Strat's Long Term Stress Free Trading

depends whose doing the charting.....theres a lot of chartists on this forum....they all believe in what there doing.....but are they consistant?

just as we can repeat the same errors we can also repeat the same correct choices......

no price action reading ability and it can be gibberish

Im not saying this for effect...you guys know me....these days im reading the 15 min like the same book....James 16 is right....it takes as long as it takes thats the thing.....wow

anyway il let you know ......

It's just one person's opinion. Each to his own. One man's meat is another man's poison.

I could write paragraphs to counter that argument but all I will say is that I do very well, thank you, watching history repeat itself.

Amin,

Like I suspect many others who started out on here, left The Path and got sucked in by other threads with action and posts every 5 minutes, you have learned your desire for "action" has proved very costly.

This applies not just to you, Amin, but to many who started out on here and moved on to so called "better things". Just because you have been successful with a few Daily trades does not mean you can automatically repeat it on a shorter time frame (walk on water). Everything moves so much faster on shorter time frames and the shorter you go, the weaker your weaknesses become in addition to the technicals being exponentially less reliable.

Some of us, me included, have to feel and go through this pain and nightmare to come out the other end with a totally different view and perspective on trading.

Logically, I still don't understand why anyone would want to go from stress free trading the Daily time frame making 3, sometimes 4, figures in pips per trade, with a 2 minute per chart analysis at the end of the day to watching the one eyed monster all day for a measly 2 figures pips per trade (if you are lucky) and ending up a mental and physical wreck.

It all comes back to PATIENCE & DISCIPLINE.

I suppose many have become bored waiting for Daily set ups and have lost the faith and gone looking for "action" on the lower time frames. Especially in these times we are in now, for the most part, trendless and in very choppy/back filling conditions.

If this is the case, what you STILL have not understood is the higher order of time frames. If it is choppy and violent on the BOSS, which it is on many pairs, so it will be on the Worker, which it is, and guess what, so it is on H4, H1, M15 and M5.

What the inexperienced don't realise is that the higher order of time frames work AGAINST them on the shorter time frames. For example, H4 is 6 times harder to trade than the Daily, H1 is 4 times harder to trade than H4 (24 times harder to trade than the Daily), M15 is 4 times harder to trade than H1 and so on. This is just based on technicals and does not include the stress and mental anguish that builds within you until you eventually "crash" or maybe have a nervous breakdown.

In addition, what happens to your lifestyle? You become so hooked and addicted to trading that there is nothing else in your life. You are LIVING TO TRADE. What fun is there in that?

No matter what you hear, read or want to believe, there are no long term successful short time frame traders. They either crash and burn or move up to higher time frames. Don't believe me? Send an email to Jacko and ask him about his pal, Mark, an ex - Broker who witnessed this with his own eyes.

Amin, you are just a young kid, there is no harm done, you still have your health and your life AND your future. Whatever you lost in monetary terms, you can acquire again. Let this be a very expensive lesson for you - learn from it. Find out what made you do it and confront it and ask what made you give in to it. Ask why didn't you consider the alternatives, options, risks etc.
Whatever you do from now on, do not repeat this mistake.

Many of you still do not believe that trading searches out who you really are and digs deep down to find your REAL character, temprament and personality. This is a tough and expensive way of finding your REAL you, but you will become a better person for it - PROVIDING you can learn from these mistakes.

The times we are in now, consolidation, choppy and back filling conditions are here to test our resolve as traders. We can either believe we can walk on water and continue trading and lose everything we have or, we can stand back and watch those walking on water drown while we wait, PATIENTLY and with DISCIPLINE. We will wait for the markets to set up on the BOSS first and then on the Worker and we will know when to trade.

The markets are cyclic in nature, always have been and always will be - Why? Because they are driven by emotions, human emotions who themselves are cyclic in nature.

PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE will always reward those who wait for the opportunity to present itself.

PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE will preserve and keep your capital safe (# 1 Rule and top priority)

PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE will keep you in a sound mind and healthy body.

PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE are the foundations of every successful trader.

PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE will make you a better and stronger person.

I TRADE TO LIVE - why do you trade?

OK, I've got off my soapbox.

Amin, it would be good for you, (get it off your chest) and for others in, or contemplating your position, to tell us what made you do this, what went through your mind, why you ignored the risks, why you ignored everything we were teaching you on here etc. Please do this.

