My Trading Log

Just realized I never posted about the trade…

Nevermind, I picked a s/d level that wasn’t fresh and that’s probably why it didn’t work out. Old news now anyway.

It’s still rather crazy at work but I’ve been postponing this for too long now, so tomorrow I’ll finish and post my trading plan. I may make small alterations to it but I’m not going to make any more major changes in my approach to trading.

I have to admit I’ve been tempted to transfer over to FF and start a thread there because that would give the all in one benefit with the Trade Explorer and what not. I have decided against it though. BP has a special place in my heart. This is where everything began for me and I intend to stay here, hopefully completing my journey from clueless to skilled and consistently profitable trader.

Let’s start the next leg of that journey tomorrow with the trading plan.

Excellent tool. Thanks for the link!

You’re welcome!

Looks like you’re gonna get to those 1000 posts after all Grav :wink:

Nice to have you around again.

Rules and Goals:

[ol]
[li] Trading will commence on March 7, 2011.[/li][li] Goals:[/li][LIST=1]
[li] The main goal is a net profitable result by the end of the year.[/li][li] The secondary goal is to achieve more than 10% account growth per calendar month.[/li][/ol]

[li] Trading will be performed using 1H/3H/4H charts.[/li][li] ForexFactory’s Trade Explorer will be used for tracking the performance of Phoenix Foundation[/li][ol]
[li] link: http://www.forexfactory.com/o990l6mh[/li][/ol]

[li] Account and charting[/li][ol]
[li] Oanda MetaTrader 4 will be used for charting.[/li][li] When MetaTrader 4 is not available:[/li][LIST=1]
[li] Oanda FXTrade charting will be used, or Netdania.com ChartStation demo will be used.[/li][/ol]

[li] Trading will be performed with an Oanda FXTrade live account.[/li][li] Trades will be placed using Oanda FXTrade or Oanda FXTrade for Android.[/li][/LIST]

[li] Charts will be analyzed for trade setups in the hours before GMT midnight.[/li][ol]
[li] An extensive analysis will be performed during the weekend.[/li][/ol]

[li] The risk per trade will be 2%.[/li][li] A stop loss is always used and it is placed a few pips beyond the high/low of the entry supply/demand zone.[/li][ol]
[li] The stop loss is moved to break even at around 2R as circumstances allow.[/li][/ol]

[li] Trades can be exited in three different ways:[/li][ol]
[li] By trailing the stop loss behind swing levels.[/li][li] By exiting at a predetermined level or R multiple.[/li][li] By stop loss being hit.[/li][/ol]

[li] Position size is calculated either by use of the custom made spreadsheet or by using Oanda FXTrade’s built in feature.[/li][li] Only setups that offer a potential for 3R or more are taken.[/li][li] Phoenix foundation trades setups where S/R lines coincide with Sam Seiden’s S/D zones.[/li][li] Only setups that pass the criteria from Seiden’s Odds Enhancers are taken:[/li][ol]
[li] Strength of original move[/li][li] Profit margin (3R or better?)[/li][li] Big picture (where are we in the higher TF S/D?)[/li][li] Retracement (first time back?)[/li][li] Time at original level (how big was the imbalance?)[/li][li] Price behavior during return to level (sharp rally up or slow gradual move? forming minor new S/D close to the level?)[/li][li] Levels on top of levels (each one that fails eats up some of the order flow behind the move)[/li][li] Higher TF trend[/li][li] Degree of level penetration (deeper penetration means a weaker level)[/li][/ol]

[li] Instruments traded:[/li][ol]
[li] AUDUSD, AUDJPY, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURUSD, GBPJPY, GBPUSD, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDJPY, XAGUSD, XAUUSD[/li][/ol]

[li] Additional funds may be added only after profitable calendar months.[/li][/LIST]

All right, Trading plan finally finished.

The Odds Enhancers will require some explaining. I’ll get around to a series of posts to explain each of them as well as some examples.

I’ll also try to throw up a series of chart posts to show what my charts will be looking like from now on.

I’m not quite done placing lines on my charts, so no pending orders tonight. If swimming doesn’t finish me off entirely I’ll try to get the lines finished tomorrow.

No, pin bars and CBLs and anything else such is gone. The trigger is simply when price reaches a predetermined level along with all the Odds Enhancers checking out.

Of course, if I had the possibility to monitor the charts I might perhaps use some sort of a trigger, but as I have to set pending orders I use the horizontal lines for entry and SL. (I now finally understand exactly what Tess meant when she said: I like horizontal lines - I like them a whole lot.)

I promised to put up some charts tonight if swimming didn’t kill me tonight. Well, I had to stop and rest for a few minutes since I had pushed myself into nausea… I’ll see if I manage to put up at least one cherry picked chart tonight or if it’ll have to be tomorrow.

