My path to financial freedom

Wish I sat on my hands today. Got bruised badly. And I started the day saying 'don't trade'... Talk about intuition. Well, not intuition, but I knew Monday's are tough to trade and also with my journal and every other read telling me that Monday's are bad for trading.

I took one trade and lost 2% on it. EU pin off support and 61 fib confluence. It went to he FTA which was very close. my plan was to give it some room but cut it for a loss if it went below the first eye. Popped out of the room and left SL at bottom of pin and when came back SL had got hit.

Commodities have been sold hard today. Don't know why.

I reckon Chille will give thema good game...Spain were fortunate to get their first goal as Chille were all over them before the mistake and of course Torres's typical spanish dive got their player sent off the it was game over. Chille are a bit weak at teh back and they are always liable to get a player sent off, but if they close down brazil like they did Chille then I reckon they've got an outside chance. Should be a good game to watch.

Well.. what can I say. I had a better entry.

Thanks for the feedback LJ.

Very nice...

No, not really. It was the trade that topped the day.

And though I was right on Gold, it was a tad too early. I live to fight another day still (hopefully better than today).

Taken a Gold trade. We have a daily BEOB but there is not much space below it. So I've taken a 1HR pin off a 4HR PPZ. I would have got in at the PPZ if I was awake earlier. I'll add another order if the BEOb breaks and take some profit at the TL. If we can break the TL I'll add another short. If all that happens the this trade will make my day lol!.

Lots of action in Asia unfortunately. Missed the break of the AJ triangle that I was waiting for. AU has a similar triangle.

CJ is at 61 fib and daily PPZ area + divergence

Missed the pullback to the TL last night on EU and we are now at a potential bounce area of 1.2250. i'd expect a bounce as Ym is at 10,000 PPZ and 61 fib area now. Though if we get another leg down then I'm a definite buyer @ 1.2150 area.

1.5000 will be interesting on GU...potential area for a long opportunity?

GJ is in a well defined range.

Nice charts, as always.

I was thinking about Gold just when you pulled the trigger, but I said pass. It's at a 'nervous' spot, and you can get shaken out pretty easily. Of course, if it drops, it'll drop hard.

YM has daily PPZ in the 9970 area. We just bounced of 10000 psychological round number.

It is indeed. It dropped hard yesterday when equities fell. Equities look like falling hard today at the moment so hopefully it'll drop hard through the TL. I've got 2% short @ 1238.50 area split into two parts and I've moved one to BE and left the other SL @1242.50 and decided I would add 1% more at break of BEOB only there is plenty of support below in the form of the TL and PPZ @ 1228.50 and 1218.

If 10.000 doesn't hold, we're in a world of hurt. Just like on EU, if 1.2150 doesn't hold, we can kiss the euro goodbye.

Not gonig to post every setup in the 'journal' anymore. Just gonna post when I see a setup I'm about to take or the bigger picture of what I'm looking at when I get time and just discuss some general setups in accordance with my trading style i.e. rather than strict journal I'd prefer this thread to be more of a discussion place regarding the trading methods I use as it pretty much has become.

I did some work over the weekend looking through the journal and came to the conclusion that decent setups are hard to come by at the moment compared to previously when there was multiple setups per day.

I've also noticed that I've become more of a counter-trend swing trader placing a lot of focus on YM and waiting for YM to hit S/R before taking counter trend trades on FX majors. This is definitely an important part of my trading (especially at the moment when YM is in PPZ area) but I also want to get back to keeping things simple and trading what I see and taking some trend trades...so on the active look out for these. 1.5000 on GU is looking attractive to me as a trend trade as IMO GBP has been considered the strongest fundamental currency out of teh majors ever since the emergency budget and I'm a bit annoyed at myself I didn 't buy a load of G/CAd, G/AUd etc (well I did but too late and caught the minor retracement! Talk about bad execution!).

As I also mentioned previously I'm looking into some lower time frame trading i.e. 15mins and lower. I've looked into VSA which I like the look of as there is a lot of 'science' behind it but it is something that will take a fair while to learn and practice IMO, so this is more of a long term plan. IMO the best way of playing the 15min and lower time frame is pure trend trading. You get a lot of trend on these time frames, especially the likes of GU and EU at the moment so it's a case of using appropriate tools to catch these trends. Some people might laugh but a simple MA crossover approach does actually work really well on the lower timeframe to catch a trend - it's just spotting the the ranging part and staying out that is tough. Thus I'm actively exploring options of very simple trend trading on 15min and lower TF so if anyone knows any decent threads let me know. The way I see it you have to adapt to the market and the 1HR and 4HR setups are far and few between lately so I have to adapt as I need my account to still grow.

I think we'll see 9970 on YM.

Risk sentiment is bearish at the moment - the market has drifted down yesterday and overnight on no economic news. This week will shape the short term direction as we have lots of US data...ADP, ISM, unemployment and NFP...a very big week for US data which will shape the bearish / bullish outlook for the short term IMO.

If the data is bad then I think we can say we are in a bear market now and NOT a correction to the bull market.

But you did well on that 5min strategy that you were using. Why look for something different? I don't think you can find a set and forget kind of strategy on M5-15, you'll really need to be glued to your screen. Not that you/we aren't now.

The thing with high frequency trading like on M5 is that you get subjected to slippage, requotes, bad execution. And you know that it happened on H1 from time to time..

2nd gold position triggered.

Now drop hard!!

Breakout and pullback and equity futures are falling...with Asia falling hard I reckon we'll see follow through this morning.

hope you will post the intraday 15m system once you stumble across one. toying with VSA on 15m myself, as you are aware.

a 15m system on just one or two pairs is particularly good for me as i can keep glancing on and off at my charts during my work day. i cant trade the way you guys currently trade, ie: 1h and h4 tfs off multiple pairs. i just dont have the time for all that scrolling and screen changes.


btw, cable - agree, for me anything below 5000 and above 4850 is a long. a daily close below 4800 will be short.

Cos the thing with that strategy was that you have to look at the chart the whole time i.e. every bar and react very quickly. Thus I wouldn't be able to trade any other method i.e. my current trading style. I want something that is very simple and you don't need to look at every 5min or 15 min bar close. I've also seen some decent london, frankfurt, newyork open breakout trading methods too so looking at them all when I get time and will come up with something and post here.