My GBPJPY trade journal

Dear Mr. Greg,
I have read everyone of the post in your online journal from page one. All the posts have been interesting. I hoped that I could learn something from them, However, since I am new to all this, most of it seems very advanced. Pondering about how you said, you traded for 9 years before you obtained the skill level to greatly improve... A few proverbs came to mind.. "If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten." That tells me that you did the same thing for nine years and that is why you got the same result. But then you must have changed something. I am a person that believes in logic. Next proverb or saying, "No! Practice does not make perfect! Practice makes permanent!" So, I don't totally believe that merely practicing the same mistakes would suddenly make someone better. For example, if someone practiced making large lots sizes on a small account, I don't believe with repeated practice they would improve their odds. It just doesn't make sense to me. All of your charts are really great looking. It looks like a picture that someone drew, and then scribbled all over it with crayons.. ha ha ha.. Nevertheless, I would like to understand those scribbles. What do you know that makes you decide your calculations? For example you use different periods of numbers for your moving averages. How do you calculate your numbers? Your journal shows the how it works, yet doesn't seem to be very detailed to why it works. However, when I see your great performance...You really are my idol in this area, and I aspire to be capable like you in this area one day, if possible. So, sorry this is such a long post, but can you list some of the things that you changed in your style that made you a winner after 9 years? Or list some of the things you started to study that you didn't know before and how that new knowledge helped you? I really want to understand the "Why" and less of the vagueness of "How" I know how to drive a car, but I am not a mechanic, so I don't know why it works the way it does. I want to be the great mechanic of forex that you are. I am sorry to envade your personal journal with my comments and questions, but I know the best when I see it, and I hope I can learn something to further my learning curve. For my knowledge level, your journal is very advanced, but again, the performance looks awesome. I hope my post doesn't come across as insensitive to your feelings. I know you are a great teacher. I hope I can be a good student. Thanks for your time for reading this.
Thanks for your kindness and understanding.
Sincerely Yours,
Pair-me-up

P.S.
Man can not live on bread alone.

All the things talked about in this thread are fairly basic/known FX things (Moving averages, indicators, pivot points etc). Babypips.com is a good start for traders.

Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn. I dont think you have understood Greg's story right. No one would keep doing the same thing if it didnt work, you would adjust and make slight changes here and there. This will all feed into your own trading style/strategy.

Will say this again. Everything is in great detail in this thread if you have actually gone through every page starting at 1.

Then start doing alot of reading and demo trading. This post is not meant to be rude however we all want to be great traders, it all comes down to the individual - researching, reading, demo trading, learning from mistakes etc.

Dear Bank it,

Thanks for your feed back.

"All the things talked about in this thread are fairly basic/known FX things (Moving averages, indicators, pivot points etc). Babypips.com is a good start for traders."

To a poor person 1000 dollars is a huge amount of money. To a rich person it is like pocket change. So to state that the information in the thread is fairly basic/ known FX things... I assume that you are very rich in your knowledge of FX... And I am pressuming that your comments are you only speaking for yourself as someone who has mastered FX. I have read every post on this thread. You are right that practice is important. But having a mentor to keep you from practicing mistakes is good. Have you ever met someone that speaks a language other than your own? And noticed that they don't have your accent or that they make mistakes. However, they aren't aware of it, because no one corrected them, so they are speaking in fluent mistakes. And it isn't because they are not smart, it is because they practiced the same speaking habit until it was solid. So, I am asking about the changes that were made. Do you understand. I person can not know joy if they don't know sorrow. There has to be some contrast. I have read all of babypips. It has a great outline. It is like an appetizer. Babypips shows a lot of excitement. But when I see someone that has posted real experience that catches my eye. I agree that we can learn from our mistakes, I also believe that we can learn from the mistakes of others as well. So I am asking Mr Greg about the specific mistakes he has learned from and what they were. I just started demo trading as you suggested. You mention reading.. What books have you personally read that have helped you out the most? Maybe I check them out too. And to restate, I really did read all of the posts o this thread. Everything looks great, but everything is written in hindsite. And the word potential is used a lot.. Potential= conditional... in other words no guarentee. So I am a doubting Thomas, I need the details. Thanks for your attempt at answering my questions in proxy for Mr Greg.
Now... Will the real Mr Greg Wilson please respond to my post? If he likes that is. No pressure.
Best of luck to both of us Bank it. And maybe you can tell your dad about baby pips, so he doesn't try and go to the bank to buy notes, as you know by reading babypips that he would lose money that the bank charges for the spread buying or selling.

