Strat's Long Term Stress Free Trading

And one from February 5th, 2009:

Hello Stuart,

The best indicator I have is between my ears. Indicators can only tell you what happened in history, they cannot forecast or predict future moves, not even any of the fancy black boxes.

Hope this helps.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

And from February 9th, 2009:

Back to trading psychology
From all the communications sent to me, there seems to be a common trait among many traders. I won't take up valuable space on here but will try to summarise as follows:

Measure your risk BEFORE even thinking about a trade. Amateurs only think of how much they can make. Professionals only think of how much they can LOSE. Pretend you are a millionaire with a $1million trading account instead of an amateur with a $pauper account. Millionaires are the most tight, stingy bastards I know. They will not part with the smell off their own sh*t!!!!!
Thinking this way changed my trading.

Only trade when everything lines up AND you have all the variables on your side giving you the LOWEST RISK. If everything is not lined up - easy - NO TRADE. If in doubt, STAY OUT.

Never ever forget the # 1 rule in trading - Capital (account) preservation.

You will NEVER, EVER miss a good trade - there is always another being set up RIGHT NOW.

Hang on to your hard earned money, even if its money you have said you can afford to lose. Lose it, and you have to take money from a place that you can't afford to lose to replenish your account if you want to continue trading.

I see so many over trading and blowing their wad. Go out and buy Playstation or Wii

I trade TO LIVE, the losers LIVE to trade.

What do you do?

Hope this helps.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

And another from February 19, 2009:

Indicator update
While everyone seems to have fallen asleep here, I thought I would share my experience with the "latest and greatest, award winning" indicators.

I was sent (sarcastically, I think), several links to the very latest indicators available which I normally would just delete but seeing as I had Time on My Side (Rolling Stones), I took a look.

They look so colourful and fancy now but STILL, all they are doing is painting a very beautiful picture of what happened in the past.

I haven't seen one that gives even the remotest indication of what to expect on the next bar.



I did a test and found the most obvious price action bar I could find which turned out to be a hammer at the end of a 3 week daily downtrend from which a 4 month uptrend erupted in a 1367 pip move, and ran most of these "award winning indicators" on it.

The best squiggly line I could find, triggered a "long" 20 days later and then it REVERSED in the middle of the trendiest part of the up move for only 420 pips! I think my one legged blind old man with asthma would have known not to get out at that point!

I really admire the traders who are profitable using indicators for they are far more clever than I.

Well, I gave them my best shot but now they are Gone, Gone, Gone (Robert Plant & Alison Krause - see I'm getting very modern and up to date now!).

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Since this post, I was told that "Indicators can only show history - the future is mystery"

And one from February 22, 2009 (Almost up to date now):

To the struggling guys
My trouble and strife was sent this by one of her "negative" friends:

Due to recent budget cuts and the cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions and the continued decline of the U.S. economy, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

We apologize for the inconvenience

My simple response to this is:

Life isn't about how to survive the storm,
But how to dance in the rain.

Robert the Bruce tried seven times before he defeated the English; Lincoln tried even more times before he became a successful politician and President.

Jim of James 16 blew something like 37 accounts and well into $six figures before he successfully traded for a living.

Learn from your mistakes and keep persevering. Determination and perseverance win out in the end.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Another post from February 23, 2009:

25 pip stop loss on volatile Daily pairs - WOW!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Todd http://www.forex-tsd.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
First time using these, I put a 25 pip trail on them I set the EJ, EU, GU shortly after these were posted. All 3 stopped out. What are the chances of all 3? 4% of acct for each trade.
Story of my life. http://www.forex-tsd.com/images/smil...used_smile.gif

25 pip stop loss on a daily time frame? This shows how very inexperienced you are!

The average daily range over the last 2 trading days are:

EURJPY 174 pips

EURUSD 246 pips

GBPUSD 259 pips

25 pips on these will stop you out on a hiccup!

Also, the posting of my trades was not a recommendation to trade.

4% on EACH? That's a total of 12%! Good MM is that your TOTAL trades do not exceed 2% to 3% of your account. Absolute madness!! On that basis, you only have 8 more losing trades to go before you blow your account!

May I suggest you learn the basics of trading before going any further - PLEASE

Rock n Roll,
Strat

From February 24, 2009:

Daily updates
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart14 http://www.forex-tsd.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
Thanks for posting Strat. Very interesting. I'll keep an eye on these. At the moment only the USD:JPN trade has triggered right?

Can I ask how large a stop do you use? Do you use the daily ATR to help decide, or use previous s/r levels?

Most of your entries appear to be breaks of the previous days highs or lows, but direction confuses me. I assume you are using fib levels for reversals of trends?

Thanks again.

Edit: Cable trade in now. Broken yesterday low.

Correct, Stuart, only GBPUSD and USDJPY triggered, the rest are cancelled now. Most markets are moving very irrationally and being tugged in the direction of who and whichever country makes the best speech.

My stops go either at swing highs or lows or major S&R and are NEVER by pip value.

Most of my entries are breaks of highs or lows - I only want to be in a trade when the market is moving in my direction (momentum).

I use a combination of everything I know to forecast direction and only get it right about a third of the time (even less in these turbulent times).

BOJ is buying boat loads of Treasury Bonds again forcing the $ up (and the Yen down) and in sympathy, the other Yen pairs. They and China will continue to do this until they weaken their currencies to the point that their exports are attractive again.

This makes the forecasting part of technical analyis difficult and strengthens the argument for funny mentals.

At least they can't mess with Rock n Roll!

