Apologies to the people who enjoy reading this series, I have been really busy with life, kids, work, bikes and cars etc. but hopefully its going to chill for the next few weeks. Will see how it goes and maybe I can do a few more of these trade journals.
I'm not going to go over all the last however many trades since my last post as it would take too long, but not much as changed, few winners, few losers and was residing at roughly 16%-17% growth for the month prior to todays fun filled day of trading. I am, however going to put in Fridays trade, which was my highest winner I have ever had, and was really psychologically draining and feel I need to get that written down.
Onto today though, 2 trades placed today, 1 winner, 1 loser.
First trade I placed was on the EURAUD.
Relatively simple trade, with multiple confluences to the down side.
A break of structure, followed by a break of VWAP whilst I was away from the computer. Came to the screen approximately 15 minutes before the set up.
The thing is, its very very easy to chase price, but of the recent 2 maybe 3 months, patience is something I have had to work on and sometimes I cant handle it and rush in still, but the majority of the time I am waiting for the entry, as in this particular trade.
So price broke below VWAP and retraced back into VWAP whcih is what I was waiting for, that confirmation. With a 5m structure level there, as well as the previous days high close to the area too, I am looking to going short, 5m passes and there is a large candle to the downside, and that is the entry reason.
Enter with 1% risk, stops above VWAP, and the resistance level. We have already had a rejection from the previous days high, so I figured my stop would be fine, right on that price, as I am not expecting it to be tested another time.
Profits were aimed at hourly structure to the left off of the screen (Hourly chart posted below)
Relatively simple throughout, no particular surprises. Even managed to get myself another 1% entry into the trade as it broke below and retested the previous 5m swing low, entry reason being the pinbar. Sell stop order was set 1pip below that candle and was triggered in within a few seconds or so of placing it, with no draw down whatsoever. Pretty accurate stuff. Once placed, stop loss was brought to breakeven so I am still only at 1% risk.
ADD TO WINNERS, SCALE OUT OF LOSERS! Not the other way around.
I will always maintain that mantra. But thats not within the scope of this.
Come the end of the trade, I am watching price action and wondering is it going to tag out the previous days lows? It had already took out fridays low, but thursdays low? I had hopes, and my TP for trade 2 was at that price shown by the position tool but momentum started to slow down and we had only just crossed a daily level. I ultimately watched TP of trade 1 get hit, and manually closed the second trade a second or 2 later. I figured we will likely get a retracement and a test of the daily support to see if it becomes resistance. Was relieved to see the bullish candle after I was out, patted myself on the back and left it at that. The push down below my TP, 10 or 15 minutes later is what it is. Doesnt bother me to leave a little money on the table, when I have already put more on the dinner table for the wife to get her hair done, or nails or whatever she wants.
You can imagine some stress, and psychology becomes a factor after you see this sort of thing once in the trade. As in, imagine not closing the trade at that point and seeing the bullish candle come in, getting further from TP. Simply momentum slowed, we have broken key support. Im out, whatever happens, happens. No stress, no should I, Would I, could I, make the decision based on what you see. Could sit there waiting for TP to get hit, and the market ultimately fall back to break even in these sort of areas. Sometimes, taking profit is good
Good trade though, simple enough
3.77% Gain
Image of hourly chart, with reasons why TP were where they were
Trade 2 - USDCAD
A sign of impatience. Told you, I am better at being patient, but its not completely eradicated.
This is coming off the back of trade 1 so naturally I was a bit hyped, over confident, excited, invincible, call it what you will but honestly, looking at it now, the position isnt great and doesnt really make all that much sense. Similar to before, break and retest of VWAP with a bigger candle than before, AND that one was a pin bar too so maybe entry reason wasn't so bad. But certainly the area I got in was. Stops above VWAP, fine, but there is a huge amount of resistance above my stop, thats where my entry needs to be, not my stop in what, in hindsight of course, is a rushed entry. Simply a sell limit order at resistance would have been fine, and in fact looks like a solid trade to be honest. Nothing more needed to be said really. Sell of 1% risk, closed roughly half to three quarters of the the position once getting into some drawdown, and the remainder hit the stop loss.
If I had set a sell limit order, I could have got the SR level on my side, target 3x the risk and aimed for daily lows. I don't know if it would win, it certainly hasn't at the time of writing this, but just from an aesthetic point of view, it just sits nicer, and simply makes more sense.
0.46% loss for my impatience. Terrible
Not a bad day, some lessons to be learned from trade 2 which is natural in this game. But some confidence gained in trade one.
