My path to financial freedom

These are my favourite trades...trades that make you money while you sleep.

pending order short on EU also got triggered over night...order was just below yearly lows...was obvious it was going to break overnight.

GBP still relatively strong compared to other currencies...GDP is the big news of the morning...you'd think the news will be good the way the GBP is holding up, I'm still in all my shorts so I'll asses nearer the news time. EJ is near PPZ and 'flag' support again - can it break this time...

Only trade that lost overnight was the G/CHF touch trade...the CHF's really do baffle they aren't behaving like they should in a normal market...wont be fussed trading these for the forseeable future.

Waiting for PA

This is my chart....TL, RN which is also a PPZ and fib confluence...very small touch trade buy or sell EUR / AUD or both downtrend is strong so not expecting a reversal...as you say waiting for PA would be the conservative highest probability method.

What I do with touch trading is to risk a small position...so you are like testing the market, putting out a little risk to see if you are right in that price will be reversed...if it doesnt then I'm out quick for a tiny loss...if I'm right then the aim is to keep adding more and more positions as the trend reversal develops.

Learned this from ROASO and watching Nasir.

Summary of open positions...

Short AJ @ 86.80
EJ @ 124.46
GJ @ 143.81
CJ @ 93.52
UC long @ .9923
AU long @ 9199
EU short @ 1.3262

Looking at weekly charts next major PPZ on EU is just under 1.3100

I'll be adding more positions on a retrace back up to the broken yearly lows or a break of 13200. EJ I'll add on a break of flag support @123.30

Just see G/CHf has now decided to reverse...touch trade was a loss @ the RN overnight...that pair is so annoying to trade!

Sticking with my plan to take less trades, concentrating on take high probability trades i.e. get my win rate back up to 70% and adding into positions on the direction of a trend (peaks and valleys) and playing clearly defined ranges. Keeping it simple, stress free and trading calm. I'll be risking 2% more often than not compared to 1% previously on trades....I want to see my account grow the same but my win rate @ 70% ish and the number of trades I take decrease.

I see what you mean.

I did my TL based on Daily. To me this entire move from 0.92 area is a breakout and this is the second PB to the daily TL. If it hold (may be helped by gold) to me is definitely a Long

I did have ROASO but did not read it yet. I am now reading more psyco trading books, as I need to improve.

I am also busy re-reading as Nasir said, the first 400 pages of J16. It is an unbelievable reading as you can see how the technic started and it evolved from there.

"I am also busy re-reading as Nasir said, the first 400 pages of J16. It is an unbelievable reading as you can see how the technic started and it evolved from there. "

That´s what I am doing too at the moment, so true. But it´s great to see so much of it applied in realtime by LJ and nasir.............

Good trading to all.

Mistakes that mean you didn't make money are much easier to take than mistakes that lose you a lot of money...trust me lol!

Your sense for wnating more money stopped you acting rationally and in line with your pre-set trading plan.

If you find yourself in a position where you are indecisive as to what to do when you reach your pre-agreed exit point what I do is ask yourself has anything changed from your original exit plan that you set pre-trade...i.e. has anything changed that means you should change your exit plan...if not then you must follow your exit plan to the letter...getting into the habit of having a pre-defined exit plan prior to you entering a trade and then following this plan exactly will make you a much better trader and will eliminate making decisions based on emotions.

If in hindhsight your exit plan was wrong then you can work on improving your plan but until you can trade without greed and fear affecting your trades I would highly recommend that you have a well defined plan and execute that plan exactly...when I startd to do this my results were astonishing and there is nothing more satisfying to the ego then having a good setup and trading plan and executing that plan and it resulting in a nice winning trade...it is smooth, easy and dull...just how trading should be.

My advice would be also to never ever focus on %R or $ profit in making a decision as to whether close a trade as this will hold you back. Letting your winners run is key to improving your results and if you kept cutting winners at a certain %R or $ profit then your results will decrease.

I used to eliminate anything that showed me profit , $ etc on my screen so I could trade what the charts tell me. What I like to do before I enter a trade is write down or note all the future trouble areas i.e. PPZ etc and how will I react at those areas i.e. first trouble area - take profit/ move SL to BE, leave alone/ take partial profit ete / add another position on a break. The more you can have every possibility pre-thought out and planned then the better you will become as a trader IMO. i.e. the more automatic you can become...having a detailed trading plan and merely executing that plan unless anything material has changed during you trade compared to when you set the plan etc.

This is just my opinion from my own experiences...I am a very analytical person and when I blew up an account it was the best thing that could have happened to me from a long term perpsective as I sat down and went through everything that was stopping me becoming a successful trade and worked out ways I could eliminate, control, change. As far as I'm concerned I will never be the best trader in the world...I'm not 'wired' correctly...but I know what I need to do to control my emotions and can spot the signs when things are going wrong...but I dont need to be the best trader in the world in order to make a living from this business.

