If I can piggyback some thanks, Tang, I’d like to say thank you - that’s brilliant! It’s like my whole chart-posting world just opened up. Thank you very much for posting.
ST
Before I write the post I DID intend to write I’d just like to issue a quick warning to most of the civilised world. Brace yourselves folks, SimonTemplar the multi-quoting picture-posting man is coming to town !! LOL !! :46:
God I love this thread sometimes !! Thanks TANG, always grateful for advice and instruction.
Now on with what I was going to write
HoG
Unfortunately ST, Glasgow doesn’t do Indian Summers very well. In fact, Glasgow doesn’t do British summers very well either. There was a lovely moment during the last British Open played at Turnberry, when the TV cameras panned out to show the Ailsa Rock which lies a couple of miles off the west coast of Scotland, and is pretty much just a massive bird sanctuary.
The competiton had been blighted with rain that year and Peter Alliss, the commentator, said, “Ah the majestic Ailsa Rock. The locals have a wonderful saying concerning the Ailsa Rock, they say - If you can’t see the rock it means it’s raining, and if you CAN see the rock, it means it’s GOING to rain.” Well that holds pretty much true for Glasgow as well, but not to worry, there’s always the national lottery !!
On your point about percentage risk, I absolutely see where you are coming from. I would say, though - at risk off sounding like a complete bore, I know that I am not your father lol! - that I do believe that it is possible to find trades within an acceptable risk level, then simply take on those trades that require a larger stop loss once the account has grown. It might be dull, but it is the safest path. And this is a long career, so plenty of time for the wider range of setups down the track… I risked 1% per trade when I started out, and I risk 1% per trade now, and have always been able to find sufficient setups to grow the account.
I take a mix of trades, some with a 20 pip Stop, some with a 200 pip Stop, and many in between. Some require a larger account to cover, but I would still be trading successfully with a small account, I just wouldn’t have as many trades to choose from. You can make 10% a month on one trade a week, as long as it is the right trade!
Thanks for sticking with this thread, there is a lot of good stuff on it.
I promis to shut up about percentage risk, now.
ST
Unfortunately, you CAN’T shut up about pecentage risk, for one very good reason. It’s like the old saying about medicine,- i.e. The worse it tastes the better it is for you. Well, percentage risk is no doubt one of the more boring subjects surrounding FX. But what you find is that it is the boring subjects in this business that keep you alive !!
Probably like most newbies, when I first started I skipped every section on instruction sites that started to discuss the “boring” bits. Y’know, percentage risk, money management, stop loss etc.
All I wanted to know was ’ What button do I hit to get me trading? ’ and which part of my computer spat the money out ??
But this is the difference. I have lost $9 this week on 3 different trades where each trade risked just under 3% of my balance. Stupidly I traded against the small range we had been in over the last few days in Euro Dollar, and then would you believe once I’ve finished those 3 trades EU DOES break out of the small range.
On second thoughts, being a trader yourself, you probably WOULD believe that. Anyway, 3 trades, 3 losses. But those 3 trades added together came to just less than 8% of my entire account balance.
Now had I been using my usual 7% risk and lost those three trades, which incidentally, price DID move enough to take out 7% risk, I would have lost just OVER 20% of my entire balance. And that 20% has taken me 3 weeks to make, so to have given it away on 3 trades would have been disappointing.
Sure I know you’ll say had I only risked 1%…, but I find this is a matter of refining my entry points better than I have been doing. I’m still entering at levels where price has a good chance of taking out my stops as opposed to levels where you could look back and say, " y’know what, it was a good entry, it’s just been unlucky…"
That has been one of the reasons I’ve tried to upload pictures. Remembering that this thread is primarily for newbies, it would be good to post a chart and say, " Look, this is WHERE I entered, this is WHY I entered and this is WHY it went FOR/AGAINST me," And then hopefully to have received some feedback from others regarding the entry points. I know no-one is going to tell anyone when to trade, but it would be good to get feedback AFTER the fact, if for nothing else, than to show other newbies what everyone was talking about.
As I mentioned before, I found reading about things very hard, if I could have found actual images of actual trades I would have been more inclined to read about them.