Strat

Never a truer word spoken. Hoping all newbies out there will take heed of your wise words.

rubyblue1

Amin,

On a personal note, this concerns me deeply. My only reason for starting this thread was to help other traders. You were one of the first to join back in March and seemed to respond well to my methods and teachings. Your lack of posts did concern me, as do the lack of posts from others who joined, but I put this down to you quietly getting on with your trading under the guidance I gave.

Now obviously this is not true so somewhere along the lines I have failed as a teacher and am not be providing the help I hoped to provide. I need to know where I went wrong with you so that I can fix it for others or if it is something I can't fix then maybe I need to just fade away into oblivion. Let me know.

Amin's and our failures are not your fault Strat, they're ours.

Losses teach more than winners anyway and they should be seen as an acceptable and expected outcome of trading.

I meant to mention it yesterday but forgot.

Most forex pairs "vibrate" around a moving average and this is one of the arguments for specialising in a particular pair in that you get to know it like it is your best friend.

GBP vibrates around the 365EMA. We can see this in the GBP pairs - see below. (I used price bars because pizza man doesn't understand candles or MAs!)

The more observant of you lot may see something else in the gbpusd chart

See if you can find the moving average vibrations for other pairs.

GOOD VIBRATIONS - Beach Boys - 1966

Sorry I'm a bit late with your birthday present, but here it is:

Son of a Pizza Man by Dusty Springfield

It is not your fault,it is a cycle that has to be completed in him,no matter how hard you try he might be feeling he his not expressing himself in trading,i have discovered that man will always try and complicate things by default,you can only put food on the table you cannot determine who eats or how the food will digest in them,i might not post regularly but i follow this thread religiously.So you have done your part.

I take creativity in your approaches and others here and i appreciate you guys for that,for example i re-discovered the power of 20 and 50 on dailies and 4hrs after you mentioned it here and i adapted it. So i guess Amin has to go on a path of self discovery in trading which he his doing at the moment,please give him time he would come to discover himself.

Personally I trade 4hrs majorly and daily because i understand my trading personality and risk.

I believe in what you are doing and in this thread,please dont be saddened,and thank for your kindness.

Hey Strat - I lurk in your thread, and I have come out of hiding to say that this was a great post. You are doing very nice job of making trading plain and simple - and dare I say - booorrrrrinnnnggggg - as it is to those who actually master it. If excitement is what you crave, have some kids...

Daily and weekly time frames are where it is at. Once we learn them well, and how to handle ourselves, them a foray can be made at the 4hr or 1hr. But that is a personal observation. And you are most correct - short time frames - 15 and 5 minute bars lead to crash and burn at worst, or if you are lucky, back to longer time frames - for life. Seen it.

Trading is like mining for Diamonds - you have to sift through tons of rock, dirt and filth to get at that one tiny shiny stone. It sounds like too much work and not possible to make money at it, until you look at a company like De Beers.... or a trader like Strat.

Nice thread. Everyone would do well to forget about what they think and simply apply this stuff.

i guess if your are trading on 5 and 15 min there is stress

Great recent posts there Strat - and timely reminders to us all of the perils of becoming too cock-sure and thinking we have it nailed.

I have been there too and lost my shirt before and recently found myself 'checking' the 1hr and 4hr TFs for any possible action. Needless to say that I lost a few pips but then I activated the self-observer as Steenberger mentioned in his books; this allowed me to realise that I'd been lazy and not bothered to log a few trades as they were 'test' trades and didn't matter!!

Silly boy - every trade matters as it's the lack of discipline in moments like that, that blow accounts.

The hardest part of this business is sticking to the rules when you are winning - ie, had 3 or 4 winning trades etc - become confident and 'pop' on a gash trade only to get burnt. I always do better when I have a low account size -as soon as it gets above a certain level I seem to think I can ditch the RR ratios etc and put too many trades on.

At least this time I noticed early and stopped - thought about it and walked away for the day. Each loss and win is another step close to learning more about one's self. As Strat says, the best trading system is facing you in the mirror - YOU!
Grim

What an excellent post. I have been really frustrated lately with the lack of quality trade setups. Patience and discipline is definitely the key. Thanks again for this thread.

No Baba, I don't have what it takes yet...... Nor do I think I will ever have what it takes to tackle that psychological beast. I want to make sure everyone knows I have learned something, and that choosing to drop some large bets on the M15 last night went against everything I have been working on the last 3 months!

