Joelpip's 5% a month Journal

Hello fellow traders,

I have been learning how to trade for almost 4 years and have decided to open a live account. Journaling my trades will hopefully help me stick to my trading plan and increase my consistency. I would say my strategy is predominantly short-term swing trading using ICT’s teachings. I will be trading GBP/USD, EUR/USD, AUS/USD, USD/CAD, USD/JPY only.

My goals are to make over 5% a month with DD below 10%.

Entry Rules

EMA – I use EMA’s at 9 and 18 on a daily or 4hr chart to tell me if I should be looking for Buys or Sells. I trade only when the EMA’s are separated. If the EMA 9 is above the EMA 18 I am looking for Buy entries. If the EMA 18 is above the 9 I will be looking for Sell entries. Below are some examples of Buys zones.


Fib OTE - I will be using a Fibonacci retracement for my entry. Between the 62% or 79% (or ICT sweet spot).


Order blocks – Please see an example of a Sell order block below. I will be using blue boxes to outline order blocks on my charts


Asian range – I will only Sell above Asian range low and Buy below Asian Range high. I will show Asian range as purple on my charts


Pivots – I will be using daily pivots and will only be Buying when price is below Central Pivot and Selling when price is above Central Pivot.

Kill Zones – I will only be trading in ICT Kill zones. Predominantly the London Open Kill zone (7am – 9.30am GMT) and New York Open Kill zone (12pm - 2pm GMT).

Oscillator Divergence – I will be using hidden divergence and ICT Stinger. Below is an example of hidden divergence. I will be marking divergence in yellow lines on my charts


S&R – I will be using HTF and LTF highs/lows, pivot lines, big figures, institutional figures, weekly open and previous Asian range highs and lows and support and resistance.

Money Management Rules

[ul]
[li]Always have a Stop loss
[/li][li]Stop loss no more than 35 pips
[/li][li]Never risk more than 2% per trade
[/li][li]Drop to 1% risk after a loss
[/li][li]Drop to 0.5% after 2 consecutive losses
[/li][li]Increase risk as account recovers from losses
[/li][li]Risk to Reward ratio needs to be at least 1:1
[/li][li]Have targets and stop loss predetermined before entry
[/li][li]No more than 4 trades a week
[/li][/ul]

I am using Ayondo as my broker and have a spread-betting account as it is currently tax-free in the UK. As I am not sure if I can post links to my results page I will posting a screenshot of my account at the end of every week.

If I haven’t made anything clear please let me know and I will expand.

GLGT

MA’s are in a buy bias on the daily


https://www.tradingview.com/x/WHRoIhpw/

4HR order block


https://www.tradingview.com/x/c7OhO4YY/

OTE, S1 pivot point and Type II divergence


https://www.tradingview.com/x/gfaa0hdQ/


https://www.tradingview.com/x/wIVG68wt/

Entry: 1.71138
SL: 1.70880

Update: Position moving too slowly so I closed at 1.71157

1st week off to a slow start. But as they say…slow and steady wins the race.


Daily MA bias Sell % divergence


https://www.tradingview.com/x/t9aEhmWA/

1hr Order Block with divergence


https://www.tradingview.com/x/X1x8KRyb/

OTE


https://www.tradingview.com/x/cZdERs3a/


https://www.tradingview.com/x/BnbKjU7J/

Entry: 1.07267
Stop: 1.07424

Update: oh dear, that didn’t go as planned. Stopped out for a loss. I’m going to cut risk for next trade.

Daily S/R line


https://www.tradingview.com/x/t5ZRPsxX/

4hr MA’s are in a sell bias. 4hr order block


https://www.tradingview.com/x/oDAvyBLW/

1hr order block, OTE, Sell above central pivot, line of daily resistance



https://www.tradingview.com/x/jYKfmzdH/

Would consider sell at the 1.7070 figure at a kill zone

Shame it didn’t retrace into my entry zone. Would of been a nice sell.


https://www.tradingview.com/x/gfnLgYQt/

Still down -1.41% for the month as I didn’t take a trade this week. There were a couple of trades that didn’t quite hit my entry criteria. Hopefully next week there are a few more trade set-ups and I can finish the month with my account in the positive.


5% sounds good. Which broker would you open live account? I started with ironfx.com as 1000 usd from Feb 2014. now 1500 usd. few days ago it was 1800 usd but buy eurusd at 1.3545 then lost 90 pips - 180 usd. And some loses at audusd

Well Im not anywhere near 5% this month lol. I am currently using Ayondo. Haven’t been using them long so no real feedback on them yet.

Daily MA’s are opening for a sell bias


https://www.tradingview.com/x/V58RLr2I/

1hr Order Block, R1 pivot line, 79% OTE, Minor divergence


https://www.tradingview.com/x/VwwUsrQC/


https://www.tradingview.com/x/TjvSidof/

Entry: 1.6985
Stop: 1.7006

Update: Trade was moving too slow. Price broke through the fib, broke though R1 and made a higher high on 1hr TF. I think it was the bounce down off the big figure that kept me in the trade. As price retraced I exited trade at break even.

Daily OTE, divergence and order block


https://www.tradingview.com/x/nzENdqU1/

4hr Order block within the daily order block, R2 pivot line, big figure


https://www.tradingview.com/x/03ax1xCo/

The MA’s are out of sink with sell bias but price seems to be ranging on daily TF. If I have another confluence I will take the trade.

15min OTE within daily OTE. 15 min divergence, NYO kill zone


https://www.tradingview.com/x/kn6MZ34Q/


https://www.tradingview.com/x/wcSruWGa/

Entry: 101.95
Stop: 102.26

MA’s are down on daily (and also 4hr)


https://www.tradingview.com/x/i3IHIHh9/

OTE, OB, Divergence


https://www.tradingview.com/x/9lu346rH/

R:R


https://www.tradingview.com/x/uWemEAni/

Entry: 1.65670
Stop: 1.66040