I have learned the same thing the hard way. Now a counter trend trade has to meet certain standards. My indicators must be topped out and since the center bols line is the point of price indecision once this line is crossed it is now a point of SL so any retouch is a close of the trade. I have also noticed that many counter moves are unsuccessful the first time and reverse at the Bols centerline. This move occurs again after hitting resistance and succeeds the second time with little or no hesitation at the centerline.
The angle of the trend is very important as a sharp slope isnāt worth the risk. Something has to happen to change the direction and the odds of the trade going in your favor.
Iām a different type of trader then Graviton as I trade from top to bottom and back again with the only losses from confirmation of the trade which usually occur within the same candle as the top or bottom, hence the longer wicks of either. The close of the candle is meaningless to me and all my indicators use only the highs and lows. The open of the candle tells me itās direction and if I hesitated at the high or low to make the trade this is confirmation.
Once you have learned to spot the highs and lows you move to make the trade with out hesitating. To get the hang of it I was told by a very good trader to trade the one minute time frame. It was an eye opener and at first I felt like I was playing a video game but it showed me how to trade. I made 28.3 pips in two hours. Before doing that I was stuck on the Daily.
No two traders are just alike and Iāve never seen two successful traders trade the same system just alike. It just takes practice to determine what works for you consistently. I always use the 1M, 5M and 15M TFās to time entry into every trade. But my trades are triggered off longer TFās. Just trading the daily without referring to the lower TFās for entries and exits just never worked for me. But trading the dailyās in a campaign fashion (I call it chicken trading because I use such small stops) and using the lower TFās to enter and exit works very well for me. We both probably enter the same trades at near the same points, I just hold the trade for much longer from 1/2 day to several days or longer. Happy trading!
Ha Ha, you can learn a lot about entering and exiting trades from a scalper. To scalp successfully you have to perfectly time entries and exits. Combining that skill with a very good medium to long term trading system produces huge rewards for very little entry risk. Scalping is a hard life though.
Trading has been very good this week. I got good entries on eu, ej, gu and gj early in the week and have been swing trading them all week, adding lots on during dips and taking them off on peaks. Glad to hear things are going well for you also. Maintain your self discipline and Iām sure youāll do fine
Thatās why Iāve been using my āscalp viewā to trade these last 2 weeks. Combines higher TF trend with M1, M5 and M15 stoch for multiple entries and exits along the trend line. (Mostly with the trend, unless the retracement gets all the way to M30) 'Tis a beautiful thing if you get it right; but very time consuming.
I will give you an example but itās not exactly the open but the direction after the open. Letās say the price just established a new daily Low on the 15M. Two things generally happen next.
a long wick will form as the price bounces hard off the new low.
a small wick will form and the next candle will move [B]UP[/B] slightly after the open and then move [B]DOWN[/B] to establish yet another new low.
If a long wick is formed the price on the next candle will most likely open and then start[B] DOWN[/B] but will only move down a little before moving[B] UP[/B]. If the bounce is off a major support line the move up could be quick with little or no bottom wick forming as the next candle explodes upward.
This is why Iāll sell on a long candle down especially if that candle establishes a new low. I find even if a lower low is established on the subsequent candle or candles most of the move down is exhausted already. I trade with the thought that if money is on the table I take it off before it disappears. Some will call this scalping, I call it lowering risk. Staying in too long maximizes profit but the bad news it isnāt yours that is being maximized.
There are many different factors but the sequence of events of a candle forming is very consistent. Nothing is 100% but the odds are in your favor if you learn to recognize this. When youāre wrong you can always buy back-in as you already have more money in your account then when you started.
Today I learned all about month end fixing and the importance of this to directional moves in the hours leading up to London Fixing. Suffice to say, I was initially surprised that most portfolio managers all do their month end fixing at the same time.
I soon realised that the period leading up to London fixing is where all the real action is. Lesson learned and a new rule added to the trading plan. :o
Hey grav, hows your trading week going?
Well hereās the stats i had taken for the week as promised.
My theme for this week was to drill myself in optimising my entry. Thatās what i kept telling myself, as i realised my last couple of weeks i have been losing bad due to trades going badly against me before eventually going back in my favour.
Thus this week, i told myself i need better entries, i need to optimise my trades.
I took up 3 trades this week
First trade:
Short EUR GBP 2% mm
MMA = 3 pips
Profit 0.2%
PE = 0.2
2nd trade:
Long EUR CAD AT 1.34280 SL AT 1.33800 2% mm
MMA = 0
Entered 1 HR TF
Profit 2%
PE = 0.65
3rd trade:
SHORT USD JPY AT 86.980 SL AT 87.180
Entered on 15mins TF
MMA = 0
Used 0.5% mm as an overnight trade, did not want to risk too much of my profits
Profit 0.6%
profit efficiency = 0.3
Itās been a good learning week again as usual, and the optimising of entries really did played a big part on my emotions!