Rock n Roll,
Strat

And finally from February 26, 2009:

I closed my GBPUSD trade at yesterday's close as it stopped at minor support. This may be premature but I prefer to take some profit as the market is lacking direction right now.

As per my previous post, technical analysis on JPY pairs is very difficult now due to BOJ weakening the Yen. It looks like BOJ is taking the exchange rate back to 100 Yen to the $, so until BOJ pulls out, it is best (safer) to stand aside and let the market declare it's direction rather than trying to guess it.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Edit: Although market participation in USDJPY seems to be drying up, I am putting in a TP order on 50% of my position at 99.87 in anticipation of an exhaustion spike as BOJ tries to get to 100:1

Hi Strat

Ever so thankfull for your postings. Never read such an easy
take of the definition of good MM. This is clear language.
Thank you.

What is your take on shifting to a safe fxbroker that
has a bust free bank for our account deposits.
Which banks on which continent will withstand the financial meltdown (if).
The top 8 safest Banks are all in Europe.
CDC France
BNG Netherlands
Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank Germany
Rabobank Netherlands
Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg Germany
TSB United Kingdom
BNP France
Dexia Belgium

great posts strat, thanku, & i will be following future ones.

Hello Green,

Thank you for your support.

Forex brokers are way beyond my scope and very, very low on my Christmas Card list. I know more stories about bad brokers than I do about guitars! Sorry.

I would not put my money in any of those banks or in fact ANY bank at the moment other than what I need for daily living. I am in cash (under the mattress in $) right now. There is still much more to come in this financial meltdown and it seems that the UK and Europe (specifically Germany, Spain and Italy) are in the cross - hairs.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Thank you dkmb92 for visiting and posting. Please feel free to contribute and share which is the only reason for my setting up this thread.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

where is your trade on 27th feb?? 1.4029??? gbp/usd!!!

That was from an original post dated January 21, 2009.

My last trade on GBPUSD was closing my short position at 1.4245 on February 26, 2009 - see post # 27

Thank you.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Strat please can you direct me to where you posted your trading strategy?
I need to learn and follow your thread thank you

Strat -

Interesting thread and ideas. I am an ME also and about the same age as you. Also a techno junkie trying to wean myself off indicators, with success, I might add.

A question. I pretty much understand your philosophy on S/R as areas to trade but wonder if you also consider overall trends as seen on the charts to determine your entries.

A simpler way to ask the question guess is "do you only trade with the current trend (weekly/daily) using S/R to enter or do you take longs or shorts indiscriminately based on S/R and ignore the trends, or something in between?"

thanks

Sir....
what do you think of gbp/swiss short?
are you short yens?
are you long doller v cable and fiber
are you long doller v aussie and kiwi
CAD and swissy=open mind

I ask as a general gauge of sentiment from you.we can go nitty gritty when we get the bars.
(i have orders below the weekly ib on gbpswiss)

It hasn't been posted but it is basically trading at swings at S&R.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Primary goal is to trade with the trend but also to take advantage of deviations and extremes to the norm (rubber band effect) but only when everything lines up with minimum risk.

Rock n Roll,
Strat

Hello Strat,

I like your idea of trading around swing points of resistance and support.....i have been doing similar thing lately.i take points off the 4hr chart which are basically the previous high, low and pivot of previous week....

But a caution and a question,

price tends to hover around this points for awhile before finally making a move which could be really huge........the question part, how do we determine when to trade at this point with less whipsaws?

your opinion will be highly appreciated.

GBPCHF:
Weekly:
In it's last legs of it's up cycle with momentum fading fast. We have seen increased volume this week without direction which usually portends a move in the opposite direction so looks like it's topping. Not an inside bar on my data - just a feeble, weak kneed up bar

Daily:
Also in it's last legs of it's up cycle with decaying volume telling us the bulls have lost interest but the bears are still to come out of their caves. Friday's bar bounced off minor support and is held down by major overhead resistance at 1.6860ish. Price is also boxed in between the 20 and 50 while at the same time is being repelled by the Monthly 20. In the larger picture, the Daily is trapped inside a triangle formed by the base trend line and the trend line from the highs. Since Friday's bar is at 50% Fib, we may see a bounce up to the upper trend line which would also correspond to the major resistance before it continues down.

Next major support is at 1.5870ish and I'm waiting for a strong close below minor support and the 50 at 1.6500 before going short.

Yen Pairs:
I'm still long USDJPY with a TP at 99.87 for half my position. I'm very wary of the shooting star and hammers thrown up by each pair in the last couple of days. Volume and particularly momentum tell me this is just profit taking and that there are still higher prices to go before putting in a swing high.

GBPUSD:
There is still an upward cycle left up to minor resistance at 1.4560ish and major resistance at 1.4760. I'm passing on this as the 20 is below the 50 and I am really waiting for resolution of the larger descending triangle that the Daily is trapped in. Plus funny mental wise, I can't, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to buy GBP with the UK wanking system in such a mess.

EURUSD:
Everything is saying down but the ranging action of the past couple of weeks or so is keeping me out until I see a strong close below major support at 1.2550ish or above major resistance at 1.2950. I'm useless trading ranges - too much babysitting for me.

AUDUSD:
I'm waiting for resolution of the large triangle on the Daily and major support at 0.6300. Oz $ usually follows EURUSD so I'm a voyeur right now!

I don't follow Kiwi or CADCHF - maybe I should?

Looking forward to your exchange of views and ideas.

Rock, Reggae n Roll,
Strat