Razors Journal - Basic trading with PA at S/R

very good job razor congrats on a good trading year.

Well I wish I could say the last 3 months went as well as the first three or should I say they were until beginning/middle of Feb till now. Almost eclipsed the 100% ROI, almost, before my return to Earth. They say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Well I fixed it, I went from my normal trading pattern, looking to add something else that wasn't there coupled with increasing risk slightly on all trades which lead to the psychological hurdle of watching a greater value floating around. Too much to stomach so I closed out a bulk (and in good time too, most would be floating or hitting SL now).

The damage seems worse but my current results at 6 months are still pretty decent. Not a lot of trades I could hold for as long as I like (winning ones), most of the time the entries were off by some and the result was a continual coming back. Whilst I did alot of this (small equity building profit taking), it was there to add against the few trades I did leave for larger gains. That is something that hasn't happened much if at all in the past 2 months.

I was long the USD/JPY a few times but the seeming failed interventions had me take full profits early in the year, a big reason for the close to 100% gain. Missing that boat has hurt.

Failure for expected gains in the EUR/CHF which is due to be declared legally dead if this flat line remains any longer. The SNB base of 1.20 is still holding, but the 25-30 pip range per week I don't trade. Nothing worse than paying a 2 pip spread and seeing the market move in a 2 pip range for 3-4 hours. I am holding a small long position in case it wakes from this coma.

EUR/USD for the most part has been up and down. I have traded both ways more that I care to imagine and alot of the time I have been on the wrong side. Tight SL's and Profit targets that were missed whilst sleeping didn't help. An alarm would be nice but I tend to sleep deep and would probably miss it anyway.

AUD/USD - The home currency. Looking to get back in soon to the long side. Trouble has been a slow down in mining to a degree. There is still plenty more on the plate but even the business I run that deals with mining has found it a bit tough. The lower the dollar goes the more interest we should see from overseas. I like the 1.0300 area and will be getting in there. This could be a trade to hold but you just never know.

As for the others, they have all added to my drawdown over this past 6 weeks. I have planned holidays until after Easter from Monday on and I will have limited internet range in the remote area I will be staying so aside from the long EUR/CHF and the pending AUD/USD, not much should change.

Figures have changed significantly since December.

Start to current
Total Trades - 235 (+83)
Wins = 117
Loss = 118
% = 49.78/50.22 (change of 7%)
ROI = 59%

Jan to March
Total Trades 83
Win = 32
Loss = 51
% = 38/62
ROI = -9.5% (from highs -20.1%)

Where to from here!

Well I am certainly not worried, disappointed and annoyed at myself yes but then again I new that PF of 1.80 are not manageable over a long period of trading. It is now back to 1.37 which by all margins is great. Win/loss is causing me a little concern however it was still quite low when I had great returns. The market has not given me, or I have not been involved in trades, that have had the potential to yield 3:1 or better. That has been a key difference. Alot of small to medium risk trades have not paid off and some of the bigger trades have failed. The small equity profits to build capital have helped plug some holes. The next 3 months, the goal will be to be a little more picky. Scalp trades will return as I have not had a lot of time to get involved during early london and throughout to pull some good scalps.

Chart added. What I find more and more interesting as I add data to the charts is how much they can look like a line chart that you may trade. If it is the case then I could be due to find some support coming up lol.

Take care for anyone still reading and interested. Sorry I don't post much but I do from time to time throw some info on Twitter with a few others from FF.

chin up razor!

your doin well!...these are pretty strange times for trading! I'm not trading to accumulate atm just range trading on the "safe" side of intervention lol the absurdity for that makes me laugh! I've never spent so much time on the sidelines.

all the best buddy!

