Got to be aware of Daily range

When I sat down to trade, eu had done nearly 150pips. With volume coming back into the market as the holiday season finishes, the daily range needs to be watched. Even though the trend was up, I was basically looking for sells on exhaustion.

Last trades for the day. Waited for the highs to clear and not much of a retracement before taking another buy. 92 was r1, so was looking to short there. But it took so long to get there, and even though I was only looking for 3-4pips out of this, it took what felt like forever and a day to move down, so I exited for just under 2pips.

Sat down at the desk and the trend was a not clear, but was certainly not down, UP to neutral. So it was buys all the way.

Got in a bit early

Due to not being able to trade yesterday, I decided to get to the desk a little bit early today. Not sure if it is a good idea or not, as it is not in my time slot.

Opened up the charts, and saw that trend was down. Took the first trade as it looked like there was multiple bottoms around the support line. Should have known better. Should have known better - trend down look for sells, and wait for strong o/s (green) to buy. Took a small loss on this one.

Second trade was sell after the lower low from break of support, and exited at the green. Could have bought, but with daily low being not too far away, and dp at 59, decided to wait for a buy closer to dp.

Third trade took a buy after green, and apparent exhaustion of down move.

This could be it for the day. Lets see.

Regards.

Ok, first day back at the desk for 2011. Opened up the charts and saw that trend was down. I was waiting for the figure to break, and when saw it did break and the retracement held below the support level, I entered and took my profit as it was breaking the previous low.

Second trade was a simple green trade and a higher low.

Third trade was with the immediate trend, and lower lows forming around the figure.

Forth trade I was looking at entering in the highlighted area, but the small up and small down had me uncertain, so waited for some sort of direction, the break of the highlighted area and then the retracement holding gave me good reason to enter long coupled with previous day's lows levels. Took profit as soon as I saw exhaustion because it was counter trend.

Fifth trade was a stupid trade that I should not have taken, but did and closed for a small loss

Sixth trade was basically momentum play as the whole move looked like it was targeting the lows for the day around 75.

That is the first day done. Am relatively happy with the outcome.

Strategy

After much thought and analysis paralysis, I basically came up with a business plan with certain objectives and ways to reduce risk.

Objective - make whatever trades you can according to your strategy within the timeframe you are going to be trading.

Reduce risk - there are several ways in theory one can reduce risk, but there are also personal ways one can do it. NO matter how much I trade, analyse etc, I always keep coming back to a mantra I read when I first started trading - "know thyself". My personal way of reducing risk is to limit the time I spend in front of the screen and actually trading. My track record personally has always highlighted that the longer I stay at the screen, the more likely I am to make mistakes eventually. By reducing the amount of time in front of the screen, I am reducing my time in the market, and also reducing the chance of me taking 'bad' trades. I know there are traders who will disagree with me, but each to their own.

I have a value beyond which I will be reluctant to keep waiting for trades. This value is not a target to achieve, but more of a realistic target that should be achievable on average per day for the whole week. Sometimes I will get more sometimes less. If the market is moving great during my time at the screen, I will keep trading, but if I have already made my value, and the market looks like it may kick up again, then I shall not be taking any trades.

Lets see what the next 6 months bring, and all the best to my fellow traders.

Regards,

K.

2011 - This is the Year

Well, it certainly has been quite sometime since I posted any trades. There are several reasons, with the main one being that I was trying too hard to make something simple work for me. I took some time off from trading, and a few weeks didn't think about it, then a few weeks just thinking about what I was doing and where I wanted to go, and then finally the last few weeks formulating the mental attitude.

This is the year that I plan to make mine - ie this year I will see the total and complete harvest of all the seeds I have sowed in the forex market. I aim is to be able to get to a stage where I am able to attract investors, and this can be only done with a solid track record. This blog from here on will be where I shall put my trades in, and a brief explaination for each one.