Journal/Archive

Chart:

Interesting development in E/Chf:

Also watching A/C for a breakout.

Since I was quite eager to move my SL for Aud/Nzd to BE + 5 pips.
SL was triggered moments ago as the aud dipped after breaking out on the lower end of a Triangle consolidation.

I'll be watching bullish PA at these levels to see if I can re-enter. which will have to wait 'till tomorrow, as I'm off to bed for now.

W

As is turns out, Oanda is having trouble with their servers, so I'm not getting quotes.

I am however able to log in to their fxTade Platform, it's just flatlined.
I'm very happy that my Long Aud/Nzd was closed just in time.
The CAD/JPY short I have open is safe for now.

Let's hope Oanda can resolve the problems shortly!
Best of luck to all those affected by the issues.

W.

Box consolidation on Aud/Usd printed a pinbar, which I'll trade to the Box's 'midrange PPZ' at just below 0.9 BRN.
Entry at retest of of support.

Critical for this position is that it price remains within the box.
If it fails to stay in the box I'll seek to exit manually, but a SL is placed below the PB just in case.

Chart:



w

AUD/USD order cancelled, because price took off without processing my buy limit.

Found another good looking setup, but on a H4 chart.
Last two bars form a DBHLC, although it must be noted that the highs are .2 pips apart.

Chart:

Shorted USD/JPY at the break of the DBHLC.
I added the Trouble Area's as I've spotted them to my chart.

The position made it's way to the first trouble area, where I should have reduced my risk or exit altogether.
Shame though, it didn't turn out that way.
I got greedy and left my risk untouched after seeing the position struggle with the pre-drawn FTA for some minutes.
Since I had an appointment to attend to, I had to decide what approach to take, regarding the left-over risk on my position.
I saw the trade bouncing off my FTA, above my short entry, and soon, at a critical area that could/would 'make-or-brake' the position.
I ran out of time and in what probably was fear of losing, I decided to go to my appointment leaving full risk on the table.

When I came back, the position had been stopped out for a full bar loss. > Big bummer....
I felt sick for about a week, hence my sudden lack of updates.

I've known - for quite some time - I had moved the SL for CAD/JPY prematurely, but I've made a personal rule out of never moving stops against my favour.
Couple days later, this position too, was stopped, as expected.
^^ Very badly managed.


Looking back at my trading results for 2014 so far, it's disappointing to say the least....
I've made quite some errors in judgement and the main reason this keeps happening is because:
1) I trade too much, clocking 12/month average is 2 à 4 times too much.
2) I'm so incredibly eager to move my SL, that it results in me taking unnecessary losses.


I decided to take a week off, to find out what's 'missing'.
The first and foremost that was missing: A clearly laid out strategy!
Yes, I'm not proud of it, but I've been trading without a clearly defined, written&printed strategy, but rather working from a general idea, which turns out to be an unfeasible approach.
I'll be continuously working on this, until it's finished and perfected.

Second missing item: a daily routine!
I've so far been somewhat strict in watching the daily close, but everything beyond that's been free to do with however I pleased.
This resulted in me babysitting the market/positions and thus over-thinking things and generally over-exposing myself.
The problem that I've encountered with this, is that I've been meddling with trades that shouldn't have been meddled with.
Simple reason for this is that (reason #1) I have no strategy that tells me when to look at my charts and for what reason.
This allows way too much room for emotions that inevitably pop up when initiating a position in the market.

Also, I missed a checklist that describes, in a great detail, what I am looking for in a trade/set-up.
Take my recent USD/JPY short for example, it shows a DBHLC, that isn't in fact a DBHLC, since the highs were 2 pips apart.
Also, the size in relation to it's preceeding isn't spectacular.
Add the weak close of the trigger bar and the FTA being too close to the entry point to the mix and I can clearly argue that this an inferior trade that I should have steered clear from.

In 'my week off' I've been working on a basic cheatsheet that will help me filter my setups and should bring my average trades / month down dramatically.

I've also been brainstorming for tasks to attach to my daily/weekly/monthly routine.
Since I'm a very lazy, authority-hating, undisciplined person by nature, I found this quest came somewhat counter-natural to me.
Taking into account the above sentence, you'll understand how I haven't yet finished this task .

I've also been working on defining specific protocols, with which I describe the administrative processes involved and more importantly, the proper order & conditions in/under which these need be executed.
This should help me filter out the small errors in design I've made in my administrative layout.
This is a very abstract task though and boring :/.

I figured, without these basic guidelines, I'm trading in tha blind which I'm clearly trying to steer away from.

For now I'll focus on getting all these things done gradually, while in the meantime, I'll keep my trading to a minimum i.e. 1 or 2 trades in march.
I feel relieved to have this journal entry out of the way since I've been avoiding it for almost a full week now.



W

AUD/USD has been very active, forming PA in both large TF's; Inside bar on Monthly and a BUOB on Weekly.
The daily has been ranging around BRN .9 quite symetrically forming a rectangular setup. (see Chart)



The Bigger picture shows me more boxing in the recent past, as well as a 'midrange PPZ' lining up perfectly with the HCR that marks my rectangle's upper bound.
The 38.2% Fib. retracement gives me just the confluence I need to make this a Jarroo style setup.



I'll watch the daily close on this one carefully tonight.

w

No daily close above the HCR, so no trade...

w

AUD/USD did close above the HCR last night, and since thte setup is still valid, I placed a limit order at .9105.
Price has moved towards my entry overnight, but entry order was missed by 0.2 pip.
Limit will remain open until .9150 is hit.

Chart:


USD/CAD broke out of a pennant, both boundaries being of minor importance, since there haven't been many touches of either.
So after the BUOB yesterday, I decided to place an stop order for a break out.

Chart:


As you can see, (much better on a H1 chart) is that price has hit it's FTA and retreated since.
At time of writing, price is retesting the HCR(1.1680) it broke through today.
Right underneath the HCR is the down sloping upper bound of the pennant.

I'll be regularly checking in on this one to see if support holds.

w

Limit order for AUD/USD at .9015 was triggered.

I'll be look to exit if price manages to close below .91 strongly on a daily basis.
Stop loss is at .8980 safely under BRN .9.

I'll be looking to cut my risk if price touches .9150, to BE, or slightly worse, price will tell.


W

Price managed to close strong below 0.91, so I decided to exit the trade.
I took a new position short, since the area is still of great interest and a BEOB formed.



Stop on USD/CAD was moved to break even. I'm looking to hold this one until 1.1750

W

AUD/USD order was triggered overnight, but retreated after .9 was hit, basically what I had in mind with the recent AUD/USD long.
TP is fairly close, so even a Pinbar poking into .9 a sufficient distance, would effectively cancel out the results of the last trade, but that's not why I entered.
A big BEOB at a prime location IMO, with it's only foreseeable trouble being .9 and the fact that .89xx-.91 is a range.

Will keep you posted!

W

Hey Donaciello interesting journal you've got going here. Will follow it though. I would like know how your 'cheatsheet' going though. Is it finished yet.

Al

Hi Albus,

I'm glad to see you've taken interest in my journal.
As you can see, I'm far from doing everything right.
As for the 'cheatsheet', I've made a sketch on paper, but I haven't yet found the time to digitize it.

Been increasingly busy in real life, day-job and such ... but I'll try to upload it here tomorrow.

Another interesting fact: I've recently enrolled in a local project that primarily aims to get people - that otherwise won't connect to society - to pursue their dreams.
As a result thereof, I've been given the chance to meet with a professional in the field of currency & derivatives.
I'm as of yet not fully sure where this all is headed, but I'm very excited about this.

I'll make extensive notes on this.


Again, glad to have you on board here and don't hesitate to put up some charts of yourself.
Kind regards,

W

Albus,

I've just finished digitizing my cheatsheet.
I've used notepad, because I'm not a big fan of word (working with it that is).
So if you want to transform this thing into a .doc or excel, be my guest, but please post it here, so I can use it too .

Please give a shout if there's something I've overlooked, I'll add it.

W

Position ended in a full bar loss.
What a fucked up thing this is....

This position was already a sort of 'stop&reverse' scenario, which I why I was very hesitant to stop it again because of the pinbar that formed right after the break.
The fact that this pinbar came right off BRN 0.9000, combined with a failure to close below an ascending TL, should have seen me exit ASAP!

W