Multi-Time Frame Trend Trading

[simbafx]

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?

IIRC Graviton uses the MFE achieved during the trade to calculate the efficiency.

You can actually do it both ways, and its usually suggested that you should use the MFE that occurs in double the duration of your trade. So if your in a trade for 90 minutes, use the MFE that occurs during a 180 minute period. Its a reasonably good metric to determine the efficiency of your exits, and its certainly highlights if you are cutting your winners short. Obviously its a bit more work doing this because you have you retrospectively go back and collect the information but its often helpful.

[Graviton]

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.

Thank you so much once again

Yes, you only consider the MFE (Maximum Favorable Excursion) during the duration of your trade.

On the pairs you mentioned, starting at the monthly chart and working down, you can draw in falling trend lines that represent the resistance you have noticed. Looking back at the 4H and daily charts, you can see (in hindsight) some great cbl entries on those charts. The only way to take advantage of those entries going forward is just as you are doing. Set very clear entry criteria, and take those entries.

Staying with the trade long enough to get the most pips out of it is hard, but using Tymen’s PSAR-Midband method as a guideline can make a huge difference. I’ve been using Tymen’s rule with the slight modification that for any trade that goes beyond 1 X ATR, I will take 1/2 the MFE in profit minimum. So often I am kicked out of a good trade on my “take 1/2 MFE” rule, but I’m always kicked out with profit from that rule which really isn’t a bad thing. In some trades though the take 1/2 MFE rule never trips so I follow Tymen’s exit points and am able to ride the trade for days or longer. You’ll need to create your own rules, and they will get more complicated the longer you trade, but finding a way to stay in the trade until you have a very good risk reward ratio is important.

[fartist]

Thank you for your explanation and time, especially the weekends.

I have given myself very strict rules for a trade, not just any half guessing trade anymore.

I have minimum of 3 good reasons for all my trades now, sometimes 4 or even 5. Anyone can ask me why im taking that trade, and i have all my reasons to reply that someone. Assuring more confidence with myself now.

However i do know not all trades will be a success, we’re playing with probabilities right here.

Well, its the weekends now, i hope you have a great time with your loved ones grav! We have a battle coming next week once again, well. another 12 hours for me that is.

Cheers!

[fartist]

IIRC Graviton uses the MFE achieved during the trade to calculate the efficiency.

You can actually do it both ways, and its usually suggested that you should use the MFE that occurs in double the duration of your trade. So if your in a trade for 90 minutes, use the MFE that occurs during a 180 minute period. Its a reasonably good metric to determine the efficiency of your exits, and its certainly highlights if you are cutting your winners short. Obviously its a bit more work doing this because you have you retrospectively go back and collect the information but its often helpful.

Thank you simbafx, that will be duly noted.
And its defintely no extra work at all because i simply enjoy what im doing right now!

There’s a saying by someone, can’t remember who, he said “i’ve never work a day in my life”

Heh.

[Graviton]

IIRC Graviton uses the MFE achieved during the trade to calculate the efficiency.

You can actually do it both ways, and its usually suggested that you should use the MFE that occurs in double the duration of your trade. So if your in a trade for 90 minutes, use the MFE that occurs during a 180 minute period. Its a reasonably good metric to determine the efficiency of your exits, and its certainly highlights if you are cutting your winners short. Obviously its a bit more work doing this because you have you retrospectively go back and collect the information but its often helpful.

That’s a very good point. If you want to put in the extra effort, there are many other things you can do to measure trading effectiveness. Measuring MFE at 2 X trade duration could indicate if there is more profit available on average, but of course, the flip side must be considered as well. For instance, price could retrace back to a loss position during that extra duration, but the MFE won’t decrease.

Quite simply, if you look at profit say 4 candles after your exit, and on average it is higher, you need to stay in trades longer, if it is lower, you don’t need to stay in longer.

[Graviton]

Thank you simbafx, that will be duly noted.
And its defintely no extra work at all because i simply enjoy what im doing right now!

There’s a saying by someone, can’t remember who, he said “i’ve never work a day in my life”

Heh.

