My FX Journey... From Dream To Reality

[macilme]

Keeping a journal is a good idea, however, you could be getting over-complicated. Your journal looks like your trying to develop a very scientific setup. The more simple the better using just basic principals. Hopefully as you go along you will realize what is irrelevant and keep it out of your journal. Do not write what you do not understand and do not put indicators on your charts that you do not use. Also do not drown yourself in too much data that you will eventually be unable to analyse.

@jairusmaloba thanks for the input here… I guess you’re right in your impression of my Journal, I got to say however that that is exactly the aim of the journal, To be Scientific in it’s outlook and detailed enough for me to be able to extract as specific information from the records. .

What I plan to be as simple as possible are my trades, my records and trade analysis is not meant to be simple in any sense. It is where the Golden information is to be found.

An example of what you could find out is maybe a particular strategy works only with a specific number of pairs more often than not, or maybe in certain market conditions than others. It might even be in the end that you might discover that your R:R plan is skewed against you. There are many different things you can find out from your trade records other than the ones that worked and those that didn’t.

But as always though, different people have different strategies so what works for me may not work for others I guess, just my view on things here.

[Joshysmart]

Hi @macilme. Its Josh also from Nigeria, and am a newbie trying to figure out PA. and how to enter and exit the market using what I’ve learnt so far.
If you’d permit me asking… “What gave you the signal to short”?

[hafidfx]

remain optimistic and money will come

[jairusmaloba]

Thanks for your response and for making my understand your point of view. I guess you are right in what you are doing as it will definitely be of benefit in the long run.

[jairusmaloba]

That was quite a good setup (food for thought), however, I prefer the four hour and one hour, I guess I am not patient enough.

[macilme]

And it’s the weekend…

Fist full week of trading

No of trades so far ; 1

We only got to take one trade the past week which isn’t a bad rate by my standards (4 trades per week minimum, most preferred are A+ trades only).

Thanks @Joshysmart, @hafidfx and @jairusmaloba for your recent comments on my journal here… good to see you guys popping in .

@jairusmaloba, good to see you understanding my perspective, many traders sometimes see going against their views as an attack on their strategies… Different strokes for different folks right?

@Joshysmart, my sure guy from Naija, how hustle na? (that’s Nigerian english so feel free to ignore if you don’t understand guys haha ) Actually that EURUSD trade I took was my own version of breakout trading and it involves a few things in confluence with the breakout itself… you will notice here:

That the level I have marked is pretty relevant even though price had broken through it and back above a couple of times before. Price breaks below the level but what confirms my short entry was the switch from negative (red) to positive (green) on the SSI indicator below the chart. You can do a google search on the indicator if you are interested.

So that’s it for this week’s trade… hopefully next week is gonna be as profitable. See you guys on the other side of Monday.

EDIT:
This is a similar set up here that I might be taking come Monday based off this strategy:

[Joshysmart]

Lols! We dey Hustle am dey go, las las we go dey alright.
I understand, thanks for the info. I do need to check out the ssi indicator too.
I’m stalking this journal if you don’t mind.
Chears!
Safe trading.

[jairusmaloba]

Im Watching

[Ambrianky]

So far so good. Recording what happens in one one is great. However, a new habit takes about 21 days to take route. Struggle, fight hard to make sure that you make this new habit sticks. Good luck…

[macilme]

DAY 13 UPDATE (04-01-19)

Hey Journal… Happy new month…

Morning and Evening Routine Completed

Total Trades so far : 001

Found a number of interesting breakout trades which I’ll be updating later in the day, but safe to say I already have my pending orders set.

Unfortunately I missed the UK100 trade I posted the last time and now watching on the sidelines. more details on that later.

hope we all have a great month on the charts this april…

@Joshysmart feel free to stalk haha…

[baemax023]

Good luck @maclime and thanks for sharing your trading journal to the community!

[jairusmaloba]

On this EurJpy chart (UK100) my sentiment is that it should be moving downwards??? Has your analysis changed or do you still see it as an uptrend. I used the H4 which exposed a gap at midnight yesterday.

[macilme]

DAY 14 UPDATE (04-02-19)

Hey Journal…

So I thought I’ll post some charts on some of the trades I missed and the ones I’m currently looking at:

First up is USOIL:

On the zoomed in chart you can see price clearly in a consolidation phase within the pretty green box…
my trade idea was to enter long on breakout of the candle. Now the breakout occurred but in a way i disliked: and that is it broke out so strongly that it affected my R:R considering the closest resistance above it… I set a limit order a little below the breakout candle close, unfortunately price never reversed as it often happens…

Next up is UK100

Price broke out of above resistance on a Friday and I should’ve really had my limit entry order on the charts immediately the markets opened on Monday… If i had, I could have had an entry as price reversed back to cover the gap over the weekend, I didn’t…
@jairusmaloba, I’ll only be watching for PA at the next resistance to see any suggestion of a reversal.