But , being a newbie myself, if I could give out any advice to other newbies, I’d say you MUST learn the boring stuff. Risk percentage, money management, stop loss, proper entry/exit points, they’re all essential.
As for sticking with this thread, the truth is that I have no other choice. I use it as my shoulder to cry on. Unless it has something to do with Eastenders my wife looks at me as though I have horns growing out of my head when I mention Forex, and unless Harry Potter suddenly decides to short the Aussie USDollar instead of fighting Voldermort for a living, the kids just don’t respond at all !!
But I’m glad you enjoy it, we’ve been lucky to have had some really good contributors here. Long may it continue !!
And I should have said this right at the start but thank you, I did have a good weekend. Went to an ice skating competition on Sunday with the girls which we enjoyed. Talk soon.
HoG
This is my first attempt at uploading a picture
Ta Da !!
Wow Simon Templar, you’re gonna have sooooooo much fun with this Incidentally ST, if you haven’t been on the tinypic site yet, there is a button on the start page which says " Install". I originally thought you had to install the program to use the site, but you don’t. I didn’t use the install button at all. Just browse, to add my picture, filled in a captcha, then copied and pasted the url just like Tang said.
Then, on the top left of this box, there is a blue button with A/A in it. SEE it ? If you hover your cursor over that button it says ; Switch Editor To WYSIWYG Mode. This stands for " What You See Is What You Get". Which will turn this box from text into what you’ll actually see when you add your post. If you hit that you can rearrange your picture and post if you want to.
Have fun my friend !!
HoG
Nothing to do with forex, just got carried away !!
Ok, I’ll stop mucking around now. But this is for ST, if you want to resize your pictures so they appear larger on this page, you’ll see a drop down section on the tinypic upload page that handily enough says “resize”. This sunset picture was resized to fit the 15’ monitor size. There’s no stopping us now boy !!
HoG
On a serious note, this is a picture of the Euro Dollar 4H chart as I write.
Now normally I would think this would be a reasonable trade set up. trouble is you’d be risking 96 pips to make 90 pips. So clearly the risk reward is not worth it. So what then ? Do you go down to lower timeframes to find different levels or just forget the trade all together ?
or is the target actually at the orange line on the bottom which is at 1-3360 ( the recent low ) ??
HoG
Well, if you are confident in your setup but concerned about R/R, then you can split your position in 2 or 3… or just wait a bit for the price to go up a little
I think you should give a bit more room to your SL…
1.3500 area looks like a good place to take profit…although I think we will visit 1.3400 again… unless some really good news from Europe.
Remember there is a bullish pin bar in the daily chart and we are at the top of a falling wedge pattern
Looking for a bit of advice here folks. This is a shot of a 4H chart of a trade I entered about 1 hour ago just as New York closed. I sold 1 lot and as the trade sits I’m about + 23 pips. Now granted the target IS a bit ambitious to say the least, probably 1-35 being a more realistic target. But considering the candlesticks, does this look like a good time to add a second lot, or do I just stick with the 1 lot and TP at 1-35 or do I just take the + 23 while it’s on the table ?
Interested to hear your opinions thanks.
HoG
PS. I’ve never started with 1 lot and added to it. Bit nervous about doing so. Do you just treat it as 2 seperate trades ??
It is hard to me to say something about… since it is a live trade… That trade could take some time to develop, there is a lot of indecision in the market and the bullish pin bar still in play. I personally think price will test 1.3400 again but a run for 1.3600/50 area is not out of the question… that is my selling area…of course if a set up appears 
Price had kind of stalled for a while around the 1-3530 area by the time I went to bed last night so I just took the pips at that price for + 18. I know it ain’t much, but it’s a + nevertheless
HoG
There’s a bit of a long story connected to that title so I’ll get on with it without wasting too much time.
Before I went to work this morning I opened a short position on Euro Dollar. I opened at 1-36024. Then after watching price go up for just over an hour, I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to open ANOTHER short position.
Here is a shot of the 5 min chart to show my opens as it gives the best visual for the candle reasons I opened trades for.
