Daily-Weekly Trading Journal

I've decided to post a trading journal as a means to keep myself disciplined and to encourage new traders to keep focusing on learning a method, sticking with it, and reaping the benefits of discipline. I'm convinced that the best method in the world is only as good as the trader's discipline to execute it according to the rules...over and over again. I primarily trade H1 charts now due to an increased workload on my "hopefully soon to be no more" day job.

This is the snippet from my personal blog:

Very slow day today with all the banks being closed for Columbus day. Once the Asian session got underway, things began moving a little. I entered on a eurusd sell much earlier than I normally would've. I'll have to watch and see how things go. Currently -7 pips..not too bad. Why do we traders enter trades when we know we shouldn't? It's an addiction..we have to feed the habit.

Well that trade worked out nicely for a cool +49 pips. I still should've waited and entered according to my rules. That would've saved me sweating through the -22 pips of heat that I did. I had a nice eurjpy sell going too that also bagged +45 pips as well.

Well you have to post the losers as well as the winners. Gotta keep it real :-) Price came back to test the previous resistance line but it didn't hold. I took in a loss of -23 pips on this one. This was a good trade setup, but it simply didn't work out.

This was a beautiful trade. No more than -9 pips for a drawdown. I placed this trade and my SL and fell asleep. I awoke to a nice +57 pip profit. I hope things continue like this for the rest of the week. I'm currently up +128-pips for the month.

Hello,

I kind of figured it out how your system works. But, could you take some time and explain it in detail?
The rules, entry/exit point, on what is based SL? maybe the exact same indicator that you are using... (i want to give it a manual backtesting, and i'd really want to be sure not to miss a thing!)

Thanks in advance for your efforts, and good luck with your system!

Sure! My apologies. This is a pure price action momentum trading system. I've tried various indicators in the past and various setups. I'm convinced that pure price action is the best way to go for me. That's not at all to knock systems that are indicator-based. As we've all come to experience, it all comes down to whatever works "best" for you. That being said, I'll move on. I'm trading off the H1 charts, looking for a break of the previous day's high or low. I will enter a trade if prices closes above/below the previous days' high/low and opens outside of that range. I am only entering trades on the start of the new candle. Additionally, I am using the slow stochastic (14,3,3) for my trading. I'm entering trades when the stoch goes to the extreme either direction. So overbought and a break of the previous day's high is a valid trade for me. I look at overbought/oversold as a confirmed trend direction, so I'm trading with the trend actually. When I'm up +10, I set my SL to B/E. As I get up to +15, I move my SL to +5. At +20, I move it to +10 and just play it as I see it from there on. My line in the sand is -30 max for a stop. I'll just take that loss and wait for the next opportunity. Once I get a break, if I am not waiting for a retest (pullback) of the range, I'll enter "only" if the candle open is within 10 or 15 pips of the previous s/r line. Other than that, I'll wait for it to come back after the break and retest the s/r line. I hope that clears up what I left out.

Friday trade..last trade for the week. Currently up +15 with SL set to +2 on another usdcad trade. I hope I can get some good pippage and don't get stopped out. It's bouncing around a little right now. I'm risk free now so I'll just let it ride and see what it does.

**update

I closed that trade out for +29. It's friday and I don't feel like haggling with the ups and downs on a Friday. That brings my total to +157 pips for the month.

Okay, now THIS is my last trade :-) Eurjpy sell for pain-free +21. No drawdown really on this one. I wish they were all this lovely. So this brings me to +173 since the 1st of the month.

Hello,

What are the main pairs you are trading?

Sorry I took so long to get back to you. The main pairs I'm trading right now are usdcad, eurjpy, and eurusd. I used to watch six pairs a day but I'm back to simplification. Only three pairs now. If nothing is setting up for a trade, I'm back to "Netflix" until something comes around. :-)

Nice way to start the week off with +52 on this trade. -9 pips drawdown on this one.

Continuing my winning streak into the new week :-) Wonder how long that'll last. I closed out of this one too soon and only took +30 pips of the move.

Just entered a eurusd short. We'll see how it works out. I'm entering a little further away from the previous support than I normally would so I'll expect some drawdown in the -15 to -20 pip range.

**Edit: Max drawdown on this was -10 pips. I just closed it for +31 pips.

I entered this trade but when price closed back within the previous range and reopened there, it violated my rules so I closed it with -7 pips. No need to risk anything further if momentum is not working with the trade.

Took in a good number of pips off this trade. -8 pips was the max drawdown on this one. These are the kinds of trades that I really like.

I took this trade but I didn't stay in too long because I didn't feel too good about it. It was later in the day when the break came. I couldn't ever get past +10 pips so I figured it wouldn't go up anymore. I ended up closing out at +7 pips.

Eurusd trade for a little over +20 pips.

I took this one around 4:00AM CST. Price sort of froze for awhile and then dropped really good.

I've been taken away from my trading for a couple of weeks now due to responsibilities related to the day job. I will try to keep posting trades though. I took one loss earlier this week due to my automatic stop loss not being set correctly. Rule of thumb, make sure you "manually" set your stop loss. Here is my latest trade and a nice 80+ win.