DU23 Journal of a journey?

I have decided I should probably add a section here detailing some of my goals/strategies of my journal.

My main goal is to trade profitably and consistently, growing my account balance along the way. I have had a few FX accounts over the last year or two all that I have blown out for the most part due to over leveraging and bad entries. I recently attempted trading FX options with IG markets. I didn't make any money in the end however during my experimentation with options I was able to realize that I don't have any problem identifying where price will end up in 1,2,3 or more days. My problem has simply been I have been taking too large of positions with my account size leading to the blowing up my account before any of my trades have the chance to come to full fruition.

I have reverted back to trading simply forex as understanding/learning time decay etc etc involved with options is not my best bet right now. I need to master standard forex first.

My goal is to obtain a 10% return/day, compounded daily until a sufficient account size is amassed. This does not mean once i reach my predetermined goal for the will i will stop trading for the week. It is simply a benchmark. If i surpass that mark during the week yet draw down my account back to that mark by weeks end but am still at 10% daily for the week i will consider it a successful week.

I will be determining the amount of capital i don't mind losing BEFORE finding each trade.

I will then identify a trade i see as profitable and figure where my stops and limits should be placed.

I will then determine my trade size based on the amount of risk i have decided to take divided by the number of pips from entry i want my SL located.

I will make general trade direction decisions based off of daily and weekly charts, honing the entry/exit prices off of 1-4 hour charts.

I will maintain my positions until either my SL or TP is hit.

I will allow myself to exit a trade early if price has failed to move toward either my SL or TP within a reasonable amount of time and has since changed the setup which i had initially identified.

I will use 15 & 5 period MAs, Parabolic SAR, MACD and general S&R lines to help determine my stops and limits.

I will post all of my trades here immediately after taking them with a full explanation as to why and how i came to said trade decision.

I ill make my trades anytime from 4AM-8AM, 11AM-1PM, 5PM-10PM CST

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4 hour chart

Long E/U @ 1.4727
Stop @ 1.4701
TP @ 1.4800

S&R @ 1.4840ish level & 1.4626

E/U just bounced off lower support level at 1.4626 and is headed back to the upper level of the channel. I have gone long and am looking to take profit at 1.4800, 40 points below resistance, as there was some resistance around the 4800 level within the last day or two that may pose a problem to continued upward movement.

MACD is still coming back from and oversold level, it just completed a small re-tracement on what i believe will continued easing of the selling pressure.

DAILY chart

The daily chart had started to show some bear teeth however, after today those bear teeth seem to have retreated a bit at least for the moment so I am comfortable in taking a short-med term long position. On the dailies the price will need to pull back to about the 4840 level (15 period MA) before pushing back down further.

Profit currently at +43...... Moving stop loss on E/U trade to just above entry point @ 4730 ahead of news releases. Need to protect myself in the event the news skews my current setup.

Trading for free now, not bad ;o)

TP on last trade hit for +73

New Trade:

Long E/U @ 1.4839
Stop @ 1.4790
TP @ 1.5000

Long E/U on daily chart ahead of news. MACD has started to turn up more than I thought, previous days bad had a nice spike down with strong re-trace back up right away signaling strong support still. Also seeing as E/U has moved to the 4840 level pointed out earlier without much selling at that level it appears as though most expect not GREAT new coming out of the FOMC. Stops in @ 4790 (based off 30 min chart 15 period MA) in the event FOMC comes in VERY positive, small position size to be safe. Also weekly chart still shows strong uptrend and no obvious signs yet that it will change, I spoke of it showing it bears teeth earlier but i think that has dissapeared now for the most part unless as I stated FOMC comes in extremely positive, hence the small position size and stops @ 4790. TP set at 5000, just below previous weeks high, dont know that we will have enough steam, it it keeps moving north, to break that level yet today.

May exit trade before TP hit later this evening if it appears that steam has run out.

closed previous trade from earlier this afternoon for +32 @ 1.4871

Running total: +105

New trade to follow shortly

Sold U/J @ 90.55
SL @ 91.05
TP @ 89.70

Sold U/J at 90.55 off the 1H chart - MAs turned over to the down side with a falling MACD. Price appears to be at the top of a channel between 91.25 and 89.45. It has been riding a trend line up and appears to be about to make a fourth attempt of busting through it to head to the lower end of the channel around the 89.45 level.

The Weekly chart looks like it may be wanting to turn bullish but there is still no conformation on that as of yet and appears it may head a but further before turning around in the next few weeks so I feel a short position is still biased.

