Your goal is to be around for a long time making money at this game. The best way you can go about that is by making it hard to be knocked out.
This quote seriously struck a chord with me.
I agree completely.
I’m always saying (in various threads) that when I sit down to start trading every morning, my “objective for the day” [I]isn’t[/I] to make a profit: it’s just to be certain of being able to sit down to start trading again the [I]following[/I] morning. I think the sentiments are similar. 
Absolutely! At this early stage of my forex journey my first priority is self preservation. Then when I have learnt consistency and good trading habits, the money will come automatically.
The mind is so powerful. I have been reading Mark Douglas and his insights are incredible. To fully absorb what he says you need to read, reread, then sit back and let it perculate through the old noodle. Once you understand how your mind can sabotages your thoughts, your journey with Forex becomes a lot easier to deal with.
I got stopped out my USDCAD trade I took earlier for 11 pips. I was aiming for 52 pips and I moved to breakeven at 20 .
Price pulled back and closed my position.
Good trade but I need to work on my move to breakeven strategy.
And what I have just noticed is that the bottom wick of that last candle (where I was stopped out) should have been another entry point for this trade…I should have added to my position rather than a move to breakeven.
USDJPY 4HR.
Im looking at you Mr UJ. Veeeery veeeery closely.
(I will only be buying on some form of signal in case you were wondering.)
GBPJPY 4 HR. I am seeing a lot of setups today. But my thing is not to trade on MOndays or Tuesdays. But damn…when something is shouting out to be traded as the pound is this morning I just cant help but take a closer look.
I see a clear trend continuation on the 4 hour chart but there is a bit of conflict.
Reasons against taking this trade are as follows:
- I cannot trade into a resistance area (my rules) but it could be lining up for a break and retest and continuation.
- A pinbar might be forming at my level. Candle has not closed so of course I must to wait for close to tell.
- Its the pound. Do I really want to be taking longs?
Reasons for:
- That little line break and pullback is what my strategy is. And price has just done that.
Verdict:
I think Ive just convinced myself to stay outta longs on this one. Here are my charts anyway. The 2nd chart is a just a zoomed in part of that last few candles. I missed this long entry opportunity but price is telling me strong pound (or weak JPY)
I didnt enter GJ this morning and unfortunately for me I missed out on a good trade. But I do see another potential entry long with the PoundSwiss. This is purely a technical reason I have no idea why the pound is being bid.
See chart below:
Ill be posting less charts going forward. The ones that I have posted are to illustrate how I look at the charts. I am slowly working through a document which will detail all aspects of my trading: how I look at charts, placing stops and limits, my psychology of trading, risk management, etc. Its meant as a personal business plan and reference guide going forward but I will gladly share it on here when it is finished.
I said “going forward” twice in that post. I don’t often use that phrase because its so cheezy but cant think of an alternative in this instance.
No, I don’t have OCD.
Actually I might have OCD.
Talking to myself here…is that a sign of insanity? I said OCD twice. Actually 3 times if you include me talking about talking about it.
I quite like the look of this one. Price has reached an area of interest and there is confluent indication that this MIGHT be an area of struggle for this brief uptrend on the daily:
EDIT: forgot to mention this is CADJPY daily
Looks like a decent setup according to my rules.
Negative doji has formed at a predefined level.
This is purely technical with no fundamental reason for a short bias.
If you can learn to create a state of mind that is not affected by the markets behavior then the struggle will cease to exist.
Mark Douglas.
Love it.
Here is an example on how I perform post trade analysis. I dont agonize at great depth over it but this snapshot gets filed and I will look at it at a later stage to reflect on what I could have done better.
Out of the last 6 trades, 3 were losers and 2 of those losers were because I did not follow my rules. Interesting that I could have had a 5/6 win ratio. I realise 6 trades is insignificant sample size but without auditing yourself how can you ever hope to improve or catch your mistakes early on?
Scaling into and out of trades is the next thing I am focusing on with serious intent. One thing that really &**^%%$ me off is almost reaching my profit target and price retraces all the way back to knock me out for breakeven.
Awesome journal, learning just reading it.
Thanks BinarySteven!
You have to be ready to change your bias when the market proves you wrong.
Yesterdays trade from short to long bias and the reasons behind my change of mind:
