Goals will either limit you or push you beyond your limitation

Tried posting a chart, not sure if it worked the first 2 times...

Anyway, showing one of my latest trades. Entered yesterday when I saw the price bouncing off the bottom of consolidation. A good R:R on this trade, currently sitting on 10:1 and hoping to take profit at 13:1...

This is my ideal trade. If I can get an average of 1:12 R:R on all of my trades, that means I only have to win 1 out of 12 to break even.

If I risk 50 dollars on each trade with this R:R strategy, and only win 25% of the time, I still come out ahead with $1500 dollars after 12 trades. Not bad. The trick is to be disciplined enough to only take the trades that look good

Another good set up on GBJPY

We had 5 hour of price closing within a tight range on the hour chart. Plus pair has been on a strong bullish uptrend. And it's bouncing above the 21 ema. Saw it move out of the range and jumped in, probably a bit premature, but looks like a good entry...

Headed for some resistance, but I think it will continue up for at least a 3 or 4 to 1 R:R. But I'm hoping for better. We'll see...

As long as it breaks above the most recent swing high of 174.092, I'd expect to take profit around 174.669. So, if all goes well, looking at a 5:1 R:R...

I will be looking for price to close above the consolidated range it just broke out of. If it closes within that range again on the 1 hour chart, then I'd lose confidence in the trade and possibly look for an exit to minimize loss...

I see a lot of questions about whether you can make money on a small account. I used to have the same question. Most will say no, it's not possible. But I think the above trade is a good example of how it is possible.

For example, if you are only risking 10 dollars on this trade, your reward is between 30 dollars and 50 dollars, depending on if you achieve 3:1 or 5:1 R:R.

If you take 10 trades per week, only risking 10 dollars each trade, and get 5:1 on 3 of them, break even on 1, and lose the other 6, you come out ahead $90 dollars. On a $200 dollar account, that is a 45% increase. Do this consistently on a weekly basis, and you'll have a nice size account in no time. But don't increase your risk as soon as you have a winning week. Good idea, is to wait until you've increased your account by 5 times before you double your R:R. That way you have plenty of breathing room for losses with the increased risk.

Again, the biggest challenge is picking your trades carefully. You only need a few winning trades a week. Plus, you'll want to limit your losses. Determine what your daily loss limit is. Know when to quit for the day.

Also, the above trading R:R scenario is risking only 5% of starting capital per trade. In reality, you could lose 10 trades in a row, and still be able to make it back to break even with 2 winning trades at 5:1 R:R. However, if you are losing 10 trades in a row, I seriously believe something is wrong with your approach. Believe me, I've been there

Taking it a step further, if you have $5000 account, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a weekly goal of 10 or 20% gains, using my system, with the possibility of 45% increase with 1 or 2 winning trades. That's around 1 or 2 grand a week. Not bad with a 5k account, no?

Another thing I'm liking about this system of trading is that I probably only need to look at 1 or 2 currency pairs. This week, I've had most of my success on 2 pairs, the GBPJPY and GBPUSD. I'm considering, just focusing on those 2 alone. But I tend to keep looking at other pairs, since I don't want to miss out on trades

But one thing I'm trying to ween myself off of is looking at too many pairs. It only stresses me out anyway. Same as if I try and look at too many things on one chart, same affect...

Plus I'm realizing it is simply not necessary to be trading every minute of the day. However, I do believe there should be trading opportunities every day if you are entering/exiting on the 1 hour time frame. The trade set up should jump out at me. If I'm nervous about entering, then that's a good sign it's not a good setup.

So, even if I have to wait several hours for a set up, there still should be something going on at some point between the GBPUSD and GBPJPY on any given trading day, assuming it's not a holiday...

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is whether or not I should pay any attention to the news. I did get stopped out one time this week on a news spike. But I don't really think I need to pay much attention to news. If you are on the right side of it, it could be a very good trade, on the wrong side or with an SL that's too tight, a loss like any other. So, what's the big deal?

And again, it's one more thing to think about and worry about. I'll see how it goes, but so far, I'd rather focus only on my technical analysis.

In addition, a news spike usually means the market will continue momentum or reverse, which means even if you get stopped out from a news spike, if you wait a while after the spike, the direction should be clear and trade setups should be there for the taking...

Well I did it... I spent most of the last hour posting here, and trying not to watch my trade

It closed just barely above the prior hour candle, so looking okay so far. Now what to do for the next hour so as not to burn my eyes out watching my chart...

What will I be looking for on the next hourly candle close? Ideally, it will do 1 or more (hopefully all of the following):

1) Exceed the last hourly high
2) Close above the last hourly close
3) Close above the last hourly high

Too me the most important of the 3 is #2, at least at this point in the trade. If it closes higher, it means the bulls won that hourly battle regardless of what else happened. A bearish looking pin (tail on top) on a bullish candle at this point would still confirm an upward bias since we are right at a lower support level, thus would tell me that the price really wants to go up. Even it if got pushed back down, as long as the close is higher than the last candle, I'm still happy...

Another thing I'm working on is only trading one pair at a time, that is, not be in more than one trade at a time...

I've found the more trades I'm in, the more stressful trading becomes. It's fun when you are in multiple trades and win them all, but if I'm in multiple trades and one by one, start losing until I've lost them all, not so fun.

Plus, only needing one winner to increase my account by 50% (while risking only 5% of starting capital) tends to cause me to slow down my trading a bit since I realize I only need a few trades a week. So, kick back and relax, and be selective on trades. If I pick 2 or 3 really good trades in a week, I could very easily increase my account 100%, all with only a 5% risk each trade. This is what I keep telling myself - Stick with the plan!

Of course right after I say "one trade at a time", I see a nice break out on the GBPAUD happening on the H1 chart...

If it still looks good in 15 minutes (hourly close and also H4 close), I do believe I will jump in on this one...

Both GBPAUD and GBPJPY have gone up but have started consolidating again. So, the trend might be fizzling out and maybe ready for a pull-back. Still could break out on the upside, but I doubt I leave these trades alone overnight. Will probably close out with a little profit (around 5%), and call it a week...

...and now they look like there trying to break out on the upside again

Maybe I'll see what it looks like at the next H1 candle close. Just don't want to ruin a good week with a couple losses....

Okay, moved SL to break evenish (a little profit). Both pairs seem like they really, really want to go up some more, or so it seems to me. We'll see what happens, though. I can't watch these trades for a couple hours but I'll check back at the 4 hour close at 9 Pacific time, and see where things stand. I have a meeting to attend tonight, so I don't want to be thinking about these trades, so with SLs set so as not to lose anything, I'll take a breather from trading and focus on some more important things

Till next time...

Posted charts of my 2 open trades above.

Showing what it looks like on the 4 hour chart. Seems bullish, still and tempte to hold over night.

If I only sleep for 6-8 hours, that's only a couple more candles on the H4, so, it might be worth it to see how much further they'll go....