I know you guys all have different trading styles.
Could you give me examples of how you begin your trading day, i.e. how you gather your info and what comparisons you make before you place a trade.
I’m interesed in getting a vision of what different traders days are like.
Thank you.
When I behave and dont have an attack of the stupids I generally do the following:
Go find a pair, generally this is EUR/USD but it has to meet criteria…
Its got to be in a fairly consistant pattern on the daily chart, its got to be near an end, an end (not being a psychic) is where it perviously moved, or where a pivot point, or S/R level is at the more the merrier…
There must be a clearer view of this on the hourly, if there is I’ll get to work.
Goto daily and mark (or remark ) any levels that I’m close to, this could be support, resistant, or trend lines that the current price action is, or might be near before the end of the trading period (could be an hour, or a week, its how long I’m going to be looking for a trade, then how long the trade lasts togeather, not how long I’m staring at the chart alone…)
Then I’ll goto the hourly chart and do the same, now heres where a decion comes into play, am I doing short term or long term? if I’m doing short term, i go down to 15 minutes, or maybe even 1 minute and look/wait for a signal after doing the same line drawing as before.
Then I’ll wait for my signal to enter, which is usually just a matter of timing, if I’m right I dont have to get in it right away but I need to be sure its going to do what I think it will, this could mean a breakthrough, a bounce etc…
If im going longterm trades (like a few days to a few weeks, etc…) I’ll go down to the 15 minute chart and look/wait for the best counter-trend, or more aptly the highest peek of the opposing direction that is enevitably going to find its way into the beguinning of my trade, if i think I’m there or If I’ve lost patience ill enter the market… this is after ive shown signs of confirmation though… just as above… being that its longterm I have time (generally an hour or so) to find a good entry spot, sometimes it works and I save myself 5-10 pips, generally it dosnt and I loose 15-20 pips – I’m workingg on getting better though…
I use two different trading systems.
For the first one, I look to see if any orders have closed, ensure I have at least 2 pending orders for EUR/USD and USD/CHF. If my total gain for the week is over my open loss of equity, by 50 pips or more, I close all positions and wait for another week to start again.
The Second one, I use the same plan for all time frames, but I perfer the 4H and 15M, so I check the 4H to see if I need to make any adjustments to open trades and/or see if I have any signals to open a new trade. I only mess w/ the 15M chart when I am sitting at the PC or will be around the house for a few hours.
On average, I only spend about 30 mins actually working the charts and I have no real need to gather infomation because with both of the trading plans I use it is easy to see and what needs to be done. I am a family man, and I like the idea of spending time with them rather than at the PC
Happy Hunting