Trading The Higher Time Frames..

[SanJ]

Intro
Welcome everybody, to my first trading log

I haven't been around as long as most on here, but I'm a very eager learner and i know after my time spent learning and practicing trading Forex (under a year currently), this is something i have a passion for and something i definitely want to be able to do full time.

Only in the last two weeks or so i have made the change to my personal trading plan to trade strictly the higher time frames - by this i mean anything from the monthly down to the 1H charts. On these time frames is where i will spend the majority of my screen time doing my analysis - and more importantly, watching and waiting for my setups..

I chose to start this as swing trading thread as the approach i am about to share will most definitely not provide me with a trade every single day of the week - in fact, the reason i want to follow this approach is to keep me out of really the intra-day garbage that in the past has just sucked me in and only resulted in losses to my account..

I will be sharing a Myfxbook link at the bottom for those interested, and you'll be able to see my full progress to date.. As my account currently stands as i start this thread, its +25.3% up since i started traded near the beginning of this year - nothing amazing, in fact it was really one month of a few really good trades and have since been ranging.. With my new approach i look to break out of this range and continue on up.. For clarification, i am currently trading a demo account - but i will be switching and going live around September of this year, and i will update with a new Myfxbook link for this

I will be using this space as a public journal to really air my personal thoughts on the market and what i plan to do - and reviewing what i have done..

Now with the into done, a little about how i will trade..

The Strategy
As i mentioned, i will be looking at primarily daily, 4H and 1H charts for my setup. Once i see my setup unfolding on the charts, ill then be zooming in down to a 5m chart and picking an entry on this much smaller time frame as a way to control my risk and limit my stop sizes down to a maximum of 30 pips..

On each trade i will be risking 2% of my account balance. This amount is halved with each loss down to a minimum of 0.5% risk a trade until i can recover at least half of my losses from the losing trades.. Then and only then i will be scaling my risk back up until i reach my desired 2% risk again..

On each trade i will be taking partial profits (unless im risking 0.5% - where i will manually trail my stop), at 1:1 risk:reward of my trade. If i take a trade and it is not able to earn me as many pips as i had initially risked, it will be considered an automatic loss - i intend every trade to have a minimum of 1:1 risk to reward..

I am a fellow student of ICT, and have learned most of what i know and how i trade from his teachings, which can be found:
What Every New & Or Aspiring Forex Trader... Still Wants To Know
&
The Inner Circle Trader's Millionaire Traders Guild

Anybody familiar with his teachings should be familiar with the method i am about to share on how i trade..

In terms of entry criteria into a trade, i will only be looking to trade with the current trend of the HTF, and with each trade i will be looking at the majority of these criteria to be met:
- Market Structure in Sync with the current HTF trend
- Market Flow in sync with the current HTF trend
- Reactions off Key HTF support & resistance levels & institutional levels to allow me to get in sync with the HTF
- Pivot buy / sell zones
- Overbought and Oversold stochastic's + divergences
- SMT and USDx Divergences
- Intermarket Analysis - divergences between the stock and bond markets

Anyway, enough babbling, ill be giving below my first example of what i look for price to do, and why im expecting it to do it, followed by what i will be looking to trade this week..

Updated Live Account:
SanJ System | Myfxbook

Also, finally wanted to give a shout out to ICT, for his generosity in time and teachings - i hope i do you proud here!
Also, all fellow students that have helped me along my short journey so far..
And of course, the fellow musketeers

Buckle up, i can promise it'll be a bumpy ride!

[SanJ]

Ok, so my first bit of analysis i'd like to throw in..

My current bias for my two traded pairs - the cable and the fiber, is currently bullish.. We are coming down after quite a heavy sell off and but i have reason to believe we'll be looking for higher prices..

Cable - Left
USDx - Center
Fiber - Right

As clearly shown above, there is a strong bullish SMT divergence that had occurred last week which saw the Euro take out a significant Monthly low. The lower low shown in the fiber, is represented as the higher in the the USDx - showing the correlation intact. The cable however failed to make the same lower low indicating there was accumulation taking place..


As well as this, in terms of market structure, the daily chart of the cable above i have tried to illustrate what looks to be like a longer term fractal posting on the daily chart.. Represented with a intermediate term low, a longer term low, and another intermediate term low which indicates bullish market structure in the longer term..


At the same time this has been happening, the cable was also approaching its OTE on the daily chart - with all other factors in place, it was a good catalyst for a bounce which we had seen on Friday and a continuation into today..

Market flow remains bearish on the daily charts of both the cable and the fiber until the respective highs are taken out at 1.2330, and 1.5720 - which i am looking to happen.. 4H market flow is currently bullish in line with what i believe will be an up trend for the near future at least..

This coupled with the fact that seasonal tendencies show that the British pound shows weakness in July and posts a significant high leads me to my bullish bias in the market..

So for this week, i will be looking for long entries only.. There has been quite a nice buy rally up today in both the cable and fiber and i feel we may have already posted our lows for the week.. Tomorrow's action will make this a little more clearer..

I'll update later in the week if any setups play out like i had planned and what the result of the trade was...

[PREDITER]

For some reason the pictures aren't showing up

[SanJ]

For some reason the pictures aren't showing up

Decided to be clever and try through a site this time.. Must have messed up
Edited and tried to re-add, can you see them now?

[tycoon83]

Glad to see you with your thread up and running bro!
ou know the Musketeers will be following!

Nice analysis by the way, and the pictures are working for me. Master this and then its our time to get paid!

[PREDITER]

Decided to be clever and try through a site this time.. Must have messed up
Edited and tried to re-add, can you see them now?

Yes thanks I can see them now.

[PREDITER]

Sanj,

Can you please go more indepth with explaining your comment below, I'm struggling with understanding it correctly. Thanks

"As clearly shown above, there is a strong bullish SMT divergence that had occurred last week which saw the Euro take out a significant Monthly low. The lower low shown in the fiber, is represented as the higher in the the USDx - showing the correlation intact. The cable however failed to make the same lower low indicating there was accumulation taking place"

[JavaPro]

Sanj,

Just thought I would mention that your link to myfxbook is wrong.. It should include "members" instead of "portfolio" in that address. Example "http://www.myfxbook.com/members/sanj/(account profile name)/345058"

Hope that helps.. I look forward the sharing swing trade idea.

Cheers.

[BostonEJ]

Subscribing! Love the analysis and it should help me along the way as well. Just starting to demo.

Thanks for starting the thread.

EJ

[InnerCircleTrader]

I am very proud of your courage and determination...


Good Luck & Good Trading

Intro
Welcome everybody, to my first trading log

I haven't been around as long as most on here, but I'm a very eager learner and i know after my time spent learning and practicing trading Forex (under a year currently), this is something i have a passion for and something i definitely want to be able to do full time.

Only in the last two weeks or so i have made the change to my personal trading plan to trade strictly the higher time frames - by this i mean anything from the monthly down to the 1H charts. On these time frames is where i will spend the majority of my screen time doing my analysis - and more importantly, watching and waiting for my setups..

I chose to start this as swing trading thread as the approach i am about to share will most definitely not provide me with a trade every single day of the week - in fact, the reason i want to follow this approach is to keep me out of really the intra-day garbage that in the past has just sucked me in and only resulted in losses to my account..

I will be sharing a Myfxbook link at the bottom for those interested, and you'll be able to see my full progress to date.. As my account currently stands as i start this thread, its +25.3% up since i started traded near the beginning of this year - nothing amazing, in fact it was really one month of a few really good trades and have since been ranging.. With my new approach i look to break out of this range and continue on up.. For clarification, i am currently trading a demo account - but i will be switching and going live around September of this year, and i will update with a new Myfxbook link for this

I will be using this space as a public journal to really air my personal thoughts on the market and what i plan to do - and reviewing what i have done..

Now with the into done, a little about how i will trade..

The Strategy
As i mentioned, i will be looking at primarily daily, 4H and 1H charts for my setup. Once i see my setup unfolding on the charts, ill then be zooming in down to a 5m chart and picking an entry on this much smaller time frame as a way to control my risk and limit my stop sizes down to a maximum of 30 pips..

On each trade i will be risking 2% of my account balance. This amount is halved with each loss down to a minimum of 0.5% risk a trade until i can recover at least half of my losses from the losing trades.. Then and only then i will be scaling my risk back up until i reach my desired 2% risk again..

On each trade i will be taking partial profits (unless im risking 0.5% - where i will manually trail my stop), at 1:1 risk:reward of my trade. If i take a trade and it is not able to earn me as many pips as i had initially risked, it will be considered an automatic loss - i intend every trade to have a minimum of 1:1 risk to reward..

I am a fellow student of ICT, and have learned most of what i know and how i trade from his teachings, which can be found:
What Every New & Or Aspiring Forex Trader... Still Wants To Know
&
The Inner Circle Trader's Millionaire Traders Guild

Anybody familiar with his teachings should be familiar with the method i am about to share on how i trade..

In terms of entry criteria into a trade, i will only be looking to trade with the current trend of the HTF, and with each trade i will be looking at the majority of these criteria to be met:
- Market Structure in Sync with the current HTF trend
- Market Flow in sync with the current HTF trend
- Reactions off Key HTF support & resistance levels & institutional levels to allow me to get in sync with the HTF
- Pivot buy / sell zones
- Overbought and Oversold stochastic's + divergences
- SMT and USDx Divergences
- Intermarket Analysis - divergences between the stock and bond markets

Anyway, enough babbling, ill be giving below my first example of what i look for price to do, and why im expecting it to do it, followed by what i will be looking to trade this week..

https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/sanj/345058

Also, finally wanted to give a shout out to ICT, for his generosity in time and teachings - i hope i do you proud here!
Also, all fellow students that have helped me along my short journey so far..
And of course, the fellow musketeers

Buckle up, i can promise it'll be a bumpy ride!