Break Even Trader / Where Next

Evening All,

I have been interested in Stocks and FX since late 2010 and started to study this a little during 2011. 2012 was the year where I really started to continue with my interest at which point I had become largely interested in FX.

Given we are in 2015 now I can't believe how many years I have been dabbling with little to no success. Mid-way through 2014 I decided I was going to fund my first "real" accounts having blown one or two 500 accounts and start to trade daily with the intention of growing my account.

I believe I am very good at Technical Analysis and can often realise when we are turning in trend direction, not necessarily calling the tops as this is pointless and often leads to ruin (for me anyway) as the position size gets too large and often the exact turning point is not an exact science.

My only post in this forum demonstrated this where I could see the potential change in trend in the Pound/Dollar but yes, you guessed it, I didn't really , well actually I didn't benefit from the subsequent move down.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...67#post7558567

I made the same analysis with the Oil price and again didn't ride the trend and waiting for corrections only led to more missed opportunities.

The point of this thread is I need help! I am confident in my analysis but obviously I have an issue when trading! I know I close my winners too early and also let my losers run too far - this is something I plan to work on by reducing my SL size and ensuring it doesn't get moved.

What I'm looking for is a trading "buddy" so to speak who can work with me and share end of day results to see from "their" perspective what I have done well and what I can be doing better? I'm not necessarily restricting this to one mentor / contributor, the more the merrier but it would be great if it were someone who is actually making genuine trading profits and not someone who is having issues similar to mine.

My analysis does involve COT data but only where I am looking for major turns, by and large I ride the 4hr trend for direction and trade off of H1 & M15 charts for entries. I use trendlines, both diagonal and horizontal for levels and areas of interest and look for reactions in these areas.

I'll trade the major pairs with USD but currently don't trade other markets although I am open to being introduced to other markets that serve well to TA levels.

Anyway as a starter for ten I'll leave it here and look forward to your contributions. I will update daily with any trades that I take, although due to work and social commitments I am not promising these in real-time as a lot of trading is off trading apps and FF doesn't have one at present so likely to miss my live trades.

Thanks for those taking the time to read and any contributors that come along. If there are people that don't want to contribute publicly but would like to offer support privately please PM and we can start a dialogue by that channel.

First, everyone does face some issues at a point. No one is always successful in trading and even the best sometimes get hit hard. The secret is about risk management and trading philosophy. I have come across a few ideas that suggest the best take profit:stop loss ratio is 2:1.

That, is the take profit level should be a little higher than the stop loss level, reason being: you will be able to cut your losses before they escalate and you also allow your trades to make more profits going up rather than closing early.

But I have also come across those that advocate for the exact reciprocal of this theory. Reason being they believe that with wider stop loss levels you can allow your trades to recover and resume to profit making trend, while at the same time, making sure that you take your profits as quickly as possible before a trend reversal on the other end.

In my opinion, I believe if you are the guy who like to ride the trend, then you would go with the first theorists, while those who like to time for reversals are most likely to go with the second group of theorists. Just my opinion.

Thanks for the post Moonshot. Certainly for me it is better with a tight stop as I like to reduce risk as soon as possible.

For today I had just the one trade buying the Pound/Dollar at 1.5335 (Support) but was taken out 2pips below the low at 1.5321 for a 14pip loss.

OK with this it is a loss but a loss I took and as the pair moved down towards to 1.5250 this was better for my current account.

Total to date - 14pips

Today I have resistance at 1.5260 so will look to sell here as market looks weak. Will look for 1.5200 if the level in-play holds. Stop loss will be ITRO 30pips.

Ended up cancelling the order this morning and subsequently missed the entry. Didn't miss much but would have been paid so should have trusted the analysis and hit the trade!

No trades so still at -14 pips for the thread.

A lesson in patience and risk management today as I initially wanted to sell at 1.5090. I actually sold at 70 and then added at 90 before pulling the plug when price hit 1.5107 taking a large loss as my 2nd position was around 40% larger than my first!

Lesson learnt - position size was too big and the first loss needn't have happened had I waited for my original entry. So although I would have still been wrong the loss would have been just 17 pips instead of 37 pips on top of the 17 so a total of -54 pips.