The first trade WAS opened on a red down candle, but price pulled back up before the close. I opened this trade because at the time price had just broke down through a small short term resistance level and considering the candles I believed it would continue down. However, it didn’t, it reversed. My stop was at 1-37. I know I’ve had recent conversations with SimonTemplar about reducing my risk percentage but what can I say, this is where I put my stop.
Anyway, price moved up and I took the decision to open a SECOND short position at 1-36604 on the red spinning top as price neared the recent resistance level of around 1-3690. I did this because I still felt sure the recent resistance would hold as I still believe price will get below 1-35 in the days to come.
One thing I should point out right now. I did NOT open this second position to AVERAGE DOWN my entry level as my trading platform does NOT do this. It treats the two trades as individual trades instead of putting them both together to give a bigger lot size at a lower entry level.
Anyway, stops in place it was time to head off to work and keep an eye on the Price Action on my iPhone. I can view real time price on my trading platforms iPhone app, but the one and only chart they give with that app is totally indecipherable. Anyway it was a frustrating day watching price bob between 1-3620 and 1-3650.
Then, more by chance, I opened the app about half an hour after London had closed to find price had dipped as low as 1-3590 ish but was now back up hovering around 1-36. So I decided to close both trades through the iPhone. Here is the chart showing the closed positions.
The green lines you can see connect the opens of a trade to the close. I closed the trades at
T1 : open 1-36024 closed 1-35984 for + 4 pips
T2 : open 1-36604 closed 1-35993 for + 61.1 pips
Now although I said earlier that my trading platform does not average both trades together, it HAS given the profits ( highlighted in yellow circle ) as an average of 32.5, probably because both trades were closed within seconds of each other on the same candle. So in total today’s profit was + 65.1 pips.
So where’s the frustration you may ask? Well, I’ve commented loads of times on this thread that once you close a trade it should not make a blind difference to you what price does next. It doesn’t matter, you’re out so forget about it. But I have to admit to being a tiny bit p***ed off this time.
I’d spent the large part of the day looking for price to fall and when it did I closed for a profit. I closed because I’d broke even, more or less, with one trade and profited from another. It was probably more relief than anything else.
But the frustration comes from the fact that when I DID close, I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer screen watching a candlestick chart, no I was sitting in a supermarket car park trying to make sense of the charts on an app that just looks as though someone had dipped an ant in jam and it had just crawled all over my phone screen.
If I was sitting in front of the computer there is a good chance I would have seen the candlesticks and thought, “This looks as though it could go further down.” ( which it did as low as the 1-3550 area ) Then moved my stops lower and who knows, maybe have picked up another 20 or 30 pips.
I know this all sounds terribly ungrateful and greedy, I should just be thankful I made a profit in the first place and I apologise for that, I guess I’m only human.
Anyway, on a brighter note this brings the balance back up to a new high of $121.18. I’m particularly pleased with this as I mentioned before I started the week with a $9 loss and now I’ve regained that and a little more this week ( started the week at $119.97 ).
Funny thing is I did almost the same thing last week too. I started last week with an 86 pip loss and ended the week over 100 pips up. Maybe I’m just no good at trading early on in the week !!
Anyway, again my apologies for my selfish rant, as usual Friday is not normally a day that I get to trade at all so I may just finish the week with my 12.1 pip profit. It’s better than a loss I guess eh?
HoG
+65 pips in a day is really good! you just need to work on your losses 
I have closed trades for 5-10 pips profit and the next candle goes for 80-100 pips …
Lol hilarious. I’d like to apologize in advance if I clutter your thread with rubbish, unreadable charts. Even if I do, please understand that my intention in posting would be to clarify, not confuse… but no promises until I get my eye in lol…!
I thought that about the Peak District, to be honest, but actually it is lovely this week, sitting here actually outside with the laptop. Outside! At half past five! 1000ft up!!! Remarkable. Will doubtless snow next week.
Anyway, apologies, I’m rambling, back to business: you have persuaded me, if I catch you straying from the safe money management path in future, I will still speak up. Deal! Do understand one thing, though: even when I seem to be criticizing, I absolutely follow the logic you have employed. For what it is worth, I think that you are making a really good fist of learning in such a public forum, and staying honest with yourself about your mistakes. It all makes for a very encouraging start, imho - even if it takes a couple of years to get consistent, that still leave decades for enjoying the fruits of your labours… That’s definitely how I view it. And I promise not to mention Eastenders or Harry Potter. We’ll restrict it to trading, sport, pizzas with meat on and blokey films…!