without prempting the great master trader i will say that what Greg has learnt and mastered is that perserverance brings experience and experience slowly brings success and provided lessons are learned if you/me are skillful enough you/me 'may' become a master too - but even for a master, trading still requires are great deal of concentration. There are many traps along the way and emotions to deal with. There is no substitute for experience - and experience cannot be bought quickly or read in a book or blog or past on from person to person when someone retires, but experience is gained over time, and that time is a constant and needs to be put in and then if you/me peresevere and are good enough and do the same correct (simple)things over and over, without any relapses(old bad habits), then maybe you/me can get there.
you say what did he change? - i would reckon there is many things he would of changed along the way and there are things even he is still improving and changing as he carries on - for instance he now trades gbp/usd - and he now doesnt blog his trades so much etc.- and i would imagine there are many things he works on and one of the main ones would be to constantly remind yourself not to take trades that do not fit within the 'trending momentum strategy' - wait patiently for the correct setup.

Turn on your email/PM's

Dear Travpip,

I really enjoyed your comments, they are very respectful and they make really good logical sense to someone like me. Quote," A good student is a good teacher. A good teacher is a good student." So you must be one in the same.

Dear Pilotui,

I just signed up for this forum about a day or so ago. Give or take an hour. So, as a Jr. Member, I don't have access to sending e-mail or pm or recieving them. Sorry.
When I make more post my level will increase.

A long with technicals, I am trying to learn some more economics that might affect the value of the currency, For example, I hear that the unemployement rate in the UK is kind of high now. That would mean that their Gross Domestic Product will be low. If their out put is low, that means, no one needs to buy the pound in order to by their products. Not like I could go their with pesos and by like... Yo hombres and cheers to you all. I would like to buy some of that great shepard pie with my pesos. ha ha ha, They might tell me to go to the bank and change my money to the pound. As more people buy the pound to buy whatever product, then the demand for the pound goes up. Supply and Demand. If I know the Demand for the GBP will go up, then I know that going long the GBP will be good. But then again, I am just a newbie... So I might be totally wrong about this. Alright, I will look for a thread about the fundmentals.

ciao ya all.

Hi Pair-me-up

I have tried to summarise Greg's method in my post #653. Greg seems to agree. The thing i have found with trading along with many other people i'd say is that trading is a funny contrast between having to be so disciplined and patient and structured and yet when you are trading well it can be relatively simple.

Greg's main line he uses is " trending momentum" so before you even start thinking about indicators, news etc etc you must be aware that your mission is to try and catch "trending momentum".

He seems to do this by waiting for price to show it's hand so to speak off s&r levels and catch the trending momentum off these levels and cash out with the easy pips of the move.

It seems the indicators he uses help him add conviction to his set up but it is mainly momentum based price action off s & r levels, pivot points or out of consolidation that he waits for.

Personally and fundamentally i find knowing when the news releases are helps me but i don't try and interpret what the numbers mean.....i try and let the price action tell me. The chart is the most truthful thing we can base our decisions off i think and if a, b, c, and d all happen then we can expect a certain result based on the probabilities of that happening before. If it doesn't then it was one that didn't work. Wait for the next set up because probability tells me it will work.

