Since when is London the crappiest trading session?

S/R trade to H1 direction.



I´ll change broker next week. ATM spread is a pure murder, current spreads are 1.7-2 average on pairs I trade. New broker less than 1.

1 pip is HUGE difference, on 1000 trades it is 1000 pips.

Found some calculator to illustrate 4 pips scalps with 75% winnings. Damn!

One other thing I find invaluable for trading the smaller time frames is wait for the chart to expand.

Most solid strategies will work pretty well when the chart gets moving, most will struggle when it gets tight.

And with so many bars per day it's just a matter of time before the chart expands. Sometimes you might not be doing anything for a few hours but you know the chart is going to expand at some point, wait till then otherwise you'll probably pay the price as you get topped and tailed. Remember, there are so many bars, so much time over the day, that you don't have to try to get on everything.

Calculus - do you use pending orders?

I was watching UJ and EJ, but hard to handle both on real time, so I picked one.
Thaught ab setting buy limit on EJ, as EUR is performing as strongest and JPY weakest today, but didnt take the risk.

Took the level for few pips.
Not the smartest trade, because ECB still in play and level on M1 tested third time.
My experience says 1-st and maybe 2-nd test are worth the risk, 3-rd and more - not really.

90% of the time I enter with a a stop limit (I'm after momentum). I use Button trader and it's excellent. One click and I've got an order working with a stop, it's very programmable and so easy to move/cancel/change orders. Only works with Interactive Brokers however.

For getting out with a profit I tend to use both limit and market orders. Often/usually when I use a limit price goes further, that's trading. I always cover into a straight line move that moves into some sort of level, that's a market order, one click with button trader via my trusty Logitech G13 (programmable keypad).

Taking profits is always hard. It's the hardest skill to learn in trading which is why if you search, there's not too much good info out there. Taking profits is what separates the men from the boys in this game. However, there probably isn't a perfect profit taking plan for any trader (even the best) so trying to get something that's half decent to good is the best we can all do. If I didn't have a strong constitution working out when/why/how to take profits would have sent me to the mad house a long time ago, it's that hard. That's why there's so little good info out there because there are few proper answers...

PS. One of the best profit taking strategies I've developed is actually trading against myself. Every time I have a long on (or short for reverse) and I catch myself saying/thinking 'this is really going to blow' AROUND A BIG LEVEL I cover straight away at market. I cannot tell you how good this is and I think it all relates to the concept of the 'crowd of price action'. On the short term charts the price action can suck you in, semi-hypnotise you (and more importantly many other market participants) so higher (or lower) prices will sub-consciously put you in auto-bullish mode and at the same time you won''t even consider the market might go lower. This is lethal for the short term trader and so traders must do everything they can to work out how not to be sucked into the crowd of price action. Nobody can have their shields up all the time, markets are perverse, they will work that perversity on you everyday, sucking you into the crowd of price action is one way the perversity will get you even if your plan is solid and you know what you're doing.

Hello Crackpot,

is this the same strategy you use on your myfxbook? I just saw your post on the Scammers - Hall Of Shame thread.

Nice results

Yes, same strategy, so far it works for me. Even with killer spreads, cent acc wont make me sweat.
http://www.myfxbook.com/members/Crackpot/moth/2007678

This is so true lol, this PA stuff we see is nothing but a product of STOP HUNTING..

bigger institutions hunting for smaller institution = PA.

Some moron say they hunt our stops but that's so ridicolous lol.. RETAILERS are such a tiny portion of the market and probably 99% of our orders don't get passed outside anyway.. but as we receive quotes from the interbank we can see this happening all the time, and we can get trapped just like the prop traders.


What can we do to survive ? IMO the only solution is to avoid discretionary trading, because we just can't compete with those "riggers" with decades of experience in oversmarting people.