Jimmy Noodles Trading Apprenticeship

I've decided to start a journal. I don't want to clog up any threads with my posts - so now I can just clog up my own!

I'm not an experienced trader. Been learning and demoing for about a year so you won't find anything special here, just someone learning 'on the job' as it were.

I trade by observing candlestick patterns around past support and resistance areas. These areas include trendlines, fib levels and pivot levels.

I usually trade off the smaller TF's (1M, 5M, 15M), but if I see a good setup on the higher TF's then I will take that. I use the same techniques on lower and higher TF's.

I have a small account (200GBP). This is for two reasons. One, its the only money I have that I can afford to lose, and two, if I am a good trader then it should be all I need to get going on the path. I'll never be risking more than 2% of my account and will be aiming to increase my account by around 20% a month although this isn't a set target.

I do not trade full time - I have another job so I can only do my trading in the mornings first thing really (0630-0830 GMT), however because I live in the UK I catch the Frankfurt open and the London open which provide good trading opportunities. I'll try and give my reasons why I took trades as often as I can (for myself mainly).

I hope to gain knowledge and experience here as well from experienced traders, and any contructive criticism/feedback is appreciated.

Jimmy

JOURNAL UPDATE:

I blew this first account in Sept 10. I was gutted because I was trading well at points. I had good steady gains followed by one bigger loss. This was due to my failure to keep a hard stop on a trade where I thought 'I was right'. In the end this was my ultimate downfall.

The last few months I have gone back to demo trading in an attempt to sort out this psychological aspect to my trading. I think it has worked but only going live again will tell. In my opinion I have spent 200 pounds on an education that I could not receive off of anyone but the market itself. It taught me an indispensible lesson.

Money Management and psychology are everything in trading.

I have saved a bit of capital over this period ready to go live in the second week of the new year 2011.

Ding ding round 2..........

Good luck jimmynoodles !
I'll follow your journey

Caught a good trade this morning on Cable. Took entry off the pin bar and caught it early. Good for 40 pips. Happy days.

Hey Intensity! Thanks for support.

In another trade. Fairly strong support area on H1 chart. Nice pin on 5M. Scaled into this position. Stop below last low. See how this one goes. If it breaks low its headed for next resistance at 4930 I think.

Some nice trades to kick off your journal. Hope it is full of more the same .. Good Luck and all the best. Ken

Just closed trade off +25 as its showing resistance level. Will look for re entry on break and possible retest.

Greetings from my humble computer cafe in Tokyo.

(I'm an English teacher, not a Japanese citizen.)

Anyway, I periodically post .pdf reprints of articles that I think might
help us in our fight against market makers, big banks and other
devious b*st*rds who want to rob our money.

I've posted the links to other threads on the site. Click on them
and just download the pdfs you find for safe-keeping. I think the
vast majority of them are reprints of articles from the likes of
Futures, SFO, Stocks & Commodities and Currency Trader magazine.

Some strategies will appeal to you, and some won't.


http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...&postcount=207

http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...&postcount=208

http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...&postcount=209

http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...&postcount=210

Also, I think this quote is damned important --

Intention is more important than action. What you make up your mind to do
is more important than what you actually do… -- Mike Hernacki

This doesn't mean action is not important. But aimless action without a
clear, specific and compelling goal is just desperation.

Once you are clear in your intentions vis-a-vis trading, you'll start
making progress towards your goal.

Good luck.

One of the biggest battles for me is dwelling on what I could have got rather than what I did get! Be looking for a reentry though!

Thankyou Mr.Lee,
I have learnt a lot from your posts about PA. Thanks for sharing what you have learned.
Jimmy

Got re-entry signal. Good price action bang on Fib line and previous resistance.

Stopped out at 1.5000.

Got back in on cable after the bounce of 50% fib and triple matching bottoms. Shot up for +20. Done for day now. See you soon. Good trading all.

Sometimes there are benefits about being woken by your three week old at this un earthly hour (GMT)! Liked the look of this trade.
G/J Long @135.883 SL 135.605 TP - Will stay flexible!

Also got in on this Eur/Usd Trade. This will be the 4th time it has been rejected from this level on the weekly chart. The R:R on this one is massive - again too good to turn down in my opinion. Entry off hammer on H1 chart.
EUR/USD Long @ 1.3468 SL@ 1.3435

Nice journal, mate! I see you use the FIB a lot. I haven't had much luck with it over my trading journey, in fact it seems a bit misleading. How heavily are you relying on it?

Both EUR/USD and GPB/YEN trades stopped out. Next trade......

Thanks. I don't rely on it too much. Always look for confluence with other S/R levels really. Just use it as another confirmation along with the PA around that area. I'm really still learning mate so any advice would be cool. Thanks for stopping by.

Since last nights stops I had a few scalps on the EUR/YEN and GBP/YEN this morning which made back the losses from last night and a bit more.
I was stopped out on a long GBP/USD trade after that. Waiting until the next major support on Cable now for next trade. I won't be able to post charts for all my trades as I scalp a lot in the morning and is impossible but will attach myfxbook link to my signature if anyone is interested.

Hope to post next trade soon.

God bless

Hourly chart showing double bottom. Looked like a good entry on the five min chart when the price bounced off the trendline. There was a bit of resistance, but once it broke through it shot up for a good 20 pips. I really want to be increasing my account size by 2% with 20 pips on these scalping trades, however this one only increased it by just over one percent so I may think about upping my lot size on scalps...just a thought. Another factor that contributed to this trade was the fairly positive news release on the EUR.