My Trading Journey thus Far

A few hours later and my gold trade would be up about $50 but I cut it.
I just entered a GBP/USD counter trend trade. I was up 5pips, switched to the 5 min chart for a look and upon dragging the desktop chart I somehow managed to hit my order line and close down the trade accidentally.
Not to worry maybe for the better...
My deficit for the week is now -$2.47 and I've made my broker about $10 commission, no wonder he has never charged me for the charting package...
I'm kind of stuck for now. It seems like prices are due for retracement across the board. Hard to short when it's oversold and don't really like to counter trend the smaller time frames unless there is a engulfing bar at the least..

I still don't have a solid strategy to trade. I'm just using my discretion and gut feeling. As you see it gets me into enough winnable trades anyhow I just don't have the polish required to take them through to their potential.

So Yesterday became a bit of a fizzer for me. I missed all the moves and then tried a small counter trend long on GBP/USD and got burned $18.83 so net loss for week stands at $-21.30.
Well scanning the charts revealed a nice USD/CAD setup. It's at the top of its range on the Daily with a long pin. 4hr and 3hr charts show reversal bars. It is still holding its trendline but losing momentum. Well sometimes getting in early pays dividends and then other times it don't. As this is a game of probabilities and price is far away from the MA's and I'm a sucker for these kind of setups, I'm anticipating a retracement. It's also looking very overbought....
OK this trade is to the death, hit stop or take profit. Looking for 95 pips
3hr chart below...

Hmmm, last night I crashed early as I was exhausted totally oblivious too what was going on with my USD/CAD trade. So this morning I see my trade made a trip to the wrong direction, took out the previous high by a pip or two, just missed my stop and came back down to where I iniated the trade. How lucky to be still alive
On the daily we now have 2 long pins. DBHLC as per james16 philosophy. It would now appear that price is destined to fall or it would have kept going north. If the next daily bar closes under the MR1 pivot I think we are in for a deeper retrace if not a complete reversal. I may add to my position and chose a new target. Perhaps 1.0450 being a 38.2 retracement of the 1.01 bottom-1.0670 top. Then again if this range holds up from June7 it may retrace back down to 1.01 once again. I'm not sure what to do but I'm quietly confident that I have chosen the right direction. US data has been going from bad to worse but the USD is not picking up any more strength against the CAD so this may be a good sign that the market doesn't care about the news it just wants to push this pair down regardless.
Another good thing for me is instead of looking at new trade opportunities I will focus purely on this one and see where it goes

My USD/CAD trade is still alive. It has now been 48 hours actually a record for me. Now it has closed the day out at +20pips. It missed my take profit last night by a mere 15 pips so it actually went 80 pips in my direction and has thus bounced. It has closed a long tailed bearish candle.This is interesting as today being Friday and with Bernankes speech coming out tonight ahead of the weekend and towards end of month anything can happen!
Alas I promised to see this through to the death and I'm sticking to my guns. I could have been up a couple of hundred this week if not for my premature exits. If I'm to cut it as a trader I really need or HAVE to let trades play out to my original target zones. If this means winners becoming losers well so be it. My bets are small so if I can't master this type of discipline now with small money I have no chance at all with bigger lot sizes.
I have decided to leave my original target of 1.0510 in tact.
No new trades will be entered till next week. CIAO

In the famous victorious words of Shane Crawford, " That's what I'm talking about"

Well I woke up today and VOILA my trade worked out a treat. It hit it's target precisely and the market closed out end of week right on my take profit. A calculated stroke of Genius. LOL. ( +94 pips )
I'm really proud of this trade. It took 72 hours to play out. It went up and down like a yoyo( as trades do). But I stuck to my plan, let it ride, and didn't intervene and end result was a well deserved win. Now I need to always trade with this approach in mind, sure they won't always win but if you don't let your trade do what it was designed to do you will never win or never learn.

It's a counter trend trade but I like these setups. A turning point in the market. When a bull move ends and moves sideways it will retrace to the 38.2 fib first. I see this a lot, but subsequent candles tend to spook me out of the position. Not this time and hopefully never again.
I'd say there is a lot more left in the USD/CAD down move and I'll be looking for new setups next week.

End of week profit +$75

New week is off to a bad start. I went a Euro long. I can't really say why I took it.
Baby driving me crazy, no time to think, about to exit the house. I saw the USDX dropping and Euro making a move and jumped in. Quite careless and terrible entry. No signal. Very dumb trade.... Even worse is I entered at 1.2747 which was the reversal pip and stopped out at 1.2715 which was also a reversal pip.

