$2,000 to $2,000,000... no time limit

This journal is as much for my benefit as much as it is for anyone else who bothers to follow it.

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Why am I starting this thread?

I don't know, to tell you the truth.

... partly ego, partly loneliness I think.

However...

I do know that trading is a very lonely experience.

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My trading strategy is based on about 10 years experience trading Forex. If a system, method or EA is out there I've bought or tried it.

I learned to trade on 5 minute charts and morphed myself into a trader who checks my daily charts each morning as the daily candle finishes (I'm Australian based).

If I see a possible setup based on simple Price Action (pin, inside, engulfing bars near support/resistance (horizontal, dynamic, pivots or fibs) I'll move to 4 hour or 1 hour charts for confirmation and entry setups. I may even move to a 15 min chart in some circumstances.

I mainly trade with the daily/weekly trend, but I will trade counter trend if conditions tell me to do so. I hate to admit it, but I've learned through bitter experince that trying to second guess the market only leads to heartburn and loss of precious funds. I've blown out 4 or 5 live accounts in 10 years, and one of those was a 6 figure account (mine too).

I've learned that to make money in this game you need a lot of it to start with, or have friends with a lot for you to trade (for you to learn on).

I've named the journal $2,000 to $2,000,000 however that is just an ego driven thought. I was taught long ago to set goals, and make those goals high, so...

At 5% increase per month it will only take about 12 years... and 5% a month is conservative of course, but it's realistic.

Edit... my father was a gambler, and I am too. He taught me how to work out my returns on betting on horses at certain odds, at the age of 6 or 7 from memory. I was betting on horses from about 12 years old. I only stopped when I discovered Forex.

Because of his teaching, I'll probably be greedy, and do it in a lot less than 12 years, or go bust trying.



I have established a small LIVE account to place my trades on and keep myself honest. This account was started May 16th 2012 with $2,000 starting capital.

I honestly believe my strategy can take my account from $2,000 to $2,000,000 in less than 12 months... 80% increase per month will do it, which is an average of just under 3% a day. UPDATE 6 months later... sheesh, and I was so full of hope.

Big claim (for sure), but let's see how the cards fall, hey!

Some of my swing trade strategies follow with examples as they happened in the following 4 or 5 pages...

I've not posted any specific day trading or scalping strategies although the swing strategies are often day trades if price moves fast.

5 months later... I started out quite well, but deteriorated when the good trend stopped, and when I didn't pick the reverse in trend, I lost big. Then started chasing losses and lost even more. Reduced the balance to under $750.

I then took a few months off and trained myself to place a StopLoss on EVERY trade, and at a maximum of 20 pips. My aim is to get that Stop to BreakEven +1 if I can, and if not, to minimize my loss to less than 20 pips.

My entry's have changed, I'm picking reversals and if I get to BreakEven +1, letting the trades run.

Risk is 2% of the account balance per trade. No set target per day, however a 20 pip win is obviously about a 2% win (depending on the currency pair). I'm focussing on the eur/usd, aud/usd and gbp/usd.

I restarted trading, with this strategy Oct 17th 2012 ...
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...27#post6106627

UPDATE... 5th Dec 2012...
My broker moved my account to a different server, so my Trade Explorer had to be reset, and I took the opportunity to add $1,300 to bring the new balance up to $2,008 which is the restart balance as of 6 Dec 2012

UPDATE... 19th July 2013...
Changed my strategy 23rd June 2013 taking trades based on the average daily range... (ADR or ATR), I adjust trade size according to account balance, set stops and take profits on entry of each trade.

After 4 weeks 71 trades closed with 67 winners (94.4%)... account balance increase of 32.8% and 3088 pips. Max drawdown 1.8%


Another update 2nd May 2022...
I began a small live account again... $292.00 this time. The Trade Explorer is here... IB MAXIMIZER
I started a Trading Discussion thread on my trading method called Inside Bar Maximizer


Swing trades using a long wicked candle

1. Daily Charts with 8 & 16 EMA's
2. ONLY trade with the Trend... no trend, no trade!
3. Wait for a Hammer, Shooting Star, Hanging Man, long wick Doji, pinbar... (call it what you will, it's any candle with a long wick... the long wick must be at least ⅔ of the total candle length). Wait for this Daily candle to close.
4. The long wick must at least touch or piece the 8 EMA... this is the "qualifying candle"... if it doesn't touch at least, it won't be a AA+ trade.
5. Enter at the next days Open.
6. Place a Stop 2 to 5 pips below or above the long wick of the qualifying candle.
7. Take Profit must be at least 2:1 of the number of pips of the Stop... if the stop is 150 pips from the entry, then you place a Take Profit of at least 300 pips (assuming there's no support/resistance telling you otherwise).

