Ozball's Trading Journal

[Ozball]

Took a bit of a break last week, and did some study, and playing around with different platforms. Actually had a winning trade on trial account I’d setup to play with MT5, but as it wasn’t part of my main demo account I’m not going to include it here. Been trying to do some work on technical strategies and trying to find a more solid system than I’ve had so far, or at least solidify my rules. Watching a few pairs today, GBP/JPY and USD/JPY in particular, hoping for entries, but we’ll see what they give. Might have to wait till the London session for some action.

I just needed some space to reset I think, and shake off the string of net losses at the beginning of last week/end of the week before. Back in the seat again today though!

Not many news releases this week, mostly some USD ones, which might present some opportunities in USD/JPY, but USD news is the hardest for me to trade due to timezones, so I might give any that are not at 1330 UTC a miss. And even those will be dependent on if I’m able to be at the computer for them.

[Ozball]

Trade entered on GBP/JPY. Might have jumped a bit early on it, need to work on that…

Symbol: GBP/JPY

Reasoning: Daily Ichimoku is bullish, price dropped to around 187.80 and found support there over a few hours, potential push back up over 188 and upwards.

Entry: 187.95
Price was languishing around 187.75-85, a shift up to 187.95 would signal a potential test of the 188 level, which if broke, would likely start pushing higher.

Stop Loss: 187.60 (-35 pips)
This is just below the levels which the price pushed down to while testing the 187.80 level, if it got down that far again after hitting 187.95, that would invalidate the trade idea.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.89% 1:1.4 RRR
Slightly lower, GBP/JPY can be volatile, and the stop was long already anyways.

Target Price: 188.45 (50 pips)
This is just a hair above the daily Pivot Point, and would mark a full retracement of the days losses. Also sits at the 76.4% Fib retracement level from the drop down. Might look at adding to this position if it goes well. I think it might have potential to test 188.70, which is the most recent high, but will wait and see how the price goes first.

[Ozball]

In the end the price couldn’t break the 188.30 level, but once it was there I did move SL to just above BE, so ended up not losing anything (profit of 3.5 pips). Frustrating, but also at the same time, no capital lost.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 463.2
Pips Lost: 202
Winning Trades: 12
Losing Trades: 9
Average Pips Won: 38.6
Average Pips Lost: 22.44

[Ozball]

Entered another trade this morning. Was a bit of a whim, but all signals were pointing in the right direction, and I’m worried I’m starting to psyche myself out of getting in to trades even when signals are there. It might go belly up, but I need to keep working on placing trades according to signals etc.

Symbol: USD/JPY

Reasoning: Daily Ichimoku is mostly bearish, with Kijun and Span B being flat. Also pushed passed a 50 Fib level (though TP is beyond the 61.8, so we’ll see how it goes). 4 Hourly is kind of flat, but bearish, probably ranging. Hourly is full bearish on all the Ichimoku indicators, though kumo could stand to be a bit thicker ideally. Also closed beyond the Daily S1 and the 148.50 level and continued down.

Entry: 148.30
A bit further beyond the current price at the time (148.38 or so), to confirm that the price still has momentum downwards.

Stop Loss: 148.50 (20 pips)
This is back up above the S1 and a psychological level. Might have been better to have this more like 148.60 to allow a retest of 148.50 without triggering.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.42% 1:1.5 RRR
Bit lower, didn’t want to go to crazy as my technical results lately haven’t been stellar.

Target Price: 148.00 (-30 pips)
Psychological level, and just a hair beyond the Daily S2 (148.04). It does need to push beyond a D1 fib 62.8 level at 148.107 to get there though.

[Ozball]

Moved SL up to just above BE (148.244) and got stopped out after coming within a couple pips of TP, for a total of 5.6 pips profit. Probably should have used the Daily S2 as TP rather than the 148.00 I think Frustrating again, but still profit.

