My Trading Journey thus Far

I heard a classic line on the Sky business channel on Friday that almost certainly applies to me.
" When a perennial bear is thinking about buying, it's time to sell"
Well after all the big bullish moves last week how can one not be contemplating buying this upcoming week. Euro stress tests were good depending on your interpretation off course. IMF reports larger USD short positions then the week before. All this points to a buyers market, thus setting up the BEARS to crash the party!
Well maybe not, who knows in this crazy world of forex?
I've been watching the GBP/CHF for the past 2 weeks and wanting to buy as it looked like it had bottomed out. The double bottom on the daily candle Friday morning gave a clue and then bang it goes wild bull for over 300 pips. The CHF has been king over the past month or so but looks like it's run out of puff.
So it's now to dear to buy, I'm expecting a pull back to the 1.6100 zone which was resistance now turned support.
Looking at the hourly and 4 hour charts and the 1.6300 area looks like a massive resistance zone.
I'm contemplating shorting from there back to 1.6100. It's in massive bull mode, though it is fast approaching this area I will not set up a pending order trying to stop a speeding train however tempting it is. I will wait for a 4HR reversal candle. Failure to penetrate and close above 1.6310 which is also a 38.2 fib will represent a good opportunity to short back to 1.6100 with good RR.4 hr chart below

OK so I took the above trade. It setup exactly as I anticipated. Price was consolidating during Asia and I knew London would give it one last push as they usually do. I actually had a pending order sitting at 1.6310 but pulled it as it was approaching because I wasn't sure it would play as I anticipated.
The 1 hour reversal candle was my trigger. According to my fib calculations I'm expecting this to retrace back to 1.6112 or thereabouts.
As I only have 1 mini lot on I can't move stop to break even yet as it is still in the danger zone. I will leave this trade overnight and see what transpired in the morning. If it moves more then 50 pips in my direction tomorrow morning I will then move stop. I will not let emotions kill this trade, I will however take profit earlier if price action suggests I do. If I am wrong and get stopped out then that is OK. RR on this setup is almost a nice 4:1. I wish myself luck

Trade sell GBP/CHF in progress. Last night before sleep I had a sneak peak and the trade was about 40-50 pips in profit. Overnight it fell pretty hard down to 113 pips in profit. It bounced off my 127 fib. This morning I was still 40-50 fibs in profit so I moved my stop to Break even +1. As of writing my trade is now 29 pips in profit. It now looks like it may take out my stop. The Daily closed a nice red pin so my trade is still valid. Not sure if the trade will survive though as price looks like re testing the 1.6100 area which is where my stop is located at BE. Since price has dropped and is now retracing it would be unwise to move my stop. If it gets taken out I may look to re enter at a better price or just give it a miss.
This is the hard part about trading with only 1 mini, you don't have the luxury of taking part profit. I risked only 1% on this trade which I thought was a good RR setup. Future trades may have to incur further risk in pursuit of locking in profit is my lesson of today. I could shut down the trade now with a $40 profit but I will not. The setup is still valid for a further drop, I'm just not sure if It survive the current retrace.
I have exercised good discipline in holding a trade open at the cost of letting a small profit become a break even affair.
The way I see it as we speak is the trade is on the precipice. We will see.
Current price action below:

STOPPED OUT

Well kay sara sara....

Price kept surging and took my stop out for a 1 pip profit
That's ok I had my game plan, held tight and allowed my trade to do what it was going to do with no emotional intervention. From here on it may continue in my chosen direction but it doesn't matter for me and this pair it's game over for now. No point in chasing the market.....

One trade ends another begins
GBP/USD has rallied for over 1200 pips.
It has just taken out an April 26 4 hr bar high of 1.5498. Today London made a new high and closed the hour with a doji. Bearish reversal bar followed. Presently sitting at 1.5450 support which I expect to give way. I have entered short, see chart below.
I expect a decent retracement here though I could be wrong. This time I'll be conservative a 73pip stop for a 120 pip reward. 1 mini lot.
I may have rushed into this trade a little however price has arrived at a significant level. Once 1.5450 is broken I'll feel a lot more confident about the setup. Once again Good luck to moi

KABOOM !!!

That didn't take to long to backfire!!
I must admit I was enjoying a few reds before placing that trade, the charts looked so much more appealing to my eye as such

OK time out and done for now, journey seems to be going from bad to worse. I wish those damn bulls hurry up and kick the bucket....