Nice work, I think you’re going to outstrip my efforts! Always interesting to see another trader’s charts - it’s like a car club; all the cars ought to be the same, yet actually every owner has done something different with them.
Thank you very much for the tutorial - all help appreciated, will put that into practice on this thread soon.
Now you’re just showing off lol!!! Like your work, though, very nice. Is that local? Or just a nice image?
If Price stalls, there is often a good case to be made for taking the money and getting a good night’s sleep - there is always another trade to come, and often a Price stall can invalidate a setup, so nice work on banking the pips.
Sorry I have not been around as much this week, have got shot of the builders now, for a while, so should be back in the saddle now.
And yes, you have created a multi-quoting monster!!
Have a good weekend, HoG.
ST
Loads to crack through in this final round up of my week. I’ll do it in two seperate posts though cos I want to do some replies then do round up of my week’s trasding in the second post.
yunny1 ;
I know that the gain of 65 pips was a good result and my moan about it must have sounded very selfish and greedy. No-one could ever hope to get in at the very top of a swing and get out at the very bottom so in future I’ll try my best to keep my complaints to myself.
I hope you have a good weekend yunny1 and look forward to talking again in the new week ahead.
ST :
Please do not apologise for “cluttering my thread” with ANY of your input. First and foremost this thread is, hopefully, evolving for the benefit of ALL newbies out there looking to learn. And anything that can help beginners do just that is more than welcome here. The only thing I would ask is this, if any of us do post our charts here after our trade is opened or closed, ( and as I said, you are all more than welcome to post as many as you wish) remembering that this thread is here to help beginners, it would be nice if we could explain WHAT we did in the chart and WHY we did it. I think that would be a great source of info for beginners.
Second thing is this, please DON’T think of this thread as MY thread. The one main condition of taking part here is that no one is ever insulting to any one else. So far we have acheived that well and as long as that spirit remains, this thread belongs to ALL who contribute.
And lastly, I would LOVE to tell you that the sunset image is the view from my back door, but in the spirit of honesty, unfortunately it’s just one of the sample pics pre installed on my pc. We can but dream though.
Anyway, next reply I’ll round up my trading week.
HoG
Here we go,
First thing I’d like you all to have a look at is this screen shot from my trading platforms Home page :
First thing I’d like you to notice is the area circled in red. I hope it comes out clear enough for you to read, but just in case
it doesn’t, it reads that my balance has now reached a mind boggling $133.78. I am so happy about this for a couple of
reasons.
First reason is obvious, my account is going up, not down.
Second reason is that my balance has now passed another little mental milestone for me, namely that in the last 3 months,
since I have been trying to LEARN instead of just GAMBLING, my account has now TREBLED in value against my low point of $43. Now the dollar value of this may seem insignificant to some people reading this, but when you look at it from a
percentage value, it really starts to get interesting.
So here is the first point I’d like to make mainly for the NEWBIES reading this article.
People often use the saying, " So if I can do it, ANYONE can." And in my opinion, that phrase does get over used a lot. But here’s the thing, at the risk of boring readers who already know my story.
I am NOT a rocket scientist. I am a cab driver in Glasgow, Scotland. In May of 2011 I opened a live Forex account and just about blew it all. BUT, after I decided to LEARN, to read what I could find, ( and God knows I hate reading ) and basically just put in a bit of effort, I’ve grown my account steadily, with the odd hiccup along the way.
Now I’m NOT sitting here saying to you all that since I’ve done this I consider myself to be a know all on the Forex subject, far far from it. In fact, to keep my account growing will require continued education and to use a phrase from Mr Trichet before he retires, some " Strong Vigilance ". But, I hope it DOES show other newbies, that since I AM NOT, and never WAS, a stellar academic, then if I can do it, or at least get myself on the right path, the anyone really can do it too. Just don’t give up, don’t be impatient.