EDIT: In hindsight, I might be a bit too aggressive with my SL movements up to BE, especially for these shorter trades of only 30 pips or so. It’s something I’ll need to pay attention to going forward.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 468.8
Pips Lost: 202
Winning Trades: 13
Losing Trades: 9
Average Pips Won: 36.06
Average Pips Lost: 22.44

[ria_rose]

I love how detailed and easy to understand your stats are. A win is still a win so good jooob! And good luck on your other trades for the week.

[Ozball]

Trying a slightly different play today, kind of worried as it’s against the hourly trend, but with the daily trend.

Symbol: AUD/JPY

Reasoning: Bounce off of Weekly S1. Weekly S1 is at 97.30, and daily S1 is at 97.37. Price seemed to be stalling around 97.30 after testing below it, so anticipating a bounce up.

Entry: 97.45
Good distance above the Weekly S1, and a bit above the Daily S1 to hopefully confirm an upward movement.

Stop Loss: 97.25 (-20 pips)
Technically this is still within test range of the 97.30 area. Might have been better at 97.20.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.89% 1:1.85
Usual risk, might have been better to stretch out the SL and lower the risk a bit.

Target Price: 97.82 (37 pips)
Daily Pivot Point. I might actually close the trade early if it stalls part way through. The 97.50 level needs breaking, and the Kijunsen level as well at around 97.60.

[Ozball]

Hmmm… I might have been too aggressive with moving my SL again… but did move it up to 10 pip profit, so there is at least some there. I need to start figuring out a strategy for what to do when trades get close to TP and then pull back. It looks as though the price is being supported by the Kijunsen atm, so it might go back up again later. But not a trade I’m willing to reenter at the moment.
Still, finishing the month with a positive trade is nice. I don’t think I’ll be free this evening to attempt to trade the big US news release unfortunately. I might do a breakdown of November in the next few days to take a closer look at my results for the month.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 478.8
Pips Lost: 202
Winning Trades: 14
Losing Trades: 9
Average Pips Won: 34.20
Average Pips Lost: 22.44

[Ozball]

Ok, so month has ended, time for some review and introspection of how it went. This is my first full month on Babypips, and overall it was a good one. It also marks 6 months since I started my demo account, so might do some overall review as well.

Since starting this journal I’ve been thinking a lot about what my profit goals are, among other things. And for now, I’ve settled on 5-10% per month. So, ideally 10%, but anything over 5% is good. I have no idea if I’ll be able to achieve, or maintain that, but it’s my current goal. Also my current risk rule is no more than 2% per trade (Those who have been reading might have summarised this already), and ideally I want a 2:1 RRR, but that might be a bit ambitious, 1.5:1 RRR is probably better. So anywhere between those two is good. Also Win Rate should be above 50%. Although if RRR is met then there is less worry about the Win %, assuming it’s not too low.

November

Overall November actually cleared all my goals, which I’m surprised about. I think that one 140 pip GBP/JPY trade mid-month carried a lot of weight.
RRR is better than expected, especially since my Average Win amount is just under 2% maybe I’m going about the calculation wrong… maybe it should be the ratio between the average win amount over the average loss amount, rather than total pips, which would be 1.14:1 well below what I’d like.

As the last few trades of the month have shown, I need to get a bit better in setting my TPs, I’ve had ok results in calling moves, but they usually fade off before they reach my TP, and while aggressive SL movement towards at least BE has saved me from losing capital, there have been times where it’s stopped me out early and I’ve missed a subsequent bounce back towards my TP. However, thinking about it, I think the aggressive SL movement is ok for now, after all, preservation of capital is paramount. Which means I need to get better at setting my TP so that I hit it, rather than fading off and getting stopped out. Also going to try and focus on cutting trades that start moving back down before hitting TP. Even if they might bounce back after, locking in the profits I have made might work better for me.

