Greetings,
I would like to run this journal to document my success and failure trading particular markets using particular patterns and trade plan.
Before I go any further, this journal is by no means a trade signal or recommendation thread. All posts made by me are for educational and entertainment purpose only.
I day trade the GBP/USD AUD/USD and EUR/JPY, however I do ‘occasionally’ trade other markets if my main 3 markets are quiet due to various reasons. My style of trading is short term day trades using harmonic chart patterns. I don’t really take much notice of the the short term, medium term or long term trends/bias and central bank policies or any other technical or fundamental analysis and views as my particular strategy focuses on really short term moves based on retracement and continuation patterns.
My trade plan is fairly simple:
Trade Plan
- Monitor GBP/USD AUD/USD EUR/JPY on multiple intraday time frames by eye, no software
- Watch for 2 types of harmonic patterns - BAT & GARTLEY (I do not trade other patterns)
- Check the structure of the forming pattern to make sure its high quality
- Try to time my entry so that my stop is 10-15 pips only using 1% account risk
- Move my stop to entry once price has moved 1.5 times my stop distance
- Target 50 pips, occasionally more if its a 1hr or 4hr pattern with a solid structure
- Take trades that offer 1:3+ risk to reward only, I never break this rule
- If the trade stops out at entry or for a loss I do not re-enter the trade unless I’m sure that it was my timing that was wrong rather than the pattern failing
- At the end of each week I withdraw 35% of the profit as my wage and leave the other 65% in the account for growth. No profit, no withdraw.
- Never break rules (3) (4) (7) (8) and especially rule (10)
And that’s pretty much it. Nothing to complicated, out of reach or over the top. Just simple planned out pattern trading.
Okay, so before I go further, let me show you the 2 patterns that I will be trading -
Gartley Pattern:
Bat Pattern:
Note that these 2 patterns are fairly similar, there is a slight difference on the ‘B’ point retracement ratios, Gartley’s tend to print their ‘B’ at the 61.8% retracement of the XA leg while the Bat’s tend to print their ‘B’ point at either the 38.2% - 50% retracement of the XA leg.
Also you may notice that the Gartley completes its ‘D’ at the 78.6% while the Bat completes its ‘D’ point at the 88.6%. Through experience of trading these patterns however, I have found that its best to wait for the Gartley to hit its 88.6% rather than 78.6% before considering an entry. I have found that the vast majority of the time that the Gartley hits the 88.6% and this is a personal requirement for me.
I only trade these patterns once the ‘D’ has formed, I never try to trade these patterns from the ‘C’ to ‘D’ as there are no guarantees that the ‘D’ will form to complete the pattern.
Let me make that part as clear as possible, I ONLY trade the reaction at the ‘D’ point once price has reached the ‘D’. The market starts to form a lot of these patterns on multiple time frames, however, a lot of them never fully form and complete the ‘D’ leg, so I never try to anticipate and trade the C to D, I only trade once D is in place!
So that’s that…
Remember, this is not a trade signal or trade recommendation thread and I will not give any financial or trading advice. So please do not ask for entry price or stop loss price locations as every trader should make his/hers own trade entry/stop location and risk decisions based on their own trade plan and risk profile. My posts are for educational and entertainment purpose only.
Thanks and enjoy the thread… keep it clean, friendly and peaceful, no place for haters/trolls or time wasters. We are in the markets to make money not enemies.
Enjoy!
