Ifmyante's Rulebook and Trading Journal

At long last, I've settled on a trading method.

It's based simply on location and Price action.
I can see it has great potential, and has already given me some beautiful trades.
The big problem with the method, as you will see from my first logged trade, is me!
I got itchy fingers yesterday, and made an idiotic trade. I thought I had rid myself of this daemon, but it seems it's not completely banished yet.

Well, Nietzsche's statement that 'The road to wisdom is paved with embarrassment' has rung true throughout my whole life, and that's why I'm going to post my mission statement, rules, and all my trades here. There's nothing like the fear of public humiliation to make me, at least, try to do a good job

I'm sure I'll add to this and edit it over time, but I won't delete the original- I want to remember where I came from.

So, the rationale:

Why do I want to be a trader?
1. I want to keep my love of people. I'm very gregarious by nature, but having run a construction company for years I found that I was withdrawing from people more and more - you tend to see the ugly side of people when you're doing business with them for hundreds of thousands of euros.

2. I don't want to deal with money - I've never liked the stuff. Pips will do me fine thank you!

3. I love to solve puzzles, be it chess, sudoku, crosswords, riddles, quantum mechanics, astrophysics. You name it.

4. Having been a builder in Ireland, I'd like to have a recession-proof business

5. My wife is allergic to dust mites, and the Irish climate is great for their propagation. Her life is hell while she lives here, so I want a way for us to live where she can be healthy and happy.

5. I want to be able to teach my children a skill which could serve them well throughout their lives - the younger the better.

What sort of trader do I want to be?
As mechanical as possible.
I want a strict list of rules for entry and exits

My Primary Strength is
Allowing my winners to run

My Secondary Strength is
I'm now mostly panic free

My Primary Weakness is
Not taking profits where I absolutely know I must

My Secondary Weakness is
I'm still a bit trigger happy

I will only trade on days when
I am not hungover
I am not stressed
I am properly rested

My First Live Annual Financial Target is
€50,000. Starting at about €4 per pip, this is a lot of pips!

My Annual Trading Goal is
Spot every A++ setup and trade it. Ignore the rest
Learn all I can about trading and myself

My Annual Reward is
A nice long family holiday

My monthly target in pips is
As many as my rules will allow

My monthly reward is
A weekend surfing and diving

When I consistently reach my goals, I will
Design an build an house wherever my wife would like.

Markets I will trade
Forex, CFDs, commodities.

Which TFs will I trade?
Forex: Weekly, Daily, H4
The rest: Weekly, Daily

My Daily PreTrading Routine
Check and manage open trades
Go through charts, check who's near PPZ and forming nice PA, set price close and TL alerts
Write my notes on the charts
Move the interesting ones to the left
Write my Journal
Drop in on James 16 thread

Hour by Hour
Manage open trades
Watch interesting charts
Keep up with James 16
Study

My attitude towards Risk
I dislike it, but I know there's risk in every opportunity
I will risk 2% equity on A++ setups, with a maximum of 6% exposure at any time.
I will risk 1% on Confluence Trades
I will only have one trade on any single currency at a time
If I lose 4% on any day, I will stop trading until I understand what happened.

I will close a trade before the SL is hit if
Strong PA tells me to
The trade doesn't take off like I'd hoped
I realise it wasn't an A++ setup

Profit Taking
I intend to use discretion in this, but will definitely take 30% at FTA and move SL to TBE
I'll use a two bar trailing stop mostly, but will take Full profits if strong PA tells me to, whether it be at the next PPZ or not

Trading Strategies
1.Find PPZs on the weekly charts
If Daily PBT&CA/B at these levels, look for PA in as low as H4(H1 if it's very strong) for a retrace and continuation.
Trade reversals with strong PA in H4 at the lowest

2. If I get strong PA(H4 minimum) outside of PPZs, only trade highs or lows, and only if I get confluence with at least two of: fibs, TLs, divergence, ema (and I think maybe volumes, which are making sense now I've the right feed)

Punishment for Breaking Rules
A minimum of 24 hours flat. NO EXCEPTIONS

Edit 09/04/2011:

My way of looking at the market has changed forever.
It can basically be summed up in the charts below.
My EUREKA moment came after learning the J16 method and then finding Sam Seiden's free webinars. Just seeing his first chart I could see it all!
This understanding was fine tuned by the profound generosity of Trader General redsword11, Senior Trader Orbital (a reincarnation of Gandhi, I'm sure of it!), Senior Trader Emene (whose simple charts speak volumes), and so many other great traders in the Price Is Everything thread, from whom I have learned so much and still have so much to learn.