6 Month Review

Looking at my account as a whole, I’ve done ok in 6 months. I started out trading very small, pretending I had a smaller account than what the demo gave me, and I was generally positive. Then made the decision to trade with the full value of the account, since at the end of the day, the account’s value size doesn’t matter, pips and percentages do. The red triangle on the above image shows the point at which I shifted. The other major point to call out, was the start of this trading journal, which is the green square. I’m up about 6.8% for 6 months, which is pretty decent, especially considering the slow start position size wise. Though my win rate is a bit low at 42.25%, so I need to keep working on that.

Overall quite happy with the long term progress so far. I just need to be able to keep it up going forward, and also remind myself that there will be bad months at times. Just like in August and October, where I went 5:15 (-1.9% and this was pre sizing change… ) and 14:26 (-1.93%) respectively.

And now, it’s a new month, the second half of the year (for my account), and plenty of new trade opportunities. Time to get back to the charts.

[RedEyeRishMan]

Bravo Oz!

For six months demo experience I must say I envy you. Well on your way to becoming a very successful trader.

Keep at it man! Cheers

[Ozball]

New month, new trades.

Symbol: GBP/JPY

Reasoning: Decent downward move leading up to the Tokyo session, but then found support at first the daily S3 and then at the daily S2. Hoping for a further move up after clearing S1. Also daily Ichimoku signals are bullish.

Entry: 186.32
Just above the S1, probably should be higher honestly, considering the pair’s volatility.

Stop Loss: 186.17 (-15 pips)
Back below the S1. Again probably should have set this at the Tenkansen instead. I need to be less hasty setting these up.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.4% 1:1.46 RRR
High, but not too high. Small trade so figure it works out.

Target Price: 186.54 (22 pips)
Just at the Kijunsen and daily Pivot Point. High would be nice, but not sure it will pierce both of those. Might try and babysit it upwards if there is a strong push towards TP.

[Ozball]

Heh, and pretty much stopped out straight away. Got itchy fingers and thought a move was coming with the London session starting. Should probably have gone with that Tenkansen SL idea, would still be in the trade (for now). I’m finding I’m still quite cautious, possibly overly so, about entering trades outside of news events. I keep second guessing myself, and talk myself out of trades I should be in, and other times I try to counter act that and end up in trades I shouldn’t be in. Something to work on…

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 478.8
Pips Lost: 217
Winning Trades: 14
Losing Trades: 10
Average Pips Won: 34.20
Average Pips Lost: 21.70

[Ozball]

RBA Interest Rate decision today. I setup a straddle setup as I usually do, and also tried something new.

Symbol: AUD/JPY

Reasoning: RBA Interest Rate decision.

Entry: Bull: 97.55 Bear: 96.89
Bull is above the trading range leading up to the decision.
Bear: Below the Daily S2, and also below 97.00. The price had broken the 97.30 level earlier in the day, so wanted to give a bit of room past the trading range incase of high volatility.

Stop Loss: Bull: 97.25 (-30 pips) Bear: 97.29 (40 pips)
Both around the 97.30 level that was acting as support recently, if the prices move far enough to trigger the entries, and then come back to this level, then the trade is invalidated.

Lot Size/Risk: 2% for both. Bull: 1.16:1 Bear: 1.5:1
Slight bias from me on the Bear side, I think rates will be held. So hoping for a longer move downwards.

Target Price: Bull: 97.90 (35 pips) Bear: 96.49
I struggled a big with these. Bull is up around the weekly Tenkansen level, as well as the weekly Pivot point. Also the chance of pushing through 98.00 seemed slip.
Bear was hard… It’s just floating at a feasible RRR ratio, as there are not many support levels beyond S3. I might end it early if it goes this direction, as punching through 97.50 might be rough.

[Ozball]

Two part post since I wrote up the above after everything had come out and started to move. But I wrote it based on my thinking ahead of the decision, and the screenshot is from the decision.

Rates held as expected, and we saw some movement downwards. Something I’ve been toying with a bit has been entries on multiple pairs based on strong movement in one, especially around news releases, as we will generally see moves on most pairs for the currency of the country from which the news release is about.

