StewartR - I want my trading to be boring.

Was not able to post this one live.

Entered Short at 1.3656
Exited Short at 1.3586

Why short:
30 minute oscilator extreme
Reversal bar (tiny pin bar)
at resistance area both horizontally and downward diagonal line.

This trade was excellent. This is the type of trade I want to always take. I have been watching the 5 minute chart (habit), and playing breakouts (habit), but what I like is pull backs to s/r with oscilator extreme and price action supporting the direction.

Exit was a 25 pip trailing stop (because I was in the movies with my family and couldnt watch it).

"A" class entry

Price action: pin bar
Price moving away from support (horizontal price support).
Price moving off of 61.8% fib level.
Oscillators extreme and hooking.

(Anti-trend trade though......but I thought this was still low risk because price had moved down 300+pips without a retracement. So I expected to catch a retrace). If I had been sitting up and paying more attention I might even have entered at .6956 before price action showed its hand. A 20 pip stop would have yielded 2:1 in 15 minutes.

Entry: buy_stop.
Exit: trailed stop at low of the 5 minute candles. Was taken out at +13 pips. Turned out to be a good exit.

Hmmm,

Reviewing my trading in the last 48 hours.
My account should be much much higher than it actually is.

My AUDUSD trade, was hoping to catch a breakout of daily resistance and ride a 400+pip move to the upside. Because I was trying to catch a 'daily' size move, I also had a largish stop, and I had one of my biggest ever position sizes.

Price actually went +31 pips in my favour. (A decent enough profit). My error was to 'let a profit turn into a loss. I let +31 pips turn into -66pips.

Blatant error.

I also did the same thing on my GU trade. I let a 38 pip gain turn into a 60pip loss.

My account balance is telling me that I would have been better to get stopped out at break even and look for another low risk entry, rather than giving the market room to move.

I've said this before: having a wide stop might give the market more room to move and prove you right. But it also gives the market more room to prove you wrong!

Lesson learned. Prefer to be stopped out at break even after a trade goes my way and possibly miss out on a profit, rather than 'hope' that I hit a home run.

and so the cycle repeats .......

I think a trading "error" for one person might not be a trading error for someone else. A true trend follower might be happy with many small losses (66 pips) in the hope of huge wins; and be prepared to ride through the open equity swings. I dont think that describes me though. I am still learning about myself here.

Why did I let a 31 pip profit turn into a 66 pip loss?
I was hoping to make a killing on those trades. But that has not been my style of growing the account to date. So I deviated from a style that I know and am familiar with to try a much longer term trade. The problem with this is: my setup and entry are based on short term charts (like 30 minute) but my exit was based on a daily! My intention was to move my s/l to b.e at +45 pips and not move it until I was rich! But I only got 31pips, and took no action (went to bed in fact) and woke up to a 66 pip loss. Overall, I planned the trade and executed exactly according to my plan. However my plan was flawed. Perhaps a loft goal of daily-sized profits would require position sizing and stop loss placement that were based on daily-analysis.

However I wonder how much of that was "my plan" and how much of it was "wanting to record for everyone to see (on this thread) that I could ride a big move".

There is an element of truth to: "I was trading in a manner that I thought would produce an impressive post....rather than trading to protect my equity and give myself a chance at growing it".

I am noticing how I am influenced by other peoples opinions. I believe this is why the best traders are often very private. (For example, reading soultraders blog and him closing trades of 1500+ pips. Or reading an elliottwave opinion on another forum. Both of these have subtly influenced me to deviate from MY PLAN, MY BACKTESTING, MY FORWARD TESTED METHOD. Respecting someone else's approach and opinion should not come into my analysis. I have to do my own work. (This is one of the reasons that I rarely (never) visit the trading systems threads anymore.
.....................................
Also, I had been waiting for that breakout of the AUD high for quite a while. I believed that price could break through that barrier and rocket off. So there was a fear that I might not get another 'low risk' chance to enter if I was stopped out.

It would be more helpful if I adopted the attitude that:
1. it is better to miss a trade than end up in a loss (ie break even is better than negative dollars).
2. it is ok to take multiple pieces of a big move rather than riding through the swings.

The AUD trade.

The idea was sound. The execution wobbled.

One of the key 'wobbles' was where I determined the break out point.

On a 30 minute chart, my entry was a good breakout and gave 31 pips.