Keep it simple. Greg's approach is a wise common sense logical approach and with practice then it is achievable. Get to know the patterns and trade them. It's a probability game. I don't know Greg's past but it seems he worked his butt off for a lot of years and probably went down a few futile roads reading much more into things than he may have needed to but it has finally got him to a point where all those experiences got him to this strategy.......as far as we go it just means we need to do the work until the set ups become like second nature. When i first discovered this thread I found alot of Greg's trades matched when i had good ones too. That excited me and told me that i really was on the right road. My mentor also harps on momentum........why would anyone trade against it, why not take the easiest smoothest road. All good moves MUST begin at some point with momentum. Our job is to find those points and get in early. The best way i found to decipher Greg's method was to take all Greg's indicators off the charts and go over his old trades and look at the price action. That told me soooooo much. I then added each indicator to try and work out why he would want that indicator.

Anyway as usual i have gone on a way longer than i intended but i hope it helps a little. Try and keep it simple, base your study and method on catching trending momentum off s & r and with a lot of work then you could make it. Like one of the market wizards says.....he likens trading to trying to catch a wave....you get on at the right time, ride the wave and get off before you get barrelled. Greg attempts to get on with momentum, ride it for the easiest part and get out before it gets crappy. Makes sense!

Kind Regards

Quoting Pair-me-up

Disliked

And maybe you can tell your dad about baby pips, so he doesn't try and go to the bank to buy notes, as you know by reading babypips that he would lose money that the bank charges for the spread buying or selling.

Ignored

Your really really cool. I like the way you research member posts to form commentary. And by the way it had nothing to do with bank charges funny man ha ha.

And yes agree Trav. Definately not Greg. Whats also funny is Pair-me-up comes on the scene (new member) so does the "new" greg. A few things similiar. They both write novels for a post and the similarity in language used is like:

A few proverbs came to mind.. "If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten." That tells me that you did the same thing for nine years and that is why you got the same result."

And

Since you like quotes I will give you one: “The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step”

and

You've probably seen this phrase around the forex-related forums and training courses many times: "keep a trading log!".

Whats with all the prophecies? no one on this whole entire forum has ever made commentary like this.

And i have to laugh at this: The system I use is simple, I call it “The Wilson Complete” ha ha ha what the.....?

Dear Zorroz...
Good day mate~! Your post #653 is on page 44 of this thread. You mentioned that you were a lurker and that your style of trading was very close to Greds. You mention many of the same things in common.. Momentum, etc. Then at the end of your post you really want to know what is in Greg's mind, by asking him how he sets up his day. Well, that is exactly what I want to know as well..What knowledge he has that is a determining factor in the decisions that he makes when setting up his day. Also, on page 33 There is another poster named Pipy, tries to write out a layout of Gregs style. And Greg gives a huge reply, but in the end he never mentions how he sets up his day. I understand the idea of momentum... or in other words... price action. No respect to his online journal, but I am here to learn as much as I can. For example, I would love to see a thread that explains things in detail.. for example... Today, I entered short because the momentum that is shown through candle sticks showed a bearish engulfing candle pattern.. Then a newbie like me would think.. alright, so the way I need to learn how to read momentum is to go learn about candle sticks. And, I better go look up what a "bearish engulfing candle" Gred actually mentions in one of his posts that he has some group that meets where he lives and that they discuss candles. Then if he circled the candle pattern that helped his daily setup... Newbies could really learn. Also, pivot points.. I think they are cool, but I don't know how to draw them. The software that I use puts them on the screen but they don't look the same as the ones Greg uses. How about fundamentals? They could invalidate support and resistance lines. No?
Sometimes, I feel like some more experienced traders that are really smart want everyone to be just as smart as them. I am not a fast learner. But I am motivated to not give you. Imagine if I said, how do birds fly? And you reply, they just flap their wings. Well, then I think if it is that easy why can't anything flap its wings to fly... ha ha ha... Well the set up for the day would be wind velocity, weight, aerodynamics of the wing and of course tail feathers for balance and direction in flight. Knowing the answer makes doing something simple, not knowing even the most simple answer can make some thing super difficult. A tiny screw on a carborator can make an engine to a car not function properly.. Alright, sorry that was long winded. I am a talker.. ha ha ha

