james16 Chart Thread

Is it a nice IB? PPZ at blue box.

Possibly. Mainly I'm weary of...

The daily close (7th/may) price at .8529 . and also .8500 (38.2% fib)

The rest I'll manage at the bar signal level for the moment.

That whole 8480 to 8500 level is possible but if you look back at the whole 7th of May bracket , you'll see a strong influence at .8500. This, in conjunction with the 38.2% makes it likely as a decent bounce at the least . Just my opinion, of course.

Thanks. I just saw the 8500 round number ... such a newb mistake.

seems nice location, but, for weekly view

1] 1.5700 round number
2] 1.5700 weekly support level
3] weekly pin bar still in motion
4] up trendline

Inside bars are tricky tricky. This one is sitting on support, but also stuck b/w two bigger levels that have been clear s/r. This pair has been choppy for a long time now making it even more difficult.


Mike

agree, i'm still in weekly PB too

Lol. Was about to post on this too. It's trapped between two messy traffic areas.

Mike, what are the two bigger levels? I could not see them. on daily, what concerns me seems 1.5750. but, talking about zone, I am reading this 50pips zone as a support area, and the price retrace back into the support. so, this leads me to a long bias. probably shouldn't have interpreted in this way? thank you for enlightment, Mike.

Edit: wrong typing, should be 1.5750

Hi Mike,

Which pairs do you think are the least choppy at the moment?

Thanks,

network timeout..... so hard to post here...

Hey Duke

In terms of just generally less choppy pairs, most of the yen pairs a lot of the usd based also. They might not be trending hard, but they are swinging nice b/w some key levels which I prefer

Eur/cad is just more overall choppy to get to where it wants to go(see a daily chart zoomed out)

Here was what I meant about stuck b/w two levels
a bunch of strong zones, followed by side to side price action and choppy movements. Very unappealing to me until something clear pops up

Mike

Great, Mike.

Thanks for the answer!

Have to call attention to the 4 H AUDUSD PB forming off of the new round number highs. Yes, I look at it occassionally

Given how far it has come, the R/R for a retest of the highs may not be worth it. I will add lightly if sustained and triggered though....comprehensive stops under 45 may make it palatable

Our next contestant appears to be EUR/JPY; interesting look against background of E/D with its heavy resistance at 3650...London should be ripe for play one way or the other....131 appears key again to my eye.

Hi all,

First Post on this thread.

Did anyone trade the Pin Bar on the EU on the 4Hr TF?

Just wondering how do you take profits when trading these bars?

It has been a tough month for me trading and I wanted to share some of my experiences.

I started learning about forex last summer. I started my adventure on BabyPips where I was able to learn a lot of basics in a short time. My next step was a quest for the holy grail and I read through many forums on that site. After three months of demo trading, my demo account had a total profit of around 6%. Some of the trades were taken using a system called "Ingot's Rainbow" (that system was actually inspired by a system here at FF called "Multiple Timeframe Stochastics"). Reading that thread helped open my eyes to the importance of trading longer time frames. I also got lucky scalping on 15 min charts using poorly drawn S/R levels and trendlines. After that, I found some other threads here including James16.

In October, I started live trading and made a profit of about 1.3%.

November, my second month of live trading, was my worst month. I lost around 22% of my account in less than one week trying to short EUR/USD. As price moved against me, I kept moving my stop loss and kept adding to my position being sure that this global economic crisis would cause the trade to turn in my favor. I missed a chance to get out at BE and held on until I realized what a huge mistake I was making. It was a wild ride full of many moments of fear. It sure was exciting, but man did it hurt. For a few days I was sure that my brief journey into the world of forex was over, but I changed my mind. I can be very stubborn at times. This was by far the most emotional and most exciting month of my brief journey.

I spent most of the month without trading December to try to get my thoughts together and educate myself. That's when I started focusing more on this thread and soon began to follow it religously. I think I have read every single post since then. I also started following an "Inside Bar" system I found here on FF. That thread was hot for weeks and I read every post. I even made a few trades using that system towards the end of Dec. I made a profit in Dec, but it was not quite 1% of my account.

January I decided that my goal for 2009 would be to bring my account balance back to its original amount without adding funds. It was a profitable month, but the profit was less than 1% of my account.

February is when I really started to notice some improvements after some of the material here started to sink in. I turned a profit, but it was barely more than 1% of my account.

March was the best month in my brief forex journey. I started the month by digging myself into a hole with a loss or two. (Reviewing my account balance has shown me that I have had a tendency to start months in a hole.) Somehow, I managed to end the month with a profit of almost 2.8%.

