Oof lots of lines of code involved though. But I love that it’s just within Notion.
For Mindmaps I’ve tried using Miro. There’s also Coggle but it sucks because ideally everything is all in just one place. For now they’re in my physical notebook. 
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Yea, Miro appears to be the most popular one out there. I think most of the videos comparing mindmapping software use Miro as the base. I remember looking at coggle too (cuz it was free!) and decided against it cause it had 3 private spaces. I settled on another free version (freeplane) which is a software download. Steep learning curve in my case though. Even the user manual is one massive mindmap, which is actually pretty cool because you start getting used to collapsing/expanding and see how the devs use it
Atleast you’ve got the habit of doing it. I’ve never bothered till now so it’s a bit difficult to get it to be habit forming, which is why I’m including it in the journal too (for accountability). In time hopefully! 
You lost me there hahahhaa. That sounds crazy But yeah cool like you said once you get the hang of it!
Yea, it won’t make sense till you see it. Pretty amazing how they set it up.
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I’ll have to check this out!
If you’re really interested I think you should check out @MikeWolski’s blog. He put his trading plan down and it’s a great reference if you want to use it for ideas.
Edit: Found the specific post with 2 mindmaps as folls:
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Something had come up and I took a break from anything trading related for a few days.
H4/H1 analysis
Had finished the analysis for all 4 currency pairs well before the break. Revisiting and revising earlier work for standardisation is currently pending.
Reading
Wanted to create Anki cards for Ashraf Laidi’s book, but I’ll have to give it a quick re-read. Before doing that I decided to look at John Murphy’s book on intermarket analysis.
https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Intermarket-Analysis-Financial-Exchange-Traded/dp/1119210011
That’s because this was the foundation for the more advanced stuff in Mr Laidi’s book. So far a really good read. Creating Anki cards and also decided to use Obsidian for the first time. Early stages still but this will be a great tool to scale into when I start learning about other instruments and subject matter.
Random
Not all stuff I see on the Real Vision Finance I’ll watch. Stuff on NFTs and cryptos especially I skip. If I see something on the macro view of the market or FX related I’ll shortlist it. This is a good one and contains two of my favorite speakers on this channel.
It’s starting to make a lot more sense, especially with the reading I’m doing now. For e.g. towards the end Darius discusses how even within REITS there are non-cyclicals and gives examples. With the current knowledge base this is a really good nuance. Another good resource for me is reading up on the weekly market outlook put up by @katetrades right here at BP. It’s commercial content and I’m not promoting it. But it happens to agree with how I want to look at the markets.
What I’m trying to pick up is not the content itself but the analysis and the context to which it’s applied. Events may not transpire as discussed because there are just so many variables. But how these analysts view markets is insightful.
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Checked it out. Love Mike Wolski also. RE: Mindmaps, I feel like it can look overwhelming at first glance. I need to get over that part lol
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Though it’s in the public domain, my journal’s always intended for my consumption primarily. It’s a tool to marshall my thoughts and stay the course to meet objectives set earlier. My approach to date is to write it as I would if it were private. A little worried that might start to change now that I’ve shared it with family and friends recently.
H4/H1 analysis
Correcting prior observations carried out. It’s taken close to 5 months. In two minds about the duration. Feels it took way too long considering I was only testing one strategy. On the other hand the analysis did get me to see charts/price action very differently from how I was seeing earlier. Plus found a novel way to execute my strategy.
Brief rundown:
There was a disconnect with the previous method I was using. It was methodical and well thought out but I’ve always felt there was something missing. Decided to look at things from the bottom up. This was accomplished by isolating 100-pip+ moves on the D1 chart and identifying common denominators on the D1, H4, H1 TF. Used the 4 most liquid currency pairs (EURUSD, USDJPY, GBPUSD & AUDUSD) to limit it’s scope. Duration for each CP was 12 months (01-DEC-20 - 30-NOV-21).
The common denominators were around indicators that I found best suited my goals. There could objectively be better indicators to suite the fulfill the same purpose that I’ve yet to try out. I’m pretty confident I’ve not even used the existing indicators (especially the ADX) to it’s fullest potentials, which I why I’ve made it a point ot read up on articles/books by their proponents. For e.g. J. W. Wilder and Ashwani Gujral.
Strategy:
It’s a combination of Elder’s Triple Screen & a Bollinger bands mean reversion strategy, where the novelty is the change to the Bollinger band SMA parameters. The basic premise is that price expands from and contracts to a price determined by market forces, which are reflected in the SMAs.
This is a one off graph which showed testing at 1st Std Dev levels. Could be a one off instance because I didn’t see it at other times and in other CPs. Price, however consolidates around the 100SMA before a move and then snaps back to oscillate around it again.
