My Trading Log

[o990l6mh]

hi.

where do you get the james16 information? everybody talks about it but i can find his treath in the forum

Well, here on BP there’s this thread: 301 Moved Permanently

The original thread however is here: james16 Chart Thread @ Forex Factory

[o990l6mh]

You just beat me to it!

I’ll also add that my Dead Pips thread is based on the James16 material

Yes, your thread 301 Moved Permanently is developing nicely!

[ruilima22]

Well, here on BP there’s this thread: 301 Moved Permanently

The original thread however is here: james16 Chart Thread @ Forex Factory

ok thanks.

and can you tell me what is a pin bar??

[ruilima22]

It’s a reversal bar that occurs at the end of a trend. The easiest way to understand them is to take a look at that James16 BabyPips thread link - there are several documents attached to a post on the first page explaining exactly what they look like, where they should occur and how they should be traded.

i don´t thing i´ve understand what is in the treath. so a pin bar is like a candlestick pattern?? a engulfing or a shotting star??

[ruilima22]

Ruilima,

Attached is an image showing a pinbar - highlighted in yellow. See how its wick sticks out below the surrounding price and heralds a reversal into a bullish trend.

so pin bars are shoting stars or hamers… in candle patterns. short body big shadow. thanks the mistery was solve:D

can you tell me in which TF do you use it most and you find this more reliable??

[nev]

Yes, been there, done that. Most likely almost all traders have been through that stage. Most disappear somewhere inside that jungle never to be heard from again. Others with more stamina and stubbornness find their way out into the light.

During early stages of the game I would have never thought it’d take close to a year to get even just the footwork right, somewhat glad to see its not abnormal lol

I finally found my happy place with the J16 material as my foundation, tweaking it to fit me. That, along with the right mentality, is working out for me.
I’m still testing new stuff and having a look at things that seem interesting but I’m finding nowadays that most or actually almost all of it pales when compared to the simplest forms of technical trading such as chart patterns, S/R and reversal formations.

One thing I’ve learned is that being a fundamental trader is probably a great thing, but it’s an all or nothing subject. Lacking the time and the “inside” resources I’ve chosen to heed the J16 people’s advice: ignore it completely - a chart is a chart is a chart - never mind what the constant chatter and flow of news says. The actual collective psychology, the result of the news/chatter/etc, of the traders is there for all to see, in the bars or candles.

It seems to work for me, much better actually than when I did try to figure out what the market was going to do based on this or that piece of fundy data.

Being a technical trader means that we’re watching what the other traders’ are doing and reacting to that. That’s a pretty easy way of doing things, sort of like that lazy guy in school who never did a thing in any group projects, but got the same grade as the rest of the group anyway.
I was always the opposite guy in school, doing all the work… I’m trying to unlearn that in trading.

Definitely finding that I miss a whole lot of moves being too hestitant/tentative to enter until I can be sure about what the actual drivers before realising that the moves all play out in the price action anyway, I guess somewhere in between would work the best. My experience with J16 seemed to produce a rather low efficiency but that’s probably because I never really spent enough time learning more than just the pin/ob/ib anatomy and trading bare of them alone, might try to learn a bit more about it if it works that well for you

[Letseethepips]

I listened to about 35 minutes of Martin Prings price action seminar.I can see he is more of a barman than candlestick maker. Interesting I am more of a trend trader or breakout trader reading you and Matts approach your more of a pivot , retracement,countertrend traders based on pins looking at reversals.I know that is a over simplfication of your trading process but i know now who is on the otherside of the trade.:pI would think there would be a low percentage, but a very good risk/reward ratio when it happens. I really dont look at your blog to see your strategy but more to see how you and Matt are doing and from what i read you both are starting to turn the corner,which is good news for the New Year!!!

[Letseethepips]

Hey mate yeah it’s all good

The best pinbar setups are actually with the trend. This might seem contradictory but comes down to how you define a trend.

Suppose we have a downtrend on the daily chart and price is bouncing nicely between two trendlines. Price heads to the upper trendline and prints a pin - we take the short. This is with the trend on the daily although someone looking at an hourly chart would see a very definite up-trend and would consider my short counter-trend to their longs.

That would be an A+ setup. If price continued to the lower trendline and printed another pin, I would take the long, counter to the daily trend provided it had room to go, and this would be considered more of a B trade.

I see what you are saying,let me ask you would the end of the pin be the definite stoploss for you and would you wait for the close of the candle for your entry or one or two candles later for confirmation.Also would the steepness of the trend lead to more of a confirmation of the pin?The reason i asked about steepness is i look at one method for simple average crossovers and notice when it is a steep crossover like 90 to 180 degress(straight up) on multiple candles the move consolidates on me but a more subtle crossover less than 45 degree as more of a steady trend.I would think the opposite would be true with a pin placement.The more dramatic the better?

[nev]

It took me nigh on two years so no, it’s not unusual.

Trading bar formations by themselves is about 50:50. The core of the James16 material can be summarised as bar formations, at specific locations and identification of PPZ.

The bar formation is your signal for entry, the location is your filter to determine the quality of the trade, and the PPZ are used to manage the trade - determining where to move to BE, where to take profits etc.

Like all methods to work really well you need to master the various aspects of it together rather than focussing on any one part.

Ah so much for taking the easy way out, I vaguely remember skimming the whole business of sl/tp positioning based on body/wick but never really took the exact distances seriously and just gave up to use it as a kicker to line up with the signals - in practice have you found them to be reliable in gauging target and lee-way distances at all?

