Journey to success?

Hello everyone! This is my first post on the forum, and I’m very excited to be here.

First of all I’d like to mention that I’ve gone over the school and I’ve been demo trading the past couple of months. I intend on starting to trade with real money sometime in December or January. This will be my little collection of technical (and possibly fundamental) analysis that will present the trades that I take.

I hope you all enjoy what’s about to come!

All the Best I started trading like four months ago, I am enjoying it, but look out for fear and greed, too bad for a trader. Learn and learn and learn more. You will succeed. GoddLuck

Thank you Hloni!

I shorted AUD/USD and went long on USD/CAD last night. We saw AUD/USD ranging between a strong support line and a relatively strong resistance line, and I jumped in on a short position shortly after price had bounced off the aforementioned resistance line. USD/CAD was bouncing off an upward trendline and I decided to jump in on a long position which yielded a 26 pip profit. I locked in a 59 pip profit on the AUD/USD trade. Currently shorting GBP/JPY but it’s not working out that well, so I might get out of that trade. Currently -10 pips.

I opened this account 32 days ago and I’ve made $250. Note that the reason I made such a small amount on a demo account of $50,000 is because I traded the account as though it only consisted of $1,000. I did that to replicate how I’d trade a live account. As you can imagine, the lots I traded weren’t big at all. At most I would trade 10k lots, but a LOT of my trades were 1K, 3K, and 5K lots. Overall, I’d have increased a $1,000 account by 25% over the course of a month. I’m quite satisfied with that - I profited more than 300 pips in a month, which is a weekly average of 75 pips.

Charts:

(Note: the green dotted line is the price I entered the trade and the red dotted line is the price I got out of the trade).

AUD/USD: http://oi62.tinypic.com/1zi3ag.jpg

USD/CAD: http://oi61.tinypic.com/2nvcjll.jpg

I hope you enjoyed reading and have a nice weekend!

Went short GBP/JPY a couple of days ago.

The green dotted line shows where I entered and the red dotted line was my limit net. Price did move down even further but I’m glad I caught at least some of the move.

My long order on NZD/USD got triggered today and was up 80 pips something at some point, but I was in school and when I got home and saw the huge shadow which was just a few pips below my limit net it was kind of upsetting, but oh well, it’s not real cash (yet).

We saw a neutral pennant/triangle (is that what they’re called?) forming on the 4hr chart and I decided to place an OCO order last night. It got triggered today while I was in school. I locked in profit at 66,3 pips but now it’s gone up by another 35 pips or so.

Over the past three days I’ve made a total of more than 160 pips. :slight_smile:

I’ve been a little inactive as you all can see the past couple of weeks, but I’m back. I’ll probably start trading live sometime next week, but for now I’m still on demo. I have three trades set up:

Pair: GBP/JPY
Entry: 175,100
Stop loss: 174,700
Limit: 176,000
Price appears to be breaking through a resistance zone at around the 174,500 zone, moving up. Trade idea is to enter slightly above the 175,00 psychological handle. Entrance has been placed at 175,100, stop-loss is at 174,700 (40 pips) and limit is at 176,00 (90 pips), which gives a greater risk:reward than 2:1. Price has blown through this area before and it is likely that it will do so again.
Update 19:02 - Trade has just been triggered. Up about a pip.

Pair: EUR/USD
Entry: 1.26013
Stop: 1.26225
Limit: 1.25700
Price is bouncing off resistance, and entry is placed at the previous candles open. It appears as though price is simply moving from resistance to support, therefore a short order has been closed to make use of that price move. Feeling quite confident about the trade, it seems to be a rather good setup. Price alert has been set slightly above the resistance zone in case price moves up suddenly.

Pair: AUD/USD
Entry: 0.88104
Limit: 0.87558
Stop: 0.88272
Entry is at the open of the previous candle. Price appears to be moving from an area of resistance down to an area of support - that’s what the trade is hopefully going to make use of (the swing between the resistance and the support areas). Feeling confident aboutt he trade, it seems like a good setup. Price alert has been set slightly above the resistance zone in case price suddenly rises.

There’s high-volatility news coming in during the night (at 1 AM - during which I’ll be in bed), which means I probably won’t take this trade. Still up for consideration however.

Trade retrospect time. Here we go:

Pair: AUD/USD from the last post.
TRADE CLOSED - 31OCT2014.
Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): The trade was active for about five hours. I didn’t stick to my strategy entirely, because I looked at the 1 hour chart and noticed that price was moving into an area of support, and much as I anticipated price moved up from that area. On the 4 hour chart price seemed to be moving from an area of resistance to an area of support, which looked like a great set-up. But I noticed on the 1 hr chart BEFORE I even took the trade that price was moving into an area of support - I don’t know why I stuck to my trade even though I saw what I saw. A bad move, but I managed to lock in the trade at an 0,4 pip profit - essentially you can say I broke even and nothing bad happened. In the future, I will DEFINITELY make use of multi-time frame analysis because it’s clearly a necessity - at least when it comes to AUD/USD. Never again!

