Nates (complete noob) Daily Trade Journal

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
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Like many posts in this sub forum I’m gonna try to post my daily trades and losses from the live side. Yes I’m very new and am starting live this week after doing demo for a while.

Please be constructive in your criticism. Yes I know I’m making dumb mistakes and welcome constructive feedback.

Settings on ipad think or swim.
Moving Avg Exponential: 5
Moving Avg Exponential: 10
MACD: 5/10 Wilder, 10 length
RSI: 10 Wilders
ADX: 15 Wilders
(From a system I read on the trading system page.

Watching only hourly cause I get anxious when I’m watching the 1 and 5 min charts…

Starting balance: $2200

Todays trade(s):
0714: Short USD/CAD 10k 1.23887 (this didn’t go well…)
0715: Long AUD/USD r10k 0.77499 (stupid fake Xover)
0750: Closed AUD/USD 10k 0.77454 (-4 pips)
** I’m an idiot and made the mistake of watching the 5 min chart and scared myself. If i had held this I’d be up 60 pips…
0751: Short USD/CHF 30k 0.91481 trailing stop 25 pips
0838: Closed USD/CAD 10k 1.23982 (-10 pips)
1737: Long AUD/USD 20k 0.77996 trailing stop 25 pips

Closing day value: $2,302.

I think I’m gonna limit myself to no more than 5 trades a day. Force myself to slow down and try to avoid FOMO.

7 Likes
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Well done. Keep it going as you’ll only find if it’s working by continuing despite suffering losses - which are the norm - along the way.

best of luck.

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hows your balance now? :slight_smile:

goodluck

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I have high hopes lol

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Thursday 29 April 2021

Starting balance: $2,316

Apologies in advance for the lack of real trading terminology, still learning the terms…

Thoughts. I’m having a hard time determining where to put my stops and TP points. Also I know not to change my SL but is using at trailing SL a bad Idea?

Looking at:
USD/JPY - 108.967 - At 0707 hourly chart: would that be considered a rounded M or double top? The fast EMA (5) hasn’t crossed down over the slow EMA, but it looks like it might? No idea

USD/MXN - 19.95184 - At 0710 hourly chart: fast EMA crossed slow up; MACD and RSI both crossed up and ADX is above 25 (barely). why is this pair so expensive? Seems like this pair has long runs.

EUR/AUD - 1.5558 - at 0743 hourly chart: fast EMA crossed slow EMA down; MACD and RSI crossed down as well, but ADX is under 25. Probably wont buy short. BUT the reason i am looking at this is because it looks like a tiny double top, do those exist?

Continued trades:
28APR2021 0751 Short USD/CHF 30k 0.91481 trailing stop 25 pips. At (0850 it looks like this may be forming a double bottom? Hopefully not, the chart looks good still. Fast EMA crossed down over the slow EMA, RSI has crossed down and MACD is about to. ADX is right at 25. gonna let this one run and see if it will break through the 0.90 resistance.

28APR2021 1737 Long AUD/USD 20k 0.77996 trailing stop 25 pips. This came really close to my trail stop last night. Maybe I should put my trail stop at 30? This keeps bumping up against a hard resistance at 0.78173. wondering if I should sell the position or let it run. Right now (0850) it seems stuck at 0.779.

Trades:
None so far or planned.

Edit 1
Well that plan went to crap.

both my continuing trades stopped out. still made $135 (hush thats a lot for my level lol)

New Trades (No I didn’t follow my plan…)
0923: Long EUR/AUD 10k 1.56138
0900: Long USD/CAD 10k 1.23167
0856: Short EUR/GBP 10k 0.86801

Well that was a complete fail of a day. going back to demo for a while…

suffice to say I lost the minor gains I made yesterday. I’ll be testing the same plan in demo side for a bit to see where I am going wrong, or switching to a different plan entirely.

Ill reupdate after I start live again, good luck everyone!

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Hey! Please feel free to post your daily updates here. After all, that is what we all are here for… to share our experiences of trading.

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Welcome to the world of forex trading… Do not over expect!..Go slow pal!

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I will once i get back on live trading, I figure you all dont want to hear about my paper trading exploits lol.

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You know what’s great? That you’re ready for constructive criticism and this is something that’s gonna take you ahead on a successful trading journey. Good going and keep practicing. Looking forward to knowing how your trade ended.

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26 May 2021
I’m back!

Bought USD/CAD short at 1.21270 at 9:43 pm central time lets see what happens.

Stochastic and RSI both show over bought AND are starting to curve down. MACD hasnt crossed down under the slow line yet, but its about to, and ADX is at 30.

My SL is a trailing stop loss of 10 pips. This is where I’m still trying to find out a good risk management system cause trailing SL have bit me more than a few times, but I just hate seeing the chart going the opposite direction…

My take profit isnt set. Ideally it will be when the Stochastic nears the over sold line of 30 on the hourly chart.

I’ve been experimenting with having the hourly be my base chart, but using the 5 min as an intra trade chart to track the reversals at the mid and outer lines of the bolinger bands. So far Its kinda working, but not sure I want to keep going for the 10 pip gambles…

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27May2021

Aaaand USD/CAD stopped out at 1.21256 at 0125 earning a profit of, drumroll, 1.4 pips!

Ok sarcasm aside, sometimes I hate this pair lol. Even If I had a TP set it would have stopped out so my only real choice would have been to increase my SL to something over 20-30 pips which I’m still having a hard time with.