[nev]

Thanks saved me digging up that thousand page long thread on ff lol, although I remember an easy to read pdf hanging around somewhere…

What would your choice of action be on the 1015 GMT+0 15 min bearish reversal pin bar/shooting star near the 1.6338 fib level? I took that trade with reduced-lot 1.5 pip trail stop just to test it out (because you can do alot with +17 cents), however given the bullish momentum from those incredible Claimont Unemployment Change Figures I didn’t feel too comfortable about it - that and the fact that it was green with no confirmation at the time of course

[ruilima22]

Which pair?

Personally I don’t trade pins on anything less than the four hour charts as they become a lot less reliable on lower timeframes. If you do trade them on 15min you have to be ultrapicky in the ones you take and have a really good location with lots of confluence to give it the best chance of working out.

hi mattew.

the 4h candles are different for differnt time zones. do you look for those pin bars in differen brokers or there´s one that is more reliable than the others?

[o990l6mh]

I’ve just finished reading Mark Douglas’ Trading In The Zone.

Highly recommended - perhaps you should add it to your Christmas list Magnus!

I have it already as an e-book and I’m planning on reading it when time allows.

I’ve read the new posts on the thread today and I’m officially deputizing you - you’ve answered those posts brilliantly!

Consider yourself vice MacGyver now

[nev]

Hey matt I was referring to G/U on the last one, I’ve been putting a bit more focus on the technicals (pins) recently and its been paying off even better - funny every time I start looking a little more into other areas of strategy I end up forgetting or look past the basic bread and butter

That’s a great link, I find it useful going back to ground zero every now and then to make sure everythings still intact up there

[o990l6mh]

I swear I put a post here earlier!

I caught the link in my email notification, mwahaha

Thanks for the link, I’ve been there long ago and scavenged the place.

I have a huge bunch of ebooks and so little time… Right now I’m looking forward to Pring’s book in real paper. From me to me

[o990l6mh]

I haven’t been trading much lately as I’ve spent all my forex time learning and reading.

I’ve recently come to a few conclusions:

1. I’ve removed my subscriptions to almost all threads here. Following this multitude of threads is just a time thief and gives virtually nothing back.
   I’ve kept only the best threads.
   In the coming year I will “mind my own business” largely, not wasting precious time like I have been doing until now.

2. There’s never any [I]the right time[/I] so waiting for it would be in vain. I will start trading for real after the holidays, using a few setups and and a rule set I’m working on. Nothing fancy, just putting down in a document some rules that must be heeded regarding time frames, risk/money management, etc.

3. Babypips is in the process of launching a really cool tool, much better than Meetpips. I intend to run a demo and log all my trades there for all to see. Everyone will know exactly what my trading results look like, they’ll just not know my real account balance. (Only LITS trades won’t show up there - since I only have two arms I have to use them for the real LITS trade.)

4. I will continue on with the J16 project, it’s moving forward all the time. I’ll incorporate Pring’s book along with material from the private forum - I intend to join for a while when I’ve finished the public thread.
   My goal is to have the entire project finished by this time next year. Earlier would be nice, but I’m trying to be realistic as to the extent of hours and work required.

5. Everything I do will have a strong KISS focus. It has to be simple and fit in with the time I have for forex. Nothing less than 12H bars will be traded.

6. After every profitable month I’ll add more money to grow my account faster. That is my major carrot to stay profitable and not stray into bad behavior. After a net loss month no money can be added.
   My absolute main focus will be to only trade the very best setups. Less is more. If I had to identify my number one goal, that would be it.

[o990l6mh]

As they’ve said on the J16 thread lately, once you’ve grasped the essentials it makes a lot of sense to kick back and just trade using what you have without trying to elaborate on it or turn it into a gilded trading system until sometime further down the road. This does several things - it takes the pressure off always having to spend time learning and it also proves to yourself that the material in its basic format works. And that’s important because if you don’t truly believe and trust in the methodology you cant build upon it (that’s a generalisation, not necessarily aimed at you Magnus!).

Yes, you’re right. I should have done this a while ago, but the perfectionist in me is a hard guy to fight. He always whispers: if you’ll just read/test/do this little thing then it’s all going to be much better.
I’m going to keep him pleased by finishing the things I’ve decided to do, but he’ll have to accept that I’m done waiting for the right time to start.

NZDUSD won’t wait forever…

[nev]

BP is more of a beginners sort of forum after all, personally I’ve been looking for more tips in the new att thread on dealing with fundamentals and outlook in the current climate for a template based system but the replies have mostly been don’t-complicate-things and the they’re-already-in-the-old-threads, guess it’s time to do a bit more random article cramming (&trial and error)

[o990l6mh]

BP is more of a beginners sort of forum after all, personally I’ve been looking for more tips in the new att thread on dealing with fundamentals and outlook in the current climate for a template based system but the replies have mostly been don’t-complicate-things and the they’re-already-in-the-old-threads, guess it’s time to do a bit more random article cramming (&trial and error)

Yeah, there’s a cheery know-it-all attitude from the self proclaimed expertise in the new ATT thread. It’s a shame, the two threads run by Tess & co were great and friendly.

It’s true though, there’s nothing new in the new thread…

I look forward to the new thing BP will present in a while, that will take care of all the braggers and separate them from the actual achievers. I have a feeling there will be many surprises and gurus won’t seem so divine anymore.

[o990l6mh]

Do you know something or is this just wishful thinking?

I reckon what they need to do is rearrange the categories ala FF and also bring in their vouching system.

I know something, check your PM.

[o990l6mh]

I’m starting early, just went short on NZDUSD based on the monthly view.

Hopefully this will be a long ride downwards during next year.

I guess this is trade nr 1 then.