Josh's Trades

I've debated for quite a while whether to start a journal on forex factory. I've decided to try it out and see what happens. My reasons for starting it:

- Accountability. I take some trades that I should not and I need to stop doing that. Maybe if I know I have to post it for the world to see, I'll learn faster.
- To have my trades organized in one place. I'll be taking trades using Price Action applied to RyanMCD and Jankone's strategies. There are a few things I've changed but nothing major. More just incorporating PA.

I don't plan to do a whole lot of conversation here. This will be more to simply show my trade(s), explain why I took it, what happened, etc. Therefore, I would ask you to refrain from posting in this thread. Instead, feel free to pm or email me with any comments or suggestions. Thank you in advance for respecting my wishes on this.

At this point in my trading, I have studied J16's thread and price action in general for over 10 months. I demoed for 3 mos on d/w charts. Then live for 3 mos on d/w. Also 2 mos of 4hr demo, and 1 month of live 4hr. 2months of demo 5min (e/u only) using BB, RSI(6), and PA.

Most of the trades posted here will be based on the strategies outlined in Jankone's thread. http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=163972

I will become profitable at trading. I will work at this "as long as it takes." I will use trading to fulfill the vision I have for my life. Trading is a means to an end for me. It is not the end.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATES
3-26-10. I should note that on the excel documents that I post, the results assume I risk 1R/trade. So when I say 1.6% gain, it actually should be 1.6R gain. I am risking 0.25%/trade at this time.

Hey Josh,

Good to see you take this step buddy. I will be looking forward to watching you progress my friend.

Best wishes to you!

1 trade that wasn't in a great location. B/e result as it ran through 1:1.

flat bb, but the trade was from the midBB, which is not good. I was able to hold off taking the pb this afternoon, shown with DIV.

Got a lot out of reading Jankone's post history in the Jankone thread today.

Josh

i love this. im on the same boat with u, Josh.
Good luck!!

3 trades today. 2 b/e and one loss.

First trade was CT with DIV. Off 1.49 on the break.. Stalled though, and I got out. This ran to the prior bar highs, so in a way, was a successful pinbar.

Second trade was with trend, on pullback to mid-BB. I entered on the close on this one though, and it soon took out my stop. I had ppz at the bar high too. Thought it was a pretty good trade, but didn't work out. Maybe a small bar too.

Third trade was CT with DIV again. I'm not sure if this was too many bars to be considering it DIV though. It ran to 1.4850, which is a big PPZ. I moved to b/e and it soon took me out.

I think these were better trades than what I've been taking. The third one isn't a great pinbar though.

Maybe I'm simply justifying these trades and in truth, none of them should be taken if I want to be successful. I've printed out Jankone's charts to study, as I think he shows great setups in his posts. Guessing he passed on all three of these.

I continue to struggle deciding between entering on the break and entering on the close of the bar. I should be waiting for the break though. That gives extra confirmation for the trade. I'm not at the skill level, nor confidence level, where I should be trying to enter early. So it shouldn't be a tough decision...

Continuing to struggle with patience too. One possible way to overcome this is to limit myself to 1-2 trades/day maximum. Wait for the 'perfect' setup...

Living and learning. Josh

4 trades. 4/4, 2.46R gain.

1st - With trend, DIV, pullback. 50FIB. quick and easy 2+R.

2nd - With trend, longer DIV (good DIV on 30min), b/e

3rd - 15min pinbar, DIV, off weekly open line, quick move, but not to 2R... moved stop to b/e at 1R and stopped out there. Ran through 2R on next up swing.

4th - with trend, but by this time BB were running flat and this became a dangerous trade off the mid-BB. off 1.4950. Out at b/e.

All 4 trades reached at least 1R (One measurement of trade selection quality for me).

Worked through 1/2 of RyanMCD's posts from J16 thread today. Will finish those tomorrow.

Good idea for this journal. Looking forward to see how you evolve.

Hats off for managing the 4 pip pinbar

5 trades, 2b/e, 3 losses.

1st Trade - a poor looking pin. Had DIV and 1.4850 as support (although it didn't touch that). It could be classified as either CT with DIV or FLAT BB with DIV at extreme. I got out at b/e after it didn't start with momentum and didn't last long once it did go in my direction.

2nd Trade - Nearer DIV. This one didn't hit the BB exteme, nor 1.4850, so it was also a questionable setup. No chance to bail here... -1R result.

I have counted both of these as CT with DIV in my spreadsheet. It seems I might be morphing into managing these 5min trades similar to how Jarroo/James trade the longer tf... bail early if they don't show momentum, moving to b/e at first sign of trouble...I wonder how that will work after 100s of trades...

3rd Trade - With Trend, With DIV. Another poor pinbar followed by IB. This one was fighting a tough battle because of the pinbar that had just formed on the 1hr in the opposite direction. I missed this until the trade was on. -1R result.

Why am I not patient for strong setups? None of these three even neared 1:1. That feeling of having to be doing something continues to get the best of me. The 1st and 3rd trades should have easily been avoided because of the 'pinbar' shape itself. Second trade is better and just failed.

4th Trade - No trend lately, 50FIB, DIV, weekly open. I don't know how significant the weekly open line is. It seems to act like a ppz on e/u though. Entered on close as the bar closed in direction of trade and was already near the low. This was riding the rails and maybe would be reason to avoid it.

This pair seems very tricky lately, evident by looking at the higher tf.