So, after the movement had started and seemed to be continuing (and looked to pass Daily S2), I put in a market Sell order on AUD/USD at 0.65807, with a 30 pip SL, and with a Lot Size/Risk of 0.83%. As this was the first time doing this live, I didn’t want to risk too much on it. It also has a TP at 40 pips which is just above the daily S3, but I’ll probably close the order once I close the AUD/JPY or momentum seems to have died down sufficiently.

[Ozball]

Yesterday was a wipe, lack of sleep meant I wasn’t in much of a state to trade. But for the trades above… middling results. Both were in profit, but I could have handled them better. AUD/JPY hit a moved SL at 9 pips, and the AUD/USD did the same at 10.7 pips. However the AUD/USD didn’t actually move much until the London session started, and I just kind of held on at BE till that happened. I should have stopped the trade, and then reentered for the London session if I felt it would keep going downwards. AUD/JPY I probably should have exited a bit earlier, but I also wasn’t able to babysit it as much as I would have liked.

I think for these news plays I should be exiting as soon as the momentum dies down. (if TP hasn’t been hit) Hanging on for the later sessions does sometimes help, but better to close, and then reenter for those sessions.

For my stats, I’m going to combine these two into a single trade of 19.7 pips. Not 100% sure if that’s the correct way to go about it, but they weren’t premised on different strategies or anything.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 498.5
Pips Lost: 217
Winning Trades: 15
Losing Trades: 10
Average Pips Won: 33.23
Average Pips Lost: 21.70

[Ozball]

End of last week was a hectic mess for me (outside of trading), but I did get one (well two) more trade in with the Yen’s surge on Thursday. I’m slightly annoyed as I’d put an entry (to sell) on my throw away MT5 testing account, right before the Yen went crazy, but it wasn’t up to my usual standards for an entry, hence why I never did it on my main account

Symbol: USD/JPY

Reasoning: Yen’s rise during the Tokyo session. Usually a big move during the Tokyo session is reflected in the London/New York sessions, and the move had continued at the start of the London, so attempting to get in on it.

Entry: 144.90
Making sure the move would continue below 145 before entering, as it is a psychological level that could act as support.

Stop Loss: 145.10 (20 pips)
Back over the 145 line, if the move goes this high after hitting entry, considering the downward momentum of the pair, would invalidate the trade.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.7% 1:2 RRR
I admit I was rushing a bit, as I was out and about and had to get back to something shortly. Still, it’s pretty close to my usual 2%, but also was a bit wary of volatility, and the possibility that the Yen had run it’s course already, despite the early moves in the London session.

Target Price: 145.50 (-40 pips)
Basic 2:1 RRR setup, also 145.50 could possibly provide support. I would have liked to be able to babysit this trade and hopefully ride it down if it went that way, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to watch my phone, so just went with a good RRR to set and forget. If I got it, I’d be happy.

[Ozball]

And now for a lesson on why I like 1:2RRR.

So the above entry got hit relatively quickly, which was fine… except it ended up being a fake break down below 145, so I actually got stopped out again about 90 minutes later (after coming within 4.4 pips of TP) when the price retraced back up above 145.
But I was pretty sure that the move would still continue, so when I was able to later in the evening, just before the New York session started, I put in basically the same trade (price was still above 145 at that point) though with all values shifted down 5 points (so Entry at 144.85 etc), just to make sure the move below 145 had legs again. And this time it worked as expected, hit TP just over an hour after entry.

As a result I ended up with 20 pips profit for the day. Not the intended 40, but considering that’s over two trades, I’m happy with the result.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 538.5
Pips Lost: 237
Winning Trades: 16
Losing Trades: 11
Average Pips Won: 33.65
Average Pips Lost: 21.54

[Ozball]

Feels like it’s been a bit quiet lately, not many opportunities popping up. Been toying around on a separate demo account with scalping and much shorter timeframe trading to pass the time, but still not any good at it But, maybe I’m just being too cautious with my setups. Or I’m just getting itchy fingers (though they’ve usually betrayed me in the past ) so I took the plunge when I saw a potential trade just now and we’ll see how we go.