I like horizontal lines - I like them a whole lot

He has gone flatline grab the paddles stat!!!
I am with you on this. If your watching daily charts the lines can easily be seen. I have been using a “zone” when price gets to the zone reverse, if it doesn’t reverse then I reverse the trade as it breaks out of the other side of the zone.
not trying to hijack your thread just saying I think we have arrived at about the same place. I look forward to seeing some of your charts.

It does indeed sound like we’re ending up in the same place. It must have something to do with our avatars!

Hmm, new forum setup… Having some serious trouble making chart uploads work.

Apologies in advance for the huge charts but I couldn’t find any other way to get the detail of the chart clear enough.
Here’s what the USDCHF weekly chart looked like a few weeks ago. Clearly we’ve dropped off the south edge of the chart. In other words, we’re not looking for short positions.

Last week of December 2010 and first week of 2011 formed a sharp bottom reversal. If price retests that level, we would perhaps be interested in a long trade around there, given that the Odds Enhancers check out.

Let’s have a look at the 4H chart, I skipped the Daily since everything shows better on the 4H anyway.

Using Seiden’s approach we place two lines, one entry line snug up against the candle bodies and the SL lines at the extreme point.

What do we know now?
We know that: last time price came here it was only able to stay for a few 4H bars before the imbalance in supply/demand forced price out of the zone and into a rally.
We also know that if we buy when price returns to this zone, we’ll be buyinh from someone making two big mistakes: 1. Selling after price has already been falling, and, 2. Selling right into a level where we know from chart history that demand is very likely to exceed supply.
We want to take the other side of that traders deal - ergo, we wish to buy here.

We also see that the other Odds Enhancers check out:

[ul]
[li]The original move was very strong[/li][li]Profit margin is excellent (the potential profit exceeds the distance of the zone by much more than 3 times)[/li][li]Big picture - we’ve already covered this[/li][li]Retracement - the level is fresh: all the demand is still likely to be there.[/li][li]Time at original level was short suggesting a big imbalance of s/d[/li][li]Price behavior during return to level - a decisive drop without any notable s/d levels forming that might interfere with the profit margin[/li][li]No levels on top of levels in this case but that’s all right[/li][li]Degree of level penetration - first time back, so that we don’t know until afterwards. As it turns out price only manages to dip into the level before taking off again. This Odds Enhancer is more meaningful in judging whether a previously revisited level is likely to work again.[/li][li]Higher TF trend is clearly down but this is trumped by higher TF s/d.[/li][/ul]
Believe it or not I saw this setup in advance but didn’t trade it as I had no clear plan yet and didn’t feel ready…

None actually. Since it’s a discretionary trading approach I feel that even if I tried, I would have a really hard time not being biased and ending up with better figures than I should get.

A simple thing like checking the higher TF immediately ruins any attempt at picking time periods where i actually have no idea where the markets go…

The merit of this will have to be found out by forward testing.

Sink or swim, remember? :wink:

I’ll be trading it live, but with only a portion of my account. If things go well I’ll transfer all of the account over a period of x months.

Rather self explanatory chart. This is another one that I identified before it happened, but didn’t trade. I know, hindsight is 20/20 so… well, it’s true anyway.

Without further ado, here’s the chart:

Btw, I haven’t taken these trades because I’m not done working out my daily routine and haven’t gone through the charts carefully yet. I’m going to do that this weekend, is the plan. Come Monday I plan to finally do less talking and more walking…

edit: seems you can’t get the chart bigger than this by clicking on it as before, so I’m posting the link for it if anyone wants to check it out in detail. I’ll be doing that if I remember from now on unless the image posting improves…
Link: http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad76/o990l6mh/7852539c.gif

My pleasure. I hope you can find something useful here. :slight_smile:

Roll-on Monday! Can’t wait to see how you fair - hopefully you do well. I have been trying Sam’s approach with differing results. Early in the week I lost 3 trades: 1 went the wrong way (bad luck or bad trade?), 1 hit the SL by 1 pip (that’s bad luck!) & the other… I checked & re-checked the chart & I still don’t know. It wasn’t near any S/D zone. I do remember trying to move an Alarm I had set at the upper limit of a demand zone & accidentally grabbing the zone itself. I use a coloured rectangle for both S&D zones. I thought I put it back correctly, but now I think I must have put it to a level on screen & [B]not[/B] to where it should have been. Another lesson learned - thank god for demo!!.

Last night I went out for tea with my wife & took the night off from trading - missed 4 trades!! It always seems to happen. Earlier in the week I was watching price crawl toward the bottom of 2 supply zones I had marked, went to tea & came back to see a big spike into & back from the upper zone. Missed about 60 pips by not setting an entry trade earlier.

I gave Tuesday’s EA trade room to breathe - ended up taking 17 pips by manually trailing my SL before bad AUD employment figures took out my trade. It did get to 90 pips!! I’m starting to think I need to aim for 50-70 & take them and run.

