As you probably noticed by this being my first post, I’m new here (but I certainly would like to stay for a long time :)). So i have just recently finished the School of Pipsology and am now looking to start my journey in a FX world of rich and broke obviously hoping to one day become the former.
I like to keep my stuff in order and also keep myself motivated and that’s the point of this thread. I haven’t seen those on Babypips.com (but to be honest I wasn’t really digging deep) so I hope it’s not anyhow forbidden to have my own thread here basically not sharing too much deep knowledge (at first at least) but just to have a safe place where I can write my thoughts and look back to in the future to see how stupid I was
So this is going to be my home on Babypips.com. I am a total noob in a world of Forex. Never traded, never even had a demo account, I’m just starting totally fresh. Which can be good sometimes as I’m not biased by some wrong knowledge one might have had learnt in the past. So far I’m going through ICT’s tutorial videos, basic stuff at first but it’s good for beginners to keep a level-headed approach from the very start of the journey.
Okay, so let’s say that’s that as for the introduction of my being here. I will probably write more about myself in next posts as well as my expectations regarding trading. Right now I’ll just put here a few tasks for today (so that I have them on “paper” and people could actually see them and in case I don’t do them say “You are a lazy motherf***er!” :P). I will keep posting those for next days/weeks/months as well in the future.
To Do’s - 19/07/2012:
finally get my desktop computer to work (after a long holidays) - deadline: today
bookmark interesting blogs/pages and subscribe to a few great threads on forums here - deadline: today
establish my first FX demo account + get MT4 to work with it - deadline: tommorow
watch one more ICT’s tutorial video - deadline: today
Those should get me started and hopefully by next week I’ll start demo trading and finally be getting some practice in looking at charts. Thats it for now. Big thanks to everyone that actually read all that my rambling
Okay, so there’s been some pause to this thread. I actually thought I would be writing here everyday but it’s not the case so far. First thing was that at first I didn’t really know where to point my thoughts/efforts and what tasks should really be important for me at the beginning. Now I more or less know what I should do, so I will make a post with my “To Dos” next time, on the weekend I hope (though might be hard due to my friend’s bachelor party).
In the meantime I started doing some demo trades w/ Pepperstone as my broker (is that a good choice? hope so). I also watched almost every of ICTs videos from “What every…” thread and recently am trying to keep up with his other thread. That stuff really makes sense, I hope I’ll be able to build on it and get myself a profitable system. I know, a lot of time and experience ahead for that to happen probably. I try to read as much as I can and grasp any concepts that makes sense to me. What I feel I don’t do enough is actually probably the thing that most newbies do to much - studying the charts. I need to find a way of backtesting ideas, I’ll write more about this and my other plans in the aforementioned post to come.
Welcome to Babypips. Lots of good info here if you are willing to look. Ict’s thread is great. Here is a thread with a list of some of the best threads to check out.
Hey pipmart, thanks for the welcome and for stopping by! I will pay the thread you mentioned a closer look.
I still can’t find enough time for doing all the things I would ideally want with my forex learning. So I decided that after taking the last trade today (demo, still in play) I’d stop doing that until I have my Excel trading sheet completed. I hope to be done with that by the end of the week. But then again, no time today, not too much tommorow and then there’s my friend’s wedding on Saturday… Well, I promise myself that I will try to squeeze as much time as I can.
I also finished watching the remaining videos from the last time mentioned thread. Now I’m actually going to… re-watch most of them Take notes and prepare my trading plan. Then keep up with my demo for at least 1-2 months and when I (hopefully) see it’s profitable, go live with a small depo. I guess will see how it works.
Some ad-hoc “To Dos” list:
re-watch all instructional videos from ICT’s thread, take notes of all the stuff I think is important
make my Excel trading spreadsheet (no trades before that’s done)
follow ICT’s millionaires guild thread - watch videos, read analysis, try to spot some tradable patterns myself
I am also new to forex trading, still learning.
However, one question: why do you bother with a “trading Sheet” (assume aka journal)?
Do you think in 2, 3 months time you will refer to it?
And if you did what would you get from it?
Just wondered. I diligently filled one up for a month and then kicked it into touch.
You learn by doing not by writing a diary.