Daily Gain: 3.31%
Weekly Gain: 3.31%
Monthly Gain: 21.71%
NOW, my record breaker. This was tough. Probably the hardest trade I have done in a long time, but I was adamant I was going to stick it out. Emotional turmoil. Forex chat distractions, uncertainty, and I had just put another few thousand of the queens finest pounds in the day before into my account so the numbers were a little higher than I expected and put me off a little bit. The speed of how fast the money was changing, wasnt expecting it to be as hard as it was. Ultimately had to turn the position off and have it with showing just pips.
So, the trade...
I missed the entry of the strategy I use with this indicator, which is the close of bearish pressure within 2 candles of the second top forming. Fortunately, I was offered a late entry at an even better price, in the form of a bearish pin bar still below the second top. Entered short, stops 1ATR above the double top, then instantly into profit. Comfortable. So what were the issues? As I said, I had put some extra money into my account and the strategy is something I use all the time, or a variation of, as it is quite flexible whilst still being rules based.
For example in trade one, I am using previous days level, VWAP and the SR as confluence to go down in terms of entry.
In this instance, previous days level, the target of the double top and VWAP are confluence that is where price wants to go to, if that makes sense. Its basically setting up the trade in reverse. VWAP is a magnet, it either repels or attracts price. It has repelled most of the day, slowed down, made a double top, and its likely VWAP is now going to turn into a magnet.
It is one of the reasons I enjoy this strategy, that I am not going to say I created, but I certainly have put a lot of work into it. Of course, a guru has explained SR, a guru has explained VWAP, a guru has explained double bottoms/ tops, but I was the one to combine the ideas together, in my own little way that I understand and within the grasps of my trading style.
And, I'm not going to blow my own trumpet, but I think a little more refinement, it is going to be one hell of a strategy going forward. Anyway, I digress...
So in chat, roughly half way through the trade where I am up roughly £130, someone in chat said along the lines of buy the EUR, DXY is retracing. Right, okay dude... every second that went past after that, well my profit went 130 and turned to 120, to 110, to 90, to 60. Again, added money, hadn't seen money come and go like this for a long time. In simulators, its different. you can trade millions, and look at Facebook doing it. It doesnt mean anything, but this was to me.
Do I close?
Do I hold?
Do I bring stops to evens?
Do I leave them out?
My head had just gone. I didn't know what to do and I had to force myself to think logically.
Why is my stop there?
Because that disproves the idea. Good. So that's fine.
Has it moved enough to warrant being at break even yet. My rule is I want to see price be at 1:1.1 or higher before I bring stops to break even, has it done that? No, stops stay out.
What is price action doing? Well to get to where it was, it put in a momentum candle into the neckline, price always reacts to the neckline of double top patterns. Is this out of the ordinary? No. Keep in the trade.
VWAP upper band is in that area as well, price is likely to react to that too, is anything out of the ordinary happening there, no. Stay in the trade.
The more I sat and calmed myself down, and thought about it in a logical way, has my strategy, has my idea been disproven, the more I couldn't help but think the guy in chat is just a lunatic.
But it still puts that littlest bit of doubt in your mind at a crucial stage of the trade.
So I held on. Price eventually came back to where it was prior to chat guy giving me a headache originally, it broke the swing low, and everything was okay. This is the point I turned off money being shown in the charts... and I also found the automatic one click buy/ sell button whilst doing so. The arrows you see mid way through the trade are just me playing with a 1000 units, and aren't really relevant to the trade.
This might not mean a lot to people, but you can back test all day, all night, every week, but its empty. There is nothing on the line and clicking a forward button and watching price action either hit or stop out is emotionless. Being in the trade at that point for me was slowly becoming a bit stressful, even though, I was comfortable with everything on the trade, the risk, the price action, the strategy, something was just bugging me in the back of my mind. Even now, I cant think what it was. Just had a little devil on my shoulder whispering... but I held my nerve, and held on.
In fact, I held on so much that towards the end, I said to myself , I am not even going to close the trade manually, I am going to sit here, with my Iced coffee, and watch it hit my TP.
3 times it bounced away from it before hitting it, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. No, I needed that. I know I am right. The confidence I got from that one trade was unreal. The middle finger to the devil on my shoulder, the middle finger to Forex chat guy.
I do want to thank @ZenFlo as well, a regular in the Forex chat. I messaged him during the trade, reference how he handles these situations, the psychological aspects, the pressure, the doubt, the stress, all of it and how he deals with the internal argument between yourself, be it trusting the strategy, or instinct/ intuition, or some random guy in chats analysis. He really did help me take my mind off of it. So, again, thank you.