Second point is this : Here is a chart showing the trade itself. Admittedly I’ve had to draw in the trade lines myself , this would be because once a trading week closes my trading platform shuts down completely taking away the ability to review charts over the weekend. Handy that eh ??
Either that or they give just the chart but wipe all of your trading history off of it. And that’s what happened here, so I had to draw the lines in myself for the sake of this article :
Can anyone guess what the signal was that made me enter the trade ?? Even the experienced traders ? What about why did I EXIT the trade ?
I mentioned to SimonTemplar in a previous article that it would be nice if we could explain to other newbies the reasons for entering/exiting a trade on the charts that we post. But here is another important, ( important in my humble opinion, ( imho) took me a while to work that out, I’m not great at text speak, even though I have a 14 year old daughter !! ) Anyway, another important thing for newbies to think about.
The chart above shows that I SOLD ( 2 lots of the ) Euro Dollar at 1-35 exactly. My original STOP LOSS was 1-3530, and my target was 1-34. Target and stop not shown on chart. But what the chart DOESN’T show is the REASON for the trade. Certainly there are NO entry candles that would make you enter a short trade where I did and if anything, the candle I closed on is showing price could go further down so why close?
Well here is the thing that newbies should always keep in mind. So much of our focus is centered on technical analysis, price action, candlestick signals etc, that it can be easy to forget about OTHER forms of analysis, i.e. FUNDAMENTAL analysis.
One of the things I noticed early on when I first started my short 5/6 month trading adventure, is how the Euro Dollar has worked in a reasonable correlation with equities and the Indicies. Now I have NOT been trading long enough to tell anyone that this is always the case, and I am certainly not in the position to tell anyone else to ever base a trade on it, nor would I ever do so. But in my personal case, my personal analysis has shown me that when Shares and Indexes fall, the Euro Dollar has tended to fall with them of late. And when risk appetite returns somewhat, and Shares and Indexes rise, the Euro has tended to strengthen against the Dollar and the pair will rise.
So with that in mind, back to the above trade. As I’ve said before, I don’t get many chances to trade on a Friday due to work, but through my iPhone I can keep a real time eye on currency pair prices, equities and the direction of the Indexes. ( FTSE 100, S&P and DOW ). Most of Friday I had noticed that shares were struggling, the European Indexes were struggling and the S&P and Dow futures were pointing to a lower open. And as I said, usually when all of that happens, the Euro Dollar moves down with them.
Well, as luck would have it, I had the chance to quickly go see my mother shortly before New York session was due to open. So I put Bloomberg on the TV and sure enough, equities and indexes were all looking at that time to be having a rough day.
SO ON THAT BASIS, and just as people trust in their technical analysis, I trusted in my fundamental analysis (if that can be counted as fundamental analysis) and SOLD the EURO DOLLAR. I put an entry order on my platform through my iPhone to sell 2 lots at 1-35, ( price at that time was 1-3497, so I put the order in hoping it would bounce up a little ) based my stop purely on a 5% risk, ( balance at that time roughly $120,— 5% of 120 = $6, — $6 = 60 pips – or 2 x 30 pips ). So I put my stop at 1-3530 and placed my target at 1-34.
Sure enough, shortly after New York opened, the pair began to fall and 1 Hour 40 mins after the open, when price was at 1-3425, I moved my stop down to 1-3435, locking in 2 x 65 pips, which was eventually stopped out. And I did all of that without ever even looking at a chart. I made $13 ( more than 10% of my balance ) and I thought my balance should now have been above $134. But now it turns out my platform has taken 40 cents from my balance because the trade was made through a mobile phone ( cell phone ). I don’t know if that is a set price or whether it is a % price of the trade, I’ll have to find that out.
But anyway, balance is now up above $133 which delights me. Not sure if other people would say I was crazy or wreckless to base the trade on the reasons I did, but to me, it WAS based on an analysis. It was based on my following of price correlation of Indexes to a currency pair. I placed what I thought was a reasonable stop and locked in a decent profit as soon as I had a chance. I’m happy with the trade overall. Would I still have been happy if it lost ?
I’d still be happy with the reasons for entering, wouldn’t be happy with the loss.
Anyway, the whole point of this marathon post is just to say to other newbies not to be blinkered PURELY by charts and fancy technical tools. Keep a broad eye open for OTHER indicators that may just give a sense of what will effect your chosen currency pair/s.