Stop loss may be adjusted lower as price falls.

Still continuing to hold the U/J short from last night. It dropped to 90.00 and has since recovered. It appears there was stronger resistance at that level that I should have paid more attention to and placed my TP there and my SL a bit closer. Oh well.

I continue to hold the position as price has broken the 1H trendline that I pointed out earlier, a sign of possible continued weakness.

On the 30 Min chart price is now starting to converge with the Parabolic SAR, if we can break through that we may start seeing it move back down toward my target and the lower area of the channel. If it cannot break the Parabolic SAR on the 30min chart with in the next couple of bars it may start diverging from it and head up to my SL.

However another thin keepin my confidence is the fact that we are still below the 15MA on the daily and our SL is located just above the 15MA. Also on the daily price is still under teh parabolic SAR and has not yet begun to converge with it giving rrise to the possibility that we still have more downward movement to complete.

The signals for the original trade have begun to fade however I still do not yet have enough evidence to indicate that I am wrong and will keep my SL and TP in place to wait and see what happens.

Alright!
TP was hit on U/J trade for a profit of +85 pips!!

We were spot on for the TP. Was a bit early on the entry and could have taken some profit on the first leg down then re-entered for the leg down again today however I was not so diligent in recognizing the support at 90.00 but with the bearish trend in place on the daily chart we were able to hold out for the drop to 89.70. U/J will most likely continue to fall into next week, however I do not want to keep any positions open over the weekend and therefore will enter new trades on Sunday/Monday.

Total for week: +190 (Not bad!)

account is up +330% for the week (From $37 to $159)

Time for a beer and a good weekend!

Long G/U @ 1.6646
SL @ 1.6590
TP @ 1.6930

Long on the G/U as daily chats have just flipped the parabolic SAR into upward direction. The MACD seems as its in the middle of a recovery from hitting its last oversold area. It also appears to have plenty of room left before it gets into the over bought area.

The weekly charts also show plenty of strength with the 15 and 5 period MA as they have both just crossed to the north offering plenty of strength for this pair.

SL has been calculated off the 30 min chart. The SL is located just below the second to last 30 min bar of the previous week. I see the dip in that bar as if it were making its last attempt to get bearish momentum going but has failed.

Also on the 30 min chart you notice the gap from the open filled rather quickly and has already begun to head north and turn bullish once again.

Overall on the G/U I think we are still in a very strong bullish trend despite the temporary pullback. I believe it to be, as i said, only temporary pullback that we saw over the last couple weeks.

The TP was derived from the most recent extreme high on the daily chart, placing the stop just slightly below there. This should work out as the daily charts just slipped the Parabolic SAR to the north on the upper end of a lateral channel.

Lets see what happens!!

Closed out long G/U position @ 1.6823 for +187

Closed position as G/U has blown me away over night and reached upwards of 1.6840 much faster than I thought it would. I believe this pair will still definitely make it to 1.6900 however with such a strong push north over the evening hours i feel that NY will be providing a good opportunity for it do retrace a bit before making its next leg up to the 6900-7000 area and felt it better to be safe and take some profits here and re-enter a little later if i feel its still appropriate. Even with taking profits here instead of my original target my risk reward ratio for the trade is still around 1:4 so i cant complain ;o)

Profit since beginning: +377
From start of week: +187
Account balance: $309.75
Return since beginning: +737%
Return this week: +94%

Goal for week ending 11/13/09: $256.00 - Reached 11/09/09

Long U/J @ 90.00
TP @ 90.65
SL @ 89.73

I have gone long U/J at 90.00. There appears to still be plenty of downside momentum on this pair however in looking at the daily chart it appears that price will need to retreat to the 15 period MA before another advance downward occurs. There is a lack of news coming out of the US to help push this one down further at the moment. My main concern with this trade is that the 5 period ma on the daily could contain the price below 90.30 until there is sufficient news ot move it further down. If by the end of the day the trade has not stopped out nor reached my target i may close the trade if the 5 period MA has contained the price. Also the MACD on the daily is still strongly in bearish mode and ready to drop further.

This trade seems more high risk but with the lack of new news coming out in the near future I believe a play on the small retrace should be a safer one.

A factor in helping take the long trade is on the 1H chart MACD is trying to come out of being well oversold and unwind itself before it can decline further. However what appears to be the MACD unwinding could simply be a small pullback on the MACD before heading down further. As I stated though I feel that with the lack of news it cannot yet proceed further down.