Symbol: USD/JPY

Reasoning: Move above the daily pivot, and the start of the London session soon. Daily pivot has acted as support a bit for most of the day, so assuming this move above holds, we could see some upward movement.

Entry: 147.75
Daily Pivot is at 145.66, and there have been a few attempts to break above it, but most topped out around 145.72, so while a bit close, a move to 145.75 and above would be a break from the day so far.

Stop Loss: 145.55 (-20 pips)
Honestly this is a bit arbitrary, I don’t think I’ve done very well with my SL and TP for this trade, I just wanted to try and do something before I overthought it too much and talked myself out of it. This level is back below daily PP and just above the hourly Tenkansen (I should probably have set SL below it tbh).

Lot Size/Risk: 1.6% 1:2 RRR
Standard size for me these days. Overall I should probably adjust more based on my confidence in the trade.

Target Price: 146.10 (40 pips)
Again a bit arbitrary. Need to pass through SpanA, and the 146.00 level to get here. But also, a test of 146, could push as high as 146.10, so it might work out. There are not many important levels after this, until the daily R1 at 146.59, so if I can babysit this trade, I might look at moving TP up with SL if momentum seems to be there.

[Ozball]

Unfortunately the above trade didn’t work out, and got stopped out. So down 20 pips.

However, I did just catch part of the Yen’s current surge just in the last hour. and made 40 pips back. Not going to do my usual write up on it (though there is a chart), since it wasn’t very planned, it was just jumping on the downward train that was rushing past, lot size and risk were my usual. EDIT: Actually looking back, my entry timing was due to the price breaking down past the Weekly S1 at 141.86 after also shooting past the 142 level. Still wanted to be sure it wasn’t going to turn around, so entry was around 141.65.

Overall not entirely happy with my trading at the moment. It feels like my planned ones don’t go well, but my unplanned ones do. Need to find a way out of this perceived slump. I think the pressure to follow on from November’s good results is holding me back a bit.

EDIT: Reviewing my stats for the month so far, I’m not actually doing too badly, my wins have been bigger than my losses for the most part. The two most recent losses followed by wins where RRR was 2:1 have bolstered things a bit. I guess I feel my wins aren’t entirely deserved (they’re still wins, and I’ll take them. But it’s important to differentiate between deserved and undeserved wins). Though I think that might just be my mental state at the moment. It’s been a rough week for me outside of trading, and I think that’s colouring my decisions and review a bit. Something I need to keep an eye on.

Running Summary:
Pips Profit: 578.5
Pips Lost: 257
Winning Trades: 17
Losing Trades: 12
Average Pips Won: 34.03
Average Pips Lost: 21.41

[Ozball]

Quiet news day today, so practicing again with price action and technical levels.

Symbol: AUD/JPY

Reasoning: Pair is in a downtrend channel on the daily chart. And approaches a few levels that might be significant. The psychological 95.50 level, the R1 (95.53) on the H1, and the top of the daily trend channel. (Also, while I didn’t see it at the time of placing, the H1 200 MA is at 95.56)

Entry: 95.45
Placed after the price tested 95.50, so hoping for a pull back and move downwards afterwards.

Stop Loss: 95.65 (20 pips)
Above all the various levels that triggered the entry, and then a bit of breathing room on top of that.

Lot Size/Risk: 1.8% 2:1RRR
Standard size/risk.

Target Price: 95.05 (-40 pips)
This is the weakest part of the trade… I’ve just set it initially at 2:1 vs the SL, and it’s a ways down past the daily PP and the H1 Kijunsen. Might babysit this if I can and take profits early if it looks like the move might lose steam.

H1 Chart

Daily