I commend you for stepping out and doing this. I’m going through school of pipsology (should be finished in the next few days if i keep to my schedule, and I intend to!). I’m also following ICT’s thread. The more I read, the more I realise there is to learn and that can get overwhelming at times, many times in fact. So, my game plan is to balance my learning (which I’ll do daily), with practicing application of that to the daily charts. I suppose I should backtest, but somehow I’m more inclined to practice in a demo for the next 2-3 months. If, sometime in that period I’m consistently profitable and build confidence, then I’ll trade live (small account, very small positions) while continuing to demo-trade (positions based on account size). As I read/learn from other threads, I’ll check back here to see how you are doing so I can put my performance in context. I hope I can draw encouragement and inspiration from your musings. Good luck.
Wow, I abandoned this thread for quite a while… I had other things that I had to focus on lately and since last week’s end I got back to learning. I am going to put a few trades on (if the conditions are right of course) as this is an inevitable part of a learning process.
The spreadsheet I wanted to use as a form of a journal, yes. I just always liked to do all kinds of summaries and stuff in Excel better than anywhere else. Recently though I am thinking of a better way to do this. I found out about https://www.myfxbook.com/ and it’s great for recording trades and keeping an eye on the progress as a whole but I need a place where I would be stating reasoning behind every single trade for furhter review. And yes, I would be going back to those notes I make as it will definitely help me see the flaws in my thinking when I will (hopefully) be getting smarter about FX trading in time. It’s also great to have it all written out for weekly/monthly reviews to see if trades taken (and mostly the reasoning behind them) were valid if I take another look at it from distance, after some time passes.
I hope next time when I post here I could write about a trade I took finally, so far I just missed my setup by a pip or so
Welcome to babypips and you may want to do try the demo for a short while, to streamline your trading strategy. Other than that “may the force be with you”. Corny but when it comes to Fx trading, you’re going to need it, more now than ever before. Good luck!
Yeh… Interesting that a new trading is having a hard time getting into taking trades… I know that I was making demo trades within an hour after finding forex I guess over trading won’t be a bad habit he will have to break.
I’ve been trading nearly 20 years and the best asset to my arsenal has always been my Journals. These things are wonderful “maps” for periods when you go through losing streaks and feel like you are lost in the charts.
It’s one thing to read about someone else’s wins and losses and coming away with a momentary emotional charge… but it’s all together different when it’s Y.O.U. that you are reading about and that losing streak of several losing trades that had you feeling like the market has finally beaten you into submission… was really nothing more than a detour on your road to longevity and excellence.
[B]A Pen and Pad Is A Furtile Ground For Genius[/B] :57:
Thanks for all the wise words, guys! And even the almighty-Jedi-FX-Master ICT showed up in here, many thanks
Not to make anyone confused, I did make some trades since I started but they were rather only to test the FX waters. Now I am just starting to put up trades consciously, if I may say. There is also no worries about me jumping straight into real money. I’m not going to hurry anything and until I feel I might actually have an edge over the market I shouldn’t feel any pressure to risk my hard earned bucks. For a several years I treat everything I do to make money as an investment. I was a poker player for a few years and now most of my income comes from betting but there is no gamble in what I am (was) doing in these regards. I only played games where I knew there was at least one weaker player and I only bet on the games where I see the bookies priced it wrong. And that’s exactly what I plan on doing with forex - until I see the strategy I plan to use works (again, big thanks to ICT for providing the tools, and also to BP school as a start) I won’t be risking a dime. I hope to go live by the end of this year. Maybe later, definitely not earlier than December, we’ll see how it all works out
Meanwhile, I’m scoping a long setup on Cable based on a Judas swing from a very tight Asian Range but unless the price goes down to around 1.58 (full figure, pivot buy zone, OTE area on 15 min last swing EDIT: to top that up, I jut saw there is a type 2 bullish div on H1) I won’t do anything. And even if it does, I feel that’s not very clear and also not too many confluences, so I’d only risk 1% if that unfolds.
Eeeeeend I missed my trade order @ 1.5802 by 2 pips, for the second day in a row. Even more frustrating, given that there were all kinds of SMT divergences on H1 and M15 giving me more confidece about the setup. Good chace that we’ve already seen a day’s low at LO killzone IMO, so train left without me… Unless the news change the situation and drives the price back down significantly again but then I’m not sure if that won’t be one of those ‘Seek and destroy’ days so I’m probably done seeking trades for the day (not enough experience in these conditions). I will be watching though!
