Monday 3/28/11
Quick stats:
1 trade
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg -8.1613% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -8.1613%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
There seems to be a trend with me increasing my account equity and getting walloped at the same time. It hurts, but nonetheless I’m pressing forward. Here is my extra analysis on this loss day:
What went wrong with this trade?
Euro broke lower after I entered a long trade and started a new trend down.
Was this trade taken in good form per my rules?
No, because I allowed the loss to go to -8.16% level instead of stopping at -6% per my rules. It might have been helpful not to keep taking double-weight legs, especially after a Daily trendline was breached (4th leg taken after breach).
Did any clues exist that there could be trouble?
On the 30sec chart, the Daily trendline was breached with a large candle and subsequent move lower. At the time of taking the 4th (last) leg, the account was -1.84% down. It then breached a yellow 15min trendline which had previously held: at the breakout candle that breached this trendline, the account was down -3.78%.
Was there anything noticed in retrospect that could have been helpful?
Yes. I noticed while studying the 15min chart that there was a gap down at the Sunday open. This also happened on several other Monday’s and the gap typically indicates the Monday bias. Based on this, I could have traded with a short-bias restriction to be extra conservative.
What specific steps should I take in the future to try to prevent this from happening again?
[ul][li]If its a Monday, check for a gap at the Sunday open, consider restricting trade direction
[/li][li]After a major level is breached that previously held, I should not take any more legs and also possibly look at closing at a loss[/ul]
[/li]
Tuesday 3/29/11
Quick stats:
4 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg -4.9280% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -6%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
Ouchy. Except this time I don’t think I did anything wrong. This one was par for the course… Here is another loss analysis:
What went wrong with this trade?
Euro broke lower after I entered a long trade and continued extended downtrend.
Was this trade taken in good form per my rules?
Yes. The move appeared to be normal in most ways.
Did any clues exist that there could be trouble?
Yes, when price broke through a confluence of trendlines, I should have considered taking a loss. The confluence was two 15min trendlines, a 5min trendline, and a 30sec trendline. Instead I took another leg at the next level. At this point I was down -0.96%.
Was there anything noticed in retrospect that could have been helpful?
On the 5min and especially the hourly chart, we were already in a pretty steep downtrend. I should have considered trading uni-directionally (this trade was against the trend).
What specific steps should I take in the future to try to prevent this from happening again?
[ul][li]I want to take a look at the 5min PSAR and see if it makes sense to perhaps look at PSAR agreement across multiple timeframes.[/ul]
[/li]
Thursday 3/31/11
Quick stats:
2 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
0.8171% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -3.06%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
It was a ho-hum day. I wasn’t thrilled with that last trade, even though it made good.
Yep Colin is right – this is just a screenshot I paste onto my journal in retrospect (from the Forex Factory calendar). I’ve tried various calendars over the years and I’ve never found anything better than the FF calendar – it rocks!! Btw, I recently read that Oanda is adding some sort of automated calendar feature to their charts. Chances are I still won’t like it as much as the FF one, but thought I’d mention in case you want to check into it.
Friday 4/1/11
Quick stats:
3 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
1.0724% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -0.48%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
Nothing unusual today. I am exploring the idea of watching PSAR (0.03, 0.3) in 3 different windows at the same time. I normally watch it only on the 5min chart. Now I’m watching it on the 5min, 15min and Hourly chart to see if there is any confidence in trading while they are all aligned together (or anything else that might stand out).
Hey pipmart, I think I forgot to reply on your question:
The answer is: yes, MOSTLY I am only watching the 30sec chart. One of my objectives was to keep this trading method ultra simple (I need it dummy-proof). After reviewing the larger timeframe charts as part of my prep in the morning (Daily, 3hour, 1hour, 15min, 5min) I then settle-in on using only the 30sec for trading. I do keep a TINY sliver of the far-rightmost side of the 5min chart open in the background, so that I can see what color the PSAR indicator is. I am currently using this to help me determine which trend direction I should be trading on the 30sec chart. But from trade-to-trade, I do not look at anything more than the 30sec chart you see.
Btw there is no “wrong time” to trade in my opinion. I only trade this time window because I have no other option. If you study your time window long enough, I believe you can make anything work.
Hi Dusktrader, just want to thank you for this great thread and your efforts to post. I am new here and trying to learn. Do you think scalping is possible using only candles ? no other indicator.
