Part Time trading journal

[Pip-Skywalker]

Two weeks ago i opened a brand new demo account of 10 000 EUR. I’ve had many demo accounts with a fairly good success rate, but i’ve never stuck to it like the real deal.

Currently my account balance is 9691 EUR, and the reason i don’t want to start all over is, if this was a real account i would just keep trading, so here it goes.

I lost one position, and 2 are currently open and in minus. I will explain my reasoning behind the trades, but the reason i am disappointing with my self is that i am obviously trigger happy, even though this the long term trading i am supposed to be doing should generate 3/5 signals per month…and i am already on my third trade second week in.

CHF/JPY - Daily time frame.
I saw that price made a breakout of the major resistance point, and waited for a retest to base my entry on. I got the BPC (Breakout Pullback Continuation) aspect, my entry did get triggered, the only issue is that right after activating my buy stop order, price started to stall.
Regardless of current price action, the new trading week begins tomorrow, so if this pair does not start pushing towards the upside, i might decide to manually close this trade, cause obviously something isn’t right, i honestly don’t care what, but if there is no volume, than i don’t won’t be involved in sideways price action.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Thanks for the input.
I would consider a risky situation for example, i get a pinbar, but the body is a few pips more than i would like to see, then again it’s a weekly level of support…so, i would either cut 50% of my lot size, or widen the stop loss a bit etc.

[tommor]

Keep up the good work you’ve started.

I am purely long-term trend-following also and it does pay if you’re consistent. But it has some characteristics which make it a tough regime to live with.Stick with it.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Thank’s, I like talking with all kinds of traders, but it’s always interesting when you see someone who is doing what you are actually trying to achieve.

[Pip-Skywalker]

I’ve been super busy with my job, clocking in more than 12 hours a day, but that’s no excuse.
Anyhow, July was a month in the red for me, bellow is a screenshot of my trading journal.

All in all i lost 239 pips, or 6.7% of my account.
As you can see 3 of my positions did not get triggered at all, and on one of them i even cashed in some profits, but at the end was in minus again.
I am not really frightened by this, cause i know i can make this up with one profitable position. Right now i am focused on this evening, since i have 2 positions lined up, and i need to choose one, because both of them involve the EUR.
I will update later on the details regarding this.

[Pip-Skywalker]

So, right now i am looking at setting up 2 potential pending orders (Sell Stop) for the new trading week.

First one is a setup that i have been following for a long time EUR/GBP, i even tried to get in on the trade, but as you can see from the chart as price has been approaching the major trendline on the Weekly time frame, we got those weird looking pinbars. See screenshot bellow:

But, now this last pinbar actually looks nice, the open and close are almost identical, and it tried to breach the long term trendline effectively giving us a fake breakout formation.
If i decide to get in on this, entry will be 5 pips bellow the lowest point of the pinbar, and Stop Loss 5 pips above the high of the pinbar. As far as target policy goes, i am hoping to get volume filled moves for at least two consecutive candles. If that happens, i will close 50% upon the close of the first weekly candle and another 50% on the close of the second reaction candle. On the other hand if the position gets triggered and there is no momentum, then i will set my first target at the first level of support, ofcourse in both cases i will adjust my stop loss once i cash out 50% of my trade.

2. Second on is EUR/CAD, see screenshot
   
   

In this case i have a breakout of a longterm triangle formation, and last week price retested the breakout level with a pinbar, but i am not 100% sure about this setup, cause it looks kinda weird, what i mean is, the entire breakout level, the BPC formation, everything looks kinda fishy to me.

What do you guys this?

[tommor]

I think what you’ve done with the TA on these charts is good enough to justify your risks. So its given you rationales for direction, when to enter, where to enter and where to set stops. And this is the real point of TA. Its a business planning tool, not a future prediction tool.

So I would say you should go ahead as planned.

But - and I am ready to be shot down - I don’t see the justification for trust in trendlines at all. Wherever I draw a trendline which says one thing, there will be 5 places I could have drawn other trendlines which don’t say that. Selectivity like that isn’t exactly basis for an objective strategy but hey-ho…

[Pip-Skywalker]

Thanks for the input.
Yea, i get what you’re saying, and it can get frustrating, this is exactly why i try to keep trend lines simple.
I just draw the outer trendline, and only if it’s obvious, otherwise i don’t bother.

I’m gonna go with the EUR/GBP Sell Stop pending order, the only thing i have doubts about is the target. It has a great potential to be a 500 pip bounce, but i will try to be conservative and probably my final exit will be somewhere around the 50% fibonacci level…i don’t know yet, this is driving me crazy right now lol.

[Pip-Skywalker]

My pending sell stop order did not get triggered by today’s price action. And this is good, because it shows the beauty of long term trading, and pending orders - if your bias is not correct, your position won’t get triggered, or if your entry conditions are not met.
As you can see from the chart, the entire day bulls were in control of the market, on the 4H we can spot that when price actually started approaching last week’s high, it started to loose momentum, and the good part of this is that today’s price action is engulfed by Friday’s price action.
Price still can not breach through, and last time when we had a retracement to the trendline, it took 4 candles before a swing to the downside happened. However this place out, i will either cancel this order and reverse my bias and search for a breakout pattern, or my short will get triggered, it can not stay at this junction forever.

Currently, it’s waiting time, in the meantime i will check up on my watchlist.

[justshell]

yea , this pair is definitely bullish. I notice a double bottom formed at support

[frandlost]

Approaching a possible pull back?