That's the basic rules. You'll get a trade about every 4 weeks on most pairs (on daily charts). Occassionally you may get several trades a week. If you watch a dozen pairs you will get more than enough trades to keep you very busy.

This method works well on the 4 hour chart as well, but be careful if trying it on shorter timeframes...

EXAMPLES... post #30 and #65



Trend Continuation Trade

This trade is based on the Gartley trade. The idea is to sell the rallys and buy the dips in a trending market.

In a strong trend wait for price to plateau or consolidate, then draw a fib WITH the trend from the last obvious swing high/low point to the last low/high point. As price retreats back against the trend place small trades at the 61.8% and 78.6% fib levels with stops above/below the last Swing High or Swing Low that you used as start point to draw the fib levels.

You can use the 50% if you want a lot more trades.

As price moves in your favour place a third trade at the zero fib level and move your stops to break even on the 1st 2 or 3 trades (or you could take partial profit on one or both)

So it's possible you could get 3 trades in place if price goes to the 79% fib before it turns back strongly to your zero line (where you place the last entry's. Because of this it's important to not overleverage yourself. Allow for the possibility that you could have 3 trades in place before you move to break even.

Your ultimate take profit is based on your comfort levels, support/resistance, pivots etc... or the fib extensions.

This method works well on pretty well any timeframe, so it can be used by day traders, though I wouldn't try it on charts under 15 minute myself.

It is almost infallible in a trending market if you set stops wide enough to let your trades breathe, and don't close out profitable trades too soon.

In the 1st 14 days I placed 28 trades on various timeframes (mostely 4hr), and 27 are winners with an average of 39 pips per trade. If I'd been monitoring these trades while I was asleep there could easily be an average of more that 100 pips per trade.

EDIT... I have mucked up my live account by taking trades outside my preferred methods (my stoopid stubborn ego did it!)

This is an old image but it explains the method well.

Example of my trend continuation entry.

Trend is determined by either 8 and 16 ema's moving apart, or more simply by just looking at a daily or weekly (or a chart of a higher time framne than the entry chart.

Good luck

Good luck - i have my own strategy but we have the same goal , you can check mine on
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=351907

I have a time frame and expected growth per week , this might help you as well

good luck, will be following !
i also believe in thinking big. Go for it, as long as you believe it, you can do it

An example of the Trend Continuation Trade... this trade was entered 12 hours ago. From the short entry at the 50% fib to the low a few hours later there was a 96 pips move.

I had a SellLimit order in place when I went to bed and closed it with 38 pips profit when it retraced on a news announcement.

I'm waiting now for a possible re-entry at any or all of the 3 fib levels.

Assuming I get filled and price moves down solidly I "may" also place a Sell Stop order to trigger as price moves through the zero Fib. I say "may" because today is Friday.

Assuming price moves through zero, the StopLoss points on the earlier entry's are moved to the 79% fib.

Results so far... 11 trades for 11 winners and 718 pips... live account

OK, I figure I've got to increase my risk a little if I'm going to grow $2,000 into $2,000,000 in 2 or 3 years.

So... I'm doubling my trade size and increasing the number of trades I'm taking.

Risk is now "up to" 1% of equity per trade.

In the last hour or two (just after London Open ) I placed 3 trades (2 entry's on aud/usd, 1 entry on usd/cad and a sellLimit order on eur/usd.) ... however there's not much movement anywhere as yet in this session.

I'm also watching for an entry on the gbp/usd.

All trades are my Trend Continuation method.

I've upped the ante a little bit in my effort to achieve my long term goal

I've opened 6 trades in the last few hours and have another 6 pending.

Man... the market going nowhere last night so I decided to close all the open trades for the weekend (Monday is a holiday in America so I expect it to be a slow day as well).

Looking back at the trades I closed and the way the market moved late in the session I gave away about 100 pips by closing out early... oh well, you win some and lose some.

I LIKE PRICE ACTION ... period!

I dislike using indicators because they are so innacurate, they lag price action and almost all traders use indicators to pick their entry's are losers in the game.

While I dislike indicators I do have an entry method that uses them, but it only works in certain circumstances (and is successful about 70% of the time)

However, this post is not about indicators, it's about entering a trade by recognizing a certain pattern and applying the Fibonacci tool to pick your entry into a trade.

I certainly don't claim to have invented this trade entry method, all I've done is adapt it to my style of trading. I've done that by applying a Money Management that suits me.

I don't like over leveraging... I've blown out 4 accounts primarily due to greed, and lost well over 6 figures in dollars in the process.

This method of trading was originally developed by a guy named Gartley long long ago (in the 1930's). I'm not sure if he used Fibonacci's on it however he or someone after him certainly did. Another trader (the late Dan Gaub) refined the money management on this trade. He only traded it on daily charts, however I like it on hour and 4 hour charts.