Findings:
Isolated 109 x 100-pip moves. Of which 90 were found to be feasible entries on preliminary observation (moving in direction with the overall trend and is not usually the first move after a reversal).
Raw numbers:
Standardised %s:
Though close to it I can’t call it a trade grade because it doesn’t take into account any false positives from the sub 100-pip movements in between.
Downsides:
Besides the false positives there’s also the sample size. ~100 is too low. A minimum of 300-500 is more significant. The # of estimated trades within the ~100 samples should amount to 300+ trades but that’s just a visual estimation.
USDJPY, unlike the others also had about half of it’s D1 entries initiate from an MA, the rest from a Boll band. Will have to double check this later. This is an anomaly compared to the other CPs.
Prior workflow:
The existing process will impact the screening process I set up in my Notion workspace. Will have to find a way to make it compatible.
Previous screening for D1 trends:
Mind map:
Thought a simple mind map describing my triple screen would be good to have. Would like to have one each for my entry & exit rules though. Good for a first start.
Further reading:
3/4th of the way through John Murphy’s book. Excellent read. One of the best books I’ve read on trading so far. Put it on hold before the 4th part to focus solely on the H4/H1 analysis.
The obsidian map is fleshing out really nicely. It’s fascinating. The more learning and context applied to the topics the more valuable each note becomes. It’s really start to shine when I read and make notes from more books going forward. I’m sure there are better ways to use this but this is already very marked improvement to my learning process.
Created Anki cards for the first 100 pages or so only so far. Will do them after I finish the rest of the book and finish obsidian note taking.
Next up:
- Configure fxblue/myfxbook accounts
- Resume weekly analysis
- Live trade commencement on MON.
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PC problems
I had an issue with my PC. My screen had water damage from earlier and was on it’s last legs. It gave out THU, 19MAY. I managed to figure out how to mirror the screen onto my phone and manage some trades the following day but gave it up for repairs on MON. Got it late this THU and was able to trade a bit on FRI. Missed 5/10 days since going live because of repairs.
Trade summary
Not the best. Down $18.59 (DD% and Equity loss% is the same since it’s a $100 account) in the 5 days traded so far. Not too worried about it though because the only winners I had (~20% win rate) were on the 4th day (the day after the PC issues). This FRI (5th day) I had 2/3 that were timed wrong but were going in the direction I had placed my trades. TBD later.
All in all I was reconciling the workflow and process I was following earlier with the new strategy and I had a number of hiccups. I believe I’m still weaning some of the rules I had in place from the previous process, mentally.
The goal of the workflow and the journal in Notion is to relieve a lot of unnecessary analysis and doubt at the time of the trade. I do most of the long term analysis and list the projections & expectations on the weekends. The workflow also instills a proper routine with the intention of focusing solely on entry/exit strategies for valid trades for the day.
Plus I’d not kept in touch with macroeconomic events and significant news. I definitely remember feeling out of depth on the first day of trading. Was digesting a lot of information and getting the new process down so I’m not too fussed about the loss so far.
Trade trackers
Myfxbook: https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/fm-mt5-zero-account-1/9549226
FX Blue: FX Blue - Statement for darthdimsky
Notable Trades
There were a total of 6 trades (4 of which ended up being losses) that were memorable. If they’d worked out I’d easily be in profit right now.
Four of them were on the 18th. Two each against EURUSD and EURJPY. I’d initially opened two of the near simultaneously and tried to scale into them with two others later. I’d set a 15 pip SL and a 15-pip TSL before shutting down my PC for the daily power cut. When I’d logged back in 3 trades were closed. 2 losses, 1 win (~5pips) and I closed the remaining pending order. Situation of the trades at the time of placing the scaled trades:
Colors are mangled because my green colors stopped working a month back and this is what worked on the broken display.
EURUSD
How the trade panned out:
A better entry would’ve been the SMA10/20 intersection at 0900. A trailing stop would’ve stopped me cold though. But If I’d paid more attention to the pair later I’d have been able to get a hold of an ~80 pip move later. Net result: -~10pips
EURJPY
How it panned out:
This was a clear FOMO. I remember looking at the strong downside moves and just getting in. I didn’t notice a possible consolidation area around the SMA200, which is a really good point of entry. Missed out on a ~200 pip move later. I’d closed the still pending scaled trade too in disgust at the losses and didn’t look at this till later in the day. Poor execution and mentality. Net result: -15 pips
Took two trades for GBPNZD on the 27th as folls:
How they played out:
Again mistimed it. Didn’t remember to wait for PA intersection with SMA10, which is what ended up happening and going for a push 50-60 pip push.