Was my biggest and best trade to date
Daily Gain: 3.31%
Weekly Gain: 3.31%
Monthly Gain: 21.71%
Thanks for reading,
Let me know how YOU deal with the doubts that creep up inside your head mid trade!
I'm not going to go over all the last however many trades since my last post as it would take too long, but not much as changed, few winners, few losers and was residing at roughly 16%-17% growth for the month prior to todays fun filled day of trading. I am, however going to put in Fridays trade, which was my highest winner I have ever had, and was really psychologically draining and feel I need to get that written down.
Onto today though, 2 trades placed today, 1 winner, 1 loser.
First trade I placed was on the EURAUD.
Relatively simple trade, with multiple confluences to the down side.
A break of structure, followed by a break of VWAP whilst I was away from the computer. Came to the screen approximately 15 minutes before the set up.
The thing is, its very very easy to chase price, but of the recent 2 maybe 3 months, patience is something I have had to work on and sometimes I cant handle it and rush in still, but the majority of the time I am waiting for the entry, as in this particular trade.
So price broke below VWAP and retraced back into VWAP whcih is what I was waiting for, that confirmation. With a 5m structure level there, as well as the previous days high close to the area too, I am looking to going short, 5m passes and there is a large candle to the downside, and that is the entry reason.
Enter with 1% risk, stops above VWAP, and the resistance level. We have already had a rejection from the previous days high, so I figured my stop would be fine, right on that price, as I am not expecting it to be tested another time.
Profits were aimed at hourly structure to the left off of the screen (Hourly chart posted below)
Relatively simple throughout, no particular surprises. Even managed to get myself another 1% entry into the trade as it broke below and retested the previous 5m swing low, entry reason being the pinbar. Sell stop order was set 1pip below that candle and was triggered in within a few seconds or so of placing it, with no draw down whatsoever. Pretty accurate stuff. Once placed, stop loss was brought to breakeven so I am still only at 1% risk.
ADD TO WINNERS, SCALE OUT OF LOSERS! Not the other way around.
I will always maintain that mantra. But thats not within the scope of this.
Come the end of the trade, I am watching price action and wondering is it going to tag out the previous days lows? It had already took out fridays low, but thursdays low? I had hopes, and my TP for trade 2 was at that price shown by the position tool but momentum started to slow down and we had only just crossed a daily level. I ultimately watched TP of trade 1 get hit, and manually closed the second trade a second or 2 later. I figured we will likely get a retracement and a test of the daily support to see if it becomes resistance. Was relieved to see the bullish candle after I was out, patted myself on the back and left it at that. The push down below my TP, 10 or 15 minutes later is what it is. Doesnt bother me to leave a little money on the table, when I have already put more on the dinner table for the wife to get her hair done, or nails or whatever she wants.
You can imagine some stress, and psychology becomes a factor after you see this sort of thing once in the trade. As in, imagine not closing the trade at that point and seeing the bullish candle come in, getting further from TP. Simply momentum slowed, we have broken key support. Im out, whatever happens, happens. No stress, no should I, Would I, could I, make the decision based on what you see. Could sit there waiting for TP to get hit, and the market ultimately fall back to break even in these sort of areas. Sometimes, taking profit is good
Good trade though, simple enough
3.77% Gain
Trade 2 - USDCAD
A sign of impatience. Told you, I am better at being patient, but its not completely eradicated.
This is coming off the back of trade 1 so naturally I was a bit hyped, over confident, excited, invincible, call it what you will but honestly, looking at it now, the position isnt great and doesnt really make all that much sense. Similar to before, break and retest of VWAP with a bigger candle than before, AND that one was a pin bar too so maybe entry reason wasn't so bad. But certainly the area I got in was. Stops above VWAP, fine, but there is a huge amount of resistance above my stop, thats where my entry needs to be, not my stop in what, in hindsight of course, is a rushed entry. Simply a sell limit order at resistance would have been fine, and in fact looks like a solid trade to be honest. Nothing more needed to be said really. Sell of 1% risk, closed roughly half to three quarters of the the position once getting into some drawdown, and the remainder hit the stop loss.
If I had set a sell limit order, I could have got the SR level on my side, target 3x the risk and aimed for daily lows. I don't know if it would win, it certainly hasn't at the time of writing this, but just from an aesthetic point of view, it just sits nicer, and simply makes more sense.
0.46% loss for my impatience. Terrible
Not a bad day, some lessons to be learned from trade 2 which is natural in this game. But some confidence gained in trade one.