I like simple measurements since I get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort. Since you are already recording MFE and MAE, if you average them you can calculate a quick trade edge ratio as e=avgMFE/avgMAE

Here’s one example of using this ratio to evaluate a system with and without a trade filter:

e-ratio: How to measure your trading edge in 4 easy steps | Au.Tra.Sy blog - Automated trading System

Once you get data on about 20 to 30 winning trades, you can consider these measurements valid indicators of your trading.

A more detailed discussion of Simbafx’s point is included here:

Don’t Neglect Your Exits

but as I noted, you have to consider the times price would have moved against you as well as times it would have moved for you to get a valid measurement. This isn’t discussed much, but it’s obvious that if 1/2 your trades would have moved for you 100 pips in another 12 bars, and half your trades would have moved against you 100 pips in another 12 bars, holding your trades longer would not improve your profits.

There’s lots of this stuff on the internet, but you already are doing more measurement and evaluation than 95% of traders. At this point I’d say look at measurements that specifically address areas you want to improve on. For any specific area, be it trade entry efficiency, trade exit efficiency or whatever, you will find lots of info and discussion of it on the internet. I’d advise not getting too hung up on the stats though. They can be useful measurements of trading skills, but they are not a substitute for trading skills. Just my opinion.

[o990l6mh]

Yes, I could do that too - a nice shot of my ginger cat, Sweetie.

Good idea! Do it

[o990l6mh]

I hope your weekend is going well too Fartist. There are a few more techniques I can post on, but most of the important stuff is already contained in these pages and I’m sure you would discover the rest in time anyway. At this point I am most interested in seeing that everyone is establishing a good baseline of their trading stats, W/L ratio, risk reward ratio, good entry %, avg MAE, etc. That will allow progress over time to be measured objectively and make problems easy to identify and correct.

Really, if everything is done correctly, there is no reason that we shouldn’t be able to get every trader here up to an average of 1,000 pips a week with minimal risk no weekly drawdowns. Once you are making a consistent average 1,000 pips a week or better, and having no weekly drawdowns, you will be among the top few percent of the world’s best traders. So we know where we are and we know where we are going. But to get there from here, we will need a compass to measure our direction. That compass is the measurement of some simple stats. I’m not asking you to determine sampling size to find deviations from normal distributions. I’m just asking for some very simple things, like what is the number of good entries and bad entries over the past week.

I know you Fartist will be happy to collect and share this critical information. But for those few who have come all this way and refuse to collect and share simple stats on your trading, like win loss%, good entry %, etc., I really can’t help you from here. Some traders wander the wilderness for years or even their whole lives and never find their way out. It’s not that they can’t find their way out, it’s that they are afraid to find their way out. They either don’t believe they deserve to succeed or they are afraid of how success would affect their lives. Others depend on the pity they get from losing as their main form of human empathy and compassion. These are deeply rooted psychological issues that I am not qualified to address. I have known many with those sort of problems who were greatly helped by a qualified trading psychologist and counselor, and were able to emerge from the wilderness and go on to have wonderful careers. I highly encourage anyone who suspects they may have these types of problems to seek qualified professional help.

For those who are willing to put in the effort to succeed, and that will require a personal written trading plan, a personal trading journal, and collecting some simple data for some simple stats, we know where we are going. We are going to make 1000 pips a week on average and no weekly drawdowns. We wont give up until everyone gets there. Of course, everyone in the world can’t make 1000 pips a week, but there’s only a few people who read these posts, so that’s not a problem. You are either on this journey with us, or you are not. If not, I wish you well on your own path and you are welcome to visit, but I won’t be able to devote any time to any one not willing to devote time themselves, and I’m really not qualified to address the deep rooted psychological reasons they are not willing to do the simple things to succeed.

So off we go. If I had to say where we are on our journey, I’d say this is the end of the beginning. From here on out, I’d advise those who just want to play with Forex to play somewhere else. Those who are willing to work harder than they have ever worked in their lives to become one of the worlds best traders are in the right place. But hard work doesn’t mean unpleasant work. This will be great fun

I’ve finally worked my way through this whole thread and it was a very pleasant journey.

I’ll certainly be following along for the next step although I may not be able to follow it religiously as my full time job only allows me to check charts every four hours or so.
As a result all the excellent parts about walking trades up from lower TF etc are things I can not do.

