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.

After having to deal with opening new gain acct, and all the associated paperwork, then setting up NT to work with gain etc, noticed that I was not getting the same signals as before. Which was quite frustrating. So spent most of last week just watching the scree with my signals to get a feel for what was happening.

Bottom line, have had to become more diligent and conservative in where I take my ob/os trades. Am having to wait even longer now for levels to coincide with trades. Hopefully this will be a positive and make me trade less, but with better strike rate.

This is the first trade for the day, took the first red as it was just as EU was breaking out of the range. Took the buy as the retracement into the range was very little, giving weight to a genuine breakout. Even thought it went up much higher than where I exited, my exit was based on 'apparent' exhaustion of momentum.

Done for the day.

Thursday

I had pivot at 54, and just waited for the downward momentum to stop. took my buy and was done with 5 pips.

I really should have shorted the failed break of 4100 much earlier on, but was just too chicken to take any sells with such strong momentum of eu and dollar weekness.

Waited a long long time for this trade. Almost didn't think it was going to come. Even though market was moving down, everytime I thought abt shorting it, it retraced up and would have gone against me had I been in the trade. So I just decided to stick to my guns and wait for my trade of testing of yeseterday's high, which was also the high of a very high volume 1H candle.

Tuesday

Couldn't get to the desk at my normal designated time during eur open, happened to be at the desk during this down turn, andfailed down spike coupled with o/s. GU was hitting pivot, and so was EJ, so took a bounce for 5pips. Probably finished for the day.

Monday

Knew it was holiday in US, so market would have had a tendency to be choppy (potentially). I just waited for my simple pivot trade, took my buy of the pivot bounce at 14, and exited with a simple profit, finished for the day

Simple trade into eur open, break of 00, and then hesitation, took my simple 5pips and was done for the day.

sometimes it just wasn't meant to be!!!

Well,

Sometimes it just isn't meant to me. First trade was basically break out of range and failure to carry with over sold coming into play. My next target to short was high's from Friday, but it started to stall just below that level, so I took my short after that nice upthrust that I love after a nice move up. Exited on my normal 5pips, walked away only to come back a few hours later to see it has moved 100pips further.

Oh well, such is a scalper's life

Armed and Ready

Sat down today, and saw the range that EU had been in for the last few hrs. Higher lows on all the hrly candles, but topping out. Seemed like a break was iminent.

First trade was basically overbought at hrly resistance line. When the retrace did not really go very far, and held around the 25 level, I entered a buy after that nice dip down and back up, with an expectation of break out of range. Even though my logical target should have been the highs for the day, I exited at the first sign of a stall.

Third trade came quicker than I thought. I was expecting it to do a runner past today's high, but when it stalled and failed on 3 attempts, I entered short and exited with my set 5pips. Though at the time of writing this, it is 45pips off entry :-(

importance of patience

Took one trade on Monday, but it was only a small trade, and I was too tired to make a screenshot.

This is Tuesday's trade. Well, this trade was all about patience. When I sat down, EU was in no man's land, half way between the pivot and already rejected off r1. Since eu is in a strong up trend overall, my preference has been for eu buys rather than sells. Once I started to see the down move, I decided to wait for pivot, which was nicely located around the 50 level (48). First trade was a pivot bounce, second is a reversal trade at the pivot. I could have held for longer, but I have stopped looking at hindsight trades. I reach my goal, and that is it.

Have done very minimal trading this week. Not in the number of days but just the number of trades. I have been trying to keep my trading totally limited to pivot levels or psych levels. Because the trades have been only 1-2 trades per day, I have had to wait quite some time for the to hit my price levels. Too tired in the night to post them. Just finished taking these two, and finished for the week.Another positive week, always a good thing :)

Second was a failure of what I was expecting a move towards 00 level. First was basically a rejection off daily r2.

should I or shouldn't I

I nearly shorted at 94, looking at how the chart was developing. But held back only for 1 reason, it was not my setup. Even though it looked like it was developing a nice short, but the stop would have been way up, maybe past 00, so I did not want to start taking trades in no man's land again. I had pivot at 71, and saw how it was slowing down getting to this level after picking up momentum beforehand. Even though it didn't get to 71 on NT, it did on the mt4 chart and usd/chf was hitting weekly pivot at the same time, hence my entry. Exit was based on it not following through after the first attempted retrace at that price.

Humility is best!!!

Well, I read a long time ago that it is best to be full of humility when confronting the beast that is the market. The market has its ways of making one come to their knees when they least expect it.

I had one of the best months trading for a long time, and let ego get in the way of objective trading. Decided that my entries were always good, and that if it went against me, it was bound to come back because that is what I wanted it to do. Lots of losses, let the trade go past my sl point, adding into positions etc etc. But worst of all, taking trades in areas that I call no man's land, ie getting ob/os well before levels. This led to me giving back all my profits and some.

Took some time off trading, because I wanted to give myself time for self-reflection on my mistakes. The method I use to trade works, period. The profits are there. There are trade oppurtunities abundant. And I believe I have found the missing link in my yo-yo journey of trading for financial freedom.

I shall start posting charts again next week.

Cheers,
K.

Levels

It seems that matching levels with green/red gives better results than just taking the signals in no man's land. First trade was just off green, even though I had DP at 68. Thought about waiting for 68, but got greedy, thinking I might sneak in a few pips here. Did have abt 2 pips profit, but got even more greedy and convincing myself that it will bounce for 10pips here. Exited for a small loss. Finally when 68 arrived, I was too hesitant to take it because of the prior loss, so waited for some sort of indication of reversal. It came with that little spike down and shoot up. Took the buy, made up for the loss and some more. Next trade was an impatience trade, even though it did give me positive pips, but not something I want to take. Got to keep it in my head, wait for your price!!!