I have decided to keep a trade journal to see how much impact it’ll create on my trading.
Wednesday June 25th 2020
These first two trades were inspired by a mentor at my trading school. He made me use S&R and channel trendline to enter the trades on H4 chart. He added two MAs (period 5 and 13, close) and said if the candle after my first order closes below the two MAs I could enter more orders (well I didn’t because the 5 trades were enough). He also said we should keep the trades open till Friday. The last trade I looked into myself.
I estimated a profit total of $100 when the trades all close.
- GBPUSD
Why I took the trade?
Price didn’t break the Channel Trendline, it didn’t break resistance.
SL - 1.26052 (116-117 pips)
All orders were instant orders
A. 1.24898 to 1.24038 (86 pips)
Why TP1?
It was an S&R area
B. 1.24890 to 1.23400 (149 pips)
Why TP2?
Price was below TP1’s S&R area but price touched the Channel Trendline and reversed trend direction
C. 1.24889 to 1.22785 (210 pips)
Why TP3 ?
Another S&R area that the trend may reach within the equidistant channel
Manual Close Orders
a. 0.01 (-$0.15 commission) _ 1.24890 to 1.24833 _ +$0.63 (6 pips)
Why MC _ because lot size wasn’t what I decided to use
b. 0.05 (-$0.75 commission) _ 1.24890 to 1.24833 _ +$2.85 (6 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was higher than my choice lot size of 0.02
c. 0.05 (-$0.75 commission) _ 1.24889 to 1.24825_ +$3.20 (6 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was higher than my choice lot size of 0.02
d. 0.05 (-$0.75 commission) _ 1.24898 to 1.24825 _ +$3.65 (7 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was higher than my choice lot size of 0.02
e. 0.03 (-$0.45 commission) _ 1.24898 to 1.24762 _ +$4.08 (13 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was still higher than my choice lot size of 0.02.
f. 0.03 ($0.45 commission) _ 1.24889 to 1.24760 _ +$3.81 (12 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was still higher than my choice lot size of 0.02
g. 0.03 (-$0.45 commission) _ 1.24890 to 1.24779 _ +$3.33 (12 pips)
Why MC _ I partial closed because lot size was still higher than my choice lot size of 0.02
- EURUSD
Why I took the trade?: Price didn’t break the Channel Trendline, it didn’t break resistance.
All orders were instant orders
SL _ 1.13629 ( -90 pips)
A. 1.12724 to TP 1.122321(+49 pips)
Why the TP?
It was an S&R that had touched the channel Trendline
B. 1.12721 to TP 1.11742 (+98 pips)
Why the TP?
It was another S&R area that changed direction when it was reached.
Manual Closed Orders
a. 0.03 (-$0.45 commission) _ 1.12724 to 1.12640 _ +$2.52 (8 pips)
Why _ I partial closed because lot size wasn’t what I decided to use
b. 0.03 (-$0.45 commission) _ 1.12721 to 1.12636 _ +$2.55 (9 pips)
Why _ I partial closed because lot size wasn’t what I decided to use
- USDCAD - cancelled
I opened the trade because it was consolidating.
I was skeptical. I mean I opened one sell stop and one buy stop to prove it and I closed it later on because they never reached either point.
Buy Stop order at 1.37545
SL _ 1.36282 (126 pips)
TP _ 1.38780 (124 pips)
0.02 ($0.30 commission)
Sell Stop Order at 1.34606
0.02 ($0.30 commission)
SL _ 1.35154 (55 pips)
TP _ 1.33182 (142 pips)
Observations
I need to look closely into my R:R 
Dear Journal,
I released journal entering isn’t really much about all I wrote in my last post it’s the psychology aspect and more of what I wrote last.
Attending a forex school is the best privilege I’ve had this year, they seem to have sped things up a bit in my forex education.
I’ve come to understand a tiny bit of how to trade news (fundamental analysis: it was proving tough to get in), what currencies to trade and when and how to enter and exit trades (precisely take profit and stop loss) using candlestick patterns, support and resistance lines, demand and supply zones; and I’m holding on to it like I just struck gold because I saw the charts differently.
I’m going to test what I learnt on tomorrow’s medium and high impact news events. I’ve also chosen ‘several’ pairs I’d concentrate on based on this new finding. They are 11 in number and all major and minor pairs excluding the NZD and CHF. I really want to get the hang of using news to trade and entering right and exiting right.
And yeah, I did hit $100 on the last trade but I also felt like I was gambling. I also closed some of them because I was thought the news would affect it and I was right - but they still hit my TP points later on.
I’ve been away because I’ve been practising and planning - learning from my paid school especially.
I finally have a trading plan and I haven’t finished the School of Pipsology.
Well I skimmed some areas of interest pertaining to where I was confused about - what is buying and selling in a currency pair, how to fill in a trading journal and personality quizzes - and it was worth the skim.
From trading school offline I was said to be a swing trader - also here. I wonder though, I’ve always been attracted to scalping. When I started trading, I started with synthetic indices and a strategy that involved day trading so I guess it stuck to me 
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I’m taken to be the best of my trading class and it puts me on edge psychologically. I feel pressured to then be the best - at the back of my mind I know it’s all about my results in trading, the PROFITS! I feel like I’m not having those.
We’re having a competition starting tomorrow. I’ll be more diligent about filling in my journal and reviewing.
I did notice that I attach so much emotion to my demo account, which is a plus. I sometimes play around with it and I still feel like it’s real money I’m playing with. Well from tomorrow I can’t play with it anymore because it’s going to be an exam paper.