Trade aside I'm finding it rather difficult to concentrate with so many distractions around the house. Also saw a nice USD/JPY short a few hours back which I didn't take because I refused to believe what the charts were telling me. Reading the news and analyzing why the yen was strengthening with new easing monetary policy was not computing. Lesson: " F$%# THE NEWS "

$-36.30

I've taken a long on GBP/USD based on a 15min double bottom. Entry 1.5465 with a 20 pip stop.
Other reasons were this pair seemed to withstand the sell off. Double bottom on the hourly and some positive risk on data from the AUD.
No take profit, either that was the low of the day or it wasn't in which case the trade will die very shortly.

KABOOM -$18.77 I saw the dam wall break and jumped off a couple of pips early.

I'm having a really bad week this week. I've given up last weeks profits and some. I shorted AUD/CAD last night. It was doing well when I last checked. Up about $28 only to wake up and see my stop being hit and a new high made. $-61.84.
I see GBP got clobbered, should have just reversed position. Never done that before?

Well all of these bad trades are a result of a frustrated newbie trader who doesn't know how to go with the trend. I find counter trending a natural thing. I look at going with a trend and I can't find an entry point, don't know where to put a stop. I guess I like watching a reversal point and going along with that.
USD/CAD made another new high by 5 pips. It looks to have put in another top on the 4hr and 3hr. Well I'm going to short it once again. If it stays in this range the trade is worth 100 pips or so for a 40 pip stop. If not well then I'm done for the week. 4 losing trades and a 3% loss for the week I believe constitutes a break.

EDIT: Shut trade down for +$2. Reason upon closer inspection it looks more bullish and I've lost my focus for the mean time. Better to wait for a trend setup and stop pulling the trigger like it's a water pistol...

OMG look at that cut USD/CAD trade go

Confession: I cut the trade soon after reading Jay Norris market summary, I thought he knows better
Such a fool I am, that trade has gone over 100 pips and would have squared up my week's losses. Why don't I just trust myself?
Truth: Nobody knows what's going to happen in the market, NOBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
STOP LISTENING, STOP READING, STOP PRE EMPTING....

Just trade " THE BLOODY CHARTS ". It either works or it doesn't and get over it !!!!!

My deep rooted problem is I hate losses and want to be right 110% of the time.
WELL YOU CAN'T DO THAT IN THIS GAME. UNDERSTAND THIS CON OR GIVE IT AWAY !!!!!

Vent over.......

OK here goes, the past is behind me and I'm focused. Last trade of the week. AUD/USD has put in a reversal top on the 4hr and 3hr.
Has also completed a AB=CD pattern on the 3hr and 4hr to the pip.
Severely oversold on my Indy, did not make a higher high then the last top.
8965 is my target, being a 61.8 retracement of the last leg. If price revisits the 9115 area I will add 1 more lot with a 15 pip stop.
RR is better then 1:1.
A loss and it's Asta Lavista baby till next week.

Setup below:

OK it's Friday and hoping for a risk off Friday at that.
Well my trade from yesterday is still alive. It came back to the 9115 price and triggered my pending order so I now have 2 minis on. It made a new high by a few pips and formed a double top on the 3hr and closed the day out with a reversal bar. The AB=CD pattern is still intact and being respected. It aligns even better now as the AB leg was 22 x 3hr candles and the CD leg is 21 x 3hr candles which is pretty close to a perfect formation. We have NFP tonight just to add to my worries.
Am I confident? Hell NO !!
The AUD is a bitch to short. But I'm locked in and we'll see how it pans out. No more trades for the week.
Day 2 chart below:

Trade is dead. NFP made sure of that. Well the market gave me a chance to get out with a $50 profit a few hours back but I elected to stick it out.
Trade Loss $-99
Loss for Week $-214.
5 Trades. 4 losses. AUD my nemesis.
1 win $2. USD/CAD should have been my banker but let opinions interfere with my decision.

A pretty dismal week which eliminated past 2 weeks profits. Not good.
Account stands at $5120 so still in the black.

What do I learn from this?
1) Rushed hunch trades with no signal to be eliminated.
2)Don't short the AUD unless its in Downtrend mode. This currency is industrial strength and it will burn you really bad!!
3)My love of counter trend trades needs a set of stringent and conservative entry and exit rules.
4) When one pair is working well for you ala USD/CAD stick with it.
5)Look for trends, I see them but I don't believe them. Thinking must change.
6)No more market orders. Limit or stop orders only. Market orders make the decision too impulsive and price always likes to retest recent highs/lows.
7) NFP is a no trade day or close trade down day.
8) Reversal bars or double tops or dojis are sometimes just position squaring and not always reversals especially so with AUD. It doesn't respect these signals on any time frame!