Anyway, i hope i did calculate my profit efficiency correctly,
you take the max amount of profits available divide by your profits that you took?
Fartist, looks like you had three good entries and three winning trades. No losers and no bad entries. Thatās great! Glad to see you are approaching this the right way, that is, learning how to not lose. If you include the maximum favorable excursion (MFE), or the maximum pips the trade moved in your favor in itās duration, and the actual pips profit taken, I can check the profit taking efficiency of your trades.
It looks like you calculated it right, but said it backward in your post. The Profit Taking Efficiency is actual profit (in pips) divided by MFE , or the maximum pips the trade moved in your favor in the trades duration. So the formula is PTE=AP/MFE. Like I said, I believe you calculated it right, but said it backward.
I think if you stick to this method of minimizing losses you will evolve into a very strong trader indeed. You should be able to get 6 to 8 of these good trades in an average week, but you donāt want to take questionable trades just to increase your number of trades.
If you have a spread sheet program like excel (free at openoffice.org) itās a great way to track all this. I highly recommend tracking all your trades in a spreadsheet and then charting and graphing results.
Keep up the good trading and let me know if you have any questions. As I told someone else, the only thing that stands in your way of becoming a professional trader now is the monster loss. It out there, lurking, just waiting to destroy your account and your self confidence. Avoid it at all costs. Better to take 20 small losses than one big monster. Better to halt trading than to take that risk. Other than that risk of a monster loss that we all have to struggle to avoid every single day of our trading career, you are well on your way. Stay on the path.
I havent been able to make have two winning weeks in a row, but i have finished positive at the end of the month. Lets see if i can make two winning weeks next month.
I have a question: professional traders make 4 winning weeks in a month? 3 winning weeks and 1 losing week? or they just dont care about that, and the only goal is to finish positive at the end of the month?
Hi FX1, Its kind not understandable for me how to enter short on a new low.
I only can make some pips if I enter short on a new high. You may show me the trades in DodgeV83 chat someday. He has created greate tool to see live trades!
Its such nice that anyone could share their screen to show exectly how to enter. Its much different when you see the real time live trade entries and exits.
thanks
This is why Iāll sell on a long candle down especially if that candle establishes a new low. I find even if a lower low is established on the subsequent candle or candles most of [B][U]the move down is exhausted[/U][/B] already.
How did you get that from this. I guess Iām going to have to be more concise.
[B]āBUY TO COVERā[/B].
Welcome back Gas! Most professional traders I know count their results monthly and their goal is to have no losing months. The best go years at a time with no losing months, but internally they are tracking everything by trade, by day and by week. They often go several months at a time with no losing weeks, so a total of only 4 or less losing weeks in a year is common. The losing weeks they do have are usually very small losers relative to their average winning weeks, so they are easily made up with one usual winning week in the month. If it looks like the loss will be larger, they just halt trading for the remainder of the week to keep the loss small enough that it can easily be made up for with a better week.
Iāve heard traders say they havenāt had a losing week in years, but they keep their statements private, so their claims are suspect. I try hard every year to have no losing weeks, but Iāve had two small losers this year already, so this wonāt be my perfect year. Going a year with no losing weeks in trading is like pitching a perfect game in pro baseball. Iād have to see the trading statements to believe someone does it twice in a row. Iām still on track though for a year with no losing months
It makes sense to have a goal of no losing months instead of no losing weeks. The market sometimes doesnt give us a chance to trade, that is the cause of overtrading, because some traders are obsessed with winning all weeks. From now on i will focus on winning months, but keeping records of all my trades, and separated by weeks.
Thank you grav for your kind words and encouragement! You defintely should take credit for the money management skills i am using today
I have a couple qns though, you mentioned the profit taking efficiency is total profit taken divided by mfe avilable during the duration of trade.
So if for example if on a short, i exited for a profit of say 0.9
And later on the trend went on to make a higher low, however that is after i exited my trade.
I still use the mfe that is available during the duration of my trade and not after the end of my trade and lower low is formed right?
And lastly, i realised i started to get a feel of what the pairs are doing. For example this week i was looking at the UJ, i realised it hit some kind of resistance on the 4HR chart, and i started on my shorts as a lower high is formed.
Looking at the eur chf and usd chf, seems the chf is very strong and both the pairs have trend down strongly. Would be looking at shorts all the way this week for these pair.
EJ i realised has briefly break the resistance and fall back into the ranging zone. Possible shorts in coming days if it forms a lower low.
Am i on the right path by having this sort of analysis going on?
By the way those are based on higher TF, the 4HR and dailys.