That was the worst part, I knew better, and I still did it anyways!

Yeah, let me get my thoughts together on one post. It would be a good idea.

Up until last night, I had only traded lower than the daily time frame once previous (Since I joined The Path). That had been earlier in the week, when I took a look at M15 and saw a bond star, which I then shorted with a trailing stop and went to bed. The funny thing about that one was I was almost 95% sure I was going to lose when I hit my pillow, though in the morning I found I had actually scraped a good 50 or so pips. You could call that the kiss of death.

For a little background, this account is my money under my parent's name. I am turning 18 next week and can finally open my own account, so I figured "it's only money", and decided to go for a Big One (I am sure we have all contemplated staking a Big One at some point in our trading career). If I win this one, I can start my new account off with a massive boost! Those were the thoughts going through my mind.

"Never undervalue money" -AminAS June 25th, 2009

I then went on to to stake four 3-5% positions on USD/CAD (Short), EUR/USD (Long), EUR/JPY (Long), and GBP/JPY (Long). Of course I pretended to have seen some PA in my mind so I could keep a semi-clear conscious. They all lost, two by stoploss and the other two by Dan Syndrome (Stick to the Plan!!!). That's when I saw the pretty colours...

EUR/JPY was one of the ones I lost by stoploss, and it was making one of those JPY pair lightning fast drops. The pretty colors were red, and they were taking ground fast... My emotions skyrocketed, plus the major sting I felt from the last four trades, and I quickly staked 35% at the market short. Here is a jolly illustration...

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5927/eurjpyf.gif

Notice the skill and finesse I demonstrated to sell at the absolute bottom!!! Nice. The candle then went on to close bullishly...

60 minutes later, I was out of luck and money (rather "grail-less"). The total loss for the night was about 40% or so, though I am roughly estimating. It sucked nonetheless.

Lesson

I guess I had to lose almost half my account to really feel it. The interesting thing is that I was doing great on papa Daily. Before this week, I had sent Baba my toddler's equity curve (Just a number, not a graph), and I was sitting on 15% or so! It has become quite apparent that this sheep needs to return back to the fold (Strat = Shepherd, Baba = crazed italian witch doctor with shepherd-like characteristics, AstonDan = original pupil).

Wanting to avoid any unnecessary cliches (There are a couple necessary ones), I will conclude with saying "trade to live", "get rich slowly or get broke fast", and stick with what you know. I am now one mistake closer to finding success in the Forex market.

I did this for my own benefit because I was tired of marking up and analysing 6 similar charts with the same information and the amount of time it takes to do that. From now on I am just going to choose the pair that gives the biggest bang for the buck and delete the other 5. This will also allow me to load up more on one pair instead of spreading it over 6.

The top chart is EURJPY

The biggest bang, in order of ROI is:

GBPJPY 100%
EURJPY 60%
AUDJPY 51%
NZDJPY 40%
CADJPY 38%

No surprise there then

Amin

Don't bet the bank......even if you'd gone 2% on each you'd have "only" done 10%....not good but not as bad as 35%+


Also look at your trade.... EURJPY and GBPJPY....whats similar about these..............both JPY so if it goes your way (which is probably all your thinking about) happy days but JPY moves against you...you lose twice (especially as EUR and GBP are quite closely related). Bit more thought in whatever you do.

Someone once said only play the strongest / weakest hand so if both these trades looked good then only (if shorting) play the one looking weakest.

Strat, that picture looks like something I'd see at a hospital. Good to know I still have a lifeline! How do you get them to line up like that?

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5927/eurjpyf.gif

Notice the skill and finesse I demonstrated to sell at the absolute bottom!!! Nice.

Hey Amin, i sympathise with you young man.
Although i'm over twice your age, it's great that you are so young and will learn from these painful mistakes.
Recently, as i think i posted on this thread, my own losses were becoming hard to take, in the realms of tens of thousands of pounds.
Don't give up, learn from what you did wrong, iffy trades will always f""k you.
Go back, as i have had to do, if necessary from the beginning, and work out, why you felt the need to piss about on 15 min charts- they are the graveyard of wannabe traders.
If Strats listening, yeah does seem strange most of the posters have dissapeared, but i for one think it's for the reasons outlined, lack of patience etc. They will return, with tail between their legs.
I still get a lot out of this thread, so thank you.
When Baba G starts speaking english, i'd like to have a conversation with him. LOL