I still make mistakes...I am human after all...but the difference now is I know when I'm making mistakes where as before I didn't and couldnt understand what was going soooo wrong...just look through this thread...I've made countless mistakes...some of them I've reviewed on here and posted charts of what I should have done after the fact. This is the reason I want to slow down...I've got too many trades going on to focus and have a pre-defined plan in my head and am missing things like the BUOB on UC last week ... missing that cos I was too busy trading like a headless chicked meant I turned a decent profit but which should have been a huge profit (7 pip SL on original entry!)

Anway i'm droning on...not very good a contructing sentences I just type what comes into my head.

I hope my thoughts are useful...certainly not meant as a rant at you or anything just trying to be helpful from my own personal experiences.

This is my daily chart...we have a clear channel and can see that we had a false breakout previously that is why I haven'y connected the TL all the lows on the daily...but on the 4H there is a clear TL connecting the lows.

There is so much resistance above on the AU....loook at a weekly chart and mark the PPZ areas there are loads...so the 'path of least resistance' is definetly down and a confirmation of a change in trend is a close below the channel.

Fundamentally RBA have indicated they wont be raising interest rates anytime soon (from what I last read) and thus I am bearish AU. Part of what I want to get better at doing is taking some swing trades based on daily or taking lower time frame trades and holding them based on my long term view. A trade near the highs would be nearly 200 pips in profit now and if it closed below the channel today then you would have a good confirmed trend change IMO and already be in a nice profit and in a position to add more positions.

...

http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...ostcount=61610

This is a bearish bar - an inverted pin bar meaning there a higher probability that the dow will retrace down today (see Ghous's posts for explanation as to why these work and what setups to look for)...not set in stone obviously but it makes sense as the Dax and FTSE are laready bearish (see my previous post last night - thanks to Nasir for getting me to look at these again). Will take a look at the S&P and Nasdaq in a bit too.

But than why did you take a long at 0.9199?
Do not get me wrong I d like to understand.
TX

First - Thanks very much for taking the time to write it.

Second - It is already in the folder called LJ

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Morning Nasir,

kept my entry from yesterday...not sure why the sudden strong move in CAD...no move in oil.

I thought that question was coming...

A mid/long term view on a pair can differ from your short term view as price obviously doesnt just go in one direction in order to get to your long term target.

This touch trade setup is a defined setup i.e. PPZ, TL, round number and Fibs which I'll take no matter what my long term view is. It might not work...but I'll take them all day long if they presented themselves as this is part of my short term trading methods. It might lose or it might lead to a short term retrace...my ultimate target would be 0.9300 RN and descending TL on 4HR with my FTA @ 0.9225.

If I start over analysing and saying why am I going long when long term view is bearish then that's when you are looking at things in too much depth and talking yourself out of a trade. I see a set up that I know what works more often than not and I pull the trigger...that's how to be...it is very easy to talk yourself out of a trade byu over analysing things...mostly this comes from not being confident enough and that comes from either riskig too much capital or because you have not practised / tested the set up enough....if you have tested / practised / researched the setup to death then you should have extreme confidence in taking a setup...confidence is important IMO in trading being able to see a setup and pull the trigger automatically.

By the way exited EJ,EU and AJ shorts earlier as lacking downard momentum and retrace is coming first...keeping CJ short and UC long in play and still have GJ short open...will keep this open through GDP news...if good then obviously I'll exit very quickly...if bad then GBP will tank.

I still favour selling xxx/jpy and xxx/usd in any rallys today...but a break above the highs on dow or positive GBP GDP news might change my view on this as positive risk appetite might be back across the board....though I wouldnt expect much follow through north in EUR.

Breakout and retrace...

Right enough from me...be back later.

I know I keep bleating on about this pair...but this is what baffles me...yesterday GU and GJ declines nicely and yet G/CHf kept rising...we get worse than expected GDP figures (although it is widely expected they will be revised up as severe winter weather impacted Jan-Feb figures) and GU and GJ dont really move thast much and yet G/CHF is strongly moving down...defies logic to me!

Equity futures very strong this morning and seeing decent moves up on EUR on rumours Greece will ask for a bailout from IMF / EU this morning.

Stupid really as this is the tip of the iceberg...so many more problems for the Euro a loan from other EU members and IMF is nothing it will not save the Euro from tanking towards parity at some polnt this year IMO.

Being very cautious on my trades as it's Friday and all...things can change very quickly in equity markets as well all know.

May be a too simple explanation but... CHF follows Euro and yesterday its decline was much deeper than GBP

Anyway shorted again gbp/Jpn on the spike. 15 pips higher than yesterday.

By the way, congratulations LJ. 50 pages in 3 weeks !!
Sooner you will compete with Cable Update
Very good job
Tx