5th Trade - very similar to above. Got very close to 2R but didn't reach... b/e

My current thinking suggests that the underlying problem is my subconscious feeling that I have to be 'working' and that I can't make money if I'm not taking trades. But in truth, waiting for the best setups is what actually makes money. I don't know any successful traders that take subpar trades regularly It's an oxymoron.

Therefore, maybe the next step is to read and learn spiritual disciplines. I want to have a relaxed feeling when I go about my trading day, and not one of having to measure what I did today. The best work I can do some days is nothing, when the market doesn't provide me a setup with an edge. This is the toughest part for me, as I have always been on that likes to measure what I did today... a way to prove that I had a productive day. It does no good to measure results on a daily, or even weekly basis either. The market may offer me four trades one day and then 0 the next two... the goal/objective should not be to make a certain return each day, but instead to only take the very best setups.

I've attached the type of trade setups I am aiming for. By comparing trades I'm taking to what are in that document (thanks Jankone), I can tell if I am trading according to my plan or not.

Have a great night all and thanks for following me on this mind journey.

I have been contemplating the idea of limiting myself to 1-2 trades per day, the aim being that I would save my two bullets until I have a very good setup.

The great thing about this is that it would force me to really pause and judge the validity of the setup. The only drawback is that it only allows me to take two trades when there might be more than 2 valid setups in a day. Also, it might give me the subconscious feelings that I get to take two trades, so I might as well use them... thus defeating the purpose.

So for the time being, I'm not going to set a limit on trades/day.

Just some comments I put up earlier.

I'm starting to come around to what I have been doing wrong and what I could do to help alleviate my psychological issues. The main focus of each trading day should not be to make money. Instead:

Measurement of daily goal: To take valid setups when they present themselves.

If I see several good setups then by all means take them. But if I don't see anything that could be considered a good trade, then I need to pass, regardless of how it turns out. In either case, whether taking several trades or none, the day can be considered 'productive and successful' by following my trading strategy.

I've been measuring the day and my progress on the wrong standard - the bottom line.

Measuring my success based on my ability to wait for the best trade candidates and then being able to take those setups with confidence should be what I'm measuring. Trade results will come by themselves if I simply trade only the great setups.

It will take time to ingrain this into me, but that is the step that will move me toward calmness and ease through the trading day, instead of anxiety over taking poor setups and feelings of having to produce.

the pressure to "produce profits (daily)" is more pronounced in my case. this is brought about my current personal circumstance/s. trading becomes difficult once u encounter/trade with some/many mental issues/roadblocks.
it's highly recommended to deal with these issues/roadblocks prior to trading, as much as possible.

i continue to try & overcome this by, like u said, trying to stick with great setups, most specially on H1 & below.

1st Trade - CT, with DIV, off 1.4800. Ran to 1R before stopping me at b/e. Tight management saves me when I'm taking poor trades, but hurts when we get a good runner like this one.

2nd Trade - with trend, pullback toward 1.4850, with DIV. This bar failed within 30 seconds of closing and properly tested the 4850 level.

One thing I think I need to be considering, which a few others have reminded me of recently (thanks) is that the round number/ppz must actually be tested. The 2nd trade didn't actually trade 1.4850, a well known ppz (high bid was 1.4847). Similarly, yesterday I took two trades from near 1.4850 from above, but again, neither one actually traded to/through the ppz. Price wants to trade and test that level and will generally make that push before turning around...

3rd Trade - This might be very similar to what I just got done describing... that we need to test/break the ppz to know that it will hold. I took this pinbar, and again, we had a bar that cancelled it. This one was also running right into the 1.4850 zone, but I had lost some expectations with that price because of all the breaks of it in the last hour or two...I treated this trade as a Flat BB and pinbar with DIV off extreme of bb... so definitely a valid trade. Just didn't work out.

The first green pinbar was one I couldn't decide about. At that point, I was treating it as countertrend from the downtrend. Without DIV, so no trade.

The second green pinbar was a good one. Should have taken it, but was doing something else and missed it.

That's it for the week. A tough one at that. I remain slightly up on the month, however. I won't be trading at all next week as I'll be out of town. I will be checking in periodically though.

It seems I've lost my feel for price action. I'm going to post several of the trades I've recently taken. I felt they were good setups but most failed.

The strategy was to enter on close when we had a pinbar at the extreme of a BB with Divergence for countertrend. For with trend, it was to enter off a pinbar formed at the middle BB. For those familiar, this is using Jankone's/Ryan's strategy of trading.

I often tried to also have the trade off a PPZ zone as defined by James16 in his chart thread.

I use a 10 pip stop in most cases, moving my stop to b/e at 10pips, and taking full profit at 20pips.

Fire away.

Here they are. Please comment on what you see that was good/bad. Maybe these are simply good setups that failed?

Here's a few more

Maybe the problem is my management? So many things have to line up in order to be consistently profitable in this business. That is why we use demo accounts to work out these issues.

It takes time to gain experience trading and it can't be rushed, as that leads to the poor (and expensive) habit of overtrading. I'm about 1 year into my experience with price action. Doctors take 8+ years to be on their own after all the schooling. I have about 7 more to make this work and still be ahead of them .

Josh

This is more what I want to be looking for on lower tf. Breakthroughs, pull backs to previous support with PA...

Going to try posting my stuff here again. Want a better way of keeping track of it for myself.

I feel that by watching price, I've been able to get a feel for the direction it is going and have been able to call where it will go pretty well lately. I must remember that being right means I need to take action sometimes... like take some profit when price moves to the previous s/r.

It felt good to take two trades that ran nicely today. Unfortunately I was stopped out near b/e on both.

2b/e
1loss on g/u
-1R