Cheers bud,

I certainly have not been on the sidelines and for the better part, if I had traded without a SL then the graph would be very different. Just late last week I had 2 shorts that were stopped out by 2 pips and 3 pips as I put them in before I went to sleep, by the time I woke up they were up 100 pips and 40 pips which would have been around 4-5%, they would have missed my take profit a few days later which would have been a phenomenal exit and turn point but that was missed by 6 pips on both sides. So in a nutshell, I am picking the right areas more or less but just was unlucky on the SL placement, which I accounted for a spike, just not the size of the spike that took me out.

That is trading at the moment. The first 4-5 months with this account just about everything went perfectly but I know that high PF's tend to even out sooner or later, I am just in that phase. I am on the sidelines for now. The AUD/USD missed my long entry on the daily chart last week by 9 pips and is now up 150 points on my entry point but will be seeing what the Reserve bank does today with interest rates. I am hoping for the currency to fly so that my wedding in November which is in Thailand will be even cheaper than when we were looking at it last year.

Take it easy and thanks for dropping by

RT

Well its a few days after the end of the financial year. A time to look back on what you have earnt and how much change you have coffed up for the tax department (hopefully enough not to have to pay more).

I would like to say that this last financial year was all smooth sailing, but then anyone who has traded for longer than a month will know that is never going to be the case. I will chalk it up to a win that is for sure although looking back over the past 6 months I ask myself 'what went wrong'.

For the first 6 months (more like 4 actually) ending around New Years I was strolling along, in the start of what ended up being a long drawdown faze, with an account growth of around 75%. I missed the 100% gain mark by 1% and honestly it was at that point that trading changed. I don't know what it was but I can say the effort to hit the 100 took away the earliest part of my trading discipline. It became a target that I had to hit more than I wanted to hit. Because I had to hit it, every loss compounded the determination but it doesn't matter how much determination you have in this game, it will never be enough if it is all that is driving you. Entries got sloppy, immediate negatives compounded with larger risks saw a great deal of profit evaporate. Even when I knew I was making a mistake, I went ahead and made it anyway. What had taken me 100+ trades to accumulate disappeared in less than 40 and I was officially down 50% from my highs.

It was time to put the training wheels back on and re-evaluate. It is amazing how far south I had gone. I had gone back to trying everyone else's way of trading because I thought my way was broken, when in fact it was me who was broken. I had moved away from a pretty rigid plan that saw me take trades that I had in the past taken to trades that were rushed, early or not even there and it hurt. Over the next month I managed to claw back some gains and got some confidence. What happened next was 6 straight losses, all manageable and 1 bigger one based of a situation that had probably worked out 80% of the time so the risk was higher, probably not a good move after 5 losses, but it was different. I was back to trading the way I had traded before and from that point on I rode a pretty successful wave.

I would say that I learnt alot about myself this financial year and I realised how exhausting trading can be. The best trades were the ones I walked away from and limited my involvement. After doing the homework, the trades were set and I left them. The worst were naturally when I changed personally and emotionally in an attempt to push the boundaries. So the year was great in so many ways and even the negatives were humbling. They showed that regardless of how well we do, ego and impatience can quickly devastate and bring you back to ground.

Charts and results in the next post.

RT

Total Trades 295
Total Wins 150
Total Loss 145
% = 50.85

Jan-Jun Trades 143
Total Wins 65
Total loss 78
% = 45.45

2012 ROI = 77.70% gain
Jan - Jun = 1.52% gain

Longest win streak 7
Longest loss streak 11

PF 1.38


In total the year was dominated by a few trades. Key reversals for daily bias as well as traded on small TF's (includes SFP), Inside Bars, Pin Bars and the deadly combo Pin/IB at extremes - these worked a treat of some smaller timeframes. Also just playing off support and resistance with PA bias.

Along the way I tried a few Flying Buddah's on small TF's when I was waiting for things to happen for some small profits but by large it was just watching the markets over the week/s, formulating a plan for key areas and making the plan happen when things occured.