April was not bad--a profit of about 1.6%. Toward the end of April I could see improvements in my ability to be picky and control my emotions. My confidence level was also rising. After all, I went from blowing a big chunk of my account to 5 consecutive months of profit and I was profitable 6 out of 7 months of live trading. Almost 25% of my losses were restored and I felt that I had a good shot of reaching my goal of getting the account back to break even by the end of 2009.

I realized, however, that there was a lot of room for improvement. I did not have my own trading style and did not even have a real exit strategy. I decided at that point to experiment with different exit strategies. I also wanted to improve my R:R ratio. I wanted to get out of the habit of losses amounting to 2% of my account while wins were a much smaller percentage of my account. I know that some veterans here do not consider R:R as a high priority, but I felt that my winning percentage was not high enough and my ability to recongize A+ setups was not strong enough for me to be successful without making R:R a high priority. I recently read through the Clockwork thread (another excellent thread here on FF) and wanted to have a style more similar to his. I was also inspired by jdeuster's backtest results and borrowed some bits of his exit strategy.

The month of May started with a loss. On May 4th I shorted AUD/USD on a pinbar I saw on the 4hr chart. I cursed myself for trading on the lower time frame and my lack of discipline at that time, but got over the emotions quickly. On May 5th I had another loss after shorting a AUD/USD daily pinbar. I probably should have stayed out of that one because of pinbar size and there might have been a lack of confluence. On May 7th I went long on EUR/AUD. This trade was stopped out at BE late last week. On May 11th I shorted GPB/USD BEOB which was also stopped out at BE late last week. I could have made a decent profit on the EUR/AUD and GBP/JPY trades, but I wanted to stick to my plan with a rigid exit strategy. Finally, I shorted AUD/USD on May 13th and stayed with the plan. I'm sure you all know the result of that trade.

This month I have lost around 5.6% of my account. This wipes out most of the profits I have made over the previous 4 months. I would be lying if I were to say that I am not disappointed. Where should I go from here? Well, my goals for 2009 have changed. Instead of trying to get my account to BE by the end of the year, my goals are to read the entire thread, create a real trading system for myself using methods taught here and to gain confidence in that system with backtesting by the end of the year. If I can have 3 successful months of demo trading before the end of the year AFTER coming up with a system, backtesting it and reading the entire thread, that would just be gravy on the mashed potatoes.

Why am I posting this? I am not quite sure. This is not a plea for help. I believe there is more than enough valuable information here and this thread has people willing to answer the same rookie questions over and over. This is not an attempt to vent anger or frustration. I am actually feeling quite calm. Without my limited experiences and knowledge I have gained here, I might be pretty POed right now. This is not in any way criticism of a "system" that promised me riches. The only obstacle standing between me and success with forex is myself. Maybe I am posting this to help me keep a promise I am making to myself. Maybe I am hoping that someone like me who has just started their forex journey can learn something from this.

Sometimes I feel as if this thread is like a parent trying to teach a child the differences between right and wrong, and establish rules in order to help the child attain a good future. I also feel that I have at times acted like a rebellious teenager who ignores some lessons taught by his/her parent(s). Sometimes, as we grow up, we ignore what our parents tell us and realize that they were right all along through our own experiences. Sometimes that is the only way we can truly learn a lesson.

Yes, I am disappointed, but I am not angry of frustrated. It seems kind of funny to me, because right now I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

I believe I have had my second "Ahah Moment".

Muchas Gracias,

PipGator

Welcome, Musashi.

I am just a beginner (You can probably tell by reading my last post), so I cannot provide the best advice. If you, like myself, have not already come up with a strategy for taking profits, I think you should avoid taking trades from that 4hr charts and consider only taking trades from the daily and weekly charts.

That is just my rookie opinion.

Even if trading daily and weekly charts an Exit Strategy is needed. I am not a new trader. I have read some of this thread, obviously not all of it.

I have various strategies for trading based on Price Action. Most of the exit strategies I use are based on round numbers and Support Resistance Regions, also use bar high/lows as exits.

Maybe you're unsure of why you posted this. I think it was fantastic.

You defined previous mistakes.
You swallowed your pride and verbalised them.
You defined current mistakes.
You swallowed your pride and verbalised them.
You stated realistic goals and accepted a longer road to success.

Your continuing humility will greatly aid your trading journey, and the fact you've sorted your thoughts and written them out logically speaks volumes. I say good on you

Musashi,

You are obviously more experienced than me. Based on what I have learned here, though, I would like to say that there is not one exit strategy taught here. There are many different styles of trading on this thread with many different exit strategies. What is taught here is not a "system", but a "method" that one can use to devise his/her own system including exit strategy. Many people here use S/R levels as part of exit strategy like you. Maybe someone with more experience can provide a better answer to your question.