So two things going into my Morning routine based on these two errors become obvious:

NEVER EVER DELAY SETTING MY ORDERS EVER EVER AGAIN
IGNORE

There, that’s clear enough… It’ll be on my routine for 20 trading days, if i stick with it all through then I can remove it, else it stays for double the time.

EURUSD UPDATE

I finally closed out the trade manually as it approached the lower end of the swing low to the left:

Got out with a decent 1.2% profit on this trade in total so no complaints. Pin bar formed at the low but we won’t be trading against an obvious trend as a rule, so no trade there.

TRADES WITH ACTIVE LIMIT ORDERS

I currently have limit orders set for a couple of pairs that fit with my trading plan:

first up is EURAUD

Price has formed a really nice looking Bullish Engulfing Candle pattern at the lower support of the current range playing out on the pair. I have my limit entry order set above the BUEB candle wick and my SL and TP as you can see on the chart. wish me luck on this one.

US500

price broke out of former resistance… I have limit order set above the breakout candle on this one.

thanks @baemax023 really appreciate.

[Joshysmart]

@macilme on the eurusd, I understand the level is a major resistance and the pinbar signals the end of the trend on both the 4hr and D time frames.

[macilme]

You’re correct @Joshysmart… I would take the trade on another day, but it is against my trading plan to take trades against obvious trends… that dowsn’t mean it won’t work out… just my preference is all…

I can clearly see the pin bar you are referring to on the H4 charts as well

[macilme]

DAY 17 UPDATE (04-05-19)

Hey Journal…

So I’ve been off here for a couple days… sorry about that… Internet issues really.

No of trades so far: 003

Yeah… my limit orders on the EURAUD Bullish Engulfing Bar and the US500 got snagged up on the 3rd… price hasn’t really been dramatic since then, here’s the status of the two trades now:

EURAUD

Zoomed in

You can see price has been attempting to retest the support on which the BUEB rests… Hopefully that holds and price can reverse up above my entry and onwards to target

US500

Zoomed in

Price is now above my entry and this one’s looking good so far.

Trade 004 Update
I had a limit order set for the USDCHF Bullish breakout you are seeing below:

The breakout is supported by SSI as required for my horizontal levels breakout strategy:

All trades updated on the Home Journal

So that’s it for this morning on my end… will catch up with you later tonight journal.

[jairusmaloba]

Can you please give us more meat apart from the SSI explanation on the 004 trade? Some of us don’t use any indicators at the bottom of our charts and would like to know your price action reasons for this action. Your trades are very well though out but I would like to know more of the unwritten thoughts. I am also learning alot from your posts. I especially like the big time frames you use and your confidence in them. I would also like to know why you were confident to buy when the resistance line was broken? How did you know price would not come back down to retest the lower support level? Also I presume you must be using a massive stop loss?

[macilme]

hello @jairusmaloba… appreciate that you took the time out to try going through my ideas…

Well no I’m not using a wide stop, my stops are usually below my price action pattern.
It is possible that price may reverse to test the old resistance at breakout so I have my stop below the breakout candle, in which case if price were to trade below it, then there is not reason to stay in the trade as the breakout then becomes void. Also note that price in this range is actually struggling at the big round number of 1.0000, this is a really significant price level so i’m pretty much using that as leverage, if price moves in my favor then It could really be a big move up in the coming week or two (Giving me a huge R:R trade). if price doesn’t though, I only lose my risk percentage which is within my tolerance level.

I will try and talk more on why I use the SSI as a filter Indicator for breakout trades probably later in the day today as well.

[macilme]

DAY 21 UPDATE (04-09-19)

Hey Journal…

So here’s the update so far:

No of trades so far: 6

No of Active Trades : 4

So I got into a new trade since the last update here:

Here goes:

Trade 005 ---- EUR/CAD PIN BAR SHORT

I entered a short order on the pin bar forming after a pullback to the resistance level. Stop loss and exit levels are as seen on the chart.

All other trades are still in play, non reached my first target yet, so we still watching

Catch you later journal

@jairusmaloba please check out the video here SSI (FXCM Tutorial) for more details on how to use the Indicator.

[KryptoPat]

Feels good to meet a fellow Nigerian here, I’m still a newbie going through pips Academy. Will stick to your journal