I’m currently working on putting together a trading plan for lower time frame trading, (I’ve only traded dailies earlier but my new smartphone makes it possible for me to trade during the day now), and to a large extent I can see that our trading styles are similar. My home chart will probably be somewhere around 4H-6H charts and I probably won’t be able to manage my trades on lower Tf at all so your 20-40 pip SL may just remain a dream to me for now.

I’ll try to contribute when and where I can. In the meantime - it’s a pleasure to have such knowledgeable traders as you here, sharing for free material that could easily be sold for thousands or more.

[fartist]

I like simple measurements since I get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort. Since you are already recording MFE and MAE, if you average them you can calculate a quick trade edge ratio as e=avgMFE/avgMAE

Here’s one example of using this ratio to evaluate a system with and without a trade filter:

e-ratio: How to measure your trading edge in 4 easy steps | Au.Tra.Sy blog - Automated trading System

Once you get data on about 20 to 30 winning trades, you can consider these measurements valid indicators of your trading.

A more detailed discussion of Simbafx’s point is included here:

Don’t Neglect Your Exits

but as I noted, you have to consider the times price would have moved against you as well as times it would have moved for you to get a valid measurement. This isn’t discussed much, but it’s obvious that if 1/2 your trades would have moved for you 100 pips in another 12 bars, and half your trades would have moved against you 100 pips in another 12 bars, holding your trades longer would not improve your profits.

There’s lots of this stuff on the internet, but you already are doing more measurement and evaluation than 95% of traders. At this point I’d say look at measurements that specifically address areas you want to improve on. For any specific area, be it trade entry efficiency, trade exit efficiency or whatever, you will find lots of info and discussion of it on the internet. I’d advise not getting too hung up on the stats though. They can be useful measurements of trading skills, but they are not a substitute for trading skills. Just my opinion.

Thanks for the links.
Yes i do agree the trading skills is one thing, however i feel that the stats is a good map in showing me what areas could be improved on.

And if losing weeks kick in, i would know where the fault is. Kind of easier to pin point out where i went wrong with hard proven facts.

I will need more trades to prove what is the strong points and weaknesses of my trading plan. I’d keep you updated again later this week

[Graviton]

I’ve finally worked my way through this whole thread and it was a very pleasant journey.

I’ll certainly be following along for the next step although I may not be able to follow it religiously as my full time job only allows me to check charts every four hours or so.
As a result all the excellent parts about walking trades up from lower TF etc are things I can not do.

I’m currently working on putting together a trading plan for lower time frame trading, (I’ve only traded dailies earlier but my new smartphone makes it possible for me to trade during the day now), and to a large extent I can see that our trading styles are similar. My home chart will probably be somewhere around 4H-6H charts and I probably won’t be able to manage my trades on lower Tf at all so your 20-40 pip SL may just remain a dream to me for now.

I’ll try to contribute when and where I can. In the meantime - it’s a pleasure to have such knowledgeable traders as you here, sharing for free material that could easily be sold for thousands or more.

Good to hear from you o990l6mh. I believe the 4H chart would be perfect for you, but I wouldn’t give up on the daily charts. Your daily chart experience can come in very handy for you. If you are trading the 4H charts and watching a good number of pairs, you should only have to check your trades a couple or few times during the work day. You can take care of everything else with stop buy’s and stop sells when CBL’s are validated or whatever trigger you are using is crossed. Since you can figure your stop loss and your take profit point at the time of setting the stop buy or stop sell for entering the trade, most trades can run on auto during the day. Don’t worry if you miss a good trade. There are thousands of good trades every day on some market so you can’t worry about those missed, only about those taken.

If you are following many pairs, about once every month or two you’ll get one of those perfect 4H entries that runs for days for hundreds of pips and if you are watching the daily you’ll realize you have a cheap daily entry at that point too. That’s when your experience with the daily charts will pay off. The trade is there for everyone to see, but usually only those with experience trading the daily charts will see and take those trades. Happy Trading!

[o990l6mh]

Good to hear from you o990l6mh. I believe the 4H chart would be perfect for you, but I wouldn’t give up on the daily charts. Your daily chart experience can come in very handy for you. If you are trading the 4H charts and watching a good number of pairs, you should only have to check your trades a couple or few times during the work day. You can take care of everything else with stop buy’s and stop sells when CBL’s are validated or whatever trigger you are using is crossed. Since you can figure your stop loss and your take profit point at the time of setting the stop buy or stop sell for entering the trade, most trades can run on auto during the day. Don’t worry if you miss a good trade. There are thousands of good trades every day on some market so you can’t worry about those missed, only about those taken.