Thanks for the wonderfull thread, please keep posting. I will definetly follow
Monday 4/4/11
Quick stats:
5 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
1.1610% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -2.08%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
It was a little slow for a Monday, and the spreads were higher (1.1). Today is a Chinese bank holiday but I decided to ignore it for the most part; I didn’t think it would affect the EUR too much. Surprise of the day was… Oanda mucked up the platform this weekend, apparently. Limit orders are completely broken. They do not show that they have activated, even though it seems that they have on Oanda servers. The first time it happened I got burned… then I wised-up and just traded without the visibility (restarting platform resets and corrects the display issue). I also filed a bug report on this.
Hi Maxtrade, thanks for stopping by. The answer to your question – my opinion – is YES, GO FOR IT. I just sortof created this method with the information I wanted or needed. I’m 99.9999999% sure you could create it a completely different way, like candles-only … and it would work just fine for you.
Tuesday 4/5/11
Quick stats:
5 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
1.6107% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -5.08%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
Looks like Oanda is still having a platform issue with Limit orders. So far I haven’t heard anything back from my support ticket. I haven’t seen this mentioned on their forums as of yesterday and I’m trying to be “nice” to give them a chance to respond. The problem is very obvious but may only affect Linux traders (I’m unsure). In any case, it makes trading very difficult because I have to guess whether or not a limit was hit in order to know if I can get into the next trade (the platform does not update to show limits hit until the next trade is placed).
Hey, I just figured out a super easy way for me to enlarge my chartshots. I’ll try to fill the Babypips window a little more fully, and I’ll also go back and up the size on previous charts in this thread.
EDIT: nevermind, looks like babypips has an 800px width limit anyway, so that’s what I’ve been using. Hey BP – can you increase this width a little? Looks like the forum layout could handle 900 width or so…
Wednesday 4/6/11
Quick stats:
5 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
1.4303% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -2.85%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
Looks like Oanda fixed their platform issue regarding limit Orders (they all seemed to work correctly for me today). However, I’m unimpressed with their 24-hour-later customer service response. It would have been better if they would have just said “yes we’re aware of an issue and are working to fix it now”. Instead they played the dummy card:
Thank you for contacting OANDA.
We are sorry to hear that you are having trouble with our take profit and stop loss orders. Please provide us with the ticket number of the trades involved ( you can find it under the activity tab), and we’ll be happy to investigate for you.
I hope this information was helpful. Please contact us if you have any further questions.
Thursday 4/7/11
Quick stats:
9 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
2.9628% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -1.92%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 1
Today was nice and lots of opportunities. I think these ECOFIN meetings cause a good amount of movement in the Euro. The intermediate swings (some call it “noise”) were larger, which makes it easier for me to take profits without needing to scale.
Btw, Oanda’s platform-Limit issue seems totally fixed now. I’m using it more frequently these days. Especially when I’ve got a scale position going, I like to use it… because if price is going to pop, (I think) it helps me grab the target where I might otherwise have missed it or get a bad fill. You can see everywhere I used a limit target because it shows on the chart as a green dot instead of a triangle.
I’ve got a new idea that I’m excited to get researching. I was studying my charts the other day and I realized that there might be something I’m missing here about these “breakeven teasers” I keep pointing out. Why do they exist? It’s because a lot of other traders must be using the same levels I am using. So I asked myself, “how can I get off this bandwagon?” I need to find a way to tweak my trading so I’m just ahead of the curve. Because if I could reduce the breakeven teasers, it means I’d reduce risk and free-up more opportunities for more trades.
So I am planning to approach this problem in the same way I did with the swing intensity study. First I will draft a framework to constrain my study. The framework identifies specifically what my objectives will be and defines everything I plan to gather in non-subjective terms.
In order to complete the study, I will look back in my journal at all charts back to the last major revision in Rules, which was February 14th. I am going to look specifically for breakeven teasers, even if they are not marked on the chart. My theory is that at some point in scaling (perhaps the 4th leg), I should consider striking with a heavier weight. If I do this, it will thrust me off the bandwagon and then when the price action swings around, instead of being a breakeven tease, it would hit my target. So essentially my goal is to move the average position line just enough that the breakeven-tease-swings will be in my target zone. I need to test several varieties of the varied weighting because I want to find the optimal striking weight and position.
Friday 4/8/11
Quick stats:
5 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
2.0628% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -2.55%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 1
Today was somewhat strained trading. It seemed that price would go right up to my target, but just shy of it, then swing back again. In one instance I actually observed it go within 1 pipette of my target. I am hoping that my teaser study that I plan to begin soon will help this situation. I think Fridays tend to be slow anyway…
Hoping to backpack in the Great Smoky Mountains again this weekend… hope there is a government to keep the National Parks open LOL.