To Do today: do the multi-timeframe analysis for the Fiber, note the key levels and stuff so I can be able to see how the EU and GU moves in relation to themselves. Tommorow the same analysis for USDx.
Okay, so I actually took the first trade today (Cable) and am quite embarrased about it. At the NYO I decided I won’t trade on the day as I couldn’t really see any valid oportunity and I turned my charts off. I turned them on later and saw that the price is suddenly falling sharply around the LC. I thought there might be an option to trade, did a quick look for some confluences, found a few and I went long at market (my first mistake…). I wasn’t convinced to take it until I saw that there might be a divergence forming on H1 TF but it appeared the price went lower, took down my stop, divergence hasn’t actually formed and I was like WTF? Lesson learnt! Actually, two lessons: 1. don’t rush into trades, only enter setups with limit orders set in advance and 2. don’t think there is a divergence until peaks/bottoms actually form.
I also established an account at myfxbook for my new OANDA demo account and the trade got recorded, so I officially started my forex journey with a loss - just as almost anyone I guess Here is the link if anyone want to track my progress: MySys System | Myfxbook
I did multi-timeframe analysis for Fiber yesterday. Didn’t do USDx today as I felt not too good and wasn’t really focused much (another reason why I shouldn’t be taking that trade today). I plan to do it over the weekend.
Other to do’s for the nearest future:
re-watch all ICT’s tutorial videos, make notes on key concepts
Welcome back. I’ve been lurking around the forum for some days now, but no trade taken - once again I missed two setups by just 2-3 pips. Today the tide changed and I’m finally in the trade. Unfortunately, after watching the first PTC video I already know I made wrong assumtions about it, not focusing on longer term analysis enough. Thus - I’m long @ 1.2525 on Fiber. Here’s what I was thinking while figuring this trade setup:
bias: long (from market structure) + we were breaking the highs of LT OTE to the downside, so I thought we might be going for the previous LT swing high
market flow: bull on W1, D1; bear on H4, H1 - go with LT flow and against ST
Judas Swing out of Asian Range in the LO killzone
SMT divergence (USDX and Fiber posted higher/lower points, Cable didn’t) H4 (see pic 1 - I haven’t drawn the lines there, but it’s about recent highs/lows - it’s rather small so probably not very significant)
Stoch bull type 2 divergence on H4 (2x) - see pic 2
Stoch bull type 1 divergence on M15 - pic 3
confluence of levels: .2520 mid-fig, weekly midMS1 pivot, daily MS1, daily trinity S2, weekly trinity - just below no man’s land, Friday Asian Range high
SL @ .2495 (30 pips, just below full fig), first TP @ .2555 (30 pips).
After watching the aforementioned video I’m of course not feeling comfortable about it, as I’m acting against long term OTE to the downside (I saw that actually, but I figured Fiber was already breaking highs of that area and I thought that might be a sign of it going higher and searching for the older highs - well, lack of experience I guess…). Live and learn, let’s see how it goes - I know I’ll be making mistakes at that stage but I will keep to my own analysis to see the result of my own trading After all it’s only a demo trade.
EDIT: And already closed, most @.2550 and about 25% @breakeven (I left that with a trailing stop as I had to leave home for a few hours). Netted some nice pips, abt 1.2% up. Now I will probably be looking to short but nothing concrete in mind yet. I’ll update if I decide to enter again.
Blah… I guess I need to believe my analysis more than anything else to be a true trader. Just took a short on a premise from ICT vid that Fiber is probably going to go down. Short @ .2560, as it was:
area of previous resistance/support/now might become resistance again
Got stopped in a lightning speed 1% loss (glad I wasn’t super sure about that and didn’t go with the full risk). What I particularly don’t like about that trade is that I changed my daily bias after watching that PTC vid and also I made a really quick analysis of the setup and I guess right now I need to think more before doing. Again - live and learn
EDIT: btw, my stop was @ .2585 for 25 pips (right on ADR projected level)
Take notes and prepare my trading plan. Then keep up with my demo for at least 1-2 months and when I (hopefully) see it’s profitable, go live with a small depo. I guess will see how it works.
I guess over trading won’t be a bad habit he will have to break.
1% loss (glad I wasn’t super sure about that and didn’t go with the full risk). What I particularly don’t like about that trade is that I changed my daily bias after watching that PTC vid and also I made a really quick analysis of the setup and I guess right now I need to think more before doing. Again - live and learn