If you are following many pairs, about once every month or two you’ll get one of those perfect 4H entries that runs for days for hundreds of pips and if you are watching the daily you’ll realize you have a cheap daily entry at that point too. That’s when your experience with the daily charts will pay off. The trade is there for everyone to see, but usually only those with experience trading the daily charts will see and take those trades. Happy Trading!

I plan to continue with the daily charts just as before. I’ll start demo trading the 4H charts until I see consistent consecutive profitable months and after that I’ll try to merge the two methods into one while keeping them separate in my records.

I’m guessing that I will sometimes be getting the same trade on the 4H as I would get on the daily, only with a smaller SL.

I’m currently reading Daryl Guppy and that along with some other material is making me look at some things differently than before.

For instance, sometimes I may find a good quality pin bar on the daily chart, bouncing off of a strong support or resistance level. The trend until then may have been up and in order to trade the pin bar I’d go short. Then when I look at the 4H high/low pattern it becomes clear that the higher high/higher low pattern is still intact - the pin bar hasn’t broken that.

This is a phenomenon I’ve noticed before and haven’t quite known how to handle - conflicting signals. I’m starting to put more and more weight into the high/low pattern and less into the “look” of the specific pin bar. For this reason among others I’ve become fond of the CBL concepts as it is a more time frame “neutral” price concept than that of bar/candle formations.

Anyway, what I’m planning to do with the 4H approach, roughly, is to find a solid trend that exists both on the 4H home chart and on the time frame above it and then seek good CBL entries into the trend on retracements.
In other words, there will be no counter trend trades at all on the 4H method. I’m going to track the demo trading (and later the live trading that will hopefully ensue) with the mxfxbook service since they can handle Oanda accounts and I’ll share my results, on my own thread and here if it’s of interest to anyone.

I’m not ready to start quite yet but at the latest Sep 1 and hopefully earlier.

I felt like I was a bit late to the party when going through this thread, I hadn’t quite understood your skill level earlier, but you’ve got yourself a regular visitor in me now.

[spring]

Hi Graviton,
I am so grateful to you for this thread and have just come up to speed with it. Actually I started reading from Tymen’s thread (still not finished) a few months ago and then move to your thread. There is so much to read (also I am a slow reader and learner :o) and actually I am very overwhelmed with all the materials shared. My question is as a very new forex trader wannabe where do I start? From reading your thread I know that you spend many hours monitoring your trades. I only have about 2 hours a day to read and trade (when I start). What is the best method for me? I did have a demo micro account with FXCM but it has expired. In my demo account I cannot login (therefore cannot see any charts) during the weekends. Also, I only have a laptop to work with; I only had charts for 2 pairs on my demo account (with multiple timeframes) and that already took up my whole screen. Do you have many monitors so that you can keep track of many pairs? Does one have to be tech savvy to succeed in being a forex trader?
Is alright if you do not wish to answer my questions at this advanced stage of your teaching. I am still very happy to have read your thread and at least learned that being a forex trader is not as easy as I had thought. It would be awesome if I could actually watch how you trade in real life… but that may just be a dream for me

[Graviton]

Hi Graviton,
I am so grateful to you for this thread and have just come up to speed with it. Actually I started reading from Tymen’s thread (still not finished) a few months ago and then move to your thread. There is so much to read (also I am a slow reader and learner :o) and actually I am very overwhelmed with all the materials shared. My question is as a very new Forex trader wannabe where do I start?