One other quick point to other newbies I’d like to make before my version of War & Peace comes to it’s conclusion though is this. On this trade I used 2 lots. I don’t usually use 2 lots, I usually only use 1 lot. If you DO use a bigger lot size and win, don’t get carried away and start betting the farm on every trade, because one will come along and bite your backside quite badly. If you do use bigger lot sizes, remember to adjust your STOP LOSS accordingly. I used 5% of my balance, which would have allowed me -60 pips for 1 lot. But I halved that to 30 pips because I was using 2 lots.
Just thought I’d add that.
Anyway I’m off to work now. Never got much of a chance to tell everyone to have a good weekend last night so I hope you all do.
Glad you’re getting a break from the builders ST !! I’ve went a little chart happy before you, look forward to seeing yours. And you’re right, it is a little like a car club, it’s always nice to see other peoples stuff. Funny thing is I enjoy looking at other peoples colour schemes and deciding if my eyes could cope with it or not. Anyway, have a good weekend.
HoG
Really cool stuff HoG - way to go. I need to pay attention more to the correlation of indexes that you mentioned, though I do really enjoy the technical (chart study) aspect. I invested about $500 initially, made $1K in profit the first month (I have made some additional deposits to my equity, just to have a little more leverage) but gave back the profit of 1K through amazingly bad trading. Over this past month I’ve been down as much as $200 (net) and have gotten back up to even a couple of times. I’m happy as a newbie to be able to break even, but that is not what I got in to this for. Every session has an average movement (at least one) for the E/$ that is significant. I am determined to find a way to wind up on the right side of these movements and trade them profitably. I really enjoy reading about the thought process of other traders, so keep it coming. As Fish (my all time favorite Scotsman sang - Slainte Mhath
Good afternoon HoG,
well, then you are at least for now out of the trouble with a shrinking account. Congrats for that and good job, well done so far!
That observation with risk aversion is also true. The reason behind is that if ppl sell stocks or other assets they get dollars in return (mostly). That leads to an increasing demand of $$. However, I guess this is a little too less to trade regularly and consistent on. It’s not really fundamentals, but a correlation. Those correlations work, but they can change over time and in almost all cases I am aware of they did. The reason is that albeit there is no 100% markt efficiency, it is not zero percent either. If enough people recognize this opportunity, it may change. If there are enough stops placed around a good obvious entry, there is the possibility stop hunters will come and drive price the opposite direction just to turn around after your stop was hit. This is just one example why the market is ever changing.
Anyways, I wish you a great start into October (and myself also, lol)!
Hi Buckscoder
I maybe should have pointed out in the article about correlation concerning Friday’s trade that the S&P and DOW futures were both pointing to a SIGNIFICANT drop on opening. Had they been pointing to a modest, or very small, decline on opening, I would not have taken the trade based on the Indexes alone.
I suppose then you could argue that it was more of a gamble, but considering both Indexes, at the time, were looking at a decline of over 1.5%, I thought it was worth a shot.
However, you are perfectly correct in saying it would not be a good basis to build a strategy on. I can’t ever see myself using this technique on a regular basis, probably only if the markets were pointing to a marked decline again.
It’s a thing I had noticed more by chance than by intentionally looking for it. Before I started FX I tried buying a few shares, but I quickly became bored with it. However I had left the bloomberg shares app on my phone and that’s how I noticed the correlation.
The point of the article though was more just to say to other newbies that there is more than one way of making decisions and they should try to keep a general eye on all events that may affect currency exchanges.
Anyway, all that said, the new week is nearing and I am considering not trading until at least Tuesday. The last couple of weeks I have had bad starts to the week. May be worthwhile, for me at least, to let the week get started to better judge market sentiment and look to get involved Tuesday, maybe even Wednesday depending on set ups.
As usual best of luck to you and everyone else for the week ahead. I hope your weekend has been enjoyable. Talk again soon.
HoG
Hi Hogarste
As Buckscoder and I have just wrote, the correlation of Indexes and currency pairs is not enough on it’s own to base the majority of trade decisions on, but I believe they are well worth keeping an eye on as they do give a useful insight into market sentiment, but like you, I also enjoy the whole study of charts thing.