I’m right back into USD/CAD this morning at 1.2117 for all the same reasons but with a 10 pip TP at 1.2105, I’ll be driving a smartcar in no time!
– My TP filled so I’m rich! (or not)

Reentered at 1.20850 with a 1.205 SL (which I dont think is gonna fill at that price…) because I should have just gone for a more aggressive TP but I’m a wuss. On the hourly chart, RSI is still over 30 at about 39, MACD fast line is is still under the slow line (dunno what the technical term is), the 4 hour shows plenty of room to run, though this is an iffy indicator for me.
– …I changed my trailing stop loss from 20 pips to 5 pips, which then stopped out at 1.20813, dumb move.
– 0843 central: Wondering if this is going to bounce long off of the 1.20685 Support Pivot Point 1.
---- I put in a limit buy order at 1.207, lets see how it works out. plan to put my stop at 10 pips just to see how this moves…
---- – Stopped out at 1.20751 with my 10 pip trailing SL
– 0924 central: ok i guess I’m a glutton for punishment (and a terribad trader). I bought back into USD/CAD short yet again at 1.20670. put trailing SL at 20 this time… I really suck at this part.
---- ok well that was dumb idea. stopped out at 1.20806 and there goes those gains… bye…

Ok after a bit of a break
– shorted EUR/USD 1.21948 based off the 5 min chart skipping down off of the 70 RSI and Stochastic curving down. MACD just crossed down as well.
– stopped out at 1.21894

–Back into USD/CAD shorted at 1.20665 at 12:46 pm central…

Hard thing for me to figure out is that the Day chart shows the USD/CAD pair is oversold on both stochastic and RSI but it only just started to rise. not sure how I should place my SL and TP if I was to use the day chart, 200 pip SL?

This is what I am using to track my daily results (NOT cumulative) dunno if my calculations are off, but I am all over the place lol.

image

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…Gonna stop trading USD CAD after this morning lol.

gave up the past week’s gains cause I guess I forgot everything and made a bunch of dumb trades against the trend… again. this keeps biting me in the rear (we cant cuss on here right?)

Anyway.

After a bunch of losses on trades with USD/CAD: lost a total of 17% of my account

  • On the plus side I now know what the warnings about emotional revenge trading is all about.

Shifting my mindset out of “I need to make this back” to lets make some ok trades (I’m trying not to be greedy and settling for ok trades, not even good trades, just ok is ok with me)

Short EUR/USD at 1.21970 RSI/MACD/Stochastic blah blah on the5 min chart. hourly chart has betrayed me too many times to trust myself with it.

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1Jun2021

Long USD/CAD 1.20410
Hour chart

  • RSI Shows oversold / Stochastic shows oversold
  • Candles (price action?) are separating (diverging?) from the lower bollinger band
  • MACD fast line has NOT crossed up over the slow but I dunno how good of an indicator this really is…

While I lost every trade on this pair last week I thought about it this weekend and realized I was trying to anticipate the reversal, and I apparently suck at that. I’m gonna try really hard to wait till my “checklist” is met before buying cause my intuition is wrong most of the time lol.

…stopped out at 1.2

Bought back in at 1.20220
1551 - Still in at 1.20750-ish so +50 pips! at least made back the losses from this mornings fiasco

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Short USD/CHF at .90050
Hourly: Same strategy as above (RSI, Stochastic, etc etc) along with possible tweezers forming on the 4 hour and 1hour. Of course as I’m writing this the tweezers seem to be “unforming”, guess I jumped into this too early as well.

  • and after I posted looked back and thankfully I put a very tight SL, cause it stopped out…

Short EUR/USD at 1.21720

  • for a change of pace, same strategy but gonna go with the trend even though this is showing oversold, worst case I stop out again.
    — relooked at this again, 1.217 is a pretty strong support that’s only been broken once recently.
  • Closed position.

Long EUR/USD at 1.21730 with a 20 pip TSL

  • … didnt close my position and it fell back down overnight and stopped out. Lesson learned, set TP, or pay better attention and realize when the price stalls out.
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3June2021

Bought back into EUR/USD long at 1.219, Same as previous reasons, but also tweezers on the bottom.

  • paying more attention to the daily, and it looks like it should go short… using paper trade to test it out.
  • stopped out at 1.2192 while i was at the gym and not paying attention to it.

Short EUR/USD for a short trade at 1.21690

  • looking at the daily ill switch over to long when it reverses (if it does, i have terrible luck with predicting reversals…)
  • closed out at 1.21608

Long EUR/USD at 1.216

  • I feel like this should be where it reverses
  • Price is at the daily 20 EMA midline, so should reverse…
  • RSI, Stochastic say oversold
  • at this point I dunno…
  • hit trail stop at 1.21366

Short EUR/USD at 1.21285

  • the daily chart blew right down through the 20 EMA and now its just kinda sitting there…
  • I like the idea of using only the daily and 4 hour but I hate seeing the price going the wrong direction. What do people use as a SL for swing trading?
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Use the ATR. The value of the ATR x1.5 is your SL. With 2200 euros do not use more than 1 lot, preferably start with 0.05 lot. Many little bits make you happy when you win. Determine what amount you want to earn per day or week and stick to it.

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In a forum I’m in the discussion of which timeframe to enter trade caused a heated argument, it is wise to stick to H1

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Thanks for the advice! I am actually doing mini lots (10k) so even though I am losing far more trades than winning, Im not actually down that much.

As far as earnings goals lol, I’m not at that stage yet. I’m just happy if the day ends in the positive at this point.

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When you say H1, do you mean the 1 hour?

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Yes, 1 hour timeframe, you need to learn swing trading strategy, it will help