Reading progress
Finished John Murphy’s book on the phone while I had no PC. Finished notes in obsidian on the weekend and resumed making Anki cards on the book.
It’s a great book because it’s written for non traders (line graphs used and explanations of SR and very basic patterns in some places). Yet the depth of the information is super useful to retail traders. Explores:
- The cyclical nature of the markets and the intermarket relationships b/w Stocks, Bonds, Commodities & Currencies
- How certain relationships decoupled or strengthened based and the conditions under which they happened.
- Introduction to sector rotation
- How to use ETFs to gauge the various markets and use ratio analysis/relative strength to determine which sectors are benefiting now.
- Brief overview of Monetary policy. Indicators leading to QE/QT and the effects thereafter. Operation Twist and further reading up on it was fascinating.
It’s a book that’s given me a lot of tools to look at markets in a different way. Already downloading certain data sets to practice some of the analysis on the downtime. Also super useful to have the kind of charting capability demonstrated in the books. Amazing charting tool. Going to try Tradingview to see if I can emulate some of the functions.
Read 50 or so pages briefly on the phone on Bond Investing for Dummies. Will resume once I’m done with the Anki cards.
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Are you thinking about making one?
You’ve really been putting in the work!! Keep it up!
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Trading update
There was an 404 error when clicking on the myfxbook link. It required additional verification. That’s fixed now.
Account’s up from previous week to $90.81 but still in the red.
Notable trades
More of a notable session. The 31st was memorable. There were a few economic news items that countered some of the analysis I’d done over the previous weekend. That threw me for a bit of a loop and I’d gone down to $64.90 (35.10% Absolute DD). I’d let some trades run while the power went out and had logged back in to see all of them had gone against me. I knew then I’d over-traded a # of positions in an uncertain environment.
I recalibrated. Cleared my head and decided the CAD had strong fundamentals, especially against the GBP and JPY. Plus they hadn’t moved as much till then so I knew there was potential. What happened next was epic:
In the 3 hours session I’d basically notched up these numbers:
Netted ~335 pips & ~$26.
I’d tried two different exit strategies. A TP (to free up equity) on the CADJPY and the TSL on the GBPCAD. Whats shocking is if I’d used the TP approach with GBPCAD I would’ve netted more.
Also implemented a different TSL approach as a backup for CADJPY. Instead of a fixed 15-pip TSL right throughout I’d widen it by 5 pips when I’d laddered to another position. So when I’d open a new position 15-pips away I’d widen the TSL of the old position to 20-pips and so on. This is a really good approach I thought till I realised after THU session that I might not even need a TSL with my strategy. I’m working on specific target zones if I’m aiming movement to/from Bollinger extremes, so I’m wondering if the varying TSL is a redundant idea in my case. Still mulling over it.
Part of the reason I wasn’t doing well till then was also I was scaling into positions for the first time and was still figuring it out. This was the first time it’d worked and it worked really well. I’d also switched to M15 charts for the duration and was surprised at how comfortable I felt trading the TF. I’d never used it before. I’ve still got a number of ideas I want to try out but I’ve got to reign in that curiosity and tinkering until the account balance is healthier. This session was mentally taxing. Felt euphoric right after though.
I’d like to attribute the good session to very clear focus and mostly good execution. But it could also be because I changed my playlist to Pantera. Phil Anselmo screaming in my ears is oddly relaxing now.
Takeaways and thing to fix:
- I’m proficient and confident enough to trade the LON & NYC sessions. I’m doing a miserable job with the TYO session. I’m guilty of not going over my earlier session analysis and planning accordingly. That’s a must do.
- My Notion workspace is the backbone to my trading regimen. This was why I lamented losing the first MQL5 code. But it’s not optimized to the current strategy. Right now the screening process is what I’d implemented previously, which was already not perfect, and is just more disjointed now. I’ll need to account for ADX crossovers atleast. Need to brainstorm the changes and plan the implementation (it will need changes not only in Notion but the MQL5 script too).
Trimmed some redundant fields though. Workspace as it is now
- I’m losing some sleep. I have a hard time switching my head off. Not happy about this at all. If it persists I might have to take an extended break to fix the routine first. $100 isn’t something to worry about. But I don’t want bad routines going from bad to worse when I do get around to trading larger amounts. It’s that simple.
Further reading
Nada. This is the first week I haven’t read anything or intend to. Feeling a bit drained. I am reading and absorbing a lot of other stuff around fundamentals & news events during the day though. But I’m not happy that I didn’t make the time to continue the planned additional reading.
