Mah Lawg

This was a log. Doing pretty damn good now, and may continue it later to help others.

nice to your lawg MtDarkness.

This is all nice..but what is your risk managment strategy.

My risk management strategy, like the rest of my method is flexible. I try to keep it at less than 5% max S/L, and set to break even at about 30 pips and take 20% profit once I hit about 50 pips, then ride it out until PA tells me to change direction. How much I take and when I take it is very subjective though. 50 pips is already a giant move for USD/CAD, but maybe 1/3 of the Sterling's average daily volatility. Also, for example, if I am set to break even and price has shown no signs of of slowing down after 50 pips, I may not take profit right away. If PA is giving mixed signals or it starts consolidating for an extended period at 20 pips, I will sometimes take as much as 50% off the table at the best price I can get it to and ride the rest of the 30% in whichever direction it breaks out. I also modify how loose or strict I keep to these rules based on how stong the PA signal looks. I do sometimes chicken out and miss 75-100 pips of the rest of the move because I saw it consolidate, didn't want to lose what I got, and closed position. But I accept this because we never go broke by taking profit early. Protection of my account is the most important thing to me.

Having said that...
Trade update: before work today, I noticed that the Sterling dropped back down to about 1.5695 and was returning back up for another round of ranging. I set to buy for a quick fix of a few pips and went to work. I didn't have time to calculate a S/L or right away, but can modify orders on my phone so I would do that after I got my day started. And then I get slammed at work so hard, I can't get to it. No problem, cause I know what's gonna happen, I know where price is about to go. So I go to lunch and what? It went where I wanted it to go. Yay! But wait, I hit the effin sell button instead of buy when I rushed off to work. OMG Instead of gaining a quick 25-50 pips, I lost 25. Ugh. And this is a lesson I have already learned. I'm still at 10% profit for the week, but man, that hurt. Good thing that I didn't go for 1.5 lots like I was thinking since my S/L was only going to be about 15 pips. Lesson learned...again. Never walk away from a trade without putting the S/L down.

Yeah....so..... I'm expecting this to go see 1.5800.... I NEVER trade based off the 5 min chart. But it was so much easier to show what really happened.


And so far, I went to B/E, then took 20% @ 12 pips, then 30% @ 22 pips, the other 50% is for if it makes it to 1.5800. This is money management, guys. It may never truly break 1.5750, but I've managed to get 100 bucks out of it so far. And that is a winner no matter how you slice it.

I actually traded on the 50% retrace of the double pinbar on the 4h chart around 12:00 (broker time, I think GMT +1, maybe?). This made the s/l pretty tight, but hey, if I'm wrong, I would like to know it sooner rather than later!

And IDK if it would matter to anyone, but the 4h chart has a line @1.58074. I didn't put that there to be the neckline of the head and shoulders, but it's where the most recent plunge is at 62% retrace and the top of last week's pinbar is at 50% retrace. Just coincidence (a very, very pleasant one) that it is the neckline AND a round number. Price will almost certainly NOT go past this point. What James calls "confluence" merging of many retracements, big ema's, trendlines, pivot zones, etc., and this is where I'm looking to go short for a few hundred pips over a very short amount of time if it ever gets there.

I love being right. Kaching!

Price went where I thought it would go, it hesitated 30 pips up, never even reached the next level of resistance or fib or the 365/150 daily emas ( all at 1.5848), and so I got out and went short. I don't like what the Sterling or Euro have been doing since, so I closed said short position with a nice little bit of profit in order to wait for some more clear signals. Looks like the euro is stuck back in that previous channel again, so I guess we will wait and see if it manages to break back out. I'm still thinking the 2-month retrace is over, but I'm not willing to gamble on it. I would rather be sure. If the EUR/USD or Cable reach down and make a 2-day pinbar today, I'll consider getting back near the beginning of next week. It would have to close below 1.3160 and 1.5739 respectively.

Growing an account can be difficult because you need to take some lower quality trades to move the process along, but in doing so, one must accept that they will not often give 500+ pip moves and that very good money management becomes even more critical. A good winner should never become a loser. In fact, a good winner should never result in breakeven, in my opinion. So you only made .2% on that one trade? It's more than what you had, not less. This should make you proud because it is a win.

I have made a large chunk of cash (almost 25% of my account increased), and I am content to end the trading week on this note. A handful more weeks of building like that, and I would be able to make a meager living at this while still growing my account. I have a long way to go yet before I do that though. My biggest concern looking at this week is over-trading. I am clearly over-trading my account, and I will need to fix this. Wait for the better signals.