I found there were a few times when I was so focused, so on the ball that as soon as a small breakout occured I could dial in on a small TF knowing what was happening and pick almost the perfect pullback spot. The risk on some of these trades was sickening and the results whilst very good could have been alot better if I wasn't so fearful. On most there was about a 2-3 pip drawndown and I usually took profit before the 1R reward just because it was action. It felt like being on drugs (or at least I imagine that's what it was like) as the adrenlin for those 1,2 or 3 minutes of up, down, up, up, down was crazy. 1 thing is for sure, swing trading or longer is far less stressful but then in saying that, alot of what I see and trade is pretty relevant across the timeframes.

So a new financial year is upon us. The account is healthier than last year and I will be looking forward to it all again. Trading this week has been thin and I have already managed to start the year off around 1-2% down thanks to a ranging EUR and GBP market up until about 7 hours ago when they burst south. I wasn't in front of the computer at the time but I will post a chart on a classic short play that should have stood out it you were playing along at home.

This year I won't plan anything big. I will continue to improve the way I trade, work out what is working and what is not and hopefully the results will come. I will look to add a few more bits and pieces here and there as I see fit and possibly find a way to gel more together.

Best of luck to you all.

RT

As mentioned in the previous post, I was long yesterday and much of today on the EUR.

My 2 entries long marked in blue and the average position (dashed green) were based of the previous resistance which held as support. My initial SL in red (lower 1) was a set distance away and my target yellow was the first area I thought trouble would brew. SL was moved below the 2nd entry after a day and a bit of ranging.

You can see we are penant/triangle as the range bounces around.

Chart below shows. Next post will show you what could have been good entry before the break south.

On this chart you can see the break of the base, a close and run outside before a fakey which would have cracked a few SL's as people moved them to cover themselves from the breakout. That whipsaw on both side would have cleared out some orders considering the range that restarted after the breakout. What comes next is just pure nature as the big boys pile in leaving no chance to get in until the end.

Moving SL's to protect yourself can work. In my case I took a far better stop than just leaving it where it was. The entry on break was the aggressive off the EMA or even the close of the whipsaw bar (best option in my opinion), or at some stage on the IB/Pin. A limit order may have got slipped if you took a break of the IB.

The close off the whipsaw was ideal. Your SL placement would have been the other side of the penant, the limit would have been the FTB namely the range highs around 2450 or lower given the strength of the Breakout.

Spewing. After being in front of it watching it go up and down, I moved my SL's and went out and did stuff. Well that will be a lesson to never ever ever ever leave my screen. Tough break but they happen.

It takes guts to stand up and share lessons learned from the previous financial year and for that I applaud your recent posts.

Cheers for the support. It was a good year and so far this year has started off reasonably well. Whilst I would like to document trades as I go it just doesn't seem practical and I never got into this recording data for others except to show that it is possible. After 6 odd years most of the time it has taken to get here seems worthwhile yet it still feel like there is so much to learn.

I wish you all the best in your trading.

We the first month of the new financial year is done and dusted, August is here and I thought I would continue the effort to post results.

So July there was only 1 word, Awesome. I got back to trading smarter, was more patient on entries and took profits when I needed too.

For the month I took 16 trades for 9 winners. Risk was around 2-3% on some trades and then less than 2% on the others. A combination of aggressive entries and conservative meant a well rounded month.

So how did we stack.

Trades 16
Winners 9
Looser 7
WIN% = 56

Total Gain/Loss : +31.22% (thanks to an aggressive entry with tight SL on EUR/JPY that ran 5R before I knew it)

Trades results by type

AUD/USD - +3.93%
EUR/JPY - +17.32%
EUR/USD - +7.42
EUR/AUD - -.44%
EUR/GBP - -.55%
GE30 - -3.17%
Gold - -.90%
Silver - +4.18%
USD/CHF - -.66%

So that is a solid start to the year again. So good gains, managed losses (only went over my 1R once due to SL placement error, but it was minimal) which were often cut short if the market failed to move how I was anticipating and overall a pretty straight forward month.

Take care

RT