1 hour chart:
4 hour chart:

Pair: EUR/USD from the last post.
Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): As can be seen on the 4 hour chart, I locked in a 31,4 pip profit. EUR/USD generally seems to be a rather predictive pair to trade, which I’m definitely enjoying. I never noticed this before, but then again I wasn’t very experienced back when I was trying to trade EUR/USD. Of course I had some good wins, but the losses I had on that particular pair completely made me think of EUR/USD as a ****ty pair to trade. Now I’ve come to the realization that there’s more to EUR/USD than I once thought. I earned about 30 pips a day or two ago on the pair and I did so today as well - I am extremely happy I did so and I can’t WAIT to trade this pair again! Of course, after I find a good setup… : )
All in all, I am very happy with this trade. I kept focused on my trading strategy, I didn’t move my stop-loss further up or my limit at all - I had decided these factors PRIOR to entering the trade and they worked out GREAT. I’m incredibly satisfied by the outcome, even though the profit was just around 30 pips. Five 30 pip-trades make up one highly successful trade. : )

Pair: GBP/JPY from the last post.
Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): I am incredibly upset by the outcome of this trade. Look at that move! That’s a 350+ pip move! My stop-loss got hit because it was located on the UPPER LIMIT of the resistance zone. If the stop-loss was on the lower limit or the central limit of the zone, things would’ve gone SO much smoother! I mean heck, I would’ve been 350+ pips up right about now! It’s incredibly frustrating - but, looking beyond what I could’ve made, let’s look at what I did WRONG.
First of all, my stop was TOO tight. It was too tight and I failed to realize this. I also entered the trade before the real body of a candle had closed beyond the upper limit of the resistance zone. Once it did that, that’s when I should’ve gone long. I was awake and I saw my stop-loss get hit, but then I was too afraid to trade. I wanted to put a long order on 175,00 again (price had dropped down to my stop-loss at this point) but I was scared the coming candle would be inflated, my long order would get triggered, and then price would revert back down and potentially hit my stop-loss, so I just stayed out. I stayed out for the worse. I went to bed and decided not to trade - lo and behold, when I woke up, I had missed out on what would’ve been my biggest trade yet. To make it simply and just round it off, in the future I’ll ensure my stop-loss is appropriate, and that I wait for the REAL BODY of a CANDLESTICK to close BEYOND the UPPER LIMIT of the resistance/support zone prior to entering a trade. Or well, that real body “rule” shouldn’t be treated as much of a rule per sé, but the more important lesson is to enter a trade with a big enough stop-loss. In this case, 40 pips wasn’t enough.

I started trading with real money this week - $1,000 - and I conducted my first 3 trades this week! So, with further ado, here they are!

Tuesday - EUR/USD:

Entry: 1.24590 (4hr chart)
Stop loss: 1.24900 (1hr chart, above indecision candle 2 candles before)
Limit: 1.24250 (estimated trendline support)

Trading area - where and why did you enter: On the 1 hour chart, price is bouncing off a trendline resistance and moving down to a trendline support. We saw a shooting star forming on the 1 hr chart as well, and price has been moving lower lows and lower highs thus far. On the 4 hour chart, price practically made a shooting star, all we need now is a lower low. Therefore, the trade idea is to put a short order on the low of the previous candle in hopes that price will move down. Thus far, the following critera have been fulfilled for a short order: lower lows & lower highs (1hr chart), multipled time-frames POSSIBLY indicating a downward move (bearish price action), price bouncing off a resistance/trendline area). Short order!
Position sizing: 1K lot.

Trade Management Rules (did you stick to your strategy?): I stuck to my strategy and didn’t get out in the heat of the moment - I remained calm and didn’t move things around without necessity.

Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): It was a FANTASTIC trade that cost me 30+ pips! Why was it fantastic? Because I learned something incredibly important - I placed my stop-loss ABOVE the trendline, but what I should’ve done was place it ABOVE the resistance line which was about 20-30 pips away! I got stopped out, price bounced off that resistance line and went back down - I could’ve made an alright profit had I placed my stop-loss properly, but I didn’t - nevertheless, I learned how to place stops for the future - which I deem incredibly valuable!

Wednesday - GBP/USD:

Entry: 1.57724
Stop loss: At high of previous candle - 1.58400
Limit: 1.57300 (slightly below next support level).

Trading area - where and why did you enter: On the daily chart, we have a bearish engulfing pattern forming. On the 4hr chart, we have price breaking below a support level. Price seems to be moving down to the 1.57350 support area and a short trade is appropriate.
Position sizing: 1K lot.

Trade Management Rules (did you stick to your strategy?): No.

Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): I didn’t feel confident about the trade - which I should have - and I missed out on making quite a few pips. GBP/USD is currently moving down sharply, breaking through weekly pivot points support 1 & 2. I learned confidence is key!

Thursday - AUD/USD:

http://i.gyazo.com/9105ae21b2ef96afdee6de1bbd03b4b4.png (green dotted line shows entry, red dotted line shows exit).
Entry: On the low of current candle (0.87155)
Stop loss: 0.8780 (slightly above R1 resistance)
Limit: 0.8650 (slightly below pivot point)

Trading area - where and why did you enter: We had an evening star pattern forming - a strong bullish candle preceded an indecision candle (or a star) followed by a large bearish candle which pierced the first bullish candle quite significantly.
Position sizing: 1K lot.

Trade Management Rules (did you stick to your strategy?): Yes!

Trade Retrospect (look back on your trade): The trade was very simple and logical - I saw an evening star forming (long bullish real body on candle preceding the “star” candle, followed by a long bearish real body on candle after the “star” candle). Price was also bouncing off a weekly pivot point resistance zone (R1) and had made a strong lower low and lower high. I went out with a 20 pip profit (I was 33+ pips profit when I had woke up at 7 AM GMT+1), because I didn’t want to hold the position through USD retail sales news even though I expected them to be good (which would drive AUD/USD down). True as it was, the news were good for the US dollar and AUD/USD went down, reaching my limit net. I would’ve cashed in 50+ pips on that trade if I sat through the news but I decided it would be pure gambling, so I got out at 20+ pips.

Overall, I’m at a very slight loss this week, nothing unfixable though! I’ve placed my first trades with real money and I’ve induced some confidence in my trades now that I’m dealing with real money. Loving it.

Side-note: I’ll be trading only 1K lots the next couple of weeks just to get a hang on slippage etc. so I know what I’m dealing with! After that I’ll start risking a maximum of 1% per trade!