And I had a couple of trades ‘just miss’ my entry. I just checked AJ & found that it missed by the spread!! So I have adjusted a couple of my old demand zones to include the spread - and they would have triggered a trade. Don’t know if that is valid or not?
You might want to keep this in mind if you see some just missing.

All the best for next week. It can’t be that hard… :wink:

I demo traded Sam Seiden’s method and was pleased with some aspects of it. The setups are clear with a bit of practice. If it’s not clear, it was probably not that good of a setup, so I just skipped it. It’s great for calculating risk/reward ratios before entering a trade. For me that’s an important filter to apply to trades. I found his entry points to be a bit arbitrary (is price still going further down into the zone, or is it coming out of the zone?, should I include the slightly larger candle in the zone or not?), but I added Tymen’s cbl as an entry trigger inside the zone and achieved consistent results. Perhaps that’s just my personal preference. The exits are the best part, always well defined and always either a predefined profit with a big fat r/r ratio, or a much smaller stop. I like that since exits are really where the money is made (or lost). I also liked being able to set the trade, on any time frame, and walk away from it. Once set, it requires no management, and management may even be detrimental to the system. Sam says he doesn’t manage the trades, he just sets them up and lets them run to completion, depending on a proven w/l ratio and his fat r/r ratios to prove out over time.

Wish you all the best in this adventure.

Grav :slight_smile:

Hi Grav. Great to hear from you again. I hope you are well.

I do agree with most of your points, especially clear signals. I stripped all zones off my charts during the week & re-set them all as I discovered I was looking too closely to ‘find’ some zones. As a great trader once said “If you can’t see the trade from the other side of the room it probably isn’t a trade”. While we all get disheartened from time-to-time I am learning to walk away sometimes & go out for a drive or mow the lawns. At least then I can’t lose any more demo money. :rolleyes:

I wonder how many times I have to repeat something to learn a lesson? I set a bunch of trades yesterday afternoon (Aussie time) & then went to dinner with some friends. Set & forget; walk away; SL or TP. I completely ignored the GBP red news event. :mad: When I got home all I saw was carnage. This week I am introducing a big, red vertical bar on relevant charts for red event news, as well as an alarm about 1/2 an hour before release time. The red bar on the chart will be a constant reminder of an upcoming event before I place a trade, while the alarm will prompt me to watch more closely & maybe tighten stops. And I think only 1 trade running until I have stop at +20 or better.

Looking forward to seeing your charts on Monday Magnus. Good fortunes!

Yes, this method takes some practice. Fortunately, you are practicing in demo, so these lessons come cheap now. News events are basically unpredictable and unless you specialize in them, it’s best to avoid them. On shorter TF’s, news events can foul up any system. On longer TF’s, most news events are just a small bump with longer time frame fundamentals and supply and demand issues driving price. Good to see you too!

Grav :slight_smile:

Currently I’m in my first trade since finally starting. I wasn’t going to place any trades on Sunday eve, but when I happened to see USDJPY dropping off the edge and falling right into a major demand zone I had identified, I decided to take the trade. The rumours of BOJ intervention to weaken the Yen also helped although I pay no attention to news.

So, currently long USDJPY from 80.89, SL now at BE +3. I’m targeting 83.25.

Below is the same event, but on GBPJPY. If I had caught this one I would already have been out with the 3R profit…

Below are a few charts of GBPJPY, My way of marking up zones can be seen. Green zones are 4H zones and the yellow ones are major daily zones. Take a look at some charts:


http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad76/o990l6mh/29b4a181.gif


http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad76/o990l6mh/c647818d.gif


http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad76/o990l6mh/9c13eac9.gif


http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad76/o990l6mh/f2e35e94.gif

On this last zoomed in 4H view we can see that price rallied more than three times the distance of the zone, in other words, we would have gotten 3R or better if a trade had been taken here. I missed it, but at least I’m in a free trade on USDJPY. We’ll see how it goes.

Current account status is found here: o990l6mh’s Profile @ Forex Factory

Good to have you on board, it’s nice to not be the only one trying to apply Seiden’s approach.

Don’t worry about the trades that you miss, that’s just the way life works. More than enough trades will come your way. Focus on patience and try to make your hours and trading style work together as well as possible. Longer time frames maybe?

As usual you make excellent points and it’s clear that you’ve grasped the benefits of Seiden’s approach.

Using some sort of a trigger when price enters the s/d zone is certainly on my to do list, but unfortunately it’ll have to wait for several years until I manage to become a full time trader… Not even sure I would want that though, dentistry is fun and I would probably miss it. Maybe trade Tue-Thursday and do dentistry Monday and Friday :smiley:

Thanks for your support Grav, glad to have you around!