Now Bank it,

I think like an investor, there for I am. ha ha ha I am not a person of faith. I am a person of logic and I enjoy a good debate based on detailed facts and not about emotional whims. I used to trade stocks. Before I invested in a stock, I would find out as much about that company as possible. So I could make a educated decision. So, your information was your intellectial stock. I wanted to see if you had any threads where you were teaching anything that I could learn from, since you seemed to have jumped on the "Go back and read all the post" Band wagon. ha ha ha.. I have to warn you, I have a sarcastic sense of humor. When I was a child, I would sometimes have a different opinion than my parent. If I stated my opinion to my parent, then my parent would say, "No! You aren't listening to me." To that I would respond, I did listen, I just have my own opinion. ha ha ha. Did you ever have this kind of experience with your parent? ha ha ha Anyways, you mentioned how no one on the forum has every used proverbs for analogies... Well you use the word prophecies...Which by the way means to fortell a future event that is to come to pass. Well, in the financial market there is a famous proverb, "Past performance is no gaurentee of future results." I can't speak for those other posters, that like to use proverbs, but Greg himself likes to use the metaphor no man's land. He says he doesn't like to trade no man's land between pivots because price is in limbo. Is the metaphor no man's land a propecy that is between pivot points? Maybe it is on the Aztec calender in 2012? ha ha ha just kidding. I really want to understand the details of tecnical analysis. Zorro mentions having a mentor. The forum is my mentor, but when someone says, (hypothetically speaking) just flap your wings long enough and you can fly too... I think. Why don't they just flock off with the rest of the birds.... Am I too mean??? For trading.. Well I got the money management part down solid. But if I don't have the skills to get pips, then what use it is. Alright, sorry this was so long, I hope you can get a good laugh from this. And that we can all learn something.

Best regards,
Pair-me-up

Hi Pair-me-up

I'll try and keep this brief. You'll notice post 654 Greg gives a brief outline of how he sets up. I really don't know if there is much more he can give to be truthful because it is up to all us now to do the work to understand it. By going back over his charts and finding when they happened on your own charts then you can probably break it down from the 4 hr to 1 hr to 15 min and you will start to see the momentum moves Greg tries to capture. I did ask Greg about how he sets up but am satisfied with how he answered me.

As far as the pivot points/indicators etc then he has mentioned which site and what type of pivots he uses so i'd suggest to copy that then hopefully your pivots would be the same.

kind regards

Hi all,

This post is for the folks new to trading who are viewing my link. I'm not going to address your long posts for the moment. Maybe I'll get to them down the road. Reason: As I've said several times, my only purpose for this link is show a strategy I use for trading. That's it, no other agenda. I've done this over and over, i.e., detailed analysis, charts, and my thinking at the time. If you get something out of it to add to your own strategy and trading style, that's good enough for me. If you don't get anything out of it, I'm fine with that too.

I have written out the strategy I try to follow many times:

Trending Momentum = highest probability/risk-reward trading opportunity intra-day = 100+ pips potential between a support and resistance, ideally between pivot points. Also note whether price is above or previous day hi, low, open.

That's it. Find the trend, overall or intra-day(strategy does not work well in ranges/consolidation areas). Look at the CPP and where price is in relation to it when new pivots come out. Look for a 100 pips target from your support or resistance entry. Go through all my submissions and see if you can spot the strategy. Study the moving averages at the time (5ema, 8sma, 21ema, 55ema, 200ema), the stochastic and MACD. Notice where price is within (or above/below) the channel and bollinger bands. Check the upper time frame charts against each other, 1 hr, 4 hr, daily chart. Note lower time frames for entry consideration/confirmation of trade opportunity: 5 min, 15 min. charts.

