Cutting the cord with M1 scalps

Thank you Keen.

Merry Christmas to everyone and a happy new year! I am going to take this low liquidity end of the year to read a couple of good trading books and prep myself for January and the new year. I will consider the new year a new start and the beginning. I will still have my full time job , and of course my children, so trading time will still be limited unfortunately. I will have to look at Toyko trading as well as 6-7 and 8-9 EST trading hours. Toyko is tough to get to because I work unitl 8 EST 2 nights a week. I have two account plans in front of me and I pray I have the patience to execute them, God willing.

As we enter the Christmas season, I challenge you to turn your mind to other things. Jesus came to Earth and called himself God. The question for all of us is, was He correct? It will be the most important question you find the answer to.

Cap nice hustle and grind. I was once here too, hopefully you find profitability.

I am going to update my explorer to start January 1, so it will appear different. I want it to match my financial plan, which begins in January.

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas with family and enjoyed time with loved ones! I did! Now, I go back to the car lot....

Happy New Year everyone! I did not trade today, even though I had the day off. I slept in thinking it would be a slow day and not worth it. Wow, I could not have been more wrong!

I have several charts I am looking at now. This is both good and bad. I probably need to settle into one and get to know it intimately. So, the year begins. My goal is 2% per day, over 20 trading days per month. I will be pulling a bit out of the account each month as well. I have an excel spreadsheet I will post that shows how the account is supposed to grow. It is a roadmap, a business plan, a pro forma. It also has a second tab allowing me to enter actual numbers on a weekly basis, monthly basis, and quarterly basis.

I am excited and nervous. Excited for the reality of cutting the cord, and nervous out of respect for what the market can do.

Here is the Excel spread sheet I said I would post. It has two sheets. One is a compounding worksheet. I am hoping for 2% per day, 20 trading days per month, with a "take out" of 25%. You can see a separation at trade number 181. This is the end of September. I increase the "take out" to 50% there, and God willing, "Cut the Cord", as the daily take out is enough to live on and more than I am making now.

The second sheet is where I keep the actual results weekly, monthly, and quarterly. If anyone has any other ideas of what I should be tracking, I am open to it.

BTW, the Colts looked good yesterday!. Wow. What an awesome comeback. I am not a Colts fan, even though I live in Indy. Born and raised a Bears fan. But since the Bears could not stop a high school running back this year, I have to wait until next year to enjoy that. I might as well root for the hometown team now.

I will see everybody tomorrow.

A picture of my backyard yesterday. It looks much nicer today with the sun! We had at least 12 inches of snow yesterday and today and tomorrow brings the coldest temps in 20 years! It is -15 right now, without wind chill. I sure could use some global warming right now!

Sorry, I could not upload the photo. It was to big. I will try a different one today.

They closed the dealership today because of weather! Trading day. It is difficult with the kids home and no quiet dedicated place for trading. That is life and I need to adapt. I took 3 trades today. All USDJPY M1. I flipped between different templates. To much flipping actually. Here is the trades shown on the chart I think I will stick with. The first buy was ridiculous, taken off a different chart. The second trade was great, but not held nearly long enough. The third trade was also very risky, a CT. All in all, down less than $1. Good thing I understand it takes more than a day to make or break an account.

Todays trade. I need to learn to hang on. Bigger dollars per pip adds emotion, that is for sure. I am doing a decent job reminding myself to think in percentages, but it is still difficult.

I slept in yesterday and missed a lot of good activity. This morning I get up and there is nothing. A lot of news coming today, that must be the silence. It is no different than sitting at the dealership waiting for a potential customer I guess. I would much rather be here than there!

My only trade this morning. It was against the BH but in line with the babon, hull and genesis. Less than 1 minute. If I held, it would have hit the M15 TMA like I wanted. I exited because the EURUSD was crashing. I should have paid more attention to my strength meter which showed the EUR and AUD at opposite extremes.
So far I am crawling. I need to start walking. I am falling behind. The thing is, it only takes one solid trade to put me ahead. Patience my friend. Be a professional, disciplined and precise.

Two sells tonight. The first one would have worked, but I got out. I reentered and gained my loss plus a bonus! This is a chart I used to use. Came back to it with a tweak or two. I think I like it.

Hi Capstone
With your work schedule scalping is not ideal.You should try focusing on swing trading.Scalping is stressful. Pips wise miniscule unless you increase lot size which also increases risk.There are very few successful scalpers in long term.With your returns you are averaging cents per hour trading....
Good luck

Here was a nice early afternoon trade. Entered to early however. I recognize that and will improve the entry. There was a nice short well before that, which you can see to the right on the chart. I did not take that, but should have. Anyway, first day hitting the daily target. I am happy, even with the missed trades.

Davit, I have tried to swing on higher timeframes, but alas, they are to stressful for me. I use them to help me in making my M1 decisions, but am not comfortable in trading on them.

2 lunchtime trades. now I am late getting back to work. ooops. anyway. here they are presented without comment, since I am late already. trying TDI. Not sure I am a fan of it on the m1 chart.

My latest chart. I approach with great confidence. The thing I battle most is fear. This chart is a little busier than I would like, and that may change over time. I will add nothing to it, but could remove things.

Todays trade. Nice set up with both babons white and the 34 acting as support. I am ditching the ultraStoch because the lines disappear at times. Weird. I put the Stoch MTF indi on there, but will probably go with the scStoch from Intrepidpips thread. Anyway. You can see that the trade would have gone on to hit the target of the BRN. That is alright. I have the daily goal of 2%.

I have been considering that goal as well. I am flipping to a 7% per week for the moment. While it is still an aggressive goal, it somehow seems more attainable. It is easier on the psyche as well! It seems more relaxing to consider the results over a month instead of every day. I have adjusted my spreadsheet accordingly to reflect the new targets. Here we go!

BTW, I also started a sports betting venture with a very small sum of cash. It is up 58% in just under 2 weeks! This is where I came up with the 7% per week. Needless to say, I am about 6 weeks ahead of schedule. I am using many of the lessons I have learned here in FX trading. I have found a 90% mechanical betting system that uses money management to keep the account solvent. I have never bet sports before. It is kind of fun!

What are the settings on your babons please?

70,2,0 and 34,2,0

Horrible night trading in chop. Made me go back to a different chart. A simpler one. This was from this morning. I have work to do to get my ground back. I am off today, so that is the task. The good news is, I'm eliminating the fear side of my trading.

Here is this mornings. Plenty of longs on AJ but I did not take any of them. Bad decision as they all paid well. Here are two charts showing the same trade.