Monday 4/11/11
Quick stats:
8 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
3.5636% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -1.87%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 2
Mondays can be great days for trading. Usually it’s just the right combination of volatility and fear. Today felt pretty fluid and I like that. A lot of action and not really any boredom.
dusktrader - i bumped across your post trying to figure what is going on with oanda lately. are you still noticing problems with their system?? is anyone noticing problems with oanda recently??
Tuesday 4/12/11
Quick stats:
6 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg -5.6957% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -6.88%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 1
Runaway trade analysis:
What went wrong with this trade?
Euro continued extended uptrend after I entered a short trade at previous resistance level.
Was this trade taken in good form per my rules?
Yes, with the exception that additional legs should be better spaced (ie min 5+ pips) to allow for more room for trade to develop if/when it becomes a “runaway”
Did any clues exist that there could be trouble?
Yes, price broke through a 15min yellow and 3hour brown trendline. At the time price broke through the 3hour trendline and I entered a 4th leg, the account was down -0.51%. A 5th leg was taken after a 5min trendline breach; if I had waited until then to take a loss account would be down -1.07%.
Was there anything noticed in retrospect that could have been helpful?
On the 5min chart, it seems that we were bouncing from a support channel. Nonetheless, I’m not sure this would have been helpful enough to cause me to stop scaling.
What specific steps should I take in the future to try to prevent this from happening again?
None at this time.
Hi doubt,
nope I don’t have any problems to report with Oanda. It has been working great for me with the exception of the Limit-order issue I reported a couple days ago (but that too is resolved now). Btw I use the fxDesktop version, which has slight differences from the web version, apparently.
Wednesday 4/13/11
Quick stats:
5 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg -2.0284% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -2.63%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 0
I studied this losing trade for a long time. I’m having an internal struggle with myself, as to whether or not I did the right thing. On one hand, I feel like I am practicing in correctly identifying levels that I should STOP if breached. On the other hand, I see that doing “nothing” would have resulted in hitting my takeprofit target while still within my flexible 6% drawdown limit.
I’m leaning towards “YES I did the right thing” because the behavior I want to ultimately reinforce is the wisdom and ability to take discretionary stops. I had a very good reason to take a stop on this trade, and even though it resulted in a loss, I still think it was the right action given the circumstance. After all, I don’t want to be stuck in the 6% drawdown window forever. Hopefully some day I will tighten that quite a bit and rely entirely on discretionary stops (rather than some mechanical percentage).
(no trading Thursday 4/14 or Friday 4/15 due to some scheduling conflicts)
Monday 4/18/11
Quick stats:
3 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
1.3923% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -1.61%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 1
Today spreads were moderately higher until about 6am. At that point I could literally feel the liquidity picking up. I’m expecting a slow week. Looks like both Thursday and Friday are bank holidays, so I’m pretty definitely not trading during those days. I’ll play it by ear on Tues and Wed, as to whether or not the landscape looks safe for trading.
If I don’t trade, I’ll still try to maintain my regular morning schedule, but will just use it for background research. I have one research project on the table that is very important to me – it’s the breakeven teaser study to determine if a simple adjustment in weighting could improve my hit rate and also reduce risk.
There is a second study idea percolating in my head. I’m not sure exactly what it looks like yet, but I keep remembering that I want to look into it further. Essentially it will be a time and price action study. I want to look at vertical moves more closely as compared to “normal” moves in price. I’d like to know if there is something important I should be incorporating in my strategy when price moves in an abnormal fashion. The way I would do this study is to look at “how far how fast” price moves. For example, if price moves 30 pips in three 30sec bars, that would be abnormal. Perhaps there are clues here that I can profit from. I can complete this study entirely on the historical chartshots I have in my journal. But first… I will complete the teaser study above.
Tuesday 4/19/11
Quick stats:
10 trades
Trend bias taken from the 5min PSAR (0.03, 0.3)
AGAINST trend weight: 1/10 acct max per leg
WITH trend weight: 2/10 acct max per leg
STRONG confluence weight: 5/10 acct max per leg
3.8015% account change
Max in-trade drawdown: -2.92%
As of new rules, # emergency stops I can hit and still be net positive for the month: 1
Today was jerky but still some strong trading signals. By the way, I mentioned once before that I was going to start watching a miniature version of the 15min and 1hour PSAR charts, to see if there were any indications regarding the 30sec trend. Well, I’ve ditched the 1hour chart (didn’t seem relevant) and replaced it with a miniature 10min chart. So I now glance at the PSAR (0.03, 0.3) on 5min, 10min and 15min charts. I still only base weightings per my rules on the 5min reading, but I am starting to notice some things about these 3 timeframes. For example today after about 6am, all 3 lined up in the short direction, which gave me a good deal of confidence to trade with.
Not sure if I will trade tomorrow (Wednesday) … will see how volatile things look.
