go live or bust ... diary of an fx live-trader-wannabe

oops ... short trade got caught in some skiddish market action. loss.

again ... had i just followed my plan, i would be in okay shape at this point.

trading scared. fail.

sideways market ... was distracted by the favre game. :-(

gonna pack it in.

distraction prevented me from being in the game for this trade.

trailing stop via 10's, 20's, 30's at this point = 20 pips = 1.6% gain.

small trade taken for 5 pips/0.5% net gain. not worth posting a pick. skiddish market in a tight 30-pip range.

simply a pin off resistance that made a lower/low. didn't feel like watching it go up and down in a 5 pip range and possibly head into the negative so i just took what it offered safely and left.

famous last words ... dropped another 10 pips and is still rolling. c'est la vie.

another 3 pips ... entered at 60 aiming for 50 ... nearly got there when it hit 52, but i decided to say with it. once again it farted around and i lost a bit of ground so i just shut it down.

net 0.2% gain only, but it is a gain nevertheless.

best i can do tonite ... gonna pack it in.

will be trading more regularly since business venture never took off (was dealing with a "CEO" that was a bit "off" and was incapable of making a decision ... ahh the joys of corporate life).

hooray ... i did it!

simple outside bar pushing against resistance. decent RR (entry 3910, aiming for 3920) ... 1st chart

things got a bit sticky during the trade (2nd chart), but there was no resistance so i sat on my hands, kept my SL in place & stuck to the plan ...

got out "near" the 3920 exchange rate at 3919 and made a tidy 8 pips/0.8%.

watched price race up a few more pips and had a few moments of regret, but decided to get it in check by getting the process down in this post. there's hope for me yet.

as an aside, i think the reason the above trade went so well for me was that i didn't follow this logic last nite & suffered a loss (after i said i was shutting down ...) ... and saw the same thing this morning except in reverse; i.e., was able to learn from a mistake. another sticker on the piano notebook.

spent the day doing some pre-spring cleaning & got to trading later than desired, but missed nothing.

very poor range tonite & therefore, poor RR.

got up early and decided to play in traffic (NY session) ... we'll see how that goes ...

so far im short from 3949 ...

was aiming for 3930-ish (prior support), but this is not going well. about to get stopped out. second-guessed myself out of simply reversing at the new signal (not wanting to play the whip-saw game) ... oh well.

simple entry w/ good RR ... not sure where my head was at. the choppy way it was trading perhaps got me side-tracked from just trading the signal as outlined by my own rules.

NY & i go way back w/ this type of thing. asia has had no trade-able volume last few sessions & im not geared up for midnite sessions. makes it tricky. my method easily transfers to any time frame & perhaps i might think of moving up a few TF's to reduce the aggravation.

nice set-up off a RP from hourly chart ... entered on 5 minute price action for best RR. my entry was 62 & planned to exit at 50. sailed down in my favor, but when i was up 7 pips, hit the panic button instead of seeing it thru to the 50 mark (which it did reach in the next 2 bars) ...

was a 0.7% gain which is still a gain ... the potential was a 1.2% gain had i stuck to my plan.

i've always liked the MTF method for finding trades. would like to incorporate into a trading habit since it gives good "momentum" and therefore, i wont get stuck staring at my 5 minute chart for hours on end.

here's a set-up i found after europe & london closed up leaving only NY market open. with EUR & GBP "trader" volumes, i figured that with the double the pip value, with only a few pips, i can fair well if my planned trade works. simply, just trying to learn habits of finding trades, setting up the trade based on RR & next logical exchange rate for a TP, and leaving it be.

so ... first chart is the hourly for the EURGBP. clear RP closing above moving support levels (the pattern tells me more than the MA's since those can be adjusted in so many different configurations) ...

moving to the second chart (5 min) ... i started looking for a set-up, then waited for price action to match my game plan & went for it. found a nearly identical RP/close above support level set-up, found my entry point (based on my 12.5% of the range rule) & waited for the market to make it to 8738 & jumped in.

piece of cake. :-P

now, i must sit on my hands & let it do its thing. it works or it doesn't. if/when price reaches the 1:1 RR, i will move SL to break even while i chase my final destination at 8750.

the reason i say i must "sit on my hands" is because i already see a level to where i would like to trail my SL (a new support level has formed), but ... this is one of those things that i usually do that turns a potential winner into a loser b/c i dont give my trade the space it needs to work out. (interestingly enough, the new support level is my entry).

as i type this i now see where price failed to make a higher high ... more temptation to mess with things. uggh.

i screwed up on my order entry somewhere. my initial order shows 8730 as the SL, but when i went to trail the SL to my b/e point, i found the SL already at that level. luckily, oanda (true to its "reliability") did not honor the SL at 38, so im still in the trade.

market is all over the place ... trying to stick to the point of this exercise -- to plan a trade and trade the plan, but sheesh, that's one discipline that has lived up to its challenging reputation!

bullish outside bar formed on the hourly & i figured i was in great shape, but the market decided to reverse course & im staring at a potential RP on the 30 min against the direction of my trade ...

im closing this out (1 pip away from my break even) and scrapping the EURGBP from pairs i will watch.

did not stick to the plan, but i didn't see any sense in putting myself into the negative after i was 7 pips up and NY is about to ring the closing bell.

can't find anything tonite. over it. shutting down. nothing gained. nothing lost.

tokyo open ...

4-bar price action forming and outside bar/RP of sorts.

jump in off the doji on the 5 min.

at 1:1 on 5 min took 1/2 off and let the other run to 3:1 on the rest of my bet.

my original plan was to let it run up to 90.19 before taking 1/2 off, but 50 level tends to create resistance, even if for short period of time & going against strong direction of the sentiment after the bank rate stuff.

still trying to incorporate this strategy using discipline & patience & the concept of net gains over the week-at-a-glance & not think of my trading on a trade-by-trade basis. so despite not having the guts to see if this could run according to the plan, it's a 1.2% gain on the books & a confidence booster to boot.