Forming my plan

Hey folks,

As I craft together my inital trading plan I have one goal.
To be profitable - even if only by 1 pip.

To do that (as a certified noob) I’m building a plan around reasons to NOT get into a trade. If none of those red flags get flipped then I can start digging into the charts. :slight_smile:

One of the rules I was considering putting into my plan was:

If there’s a red or orange news event on the forex calender, or if it’s an applicable Bank holiday - Don’t Trade

The calendar I was looking at for this is located here:
http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php

But wow…
click through that it seems there would NEVER be a day I could trade if I baked that rule in.
Is my rule to general or is it an exceptionaly “newsy” time of year?

Thanks!

It sounds like you’re taking a rule intended to be applied for the time immediately around a calendar event (like 10 minutes) and applying it to the whole day. That, indeed, would make it very hard to find any days to trade on.

You’re absolutely right.
I just can’t figure out how best to honor the news schedule given that I’m going to have to set entry/stops/exit orders and walk away from it just prior to the NY session open.
(gotta get to the real job)

Maybe trading is not for you.

That was the conclusion I came to so I have someone else trading for me.

Then why the hell you hanging around here?

Go to an “investing” forum to get your “investors”, and leave the traders, and those that want to be traders alone.

You’re really becoming tiresome in your spam efforts.

Do you own this forum ?

If you are so emotionally unstable, my advice to you is don’t trade.

You [B]will[/B] suffer great losses.

Undoubtedly you will think differently and when you take it out on the market you will find that the market is way way bigger than you and it is not so easy to bully it.

Stay away from the peyote…

It’s really hindering your ability to be rational.

I don’t think any peyote is required :wink:

Yea…you can really see the guys that are making the money and then the guys that [B]are not !![/B]

The [B]jealousy[/B] is the dead give away

Brandnew, sometimes it might be a good idea not to de-rail interesting threads with inane commentary. I personally do not see Rounder, Master Tang or PurplePatch as emotionally unstable.

In response to Rounder: during what times of the day, which don’t conflict with your job, can you trade? There may be convenient times when the news coming out of NY has been digested and you could trade more comfortably. Hope this helps.

Thanks maggiemfx.

I’m going to have to choose to trade at one of the following times [ All times EST ]:

  • crazy early like 3am (I’m afraid I’d not stick to that)
  • 5a - 7a (I could probably swing that)
  • 10p - midnight (also easily done)

I was leaning toward 5a-7a but to your point it may be a better do a late evening and hope my trades are closed out before the next day’s news.

The last two trading times are very different markets and market players:) At 5 am you’d be catching the London open, with its news, while at 10 pm Asia would be winding down more quietly. I guess it would depend on what kind of volatility you want and what pair you would be trading! Plus of course how much coffee you might need to ingest :slight_smile:

Nothing wrong with Rounder, seems a well balanced trader sharing his thoughts and I don’t see any wrong with me doing the same.

There is no need at all for any emotional outbursts from anyone else.

I just figured this is an appropriate picture at this juncture…

Yeah and that’s part of my confusion I guess.
Even though (at 5a) I’d be working in the London session … My entry point may not be reached (an thus my entry triggered) for some time. If I spent any amount of tme at all thinking in that 5-7a time period there’s a reasonably good chance my order would get executed just in time for the NY news.

… I suppose at some point I’ll be free of the job and this won’t be an issue but until then I’m confused.

Thanks all - I do appreciate the sounding board and advice.

Btw … I’m on my phone at the moment so please forgive any grammatical errors or type-os.

Sorry if I’ve missed it, but what timeframe are you trading? To be honest, I’m not sure what the scare is with the news. You will create more stress for yourself worrying about the news and then won’t ever pull the trigger.

Understand what you can control in the market, and that is money management & emotion. If you apply the right money management for your account, a news item should never wipe out your account, and by applying correct money management then you take away your fear & greed (emotion) and can move towards being a successful mindset trader.

Well said.
Over thinking things is indeed a problem I suffer from.

But…
I’m trying to build some bias (in my favor) into my methodology, and staying away from big news seems to be one way to do that.

To answer your question…
I intend to check monthly,weekly,and daily charts to [I]CONFIRM [/I]trends and S&R lines - but for the main analysis (initial S&R, entry, stop, and Profit points) I was planning on something like the 4h time frame.

My thinking there was:

  1. It’s fast enough that I’ll not have to plan on day/week long trades.
  2. It’s slow enough that I can study the chart without feeling like things are changing. :slight_smile:
  3. It’s the time frame used in the examples of many of the Price action examples that I intend to follow.

As far as WHEN I’ll trade…
I’m going to have to choose to trade at one of the following times [ All times EST ]:

  • crazy early like 3am (I’m afraid I’d not stick to that)
  • 5a - 7a (I could probably swing that)
  • 10p - midnight (also easily done)

So with a 4h setup I’m assuming my entry point may take up to 4-8 hours to actually trigger. Making it hard to know if I’ll be running into a big news release.

At least… that’s what my over-active mind is stuck on. :smiley:

I can see why you will be having trouble and over thinking this, because the 4Hr timeframe you propose, contradicts trying to miss the news. Trading this timeframe your money management (which you can control) should mitigate any news spikes you should encounter. Also with this timeframe you will be expecting to trade a higher R/R system therefore lower win % ratio, which is fine, actually is good, therefore forget about the news stuff, formulate your trading plan and execute, with what you can control.

The timframes you are suggesting to setup your trades, shouldn’t take you to long to work out in the early evening hours and then set up conditional orders for the pairs you plan on trading and then there is no need to be awake at those hours.

For example, I trade 1hr, 4 trades a night, Aussie time, and it takes three minutes to setup, 1 minute to execute at two set times in the evening.

If I may ask one last question, what is your desired win/loss% for your system and expected R/R on your selected timeframe?

You don’t have to be awake for a trade to take place;)