The competition only requires that I keep to my trading plan. We’re sharing $1750 between 5 top traders. I actually need this money 
- I’ve got some pending ‘family’ debt and I think that’s what is really chewing at my mind. Well and also the fact that I was sponsored to this school - to whom much is given much is expected!
Well, unluckily, luckily, to my learning process my sponsor signed me up for the signal programme of the school too. They would teach as they give signals keeping us up with why they placed a trade and all - I’m also up to speed on how to take signals correctly applying the right risk according to my account size.
I feel if I pay off my debts I’d feel lighter. I’m on edge because one date is due while the other is accumulating interest.
I also really want to teach forex so some things would be hard to forget.
I am still lost in some aspects - someone had said that 75 pips a trade wasn’t realistic for even a trading session. What is the average amount of pips expected from a session trading the EURUSD and GBPUSD?
July 20th
I was still anxious by the time morning came. I got busy to put my mind off it.
I went long on the GBPUSD but I fear it was out of the plan. The MAs crossed after a bullish engulfing candle formed - but the sequence is MAs then candles: I took the entry with regrets of being wrong prior to my strategy.
I went on to follow it up with a break even of 10 pips. I’ve noticed most times break evens get hit and the price continues in the direction it was heading before - this has happened more than once when I take trades on my own. I’m beginning to think I don’t like to break even, it’s good management, secures profits, but also prevents me from having some actually good profits. I guess I’m fine with my actual stop losses being hit rather being cut out and the market continues in the direction it was going before.
Lol, before today I thought trading wasn’t for me because of the pressure but like my lover said: “Diamonds only form under pressure”, that was really sweet and boosted my morale - I still haven’t gotten bored of it, I still believe I can do it, it has been what? 9 months? That’s not enough time to decide that it’s not for me.
I kept my old strategy from when I had no idea what I was doing when trading - I tweaked it up a bit though. It’s on my MT5 so I don’t get distracted looking at another setup on my charts. I’ve been comparing it to the new one from my forex school and I get angry that it notices trends before the new strategy.
I know from my studies of MAs that I should chill and see how profitable and credible it is before making conclusions as to it being better than the new strategy; so I decided to just watch them for the period of the competition.
The MAs involved are a 7 SMA and a 4 EMA. There are some other indicators but I’m only comparing the MAs here.
I took trades using my older strategy and entered earlier than the new one, still keeping to my entire RRR, they were profitable.
I haven’t placed any trades on my competition account because I really didn’t see my setup - okay I did but I got there an hour late for the morning session. Looking at my charts now I’m glad I didn’t enter because my stop loss might have been hit.
I feel that the time constraint and my choice of pairs is hindering. Why? I saw an entry that was correct yesterday but I didn’t take it because the time was 11am and I saw entries on another pair that I wanted to trade - the USDCAD, up to a 100 pips could’ve been made. Discipline is disregarding these temptations . I took the trades on my MT5 account - am I cheating myself?
Now about my MT5 account. I use another broker there. I have seen differences between the charts on my account on MT5 and my account on another broker on my MT4. I feel this nullifies the fact that my older strategy is working better because there’s this comma.
The MT5 broker plots shorter candles and shadows than the MT4 broker. Who’s cheating?
The MT4 broker is an ECN broker.
I feel calmer today. I guess it wasn’t trading but outer forces. Some things are beginning to work out for my debt issues as I have been opportuned to earn one way or the other.
I haven’t made an entry in a while. I kind of lost touch and I was a lot distracted and sad, really sad.
For the first time in my life I felt like trading wasn’t for me, I mean I keep making losses on just my demo.
I feel like there’s something missing - all this frustration makes me yearn for bots to do the work too.
The encouraging part was that I was keeping to rules, but now I’ve come to the ending of the competition I know I have to work on myself for a while and build my own trading system because what we was taught at that school doesn’t work for me - nor did or did the first one I bought without any knowledge of forex.
So for the rest of August and the year I’ll be a lot more devoted to learning and practising from babypips - taking this trading at a gradual pace, i mean each step of education took nothing less than a year so how could I dream of doing it in just one month.
By December I’ll be 1-year since I stepped foot in this crazy currency town and I want to show for it.
I’m really attracted to just reading the whole forex course without bothering what I’m reading - skimming through but actually reading - but not practising.
Prior to this I realised that this broker might just be giving variable spreads yet they claim fixed spreads so I’ve done away with broker on the MT5 because the one on the MT4 correlates more with other brokers like forex.com and Oando etc. It’s also an ECN.
As for today I learnt that I shouldn’t trade when I’m sick because I’d panic. It was crazy. I lost almost 15% of my account after i was doing well making 4% in a week.
I didn’t want to trade at first but I did and I panicked and took a signal. I think from now on I’d treat signals as demo stuff, something I should just use to study why… I need to mind my business 
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I almost gave up today oh, ha. I told myself I’m going back to demo because they’re so many things my Academy didn’t teach but they expected me to learn on my own. So many things I realised as soon as I got back to my education. I was thinking of going back to demo but I noticed that my real account which I started using last week felt like my demo account, I’ve literally mastered the art of not knowing the difference.
On my demo account, my broker says they offer $0.15 as commission but in the real account they take $0.25. This makes me increase my pips by the value of $0.30 to cover for the costs and be accurate about it.
Posting your trade plan, strategy and findings will be a good way for you to get some positive feedback.