But at the 31pip profit, price was only 7 pips beyond a 50% retracement of the last major move down AND 7 pips above a horizontal resistance line. While 7 pips may be enough of a breakout on a 30 minute or shorter chart, it is not enough on a daily chart (a daily breakout).

If I had been thinking straight, I would have moved to break even at the 31 pip mark, and watched for price to decisively break through the long term resistance. Instead, I saw the price go 7 pips beyond the resistance and expected price to continue onwards.

Again - this was an error in trading a daily timeframe trade when I am used to trading 30 mins (and often less).

ST,
So what is the real question I need to be asking myself?

Is this a 'trading method refinement' issue. Or am I missing something deeper within myself?

Entered long on bounce off trendline + round number + support + rapid move down.

Long at 7032
Initial s/l at 6095

When Price had moved +57 pips (a few minutes ago) I moved stop loss to a few pips below what I hope will be new support.

Letting it run now. (I am hoping the NFP will do favors for this trade later today).

I am quite proud of myself on this trade. I did not sit at my desk and watch every pip. I did not move my stop loss to break even quickly. I did not 'react' to the 5 minute pull back shortly after entering.

I simply entered the trade, placed my stop and walked away and watched a James Bond movie. I came back 2.5 hours later and saw + 57 pips and moved my stop loss to beneath what I hope will act as support for a trend move. This is a rare and new experience for me. :-)

hmmmm - this was definitely a problem with Stewart

What I saw and why I entered:
S/R at 1.3669ish.
Price going sideways.
Price breaks decisively up out of a 6 hour range.
Trend is up.

That might be enough reasons to enter. Its better when you have a more decisive resistance for price to break through.

Problems:
I placed my s/l 50 pips away. (on the other side of the inner level of support). Price went 60 pips.

THought: place s/l on the other side of the swing point or s/r. I just took 50pips as 'enough room'. But really, the stop should be close (under the inner support) or far away (under the outer support). I put my s/l in no mans land.

Problems: today is NFP.
I should have expected price to do nothing until nfp news is released.

Thought: I was looking for this trade because I wanted some action. And I paid for it. I did not plan this trade. I saw the price starting to move and jumped to action. I think my best trades generally come when I have planned the trade in advance and have waited for the market to conform to my expectations.

taking the family camping this week

back in 6 days

c u all later

Was away last week. Updating the charts I saw an excellent entry on the EU.

1 hour trend line + 38% fib retracement + horizontal resistance + 30 minute pin bar. Excellent confluence.

Would have paid 1:1 in about 30 minutes.

This week I took the trades suggested by 'therealthing' in his blog (infiniteyield.blogspot.com).

He uses a weekly breakout system called First Strike Plus.

My pip gains were awesome.

USDJPY + 14 pips
USDCHF + 134pips
GBPUSD + 408 pips
GBPJPY + 414 pips
EURUSD + 215 pips

Total return was 2:1 (I made about 5% on my large account in 24 hours).

The 'system' says not to exit until the end of the week. But there's no way I was giving any of that profit back!

I have made enough pips for today so I have not been taking any additional trades. However - for the record, here are a number of successful setups from today.

trend + s/r + price action + oscillator (Simply buying a pull back in a trend).

All of these are 30 minute charts. But I've tested it on 30, 1 hour 4hour and daily and its 70% reliable at producing 1:1 and 55% reliable on producing 2:1

James16 pin bar + support (horizontal) + trend + oscillator.

Simple stuff.

30 minute chart.

Hi Stewart,

Hope you have had an enjoyable holiday and must be mighty nice coming back to plenty of pips too! lol!

Regards,
L

Live trade.

I think Mr Obama's usd rally may be over and the EURO/USD is about to go north.

Up 30 pips as I type.

Entry was identified by an inside bar. (In fact there was an inside bar on the 4 hour 1 hour and 30 minute.)

Exited + 17 pips as price had stalled was just going sideways. Also, price was up near previous resistance.

30 minute pin bar (in traffic).

My guess is that 1.3000 will hold.
Price went below 1.3000 to a prior s/r horizontal line at 1.2985. Selling pressure then eased off and price raced back to 1.3022.

I hope the pin bar will hold and the euro takes off to 1.3300. Time will tell.

it happens

Glad I had my stop loss in there. Its been a quick ride down to 1.2974