[B]I’d advise starting at the beginning. Write a trading plan and start a journal to keep info and data about your trades. First you’ll need to practice your entries. Open a demo account that will allow you to view charts over the weekend. I have several demo’s running with FXDD. Fund the account with the same amount you would fund a live account. That would be about $1,000 to trade a micro of .01 or 0.02 lot. When you have time, scan all the charts for good entries per your rules. Start taking them all for the practice. You can trade up and down on different timeframes on the same pair, as long as it meets your entry rules. Keep track of good and bad entries with all the stats we’ve discussed. After some practice with entries, you’ll see what works for you. You can practice on all timeframes, but if you will only have a couple hours a day, you’ll probably want to trade the 4H and daily charts when you go live. after you are getting a good percent of good entries, say better than 60% good entries, practice your exits as we have discussed. Keep good stats and work to improve. I’ll be happy to go over your stats with you if you like. Expect 3 months to 1 year of practice before you will be ready to go live. I see very few traders who are successful in a live account with less than 1 year of practice. [/B]

From reading your thread I know that you spend many hours monitoring your trades. I only have about 2 hours a day to read and trade (when I start). What is the best method for me? I did have a demo micro account with FXCM but it has expired. In my demo account I cannot login (therefore cannot see any charts) during the weekends. Also, I only have a laptop to work with; I only had charts for 2 pairs on my demo account (with multiple timeframes) and that already took up my whole screen. Do you have many monitors so that you can keep track of many pairs? Does one have to be tech savvy to succeed in being a Forex trader?

[B]Some of your questions answered above. You can get good practice on any timeframe, but unless you are full time, you’ll probably want to evolve into trading the 4H and daily charts for live trading.

A laptop is fine, you just have to flip from chart to chart a lot, but for longer time frame trading, it’s not much of a problem. I have three screens on my desktop, which is nice, but I often trade from my laptop when traveling and I do just as well. You don’t have to be a techie to trade, but you will need to know your platform inside out and you’ll need to know how to manipulate stats a little. That is all on the internet. [/B]

Is alright if you do not wish to answer my questions at this advanced stage of your teaching. I am still very happy to have read your thread and at least learned that being a Forex trader is not as easy as I had thought. It would be awesome if I could actually watch how you trade in real life… but that may just be a dream for me

[B]I don’t mind answering questions. In fact, it’s helpful for me to think things through while answering questions. I often trade live in MP’s chat room. I’ll put the link below if you want to join us there.[/B]

Bollinger Band DNA - FOREX Trading using the Tymen Bollinger Band Strategy

Welcome to Forex

[Graviton]

I plan to continue with the daily charts just as before. I’ll start demo trading the 4H charts until I see consistent consecutive profitable months and after that I’ll try to merge the two methods into one while keeping them separate in my records.

I’m guessing that I will sometimes be getting the same trade on the 4H as I would get on the daily, only with a smaller SL.

I’m currently reading Daryl Guppy and that along with some other material is making me look at some things differently than before.

For instance, sometimes I may find a good quality pin bar on the daily chart, bouncing off of a strong support or resistance level. The trend until then may have been up and in order to trade the pin bar I’d go short. Then when I look at the 4H high/low pattern it becomes clear that the higher high/higher low pattern is still intact - the pin bar hasn’t broken that.

This is a phenomenon I’ve noticed before and haven’t quite known how to handle - conflicting signals. I’m starting to put more and more weight into the high/low pattern and less into the “look” of the specific pin bar. For this reason among others I’ve become fond of the CBL concepts as it is a more time frame “neutral” price concept than that of bar/candle formations.

Anyway, what I’m planning to do with the 4H approach, roughly, is to find a solid trend that exists both on the 4H home chart and on the time frame above it and then seek good CBL entries into the trend on retracements.
In other words, there will be no counter trend trades at all on the 4H method. I’m going to track the demo trading (and later the live trading that will hopefully ensue) with the mxfxbook service since they can handle Oanda accounts and I’ll share my results, on my own thread and here if it’s of interest to anyone.

I’m not ready to start quite yet but at the latest Sep 1 and hopefully earlier.

I felt like I was a bit late to the party when going through this thread, I hadn’t quite understood your skill level earlier, but you’ve got yourself a regular visitor in me now.