Oh, I was able to use Tradingview for some intermarket analysis. I was able to duplicate almost all the methods I wanted to try out on the Tradingview desktop app. The only one I didn’t try yet was a market breadth indicator to see which stocks were trading above/below the DMA200 for an index/market sector. Tbh, I didn’t bother trying to see if such an indicator even existed. Will do another time. Thread discussing the analysis:
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I tend to agree with @SpaceCowboy2104 re: the huge amount of analysis you are doing for a $100 account BUT I like your journal and despite my misgivings I think the way you go about it is commendable and alot more inline with what professional traders do and maybe that’s your edge. I tend not to get too distracted by data, mostlycos i’m too dumb to understand it, but also cos too much data is a distraction. At the end of the day, prices will go up or down. That’s it. That’s how I’ve made it profitable. But if I had the head for numbers that you do, i’d prob have a much greater edge.
Good job. Good luck and I’m folowing your trading journal with interest. You are someone who I want to succeed! What’s your dayjob (just out of interest). I’m nosey, I know…
I think this is similar to how most folk think and something I always tend to forget. I think most feel very cluttered and weighed down with too much data. In my case, and I think mostly because of my background, I tend to feel very vulnerable, underprepared and uncertain if I don’t atleast have a feel for the bigger picture.
Right now honestly I’m not doing much. I’m a part-time software tester working a contract basis. But work is very far and few in between so I have a lot of time to read/learn and day trade. I worked a number of years in fraud prevention and data mining for an airline full time till a few years back, which is probably why I’m very comfortable with spreadsheets & data.
That’s actually the goal tbh. I’d really like to develop a more rounded approach in as many trading instruments in the long run. The goal is to be a full-time trader and use platform like FXall or similar aggregators & paid data streams. Right now I don’t have the knowledge and the capability (not to mention the money), so that’s a long term goal. Before that if I can learn statistics, fundamental financial math (will have to pick up calculus) & programming in python atleast. Med-term goal is to understand books like this:
That’s the biggest reason for a fire and forget system in the long run. I’ll need the time to put in the study. Compared to where I want to be I feel very inadequate right now. That’s the reason I’m journaling the reading/learning progress as well.
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@Blue2 Was watching this video when I remembered what you wrote about my approach. I prefer books over YT content but the few channels I follow have records working in private funds/banking. Like Brad Gilbert in this video, an ex Citibank FX trader:
He’s very fundamental driven and he’s got a fantastic series on how bankers typically worked. Atleast when he was working in banks. Definitely influenced the direction I wanted to take.
Other influences have so far been Kathy Lien and Linda Bradford Raschke. LBR more recently because even after 40 years of trading she still talks about stuff she’s learning from recent books. When she talks about certain trading strategies/methods she’s also very careful to add that it’s her take on an idea that was pioneered by someone else. So she’s drops references books and materials for further learning and development.
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Trading Summary:
Had a bad week. Balance at $80.80. The fatigue I felt from the previous week was just me coming down with something. Felt sick all week. Didn’t trade till I felt better on THU and that was a bad idea. Not only was I out of touch from the 3 days I hadn’t traded previously but my weekly analysis was countered strongly by the ECB decision that day. Markets, as I understood them, were expecting a more hawkish ECB announcement and was let down by the 25bp hike in JUL. Bad day to trade.
Found out I was still pretty bad when I’d taken my laptop apart for a routine service and damaged it. It was a routine check I’d missed. That mishap made me realize how out of it I really was. Anyway, got it fixed the following day (and didn’t trade FRI), but that was interesting.
Completed my weekly reviews and am reviewing some other stuff atm. Just unhappy about previous week. No further reading this week either. Started feeling better just this morning.
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Trade Summary
Had a wild week. Huge gains and losses. Account balance at $133.24. That’s basically +33.24% on initial amount and a +64.90% from the previous week. This alone would normally be phenomenal and a cause for celebration if it wasn’t for what I did on WED, THU & FRI.
By EOD MON I had ~$122 which was a spectacular gain in the two trading days after the previous losses. I then decided my current system in Notion was not going to be flexible enough for the wild swings that were on the horizon with the Central Bank announcements. There was going to be crazy action and I wasn’t going to let my not so effective and slow system to get in the way of making big bucks. Atleast that was the idea. I was confident in my current level of discipline (instilled with the continued use of my notion journal) & psychology. This was a midlife crisis. It was like cheating on a long suffering wife on a weekend with a hot trick in some exotic destination.
WED (15JUN) was ok because I only ignored my system much later in the day, where I am, when the FOMC announced the rate hikes. I knew, from the looking at M15-H4 charts, that the major currencies would go against the numbers/fundamentals. I knew what would happen. Wasn’t prepared for how it would turn out. That began a steady stream of massive losses the following day.