Recapping events from Yesterday.
I'll officially label it a disaster. The morning began good with my trade up about $50. I let that turn to $1. I actually ignored one of my rules of 50-100 pips max counter trend trade.
I then had a few wines and placed a discretionary trade without obeying any rules and lost $80 in what seemed a blink of time.
To make matters worse I went back to the market after declaring I was done and placed another 2 trades on 5 min chart and lost another $40.
I have strayed away from my plan, I'm now gambling on smaller time frames and I'm pulling the trigger without reading my rules or even thinking twice really. I'm not paying any respect to the trends in place what so ever. I even think they are not real. Psychologically I'm in a bit of a mess once again.
My account which started at $5K and grew to $5.2K before my journal, now stands at $4,959. So I'm not down much but I feel as if it's all about to turn horribly bad.
I have not looked at the charts this morning as yet and I kind of don't want to.
I need to stop looking at smaller time frames through the course of the day. I'm finding that pins, dojis and shooting stars are becoming unreliable even on larger time frames. I'm also considering switching to weekly charts. I feel as I'm almost obliged to trade any signal that comes close to my criteria and I'm not even sure that my criteria is trustworthy any more either????
Rant over and I'll check back after a look at the Daily closes.

No trades today. I can sense the bulls are slowly running out of charge. But I'll stay patient this time.
Looking at the USDX and although the dollar is still in a downtrend it looks like a bottom may have formed. I'd love to have a punt at this but admission is too costly for my account. $5 pip. 20 pip spread, and a minimum 30 pip stop...OUCH !!
Chart below (12 hour TF )

Scanned through the Daily's and I don't know where anything is heading. You have the commodity currencies weakening a little, equities too and Euro & GBP holding steady. It's almost end of month, approaching end of week.
Well I was watching the AUS200 Index and noticed on the hourly the last 3 hours were rejecting lower prices so I thought a buy was a nice intra day trade with a 7 pip stop loss. What I like about this index is the 1 point spread during Aussie market hours. Well as soon as I entered the next hourly bar looks a break out bar so I quickly moved stop to break even + half pip. No limit on this trade I'll watch and see how it goes. It is now a free trade anyhow.
OK now I buggered up money management rules here. This was a bit of an impulse trade since I just caught it before take off but I should have had 7-8 mini lots on in keeping with my 1-3% risk rule. Something to remember next time.

Stopped out for 0.5 pip, then it continued going north. Something I haven't figured out yet is the whole stop thing. Price loves retesting my entries wherever they may be. How do you know it won't drill straight through them if you don't move them?
This trade is currently 24 pips up and looking strong if not my stop being hit. Doesn't matter....

OH no, not the wine again...

Here is my thinking. EUR/USD going great guns. Just made a new daily high and looking strong. Unemployment claims in 4hrs time is going to make this thing drop no matter what the result. Price approaching 1.3100 which is today's R3 pivot and a significant level on the daily.
My pending sell orders are waiting....

When it rains it pours. Eur/USD missed my sell order by 2.5 pips and has all ready fallen 30 pips.
Well my thinking was good, execution just missed.
Doesn't matter,I pulled the order as if it comes back up who knows where it will go and off to sleep.
I think it has made the top for tonight's session. I predict a drop to 1.3040 and then I don't know.
Check back in the morning

Ok this is my dummy spit for the day. The market is always right. Of course it is...
This is a reminder to myself that the market has one job and only one job and that is to take your money. Maybe I think too much, but it's all a big scam I feel. Sentiment drives this market obviously. If we are all bearish then prices must go up because we need to take your stops to feed our enormous bank accounts.
This morning I took this trade just for the hell of it. No trading plan just random entry based on bearish sentiment and being Friday.
I entered half way through the hourly candle with a modest target of 15 pips.
So what follows, worse then expected japanese unemployment data and worse then expected AUD private sector credit m/m. Now I perceive this as great news for bears. The Nikkei took a dump as you would expect and the AUS200 rallies
Only have 1 mini on for a 22 pip stop so I don't really care about the result but it seems the black swan has emerged on me....

Lucky Aus 200 gave me an escape route. out +.5pip. Just looking at the Euro and my trade would have come off a treat last night if it triggered. Lucks a fortune in this game....
Looking like all majors are about to start their evening bull campaign very shortly. Maybe opportunity to hitch a ride?

