Coastalfx Journal (I love the Jacko method)

My large EUR/USD trade finally got stopped out. Here is the summary of this trade that was open a couple of days ago.

EUR/USD 0.10 minilots opened @1.4550 closed @ 1.4662 +112 pips which equates to a dollar increase of $11.20

Current account balance is $141.89

Lets see what happens to the remaining open trades today. I am not looking to enter right away into a new trade with the Euro. I will hold off and see what happens over the next few days for determining another entry.

Coastalfx

I'm not sure why my messages are not getting moderated -- perhaps there is a huge backlog and in a few days they will all appear, Lol.

Anyway, I'm trying to contact you; however, I'm not able to PM yet. If you would send me an email so I can contact you off here, that would be great.

You're easily impressed then, coastalfx

Hi coastalfx....

I have only one thing to ask (maybe two)

1. Your tag says Long Term Trader so why on earth are you trading with 50 - 100 pip stops
2. I may be wrong but I haven't seen the mention of any profit targets for any of your trades. Why?
3. Just one more, please. Why not post some charts with your S/R areas marked so we can see your thinking more clearly?

Indeed!

1. That is a great question I guess long term is relative. Let's put it this way I trade iwth the trend and want to stay in the trade as long as possible. Are you suggesting I should use longer stops?

2. You are correct, I love using trailing stops. My rational is that trailing stops are one of the best way for you to let profits run. I have not always liked the idea of "picking tops". If I buy on support in the correct directon of the daily trend. It would seem like a trailing stop would keep me in the trade as long as there was a good run up. (also open to suggestions here)

3. I don't mind posting charts although I have NO IDEA how.

Pete, I'm honored that you stopped by and would appreciate your feedback.

My last Euro closed it was a small position here is the summary.

Euro opened at 1.4750 closed by hitting my 100 pip stop for a loss of $4.00.

Goodnews, my NZD/USD is heading higher have two trades open in that direction the .10 micro and .04 micro. It's fun to watch it climb. If it keeps climbing like this it will hit the sun .

Coastalfx

It would interesting to know why you took the EURUSD entry at the point you did. I assume it was some sort of breakout strategy based on the previous highs?

As a matter of interest (not sure to whom) but I had that area marked as Resistance so I would have waited to see if it broke that area and held above before trading. I prefer to wait for price to fall back to a Support area and then trade from there if I see an opportunity (qv).

I realise that trading is all about different strokes for different folks but it would help us in discussing your trades if you could detail the reasoning you employed to take a trade.

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Pete,

This is definitely a work in progress. Yes, I did place that trade on 3 factors.

- In the direction the of the trend

- At or a round a round number

- It was (at least I thought) a breakout

Now in the days since placing that trade. I have made some observations about myself and my trading. First the reason I was willing to trade a "breakout" was from fear of missing a run up. I know I know, sounds like a newbie mistake for sure. However, after reading several different threads and posts ( yours being one of them ). I feel that trading at support levels would be better. First because pairs are always more likely to bounce off of support than they are to breakout to a new high. My original fear was not wanting ot miss out on a big run up. However, even if I do miss trades by trading support the onces that I catch will be much larger. As evidenced by my most recent trades and the run up with the EUR/USD and NZD/USD. In theory my account drawdowns would be smaller too. I only need to catch 3 of those a year to earn 30% + on my money. Of course I could catch more than that, I always want to be as conservative as possible.

My question is this... How do you define support. Anyone can look at historical charts and have a reasonable idea where support is. However as bars and candles are forming how do you attempt to realize a support level has been reached. How far back to you place your stops and when do you adjust them? Do you use trailing stops or take profits and how do you determine that?

I appreciate any advice you can share Pete.

Thanks,
Coastalfx

My small NZD/USD trade was stopped out for a +20 pip profit which equated to an 80 cents increase in my account balance.

Update Account Balance is $138.73

Thanks for reading,
Coastalfx

OK let's deal with these one by one.
My S/R areas are set up long before price gets anywhere near them. I do mark up Daily S/R lines as they can provide short-term entry or exit points. It depends on how I see price action developing relative to the trend I'm trading.

My stops are, as a rule, set above/below a S/R area. Occasionally I might trail if I can't be around the computer and I'm near a take profit target(TP). My TP is again based on S/R although if I'm watching the screen I have been known to remove the TP and manage it on the fly. It takes a very strong price movement for me to remove a pre-set TP - I've done it in the past and regretted it so it only happens under the rarest of situations. Because my TP is S/R based I know I can get back in on a pullback if price moves quickly through my TP price and I've missed out on pips. Can't really do it via a post, so we'll have to find another way.

My last NZD/USD trades closed for a $4.00 lost and one closed for a $20 profit. Account is currently at $154.99

Looking to buy on pull back to support and studying support and resistance quite a bit now so will be buying very small lot sizes while studying this (0.1 micros).

I appreciate Pete's help in learning and guiding me on this path of enlightment .

Just placed a new Trade on the NZD/USD see screenshot attached


Still watching the EUR/USD to determine where I think price is going. I do have support and Resistance drawn there and may place that chart here later.

Hey there Jackie

Looks like things are going just fine

Kind Regards
Steve

Thanks for stopping by... Appreciate the encouragement.. in this crazy market of forex its much appreciated

Just a quick update...

There has not been much to update on I have placed support and resistance lines. I should post screen shots however, I am waiting to watch what price does. I placed one line I thought would be resistance and it was quickly pushed through with no respect and it seems that price has passed back down through it again with no respect on at least one pair (NZD/USD).

I will continue to observe these pairs. I am in no rush and am willing to wait days and weeks if I need to.

Coastalfx

Looks like my NZD/USD trade was picked up and currently slightly negative but we will watch it to see where it goes from here...

Looks like NZD/USD gave me a lesson today. That trade ended up going all the way to my hard stop at .7245. I lost$1.16 on that trade. I am out of the market now will continue to watch my supp. and resistance lines which got NO respect today.

I am re look at my charts to see if I am missing a support and resistance line anywhere that could explain current price action. I am not overly worried about that though. Right now I just want to get a feel for price action.

I have two NZD/USD trades going both are over 80+ pips in profit. I will include a screeshot for you. I have a 25 pip trailing stop that I will leave in place for now. If I see this pair break my next resistance line I may adjust that. I am stepping away from the computer so I want to be able to lock in profits if that pair reverses.

It's really neat to see price respect the support and resistance that I have drawn several days ago. Of course as you can see I'm trading very small sizes, as a reminder this has more to do with me learning how price respondes to support and resistance and me getting practice with S and R than making profits at this point.