Yay, new week I had some good trade ideas, but I have since realized that we have been range trading in the markets I was analyzing. I'm gonna hold steady and see what comes up on the daily. With a pinbar on the monthly and bullish divergence on the daily, I would think reversal, but with a 2-week pinbar disagreeing, I think it would be best to hang back and see what the daily does.

Yuck indeed. I failed at trading. Trying to jump into a missed setup that I was anticipating but triggered while I slept, overtrading, more overtrading, a general lack of discipline, no patience....I'm so embarrassed at how I performed last week that I ended up disabling my trade explorer. I didn't lose. It profited 5%, but it was up to 15% before I started screwing everything up. So I'm a bit ashamed of myself. I KNOW better. I do. And as long as I remain undisciplined, this will continue to eat into my profits. I must control myself and remain professional. So ok, I've kicked myself. Lets move on.

This week has greeted us with a slew of trade signals and setups. 7 to be exact. I'm not going to be in 7 trades at once, so lets dig a little deeper and pick the best ones...

There are pinbars on the weekly E/U, NZD/USD, AUD/USD, and NZD/CAD, Engulfing bars on the weekly Cable and and daily USD/JPY as well as a daily Engulfing setup on the EUR/CHF pair. That's a lot of signals. Lets filter....

EUR/CHF is in a range when it gave that signal. So lets just throw that one out. It may produce, but man, who knows? It didn't hit any significant numbers and is moving sideways. And with so many other signals, we can find something better to trade.

NZD/USD, E/U, AUD/USD, and NZD/CAD all had PB setups on the end of a price hook. These are promising. But really, only E/U and NZD/CAD penetrated a significant place and pulled back (50% retracement off the hook) so we can eliminate AUD/USD and NZD/USD as not being strong enough. I'm sure they would be good signals, but as I mentioned, I'm not going to be in 7 different trades at once.

Cable did the same thing as E/U and NZD/CAD but made a bullish engulfing bar instead of a pinbar, and seeing as how the Cable and E/U pairs are tied together closely, this is kinda like double confirmation for me. So I favor NZD/CAD, E/U and Cable to all 3 advance strongly in the coming weeks. And then there is USD/JPY. Daily pinbar. I'm actually already in this trade. Why? The nose isn't very long. The rally has been hard and strong. It really didn't hit anything significant. Not really. So why? Because I said so. lol Seriously, look at all the ***/USD charts and USD/*** charts and they all suggest the same thing: Future weakening of the Dollar. And with a minimal risk with a large gain, I jumped in.

Also not that many people have been claiming that the E/U and Cable have finished their retrace. With these signals and wher ethey are located, I'm pretty sure this is a falsehood. I won't say that it's a reversal instead of a retracement, but one way or the other, I'm almost 100% sure that it's headed up for another strong rally.

So here's my trades:

E/U: Long Entry 1.3100, Stop 1.3000, Profit: ??? (I'll watch PA for exit, but a >300 pip move is expected, hoping for about 500)

Cable: Long Entry 1.5730, Stop 1.56000, profit: ??? (same)

U/J: Short Entry 83.33(already in), Stop 84.20, Profit 81.00, but will watch below 82.30 VERY carefully for early reversal.

NZD/CAD: Long Entry .8090, Stop .7999 TP ~.8400 If I'm already deep in profit on U/J, I may jump out and jump into this one as that would maximize how much I could make. IDK yet.

NOW READ THIS: This is not advice. This is merely what I am doing. I swear to god, if anyone takes any of these trades and then loses and then blames me, I will murder a kitten. Swear to God, I will go to the animal shelter adopt a kitten, get it wormed, get it's shots, take it home, feed it, put it in a paper bag and then light the bag on fire. I am totally not joking. (Maybe I am after all. I'm not crazy. Not THAT kind of crazy, anyways.) Only you are responsible for making trades on your account. I don't even care if you are PAYING someone for entry/exit signals. You are the one pulling the trigger, you are responsible. Remember that. This will likely not be the last time I post my entries and exits, so you better remember this. Think of the kittehs. I just want to keep track of my reasoning behind my trades, nothing more. You want signals or advice, go pay someone your hard earned money, and then you can blame them if you fail. Your money will still be gone, though.

I hope this week finds all the FF traders trading successfully. I'm pretty confident in all my setups personally. I hope you all get filthy stinking rich. ^.^