One of the few reading topics I DO enjoy is reading the life stories of successful entrepenuers. And one of the most commonly touted pieces of advice successful people give is that in order to succeed you MUST enjoy what it is you do, otherwise it just becomes a chore and you don’t give your venture the time or attention it requires, which inevitably results in failure.
So I’m glad that I can say, that regardless of the emotional rollercoaster we sometimes ride in this adventure, I genuinely love it. I’d love to get to the point where this was my primary source of income, however I realise the need for patience and steady growth.
Without knowing you or your circumstances, I’d like to make another comment.Another commonly given piece of advice from successful people is honesty. More importantly, honesty with yourself. I am a great believer in this. If I make a backside of things, I like to think I am honest enough to hold my hand up and say, “Yep, that was my fault. I got that wrong.”
And it is encouraging to see that you have been honest enough to say you gave your 1K back through “amazingly bad trading”. I would ask you though, have you re-examined those trades to see WHY they were bad trades? I have made trades that were bad trades because I enteredat bad places through impatience or greed, and therefore lost.
But I have also made trades, which I have lost on, which looking back at my reasons for entering, I would STILL have made the same decision if I was given the chance again.
Sometimes we are just wrong, even though we had the right reasons to begin with, if that makes sense.
In my case, impatience plays a big part in my bad trades. The need to get involved, to make money, to see my account grow as quickly as possible, sometimes pushes me to make trades I just plain shouldn’t. So ask yourself WHY your trades were bad. Bad because you made bad or impatient decisions ? Bad becasue you made bad analysis, or no analysis at all ? Or do you still agree with your analysis, but it just went against you ? I believe there is an important distinction to be made by those.
As for your coment about every session having it’s own average movement and being determined to find a way of being on the right side of this, I’ll tell you what I am doing which is similar to you. On my trading platform I can download and overlay an application called TRADE SESSIONS. I have only ever used the one trading platform so I don’t know if this application, or a similar application, is available on other platforms.
Anyway, what this does is overlay on your charts, a colour which seperates the different daily sessions, ( London, New York, Sidney, Tokyo ). It then shows you the high and low prices reached by any pair you chose, for that given session. It also tells you how much price rose, and dropped during the session, from the opening of the session. Effectively just giving you the range of each individual session. And obviosly each platform will give you the highs and lows of each pair, for each trading day.
Now I know that daily true ranges and highs and lows information is already available, through various sources, but here is what I am currently doing. For the last three trading weeks, I have kept a record of each individual trading sessions highs and lows of the Euro Dolar ( as this is practically the only pair I trade ) and the overall DAILY high and low of that pair. Also noting which sessions that highs and lows have occurred in. I find that by keeping this record myself, it reinforces it in my mind better than it would if I’d just read it somewhere.
But here’s the part that you may find makes no sense whatsoever. I am not entirely sure where I am going with keeping these records. I suppose if I could be bothered I could create an individual session moving average. Although I’m not entirely sure how useful that would be.
One thing I have noticed though is that I know, roughly by memory, the short term sessional support and resistance levels for the last couple of weeks for the Euro Dollar. I can look at the chart and think, right, if price breaks THAT level then next S&P should be THIS level.
Is this helping me any ?? I don’t honestly know. All I CAN say for sure is that over the last few weeks, whatever it is I’m doing, slight hiccups aside, my balance has grown. Is what I’m doing sustainable ? Only time will tell, but for now it’s working so I’ll continue to do it.
To others it may seem like a lot of work for nothing, but this is MY way of working. It may not work for others but, at the risk of sounding rather cheeky, what does or doesn’t work for others isn’t really my priority. We all need to find our own method of doing things. I’m happy to say what I do and what tools I use. If it helps anyone else then great. But at the end of the day as long as it works for me then that’s what I have to concentrate on.
As for Fish being your all time favourite Scotsman, you obviously haven’t heard of a certain Mr Barr who created God’s gift to hangovers that we call Irn Bru !! I’ve an awful lot to thank that man for.
Anyway, Good Health to you. Talk soon.
HoG