Daily Gain: 3.31%
Weekly Gain: 3.31%
Monthly Gain: 21.71%
NOW, my record breaker. This was tough. Probably the hardest trade I have done in a long time, but I was adamant I was going to stick it out. Emotional turmoil. Forex chat distractions, uncertainty, and I had just put another few thousand of the queens finest pounds in the day before into my account so the numbers were a little higher than I expected and put me off a little bit. The speed of how fast the money was changing, wasnt expecting it to be as hard as it was. Ultimately had to turn the position off and have it with showing just pips.
So, the trade...
I missed the entry of the strategy I use with this indicator, which is the close of bearish pressure within 2 candles of the second top forming. Fortunately, I was offered a late entry at an even better price, in the form of a bearish pin bar still below the second top. Entered short, stops 1ATR above the double top, then instantly into profit. Comfortable. So what were the issues? As I said, I had put some extra money into my account and the strategy is something I use all the time, or a variation of, as it is quite flexible whilst still being rules based.
For example in trade one, I am using previous days level, VWAP and the SR as confluence to go down in terms of entry.
In this instance, previous days level, the target of the double top and VWAP are confluence that is where price wants to go to, if that makes sense. Its basically setting up the trade in reverse. VWAP is a magnet, it either repels or attracts price. It has repelled most of the day, slowed down, made a double top, and its likely VWAP is now going to turn into a magnet.
It is one of the reasons I enjoy this strategy, that I am not going to say I created, but I certainly have put a lot of work into it. Of course, a guru has explained SR, a guru has explained VWAP, a guru has explained double bottoms/ tops, but I was the one to combine the ideas together, in my own little way that I understand and within the grasps of my trading style.
And, I'm not going to blow my own trumpet, but I think a little more refinement, it is going to be one hell of a strategy going forward. Anyway, I digress...
So in chat, roughly half way through the trade where I am up roughly £130, someone in chat said along the lines of buy the EUR, DXY is retracing. Right, okay dude... every second that went past after that, well my profit went 130 and turned to 120, to 110, to 90, to 60. Again, added money, hadn't seen money come and go like this for a long time. In simulators, its different. you can trade millions, and look at Facebook doing it. It doesnt mean anything, but this was to me.
Do I close?
Do I hold?
Do I bring stops to evens?
Do I leave them out?
My head had just gone. I didn't know what to do and I had to force myself to think logically.
Why is my stop there?
Because that disproves the idea. Good. So that's fine.
Has it moved enough to warrant being at break even yet. My rule is I want to see price be at 1:1.1 or higher before I bring stops to break even, has it done that? No, stops stay out.
What is price action doing? Well to get to where it was, it put in a momentum candle into the neckline, price always reacts to the neckline of double top patterns. Is this out of the ordinary? No. Keep in the trade.
VWAP upper band is in that area as well, price is likely to react to that too, is anything out of the ordinary happening there, no. Stay in the trade.
The more I sat and calmed myself down, and thought about it in a logical way, has my strategy, has my idea been disproven, the more I couldn't help but think the guy in chat is just a lunatic.
But it still puts that littlest bit of doubt in your mind at a crucial stage of the trade.
So I held on. Price eventually came back to where it was prior to chat guy giving me a headache originally, it broke the swing low, and everything was okay. This is the point I turned off money being shown in the charts... and I also found the automatic one click buy/ sell button whilst doing so. The arrows you see mid way through the trade are just me playing with a 1000 units, and aren't really relevant to the trade.
This might not mean a lot to people, but you can back test all day, all night, every week, but its empty. There is nothing on the line and clicking a forward button and watching price action either hit or stop out is emotionless. Being in the trade at that point for me was slowly becoming a bit stressful, even though, I was comfortable with everything on the trade, the risk, the price action, the strategy, something was just bugging me in the back of my mind. Even now, I cant think what it was. Just had a little devil on my shoulder whispering... but I held my nerve, and held on.
In fact, I held on so much that towards the end, I said to myself , I am not even going to close the trade manually, I am going to sit here, with my Iced coffee, and watch it hit my TP.
3 times it bounced away from it before hitting it, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. No, I needed that. I know I am right. The confidence I got from that one trade was unreal. The middle finger to the devil on my shoulder, the middle finger to Forex chat guy.
I do want to thank @ZenFlo as well, a regular in the Forex chat. I messaged him during the trade, reference how he handles these situations, the psychological aspects, the pressure, the doubt, the stress, all of it and how he deals with the internal argument between yourself, be it trusting the strategy, or instinct/ intuition, or some random guy in chats analysis. He really did help me take my mind off of it. So, again, thank you.
Was my biggest and best trade to date
Daily Gain: 3.31%
Weekly Gain: 3.31%
Monthly Gain: 21.71%
Thanks for reading,
Let me know how YOU deal with the doubts that creep up inside your head mid trade!