Sometimes, patience is worth it

Well, it took just over 1 hr of waiting for this trade to happen. Was waiting for a buy at the pivot, didn,t come. Waited for the buy at the weekly R1, missed it by 3pips. Once I saw the big up candle, had a feeling that 3100 would be acheived sometime today. Was just hoping that it would be when I would be awake. Didn't take the first push past 3100, since it was the first push past it for some time. Wanted to see the reaction. Once the second push came and it failed, I entered short on the lower high, exited for my pre-determined pip amt. In hindsight, could have stayed in the move, but with 3100 being touched after so much ranging, I was expecting a pretty heavy push past it.

Pivot at 95, got red, waited for the lower high. Then I had support at 73, got green around 75, waited to see if it would hit 73. It went down, and came back up to 75, so entered the trade.

Just a not to myself for future, the huge down move was already being signaled before, red at pivot, lower spike ups, so theoritcally, should have entered at one of those lower high spikes. Oh well, live and learn.

I was getting over sold at the figure, but because it already tested the figure a few times earlier in the session, I was waiting for pivot which was at 95. I actually expected a bit of a bigger push down from the pivot, not a straight out rejection, hence my entry was not at the pivot.

Took two trades today. This one was at a fib.

Traded yesterday, but market was so crap during my time, that I took one trade out of impatience, and knew straightaway it was bad. Cut it for 1 pip. Things didn't pick up much after that, just spikey spikey up down, so called it day.

Took this trade today, after about 20mins of sitting down. Had oversold at high of the day so far, and there was already a bit of a push up before this, so sold the lower high, and exited at the first pike down. stop was above the daily high.

1 trade today - done

This is my trade for the day. Firstly, I had pivot at 60, secondly, I already had green show up as a potential over sold area. Was first touch of the pivot for the day, so was bound to bouce immediately. Normally, I will take a few trades in the day, but today I'll leave it at this for a few reasons - Friday, and also eur bank stress tests results. As I do not know when they will be out, so best not to be in the market at all.

How Much is Enough?

A long time ago, I posted in the forums a question: "How much is enough?"

I was referring to pips. It seemed I got many different views, and in the end it came back to one of the first mantra I read "Know thyself".

I was in a trade at the start of the global financial crisis, when all the CB cut interest rates at the same time at the start of the NY session. My trade was up 3pips, and I 'thought' this should go more. So I held, and then all of a sudden, I was down 60pips in 1 tick. CB cut interest rates. It took me 2 more ticks to get over the shock, and cut the trade, but that was abt 100pips later. 3hrs later, eu was 100pips below where my initial trade was!! Moral of the story for me - enter, take ur pips and exit asap.

There are many limitations to the time I can devote to trading. As such, I have price levels I will wait for, coupled with the overbought/over red/green signal. And if I get just 1 trade for 2-3pips so be it.

These days, I take small amt of pips and let it work out in $$.

My screen as it is.

This is my trading screen on NT. In addition to this, I have a 5M chart of eu and usd/chf, with pivots and volume indicator.

My macro direction is the 25second chart. The 5 tick chart is there for seeing exhaustion points and the 1tick is for entry.

The EJ chart is there for co-relation. I don't trade if EJ and EU are going in the opp direction, unless, ej is running into exhaustion.

The trading screen might look cluttered, but it achieves what I need it to do. ie give me the macro direction, the entry screen, my pair in sync (ie with ej), and turning posibilities.