Just look at the AUD weekly at the minute. In a channel at the top. The weekly reversal bar is only 40 pips away. Imagine all who took that short as a long term play are going to be stopped out pretty soon. No idea where its heading. You imagine it will go to 95c+ but seems to fall over when you least expect it. A shit of a pair........ciao

A new week and some new ideas. Well my bi-polar trading style is going nowhere.Over the past few weeks my equity curve has bounced around in a range.My decisions have been poor and I'm feeling frustrated.
This week I'm going back to basics. Simple trend lines, pivot points and follow the trend. I'm trading a 3hr chart so that will be my trend.
I have abolished all Moving Averages bar the 1 in my RSI window which is simply a 8EMA. A hard habit to break after all.
My Targets will be small. MY RR will be 1:1 minimum and I will only take trades that look highly probable. I have also eliminated about a dozen instruments which I'm trying to constantly monitor. I will use Pivot Points as targets as well as taking good signals which bounce or slice through them.
The goal is to make a string of good trades.

Oh forgot to mention...No forum reading this week, no opinions, no distractions, nothing but price action.

My first trade off the week is not going so good.
It was placed at the close of a bullish 3hr candle about 5 hours ago and has been 3 pips away from my stop a few times all ready. The setup looked good( at the time). Not sure if it survives the night. Was thinking about moving limit to BE, just to get out square but I'll let it run and see what happened in the morning.

Last nights trade ended up under water $-32.35.
You know I have this nasty habit of taking the wrong trade as in pair at the right time.
Last night 2 setups produced at the same time.
short GBP/USD, buy USD/CHF. I took the latter and the former was the winner.
This morning I wake up to see hardly any movement last night. I guess because USA on holiday. I see charts rolling over Eur/USD and AUD/USD on hourly. AUD sitting on daily pivot, Euro sitting on Monthly pivot.
Both pairs look like they want to fall...
So I short the AUD because RBA meeting today would suggest early sell off.
Euro drops like a stone, AUD fell 30 pips while I'm taking a stroll to the shops and rallys back up when I return.
I just can't take a trick at the minute. At the moment it's under the daily pivot but bounced off S1. I really expect this pair to target 9125 before it makes a new high but whether or not it happens prior to RBA ?
Today could be a buy the Rumor sell the Fact. I just don't want it to make a new high before that.
My stop is 24 pips looking for 40 TP.

It's a game of russian roulette I tell you...

Trade survived the news spike which bounced off the MR1 pivot exactly. Price is now nestled between DS1 and DS2. These pivot points are really good. I have moved stop to BE as it looks safe.

A win finally and a good trade
Broke my run of outs and the trade pretty much did what I had planned even if my entry was more a thought then a trigger candle.
+40 pips ( $43.00)
+$11 for the week.

It looks like AUD, CAD and GBP are trying to rally today. Wed triple roll, they may pull it off. CAD IR announcement tonight expected increase.
Could become a risk on day thought most majors look very bearish. No idea at this stage....

AUD at daily pivot on hourly looks to be forming a bullish pattern. Wait and see

Hmm a frustrating evening as I can't find a trade I like. It was looking like a risk on day and it's heading that way. Missed the boat on a few setups as I didn't trust them. Considered they may be fake moves. The USDX is about to tank. I have identified this trade as a nice setup that conforms to my new strategy but it is too rich for me to take. This instrument has a 20 pip spread and $5 a point. It's out of my league but I wish to document it so I see how it pans out.
Fill the gap is the aim, bearish 3hr bar, rejected weekly pivot, closed on daily pivot, oversold on RSI with bearish divergance. Direction of trend. It ticks all my criteria. Stop with big spread would be 42 points and target 55 points.
I'll pretend I'm on just to see how it goes overnight and see if my setup was valid.
Actually price just bounced and closed above pivot suggesting setup not complete but I'd play this anyway.

The above trade is progressing along nicely.
Last night at bed time I stumbled on a XAU/USD short, almost incidentally.
I quickly jumped in and set a $7 target. ( 10 contracts x $7). This is minimum for gold.
I was anticipating a quick move down but it stalled overnight. This morning it had not moved any lower and since it stayed above the daily pivot last night without a retest I got out $+25.
This morning it has began it's move lower and is now underneath the daily pivot so in hindsight I should have let it go but as I'm new to the pivot point scene and still observing and learning I did not wait for the close of day and took my small profit instead. Next time I know to wait for the close of day and if price opens up under daily pivot to let the trade progress.
Setup below:

Week to date + $36