[justshell]

right now, yea that’s what it looks like

[Pip-Skywalker]

I did get triggered, and it starting going down, but price created another pinbar, and not the type i wanted to see. Oh well, i can still leave it open for a week or two to see what will happen.

[alphahavoc]

@Pip-Skywalker

but price created another pinbar, and not the type i wanted to see

Weekly candlestick ended closing up and above weekly mean level showing buying pressure.

With respect to Time Price Opportunity (TPO) chart. Price is currently trading above June Point of control (POC) 0.890 suggestive of bullish sentiments. In July, when the Initial balance breakout above June value area upper border at 0.894 price level, initiative buying was kickoff and reached new High of 0.905. Subsequently, price drop below June Monthly High price at 0.899 and responsive selling commences. July is coming to an end now. Current TPO distribution pattern demonstrate a month of consolidation. Current POC is within 0.896 - 0.898. Most recent daily candle closed above July current POC zone, and is indicative of immediate buying pressure. Price level at 0.894 can be considered as a level of Immediate support for the Month of July. Unless support level at 0.894 is breached, bullish trend should continue at current point of analysis.

Technically, price bounced off June POC zone and currently sits just above July POC upper border showing bullish sentiments.

[Pip-Skywalker]

This is probably one of the most time efficient trades i have taken so far in my career. I literally opened this position from my phone, because i was not at my pc when i got the signal. But since it was on my watch list from previously, i knew exactly what i was looking for, so it was an easy process.
GBP/CAD Short on 4H, i say efficient because usually i end up with struggling volume on my trades, but this one happened in massive volume as you can see from the screenshot.

Here are the numbers from my MT4. I exited on 3 different places, cause i want to be conservative with the targets.

[justshell]

it shot up lol

[tommor]

This is nice.

I don’t know what’s happened but I do tend to the view that more upside shocks occur in uptrends and more downside shocks in downtrends. So as well as the underlying trend’s momentum, you also get the benefit of pleasant surprises like this.

Of course, the best ever was EUR/CHF in 2015, but that’s a whole different story.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Yes it did lol, i scored a loss.
My PC died, and i am doing this from my phone.
My journal was an excel file witch is now gone. So i am starthng over.
I have a nice setup for later, i will update in a few hours

[Pip-Skywalker]

My Desktop PC died, so i am limited in what i can do.
Regardless, i am getting a new laptopt this week, so i’ll be back on track.

Since i don’t have the time to update you on what happened, and also my trading journal is gone with the PC, i will just make an update on a trade i am planning to set up this evening as soon as the markets open.

USD/CAD - Daily Time Frame.

We’ve seen a breakout from the Daily support point, and now a full swing retracement has happened, and price came back to retest previous support which now is acting as resistance.
Price formed a pinbar, which is a strong reversal signal, and i am basing my entry and stop loss on that pinbar.
I am setting up a sell stop order five pips bellow the lowest point of the pinbar, and my stop loss will be located 5 pips above the highest point of the pinbar, which is just above the resistance line.

Reasons why i believe this level will hold.

1. We already have a clear pinbar;
2. We have a Fibonacci level;
3. We have previous support now turned in to resistance
4. If you add the bollinger bands, you will see price is hitting the upper bollinger.

My final target will be 80% of the full potential of the previous swing, added on tip of the pinbar as a potential start of the new swing.
I will have sequential targets, in which the first one will be the first level of support, where once price reaches that level i will exit a portion of my position, and trail my stop loss to break even plus the spread.
After that i will leave the trade to reach it’s full potential and monitoring my trade along the way in case i need to make some adjustments.

After i post this i will have a look at the economic calendar for the upcoming week and any potential catalysis’s that could mess me up.
Feel free to comment and share your thoughts on this.

Happy trading

[Pip-Skywalker]

Ok, so first of all a small update what has happened to me, and how do i plan to continue regarding this.
As i mentioned previously, my desktop PC died, i finally got a new laptop, it’s nothing special, because i only need it for basic stuff and most importantly Forex analysis.
I moved to a new apartment, and finally the basics are set up so i can continue with my trading journey.

Also, my entire journal is gone, since it was not online. It’s a bummer i know, but instead of redoing the whole thing again, i will just start over with a new trading journal with the current account balance that i have on my demo account.
p.s: i just finished my weekend market analysis, and the entire 3 hours went to waste because my MT4 did not save anything…so i have to do it all over again

Alright now, back to business.
On my last post, i talked about USD/CAD on the daily time frame. Well, that setup did not turn out the way i wanted. But now, something much more interesting is happening.
If we zoom out in to the Weekly time frame, we see a few indications that the consecutive moves could potentially and hopefully be to the downside.

There is a breakout from the long-term trendline, which is now being retested from the downside to see weather it will become resistance. Moreover, the retracement made a fake breakout formation with the latest pinbar, which also falls at around a previous level of double bottom within the channel (purple level)

I am setting up a pending sell stop order and risking 3% of my account.
Entry: 5 pips above bellow the low of the pinbar - 1.31710
Stop Loss: 5 pips above the 50% range of the entire candle, because if i put it above the pinbar the SL would be waaay to wide for my taste. 180 pips plus on a daily time frame is too much, on the weekly and monthly yes. - 1.32823

Moreover, the first level of support (major) is at 1.27755, which is 300+ pips away from my entry, so i have a highway free of traffic if this setup gets activated.
The reason why i like this setup is the double level of ressistance i have on a weekly time frame. I mean…as always, anything can happen, trading forex is never easy, but i really like to keep it as simple as i possibly can.

I will keep this journal updated on a daily level now hopefully.