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan and that puts you ahead of most. Yes, you will get good entries on the 4H and see a daily entry develop at nearly the same time or a day later. Yesterday, I got a good 4H cbl entry short on eur/usd and today it’s giving a daily cbl. If it works out I’ll get a cheap entry to a daily chart trade, and if not I’ll still make good profit off the 4H trade. I like trades where heads I win and tails I win more

[spring]

Thanks for your quick response Graviton, it is much appreciated. I think I will take some time to come up with my trading plan—will have to re-read part of your thread (or was it Tymen’s thread) on that topic. I hope you do not mind a few more questions:

1. I went to FXDD wanting to sign up a demo account; however, there were 5 forex trading software to choose from. Which one should I sign up for? FXDD Trader and Meta Trader have the lowest minimum deposit of $250, so I think maybe go with one of them. Frankly, I don’t have any idea what is the difference.
2. You mentioned about keeping a trading journal. Do you think is a good idea to purchase one from tradingspreadsheets.com? Or for a newbie like me is not necessary.
3. Thank you for the invitation to join the chat room. I would like to join you folks in there so that I can see how you trade but I don’t have anything to contribute so I will only be an observer. Also, are you there daily and what time?
   I will be honored for you to go through my stats. Once again, thank you for your generosity and I hope that I will make it and not waste your time.
   If you do not wish to answer part/all of the above questions is fine.
   Have a fantastic trading day!

[Graviton]

@spring

Thanks for your quick response Graviton, it is much appreciated. I think I will take some time to come up with my trading plan—will have to re-read part of your thread (or was it Tymen’s thread) on that topic. I hope you do not mind a few more questions:

I discussed this, but there are many trading plan examples now on babypips in the newbie section

1. I went to FXDD wanting to sign up a demo account; however, there were 5 forex trading software to choose from. Which one should I sign up for? FXDD Trader and Meta Trader have the lowest minimum deposit of $250, so I think maybe go with one of them. Frankly, I don’t have any idea what is the difference.

Just use MT4 Meta Trader to start. You can try out other things as you go along.

2. You mentioned about keeping a trading journal. Do you think is a good idea to purchase one from tradingspreadsheets.com? Or for a newbie like me is not necessary.

I’d advise creating your own. Start simple. You can add bells and whistles later. You can get a good spreadshet program compatable with excel free from openoffice.org

3. Thank you for the invitation to join the chat room. I would like to join you folks in there so that I can see how you trade but I don’t have anything to contribute so I will only be an observer. Also, are you there daily and what time?

I drop in the chat room during the New York trading session.

I will be honored for you to go through my stats. Once again, thank you for your generosity and I hope that I will make it and not waste your time.
If you do not wish to answer part/all of the above questions is fine.
Have a fantastic trading day!

I had a good day and a good week, thanks. Plan on this taking years, but the sooner you start out, the sooner you’ll get there.

[fartist]

Hey grav! How’s it going for you this week?
I sustain a loss of 1.6% this week.

After evaluating, i had 1 win 2 losses and 2 BE.

1 losses is due to poor entry as i only had 2 reasons for the trade. The other loss i accepted it as i had 4 reaosns for entry, but still it was a loss.

BE and wins i had 4 reasons for entry.
Well, the trading journal is really helping me focus on what is wrong as i can easily see where’s the room for improvement.

Clearly now i only must take trades with 3 or more reasons for entry.
I was quit a frog in a well sometime back, only wanting to take trades with cbl entries in a squeeze.

As i gained further knowledge, i now have more entries using different methods. Some are breakouts, some break of retracement, using S&R.

But again, all trades must have at LEAST 3 reasons for my entry.
I’ll see how it goes again the coming week.

By the way, have you chance upon gartley and butterfly patterns? Whats your take on that?

I hope you’re having great time with your family and loved ones.

Take care!

[Graviton]

Hey grav! How’s it going for you this week?
I sustain a loss of 1.6% this week.

After evaluating, i had 1 win 2 losses and 2 BE.

1 losses is due to poor entry as i only had 2 reasons for the trade. The other loss i accepted it as i had 4 reaosns for entry, but still it was a loss.

BE and wins i had 4 reasons for entry.
Well, the trading journal is really helping me focus on what is wrong as i can easily see where’s the room for improvement.

Clearly now i only must take trades with 3 or more reasons for entry.
I was quit a frog in a well sometime back, only wanting to take trades with cbl entries in a squeeze.

As i gained further knowledge, i now have more entries using different methods. Some are breakouts, some break of retracement, using S&R.

But again, all trades must have at LEAST 3 reasons for my entry.
I’ll see how it goes again the coming week.

By the way, have you chance upon gartley and butterfly patterns? Whats your take on that?