As if attempting to trade the news without following my system just for the FED rate hike wasn’t enough, I tried it again the following day (THU 16JUN) with both the SNB and BOE rate hikes. I’d traded the account balance away to ~$61 that day if I remember right. It was an amazing display of self destruction.
Abs DD rose to 56.65%. With the daily DD being reduced to 31.96%. Still a new ATH.
Made a quick recovery to the ~$88 with a string of good wins. There were some bad losses as well but the good, in this case outweighed the bad.
Remembered being very sarcastic with myself: “Wow, good job at making it just over break even after the 4 day grind!!!” This was because my account equity was at one point $162-165 even. To see the balance whittled down to $61 then back to $88 was a huge “Are you $hitting me?!” moment. I can’t remember feeling as relieved and disappointed at the same time in the recent past.
FRI (18JUN) started off with a bang. Kept some trades running while I slept. The BOJ announcemet helped hit the TP on all the trades I had running. All of them were JPY trades 
Account balance up to ~$154 but I traded it down to ~$124 and then back up to current level.
Key Takeaways:
I can attribute the massive gains to working intuitively. I didn’t even journal my trades (for the first time ever) during this stretch. Can argue that the big downswing are worth it because the end justified the means. But when I examine the #s I know that’s a false narrative.
Took 27 trades (can only afford to trade 0.01 lots atm) on the 13th (on the existing system) and notched a gain of $30.28 in profits.
The numbers with the system on the 14th were 24 trades for $25.75.
It’s significant when I compare it to the #s and figures against trading with “intuition”:
Basically if I can compare the similar profits for both TUE & FRI and notice immediately that I took 34 less trades. That’s massive. And that’s comparing the best case outcome of “intuition” vs the worse of the 2 examples for the system argument. Because 27 trades for ~$30 is just more efficient. Arguments that work against the numbers:
- Very limited sample size
- My numbers with the system were also inefficient when I implemented it at the start and I gradually got used to it.
- I’ve got a very good handle of trading with the news and without the system now. The numbers can only improve in more normal market conditions over time.
But these numbers put a nail in my coffin. Shows a serious gap in my psychology when I trade intuitively.
The MAE is the Maximum Adverse Excursion. The figure is explained by another user in the myfxbook forums here. Greens are wins (further away from 0 pips on the X-Axis the better) and Reds are loses (closer to 0 pips on the X-Axis the better).
Historically all of my losses have never exceeded the highlighted box. Those represent the mostly 15-pip SLs & the 1xATR (H1 TF) I implement on my trades. But the intuitive approach sees me widening the SLs on an alarming # of trades. The worst of which is the 81.7 pip loss that went against me. This should’ve been 15-25 pips max.
This is unacceptable. I’m not psychologically able to override my biases on a significant # of trades to take the L. I know I am tired of being stopped out with being forced to use a 15-pip SL but that has to be an accepted reality with having to work with small capital. I knew it going in and I need to be disciplined enough to accept this reality till I grow the account. There’s just no excuse. This has to stop.
Next week I’m back to the usual system, which I’m improving on gradually anyway. Despite the obvious fault with the biases I’m happy with my overall psychology. When the account balance was gradually diminishing and hit ~61 I was very clinical and just wrote it off simply. Just continued to find optimal setups, which I eventually did, and capitalized on it.
A few years back I’d have let it affect me emotionally. I’d have revenge traded in a fit of blinding rage and self destructed the rest of my capital. I know because it has happened to me a number of times when I started playing poker. I was still very scared my temper would get the better of me but it didn’t when it mattered the most. The work I put in to improve on my psychology as paid off in one way or another. So that’s a very positive takeaway. Something to pat myself on the back for 
Further reading:
Intend to over the weekend. This update is early. But nothing during the week because of how much time I spent trading. I honestly can’t wait to hit $220-240. These would enable 1xATR for most of the currencies. $300 would be the next milestone to consider changing the position size. That’s give me even greater flexibility and enable less micromanaging and, hopefully, more reading.
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Emotions… that is why I dropped discretionary trading 
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Yea, glad I wasn’t emotional this time but it could be a one-off to be fair. This time I was able to keep my eye on the bigger picture and stuck to the objective. But those times I let emotions take over, from when I played poker, are still vivid memories. Those were expensive lessons 
Your post reminded me to check the fxblue account link. Glad I did cuz it was off sync and out of date. That’s because of the verification process I had to do with myfxbook. Just fixed it. I’ll probably use numbers from it for future analysis too. At first glance that appears to have more metrics than myfxbook, which makes it really interesting.