I'm posting alot of my trades elsewhere now, BTW, but I'll be posting significant winners and losers here from time to time

This, I hope, will have been my worst trade ever.
A trade based on nothing more than a PB and itchy fingers
What can I say only

Here's a daily trade I'm on at the moment.
It hasn't started to move as fast as I'd like, and there are less than seven hours left in the week. This afternoon's momentum will hopefully tell me what to do

I had decided that if this got 8 or more pips above Wednesday's high, I'd keep it over the weekend. It didn't, so neither did I

Oh, running total.
Last trade
Risk : 1% Profit: -.6%
This trade
Risk: 2% Profit: +.2%
Total Profit: -.4%

Risk 0.5%

Stopped out at BE

Profit total -0.4%

Lots of traffic ahead

Shorted at 133.50, break of PB, original SL 134.34, just above proven resistance.
Risk 2%

Took half off at 133,, moved SL to BE + 7

Let's see if it takes another run at 133

Edit: Stopped out at BE + 7 pips
Profit 1.57%

Total profit 1.17%

Tried a Sam Seiden trade today.
Been studying his trading for a couple of days, and it seems deadly accurate.
An 11pip SL for a 32 pip profit
Risk 1%
Profit 3%
Total profit 3.17%

Great Journal! Wish you luck, please keep it up!

Thanks Adi.

I'm doing over 30 trades per day at the moment, so can't log them.

Problem is, I'm getting old fast at this pace.

I'm thinking of settling back into the swing trades again and taking it easy.

As soon as I do, I'll be right back here again to post

in a way, yes, u get old fast.... but u also learn fast&more

but of course relaxed trading is a good ultimate end-goal
i believe we are just a few months/years away from it.

If it makes you money why not. Work hard for a year, gather capital and then slowly move to lower pace.
But if there really no difference in the $ terms than Daily is the best really. Nice pace and life too

Agree with SC, you learn faster. Due to # of trades. Theoretically. But for me it doesn't work this way for some reason, I just lose it on the lower TF's, overtrade, revenge trading..etc etc.

Anyway looking forward for more post!

I do alot of trading with some friends, who rip the market up completely.

KennyG is one of them - doubled his account the other day, and makes many many % every other day.

If I can learn to trade to that level, I'll keep it up and enjoy the ride

OK

So here's one I'm in at the moment

Let's see how it goes


Result:

Exited as per chart with nearly 50% profit on account

Truly wanted to let it run longer, but can see quite an RT possible from here. So took full profit, and may enter again higher

I see. Yes just like you showed me. Man I can't do it, I just can't put a touch trade somewhere and look how price is moving towards me!! As opposed to moving away from me.

So I do look for those S/D aread but still for for J16 confirmation bar...

Good luck on this one, sure looks good now! And also, that guy KennyG is trading the same way? (i.e. Seiden's SD)

Fair enough, but none of the trades are touch trades. They're just triggered and entered on LTFs with an eye to HTF S/D levels

Yes, Kenny trades like that, scalping like crazy

Every day is epic on his account

I need to study this in more details. Maybe I can mark Daily SD and wait for the H1 reversal bar, or something like this...

I do look for PB's and BUOBS and when I see them in those SD area they are usually A+ for sure..

They really are powerful.

It's very obvious reasoning though. Price was decided to be way too high at that level, so when price came back, the bears were waiting and the bulls closed and reversed.

Flags are amazing places to trade

How have you been getting on recently man?

Really really well, thanks for asking .

I'm doing most of my posting now in Price is Everything and its sibling threads if you'd like to take a look

Best

If