My refinement on the trade is to minimize risk by enterring into the trade in small amounts depending on where in the process Price is. In the last 2 weeks I took 7 trades on the 4 hour AUD/USD chart and made over 700 pips without really trying. My maximum risk was less 0.5% of equity per trade and those 7 trades increased the equity by 4%.

How To Do It

First define that the currency pair is in a Trend. To trade off 4 hour charts, I look at the daily chart to decide if its trending or not. If I'm enterring off a 1 hour chart I check the 4 hour and daily for the trend.

Next if I see a run of at least 150 pips in the last few days, and today Price seems to have started going sideways or against the trend for 2 or 3 four hour candles (a Rally in a downtrend or a Dip in and UpTrend), I draw a Fib from the last obvious Swing High or Low to the current Swing Low or High before the present rally or Dip.

Yup, we are looking to "Sell the Rallys and Buy the Dips"

After drawing your fib levels you place a 1 lot trade (or mini/micro) back into the trend (a sell on rising retracement or a buy on falling retracement) when price goes through the 61.8% and 78.6% lines, expecting price to reverse.

Place your StopLoss at the 100% where you drew your Fib from.

So assuming price goes to the 78.5% you'll have 2 trades on (only one if it reverses before hitting the 78.6%).

As price drops through the zero level on your Fib you place another 1 or 2 lots, and at the same time move all the stops to the 78.6% to reduce risk.

Draw a reverse retracement line from the 0% Fibonacci line to the 100% of the initial Fibonacci line, which is from the end of the initial long run to the beginning of the initial long run. This will give you a 127% extension below your trades.

When price gets to the 127% close your 1st 2 entries and move your Stops on the remaining trades to their entry point and hold these 2 positions until the current run appears to end (you could use fibs, support/resistance etc to find a TakeProfit point).

In the attached chart I've drawn 3 Gartley Continuation Trade examples. To ease the clutter on the chart I've drawn them vertically rather than on the diagonal, but the end result is the same.

The 3 fibs I've drawn are from points 1, 2 & 3 to pont C

The aim of this chart is to show you how we can use human nature and the herd mentality to trade with uncanny accuracy. I'm not suggesting we go crazy looking for fib overlays, however when you look at these 3 plays and how they overlap it helps you understand why I prefer fibonacci's rather than indicators in making my trading decisions.

Fibonacci's can make you look like a genius, because you can predict with over 80% accuracy that you are going to make pips on your next trade.

As you become more experienced at using fibonacci's you will notice that they often overlap when drawn from differing point A's to point B where Point A is the start point and Point B is where its drawn to.

In the attached chart you can clearly see how multiple fib's from different start points (1, 2 &3) all drawn down to the bottom of candle#4 (point C) all point to this developing into being a seriously good entry point to place a SELL trade.

Price retraced to 4 at the 78.6% fib level (right to the pip)... I placed small SELL trades at the 61.8% and 78.6% levels, and a double size trade at the zero, but if I'd realized that there were 3 overlapping fibs at point 4 I'd of at least doubled the size of my entry there.

In this chart I show 3 separate trades ... 2 to B, 3 to C and 4 to D.

The total pips on these 3 trades was 564 pips if you'd managed to get the max, but thats not possible... we're human afterall. But 400 or so is a very realistic return. There was a total of about 1,300 pips in 7 trades in just 2 weeks on the AUD/USD alone, and this off a 4 hour chart (and I got over 700 of them).

You can trade the Gartley Continuation Trade off any time frame... 15 min charts if you wish, and probably get 2 or 3 smaller trades a day off this same 2 weeks, however why stress out scalping 20 to 30 pips when there's easily over 100 pips available on trades using 4 hour charts or 300+ per trade on daily charts?

Weekly Chart Example on the USD/JPY

I am sitting on a gbp/usd sell since Friday and I have no idea why I placed trade. All I can think is that I musta been looking at a different chart and entered by mistake.

Shittappens!

Continuation trade on AUD/USD rally, going short at 9881 (my entry was actually at 9863, I missed the correct entry, although it may go back up there yet).

Risk :Reward is at least 4½:1, may be over 6:1

Long USD/CAD at 1.0243

You'll notice that almost all my trades are on 4 hour charts. If I was looking at 1 hour charts I could not take these trades, because I might be tempted to say that the trend is not in my favour. However when I look at the daily charts I see NOTHING that tells me the trends that have been in place for the last few weeks have changed.

I got stopped out on this one... by a couple pips

Both 4 hour and daily charts show price has tested the 78.6% fib indicating go short.

I was short but closed for a small profit .

I'm waiting for the London open now.

Daily also has a possible 3 Tap developing.