My strategy to become a full time forex trader

Keep up the good work.
I'm really amazed at how you trade with such tight stops.
Great to see that it is working so well for you

Thanks I appreciate it. I've never had this much success trading any other way. I truly think I found my niche even though everyone else thinks I'm crazy haha.

Wanted to inform any newbies that are possibly trading with me that you get more "bang for your buck" with USD/JPY. Because the settlement currency is JPY, a $200,000 position does not equal $20 a pip like other pairs that settle in USD. A formula to figure it out is .01 divided by current rate, multiplied by your position. For example:

(.01 / 91.02) x 185,000 = $20.32 per pip

200K for my other pairs, 185K for USD/JPY

SL moved to break even.

Broke out of the wedge to the downside nicely, but we are seeing some good buying happening. I got nothing to lose now, so I'm hoping its just a back-test before we proceed lower.

good work mate.....

Yup, just a back-test it was. Take profit, +9.85 pips.

Rough start in the beginning of this month with that huge red day. Kept my head together and traded normally, now I'm outpacing my previous month. Staying focused one day at a time.

Done for today, hopefully I'll have time to trade tomorrow. Later.

Unfortunately I have decided that trying to post all of my trades live has been having a negative affect on my trading. Scalping of course requires very tenative screen time, and while I enjoy sharing my trades I can't afford to sacrafice any profitability. I will definitely be posting successful and unsuccessful trades when I'm done for the night, as well as a few live trades when I have the extra time and keep those interested in my progress informed.

Great night tonight finishing +16.70 pips. Truly a great example here in the USD/JPY as far as the typical trades I look for. Here is a descending pennant that I caught the downside breakout to, followed by shorting the backtest.

DARE I SAY IT?... I am long EUR/USD.

While I don't think I can quantify the R/R here, any sign of strength after this insane sell off could lead to a serious bounce. I'm playing it here off the possible double bottom, tight stop as always.

Trade from earlier today:

92.55 on the USD/JPY proved itself to be an important short term support/resistance level the past week. I shorted it just after it touched about an hour ago. Should of hung tight as it's still going, but I banked 9.8 pips from it.

Anyone else verbally cheer for their currencies when they're in a position? COME ONE YOU FREAKIN EURO!!! lol

Strong 15M candle there adding credibility to a double bottom. Let's see if she follows through.

Nope, lower low hit. Double bottom broken.

I like your style on taking the trade at the point of least risk. You will be right or wrong immediately. You can control risk more easily than if you give a trade 'space to breath'. Give the market room then you are taking a chance, the difference between chance and defined risk is a lot. Over time the chances that fail will kill your acount.

What other 'tools' are you using to give yourself an edge?

Thanks for the feedback. I like the metaphor of giving a trade space to breath, because with this method that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. It's certainly against the grain based on what I've seen but it's working for me.

As for tools, I think it would be easier to show. Here's a trade I'm in right now:

I start by watching the 5min chart. Here I found a setup in the GBP/USD:


Extremely basic support and resistance setup.

Next I zoom out to the 15min.

Here we can see all the more reason I like a short here. Several 15min candles closed at, and couldn't break this level previously.

Since the 60min candles hold so much weight, I want to make sure there nothing super-contradicting there.

At a glance it looks like a very strong downtrend, now in the middle of a consolidation period. Bias is down, but also you can see the last big green candle that failed to break the previous red candle.

Finally my exit. Once we hit the bottom of my trendline I'll either get right out, or preferably put a 1-3 pip trailing stop if I think a bottom breakout is imminent. If my SL gets hit it will be just 5 pips. But if it does gets hit, I feel strongly that the trend will continue in that direction. So in reality being wrong about the current direction at a price of only 5 pips isn't bad at all.

So bottom line is, my toolbox is very small. I keep my strategy very basic using just support, resistance, and trendlines. I do watch the time and sales for information on my exit. If we got millions of $$ of sell orders pouring in at the bottom, I'll leave it open. I will say I have 1 edge though; I currently have a 46% win ratio. Why am I boasting a low win ratio? it's because I don't hesitate and I seize the moment. If I waited for confirmation on this particular trade, I would have sacrificed about 25% of the pips I was targeting. I take a high number of trades, cut the losers ultra-short, and often let the winners continue on.

This strategy is a work in progress. I don't have it quite fine-tuned yet. Don't know if I ever will, or you ever can.

SL moved to 1.5665.

There seems to be a bit of buying here before my 1.5651 target level, which I'm not liking. I moved my SL to 1.56565 to lock in profits.

Edit: SL hit, +5.85 pips. Not my target, but certainly in the green.

I've been pulling for you from day one to reach your goal and I'm glad to see that you are halfway there.

I don't want to sidetrack you or anything but I anted to share an indicator with you that might help you find areas to take trades off of or it may coincide with the areas you are already targeting.

If it is going to mess you us, then just delete it and keep going the way you have been.

Not at all man thanks for trying to help. I would definitely check it out but I'm not familiar with .ex4 files. What opens that?

Still in this trade, looked like a triple bottom here on the EUR/USD.