Also the 5MA on the 4H chart is hooking nicely to created a sense of a short-term bottom.... we'll see fi that holds true shortly.

My stop was chosen for being just below the most recent lows on the 1H chart yet just above the lowest lows on the 1H created near the end of last week. If price pushed to those levels again today then i think it is a good sign of further continuation downward.

My TP was chosen for being just below the 15MA on the daily and near the middle of the most recent highs created on the 1H

I also want to note that the pair does appear to be in somewhat of a channell (currently near the bottom) on the 1H chart, ranging from about 89.80 to 90.70.

This is a higher risk trade based on the fact that we are still strongly entrenched in a bearish move on the daily and weekly charts and position size should remain limited! This is simply a play on the possible short-term retracement of the pair before heading to lower lows.

Stopped out on last trade for -27. I had the SL set 2 pips too high. Live and learn, i normally set my stops one or two points below where I think it should be to be safe but failed to do that for this trade. Had I done that we would still be in the trade.

On to the next trade

Profit since beginning: +350
From start of week: +160
Account balance: $269.47
Return since beginning: +628%
Return this week: +69%

Goal for week ending 11/13/09: $256.00 - Reached 11/09/09

Short G/U @ 1.6751
SL @ 1.6790
TP @ 1.6680

Short on the G/U.

The 1H MACD is in complete unwind mode. we are seeing a steep drop in it and price should follow with a decent retrace before heading back north again. Also on that chart you notice that the 5 and 15 MA has both crossed to the downside. On the 4 hour chart price does not seem able to stay on the north side of the 15 MA indicating there is some selling pressure that should bring it back down for at least a small retrace until heading north again in the longer term. also on that chart you notice that the MACD is starting slope down ever so slightly also indicating increased selling here. Being that this trade is counter trend and wont last long TP was set at just above the 5MA on the 4 hour and just above the 15ma on the Daily @ 6680. SL is set to just above the near term 1 hour high at 6797.

Charts for previous post

TP hit on last trade for +71..... sweet trade after that previous loss ;o)

Profit since beginning: +421
From start of week: +231
Account balance: $333.00
Return since beginning: +800%
Return this week: +109%

Goal for week ending 11/13/09: $256.00 - Reached 11/09/09

Short E/U @ 1.4976
SL @ 1.5026
TP @ 1.4890

Short on E/U daily chart as the 15 MA is lagging well behind and price need to retrace back to that MA before heading further north. TP is set just above the 15MA on the daily chart.

Also reinforcing this is the fact that on the 4H chart MACD appears to be in the overbought area already and ready to roll over. Whether or not this will be a full pullback or just a temporary retrace is yet to be seen. You will also note that the 5 and 15 MAs on the 4H appear to eb starting to converge, however something to watch for is when price reaches the 15 MA, it should act as some support though I expect that not to last very long it to continue it downward move. One last thing for the 4H chart is that price and the parabolic SAR are starting to come together and it appears that price should filp the parabolic SAR to the opposite shortly. If it fails to do this our setup will not work.

On the 1H chart MACD is already well into its unwinding phase but still has a while to go before its completely done and I think the NY session should finish it off and bring price with it. Finally on the 1H chart price is also converging with parabolic SAR and should be flipping that soon as well.

The SL was place just above our most recent 1H, 4H and Daily highs, if we break back up in that direction we can assume any pullback is over and the bull trend is back in place.

Lets see what happens!!

Continuing to hold short position in E/U until further notice.

I think I like the way this looks.... and the lower highs that keep getting rejected..... we'll see, it just takes time ;o)

Stopped out on Short E/U trade. trading against the trend has not apparently been my friend this week. Started the week great but cant seem to string together two winning trades yet. On to search for a new trade for today, see if i can find anything despite the bank holiday in the US today.

Profit since beginning: +371
From start of week: +181
Account balance: $279.00
Return since beginning: +654%
Return this week: +75%

Goal for week ending 11/13/09: $256.00 - Reached 11/09/09

I took a short G/U trade this AM that unfortunately I was unable to post here as I had to leave for work. However the trade turned out excellent for a profit of +77! We'll see if im able to string to winning trades together in a row this time.

Profit since beginning: +448
From start of week: +258
Account balance: $363.00
Return since beginning: +881%
Return this week: +128%

Goal for week ending 11/13/09: $256.00 - Reached 11/09/09