Total to date -68pips..... Putting this in context as pips largely mean nothing I am down ~13.5% on this account since 19th Feb - not all FX trades but by and large FX.

I'm now working harder than ever on tighter SL and patience.

The only good thing I can say is that I now want a higher level to enter and rather than let my position continue in a worse position as I have before I did just cut the trades at 1.5107 today and took the loss head on before it got out of hand.

Will look to sell tomorrow around resistance at 1.5140-50

you say you are trading 4 hour time frame? in my eye a 4 hour time frame would say i'd be looking to sell gbp/usd at the level of 1.55490 that would look like the closest resistance level to me on 4 hour and that is long way away from what you just stated as 1.5140

Maybe you are looking long term and trying to apply the price action to a shorter term. cuz in a 5 minute chart what you posted would make more sense to me.
4 hour charts would be trades that you do not exit in a day those should be trades taking around 5 days or sometimes way more, unless market move in your favor quickly. in todays market a move of 150 against you is not uncommon on a 4 hour chart - and just because you entered and are down 150 pips does not mean you are wrong about the market direction but maybe timed a little off. what is wrong with being right even if it's a little delayed when trading on 4 hours you have to be patient or just don't do it. lets look at a 4 hour chart with hindsite

First chart: is 4 hour with the current down move bouncing there are only a few places to trade this bounce and if counter trend trade is to be placed you must be very good at money management and able to stand aside when you're wrong. basically there are no real long trades on this 4 hour chart. as I see it your support and resistance are going to take all your money in stop losses.

Second is 1 hour chart: and a sell makes some sense here as you stated 1.5150 but you can't do that using a 50 pip stop you will need minimum 150 on a 1 hour time frame as well as you can see the price of 1.51 was smashed by another 30 - you initially entered short at 1.5070 & 90 and closed at - 37 and 17 pips lost but you may be correct. my point being you entered to soon and your stop is too tight. instead of trading larger sizes practice using micro lots only and only use 1 micro lot per trade - this way you can see pips earned and lost but the damage is not much on your accounts - use real money and not demo or practice money cuz real money is where your weakness is - remember you won't get big buxk for using micro lots but you will get real pips and you can adjust your techs to develop a strategy that works for you but that will NEVER happen using practice money. I started with mini lots cuz my broker did not have micro lots and sometimes the pain was a lot as a pip equaled 1$ so to be off by 300 pips and be down by 300$ that really drove into my brain the value of patience! at least with a micro lot size you will only loose 3$ on a 300 pip loss but you will still be able to hone in on your timing and eventually spot and time counter trend trades as well.

you need to do that too. your analysis maybe be spot on and looks like your doing pretty ok but if you place entries on a 15 minute chart you need to set stops based on a 1 hour chart.

Hey thanks for the reply. I do use 4H as my trend identification but 1hr & 15min for entries. Therefore I would never be comfortable trading with a +40pip SL even today's was too big. Usually I am no more than 30 pips and I don't think this will change.

The 4hr is down from 1.53 and so coming smaller time-frame I see resistance at 5140-50 but I would rather enter with a smaller stop loss as this will keep me in the game for longer as I aim for 75-125 pips so a 300 pip stop loss wouldn't work for me.

Did you get in short on gbp/usd? i hope you did as it's down and you were trading in the right direction - did you get a trade in or move to another pair?

Disappointingly no, again had the right idea but entry evaded me. I did manage to get short today however and sold 1.4840 and was stopped at 1.4778 giving up profits as didn't take any off so +62 for today so moving back to even stevens on the account so quite pleased.

try using smaller lots and widening your stop a bit - although gbp hit 1.62 before the usd news shot it back up would have made you quite a few pips - did you try to enter when it spiked?
just trying to help

I know and appreciate any help. I didnt trade the news spike as wasn't around for it so probably a good thing. Did get a short on 18th though when we broke the 17th low which resulted in +52 so back in the green and also +22 from Fridays trading.

Not sure on direction now though as FOMC caused choppy action and could go either way with bulls from 1.5150 and above or bears from 1.4720 so may see how they react over next few days.