So we march in to a new week and a new month. Well my trading is not going so well but my thinking is not so bad. Now Friday's trade would have been a winner if I let it go. The market really plays with your psych. I've never ever seen anything like it. It can make your awesome winner be a loser and your loser turn in to a big winner. Candles don't always tell the truth even on the bigger time frames. Thus bringing some great plans undone. And at this stage the game plan goes out the window too.
OK firstly I really need to get away from Intra day. Even though this is where all big directional moves begin it is really difficult to watch and monitor. Secondly I'm wanting a trade that lasts a long time with minimal risk. To me this would be a good exercise of patience. I guess I'm really wanting or perhaps needing to be a swing/position type trader. A trade that goes for a week or month would be ideal.

Next question on my mind is what will August bring ?
OK well Australia is having an election this month and the USA is not travelling too well. IMF report states this week’s USD shorts are as high as early DEC09 levels. Well the USD had a nice rally beginning that week that went all the way to Xmas. Maybe entirely different circumstances but still worth remembering.
I’m looking at the Monthly and weekly charts and even though EUR & GBP had big bullish months they have both arrived at a price that will not be easy to penetrate. I can’t see Aussie making new highs in election month.
Equities are looking very bearish, Can’t see SPX500 making new highs either.
Anyway doesn’t matter what I think I need to see what the charts tell me to do. At this stage nothing !!!
I’m also changing some of my indicators this week. Too many MA’s were getting me confused so I’m now only using the 20EMA and 200EMA. I’m also adding monthly pivots to my daily charts and am going to trial Mr P Sar.
I will observe how sar spots trend change and the dots look like a safe place to put a stop. Not that you would let a trade hit it but it seems to be far away enough from the price action that it may give your trade a bit more room to breathe if need be.

As you see I’m experimenting with different tools but I feel that’s important to be comfortable with what your doing and I wasn’t in the last few weeks. I also want to make my trading a little more mechanical thus taking emotions out of my decision making.

This week I will focus purely on Daily candles. No intra day at all. I don't care if I don't trade anything at all either. I will try and catch a trend if I can as opposed to counter trending everything in sight too.
GBP/CAD has caught my eye. It is in an ascending triangle. The aussie was in one of these not long ago and broke straight through it. This pair has spent all of July trying to break it and has not succeeded.It is also forming triple tops which are bearish. It is in a fresh new trend on the daily and consolidating on the weekly. The spread is horrific on this pair 15 pips with my broker but I can see lots of pips if you get on the right end of the next move. For now just watch.

This morning I have found that GBP/CAD has closed above the resistance line on my charts above. As it couldn't break above that line for a month I consider it a bullish sign. At this moment of time my confidence is almost non existent. I have seen plenty of trades take off without me on board and then jumped on the ones that sink . Because of this I'm taking this trade on my micro meta trader account. The profit or loss is irrelevant at this stage so I just need to watch this trade develop or die. Exercise some patience and use it as a stepping stone to the swing trading world.
My next point is what really does my head in. The difference in platforms. Note how meta trader and pro real time have the same MA'S and Sar but are in different locations. Which one do you believe??
I just can't get my head around that one.
Charts below:

USD/CAD looks very bearish. Maybe another trip down to parity and beyond? It has broken and closed under a trend line that has held since April21. A symmetrical triangle pattern. Only concern of mine is whether it's a fake out?
I've seen these on smaller time frames do just that and then shoot up the other way. I would like to see a retest of the trend line first. As you see I keep second guessing myself which is not good in this game.

Houston we have lift off
+80 pips
A good beginning
Let's see where it closes tomorrow morning.

Severe turbulence overhead...
Inspecting my trade this morning and it closed a new high. It is now +40 pips. It reached a +85 pip high in yesterdays session. Inspecting the 1hr time frame for a closer look and it's holding above the 20ema but looking bearish. On the 4hr very bearish. 4 consolidation candles that all retested my entry.1st one spiked high like a top was put in place. Ok so we don't know exactly what the market will do but it leaves us clues.
At this point of time I have moved my stop to BE+.5. Since this account is a small micro I want to give the trade a chance to push higher even though it seems a little doubtful.
At the same time I'm not willing to let the trade test lower waters even if it's to eventually go higher. On the weekly 1.6500 looks a short term target but I'm not trading a weekly chart. I have set a TP @ the M R1 pivot 1.6420.