Regards,
Greg

hi greg
i see you analysis and strategy and seems you are very profitable, you made million of dollar a year; but your analysis is posted when then market ran;; can you post your entry live in this thread??? like when you long GJ : you said long GJ @ ; stoploss@ (no need to explain; no need pics) and it must call live we will see your entry base on the time you entry then there will be no bias , i see many trades you trade like hour so i think when posting live will not disturb your trading,can you do this in one month???

Hi Fx00

I'll jump in early to save you waiting around for Greg's reply. Greg def won't do that. He is not here as a signal service or to prove his system. He is here to help others if others do the work and decipher his trades, charts and associated comments. If you can and get something out of it then he is happy with that and if you can't or don't agree with his style then he's happy with that too.

If you thoroughly read the thread and go over his charts you will see the consistency in how he trades. You mention the 1 hour chart but Greg does mention alot where he enters off a 5 or 15 min to try and minimise his risk even further. I know he won't give live signals because of his principles but in his situation entering off a 5 min etc and trying to post free trades to people isn't really productive for him.

Go over his charts and comments on each trade over and over and you will see the commonsense in his approach of trending momentum.

Kind Regards

What the he** has happened to people TRADING...seriously...the 5 min you wasted typing this ridiculous request of an email, you could have learned something about the market.

If you want signals...go pay for them. THIS IS A TRADING JOURNAL!

NOT .... Repeat NOT.... and INTERACTIVE TRADING THREAD!!??

Seriously.

Though it's not my place to say nor ask for anything. Yet, I am quite curious as to what makes Greg pull the trigger in his analysis. I have studied his screen shots and can't identify his strategy 100%. I know this comes from years of experience and an instinctive gumption. Greg, if I may... Would you please explain how you feel the market will go YOUR way? I understand you use pivots, support/resistance, and ma's, but how do you know when to stay out of the market and when to trade? How do you know after a long rally of bulls or bears it will continue or retrace? Do you wait for all indicators to line up in a certain way, on a certain time frame? What?

I really appreciate what you have done in this thread and how generous you are with your strategy, I just want to know more.

Thank you

Ditto that.
A lot of the charts have commentary that covers up the chart as well. I don't want to sound like an ungrateful cry baby, but I would love to see the full chart so I can analyse it further.

Also, to Zorroz... You mention that your trading style is very close to Greg's ... Do you have any thread that you use to share with everyone here on FF... After all, I came to this forum, to learn with all of you and to share what I learn with some of my friends, when I go to school during the day.
humble regards.

Pair-me-up

GBPUSD chart analysis, early Asian session prior to price drop. See news comment following.

Hi Pair-me-up

My trading is similar to Greg's in the way i try and capture trending momentum as greg puts it.... or before i came across Greg, my mentor ( when i say mentor he helped me a bit but i would only have contact with him about every 4 months now ) used to and still does go on about the importance of momentum.

I know there are a few of you new guys who look at greg's charts and see them covered with the writing and comments etc and might think that something is being covered up but how closely are you looking or working. I don't mean this in a bad way but have you set yr charts up the same way and then gone down to the lower timeframes like a 5 or 15 min chart and looked closely at the price action. Momentum has to start somewhere. Have you tried to work out the similarities of what the macd and stochs are doing each time greg takes a trade. I mean in his trade sheet you can see the exact prices he got in and out at and the times so have you gone and studied that. It's also no prob if he covers up the macd or stochs in one chart, just go to another and look at it on there. All his trades are very similar in their nature.