I hope you’re having great time with your family and loved ones.

Take care!

Hey Fartist, glad to hear you kept your trading under control. A small loss is easily overcome. It’s the huge ones that leave the scars. Just an average week should easily counter the small loss last week. Some of this stuff just takes practice and nothing else will work as well. It’s sort of like learning to play a piano. You could read everything ever written about playing, and even be told all the secrets of the best, but until you get some practice, your playing will just not be as good as you want it to be.

I’ve read about Gartley patterns, but I don’t consciously trade them as their detailed rules add too much more complexity to a trading plan that I know is overly complex as it is. Subconsciously, I notice patterns against s/r lines that look like an M with two approaches to a resistance line, or a W with two approaches to a support line. While I don’t do many of the complex measurements and calculations, when I see the second approach to the s/r line I assume the s/r line will be broken in time and there will be good follow through as stops are hit on the other side. It’s a low risk high reward trade set-up that often works since price has already moved all the way to the s/r line and has approached it and bounced off a couple times.

Have a good weekend

[dand]

Hi Grav and crew,
I’ve taken a couple of weeks out of trading to go back to the books and do some reviewing - works better than trying to trade at the same time and my account needed some flames putting out… The basis of my review has been to attempt to go through my setups and find which ones best take effect of Grav’s great add to method, DNA being one. Of the key things found, (nothing new here, just brings it home having done some good research again)

1. pair selection - wanting trends and/or clean volatility and previous 1weeks of setups to be working at or just below avge.
2. time of day is key to getting a trade quickly into positive territory - ie. volatility.
3. best trades quite often break and run pretty much right of the bat
4. trend is good/ but/ good setups taken against trends with above features inplace also work very well but with side notes of course
   a. don’t go against a very strongly trending market
   b. each s/r level hit going against trend could be the one which turns price back to the original trend / making it psychologically difficult to add to a position

Nothing new thus far… onto the results for 52 trades on 8 pairs over two different weeks (choppy and trend). Pls note the setup is just an average setup - what makes it work well is pair selection, time of day, and, as we go on - gravs add to method (this is where i hit a snag though…)

My current way of trading used fixed targets and stops - so results for this below:

Fixed 15 pip target gives 47/52 or a 90% win rate for +705 pips (less loss & sprd)
Fixed 30 pip target gives 34/52 or a 65% win rate for +1020 pips (less loss & sprd)

Note from here is that there are more trades available outside the hours checked and they still offer fairly good % win rate however they dont give the pips req for the great add to method.

Applying the add to method gives 3times a better % return of 2,775 pips (less sprd & loss, max 30pips x 5), this figure is without the couple of trades that went a fair bit beyond 105 pips, as staying in them was well difficult… And this is where I hit the snag.

The add to results are shown assuming add-to will be fairly straight forward, however this is very rarely the case. So I am now going delving into some add to methods, based on scalp strats and the idea metioned by Grav of looking for the lower TF’s to have turned back in favour. Then its down to attempting to apply the right one to the right market conditions.

A volatile market should bounce off low TF S/R levels on pullbacks allowing aggresive entries, a slow market more likely to follow fib retraces and slowly turn back with price confirmation required. Then there’s trend breaks, and the variables begin…

As I put this thinking down on paper I’m starting to realise that the best add to method may be any and many and that I’ll just have to pay a few pips to find out if I’m right… time for live trading? … This is a much more interesting way of trading than fixed targets and protentially more profitable- but how does one climb inside Gravs head and get it to work…???Grav?

Cheers,
dan
PS. just luvin this thread

[fartist]

Hey grav, thanks for you kind words and encouragement!

You’re one of the few that keeps me going towards my goal!

I have a qns btw, iam facing a slight delimna right now i would wonder what you would do in my shoes.

I currently intend to swing trade usd chf as it appears to hit the upper resistance of a channel on 4 hr chart.

However as of right now, it is about 8 more hours till the fomc interest rate news. Which of course is a 3 star event.

So would you actally place a swing trade or would you wait out after the fomc news? We have 8 hours to go, so it’s not exactly trading before after the news. However swing trade might take a few days to work out.

I didn’t take the trade as im unsure what kind of spike the news would bring, however my intended SL is abt 50pips.

So yes, what’s your take on it? Thanks