
Yes i have seen your posts on both forums. To be honest I wish i could ditch IG. Ihave an outstanding issue with their compliance at the moment after their customer services failed to advise me correctly. I have already had to contact the ombudsman about them.
However are they any worse than any of the others - probably not, and their platform is very good.
Also when you do sign up you get a grace period where you can trade 0.10, then 0.20, and finally 0.50 on FX. INdices vary but FTSE is £1, Dow $2

good luck with findoing someone - let me know if you come across something good.

cheers

Simon

again as above was watching the EURUSD with interest.
when it broke above the trendline played the breakout. took the BUOB as a signal. not the strongest signal, it was the breakout that was important for me.

looking for a retrace off 13900 area?

got sucked into the fakeout on this one.
saw a the break below the PPZ of 12196 and got carried away using the inside bar as a signal to go short.

Does'nt matter, you're doing good some winners to start things off was great! and don't worry abt some loosers, you know they will occur

Best of luck!

Regards,
Ghous.

just got an alert that GBP maybe making a breakout from the wedge on 4hr chart so will keep a close look at this

went short using a spining top as the signal.
but at intersection of TL and weekly PPZ. 76fib on daily
i am not expecting this to breakout throught the wedge as expect it still to go higher. Maybe looking for retrace from 16000
but this should give about 40-50pips

hmmm so far i have not actually used any of the James16 PA signals as i said i would

have closed my position in this
this could well just be a small retrace, and i feel like i should have held, but in my first week it will be nice to see some good gains.

so haven't stuck to my plan on this but still took 175pips

also closed this one too early
ignored my plan, didn't wait for the nest bar for confirmation. Just saw a bit of a retrace and came out for 170pips, it has gone a further 200 today (100 past my target area)

this is definitely a psychological issue - in that i want to build up a buffer on top of my starting capital. I am hoping that once i have this, then i will let the trades run more freely. But for now i just want to get cash in the account.
must try to follow my plan though...