He isn't being secretive etc but there isn't much else he can tell you. I dislike posting on his thread cos it's his strategy but if i can summarise his stategy which he has told me i can then it hopefully saves him answering a million times over and over with the same answer as we want him to stick around. Each of his charts is an education. Travpip and a few other guys here all seem to have stayed the course, done the work and now i'm sure realise the beauty of how Greg trades. You can do it too. Have you read into the meaning of trending momentum and realised what it really means? As i've said before i'd strip all the indicators off and add them one by one starting with the quickest ma and then the next etc etc. you may find that by the time you put the macd and stochs on things are starting to jump out at you.

If you haven't set yours up the same and studied where price is on the 4 hr, 1hr, 15 and even down to the 5 when he takes trades then you are missing where trending momentum starts and why it is ready to go and i'd say Greg's style isn't for you. If you are doing that then you will eventually see how consistent Greg's trades are with one another.

As far as my own thread goes then no i don't have one or intend to. I'm very excited in what i found with Greg because it reinforced what i was doing anyway. If you have read the thread then you will realise Greg has busted his arse and gone through a great deal of stress i imagine over the years to get to this point. He owes no-one anything and posts his trades to help those who can see it. He honestly has answered everything pretty much that he can about his style already. All i have tried to do in my posts is summarise and post it to save him time and make sure i have interpreted it correctly. From his feedback i have so i hope that helps somewhat.

All i would say is if you base your trading around capturing momentum in the direction of the trend off support and resistance or pivots, get out as quick as possible if it goes against you and try and have a decent risk reward then i think you would be on the right track. How do you measure mometum?? Ma's, price action, breakouts from consolidation or off support/resistance to name a few. It is up to you to develop how you see that if you can't see it from Greg's posts. Like many of us i'm no guru. I like you am just a guy trying but what i have realised is you can be successful if you approach with a sensible smart logical consistent approach. As a matter of fact take a look at any of the big crashes over the years.....last year.....9/11 etc etc and once you understand momentum then there is no reason that you would be long in those markets unless on a short timeframe in which case you wouldn't be in for a long time hurting anyway. There was plenty of time leading into them to be out and actually be short.

I really hope this helps and none of it is meant as a criticism. I've just posted it to say that Greg has said all he can say, i know this for a fact!! If interpreting Greg's strategy is the road you want to go down then it is all here in his thread already. I think i may make myself disappear from posting for awhile as we need to get back to letting Greg post when he can and studying it.

Sorry to everyone again for the length of my post. I know everyone wants to hear from Greg but i'll almost bet my balls he would back up what i say and hopefully i have given something back and saved him some time if he did intend to reply to any new ones on here.

Kind Regards

Z

Thanks, zorroz. Well said.

Greg

Dear Zorroz,
Thanks for your coments.
Yesterday I figured out how to finally set up my pivot points with the numbers I found on action forex.. I was able to capture about 120 pips yesterday. I do like to look at the higher time frames to see if I can recognize any trends, and I do like to look at all the time frames available on the smaller time frames as well to try to get a feel of the momentum. I am currently reading a book called "Candlesticks, Fibonacci, and Chart Pattern Trading Tools" Therefore, I am also trying to recognize candlestick patterns, that can hopefully help me see the momentem(a.k.a=price action more clearly) I think that what you said about adding Greg's indicators one by one is a superb idea. Actually I am doing just that. I try to study as much as I can about the indicator before I add it. I still have a lot to learn.

Dear Greg,
I liked your most recent posted chart. I can see more of the candles.
Since I am new to Forex learning, well.... as you can see I am fundamentally weak. So I really appreciate your commentary on the fundamental analysis. I read that fundamentals, can often invalidate support and resistance lines. So I am learning that understanding both play a vital role in seeing the momentum. Little by little it is coming. I am a slow learner. I am always asking many questions. However, my long term memory is great. Once it is locked in, it will stay forever.

Thanks for everyone being so patient and helpful for all of us newbies, and remember you all were asking the same things and just like us, once upon a time. So you can see how all of us newbies look up to you folks that have grown so much.
Have a great day,

Pair-me-up