Part Time trading journal

[Pip-Skywalker]

Trading is not an instant gratification venture, even though it’s advertised like that.

And not that the advertisements are not true, technically they are. Yes, you can become a millionaire with only a $100 - from e technical point of view, if you catch the majority of the moves the market makes, yes you can.
The problem is, no one can, not even the most high tech computer…the market’s are like the universe, we can not understand what’s behind it (well, we kinda do…people buying and selling)

I am fascinated how subtle all of this comes to you if you are persistent. I’ve tried to get my friends in to this, and all of them are interested in the financial potential, but not in the whole trading/investing process.

So, it’s not for everyone, i mean you really need passion to get you through the tough and even boringg times. Even for someone as addicted to trading as my self, starring in charts can be boring at times, and i can only imagine what it looks for civilians

Guys, don’t lie to yourselves. You’re gonna have to put in the hours to actually start seeing some consistency and improvement in your trading, and you’re gonna need to keep doing that for a very very very long time, if you have any hopes of actually making this a full time gig.

They say it’s like running a business…yeah, maybe even more than that, psychologically speaking.

[Pip-Skywalker]

It’s Sunday, 16 of February, time to see at what levels we are going to be trading for the upcoming week, and potential catalysts.

1. EUR/USD: A significant level that can be spotted on D, W and even the monthly was broken last week. Did not get a signal on the Part Time trading strategy, but if i get a signal on the 3 SMA i will take it, since there is still room for this bearish momentum to continue.

2. EUR/JPY - D: i already had a winning trade on this pair 2 weeks ago, and it seems the bears are still pushing, cause another major swing point has been broken. I might enter this trade tonight as Monday’s candle opens.

3. CHF/JPY - D: Broken outer trendline on the Daily, we need to monitor to see weather we can get an entry.

4. CAD/JPY - D: Multiple levels being retested + we have a fibbo level. We will monitor this pairs behavior for the upcoming week.

5. USD/CHF - D: Bullish breakout from a significant are has occurred. Monitor this pair to search for potential setups.

6. NZD/JPY: D -We have 2 important levels, and wherever price goes, we will be searching for a potential entry

7. EUR/CAD - D: The EUR is falling across the board, here is another pair where a major significant swing point has been broken to the downside. We will monitor this pair.

8. AUD/NZD -W: I don’t plan on taking any trade on this setup, because the breakout was not clean at all, it’s very messy, no momentum, but since we did get a pinbar on the weekly, i want to see what is going to happen.

This is regarding the Part Time trading strategy. I will post about the 3 SMA setups i am monitoring a bit later.

As far as i am concerned, i have a valid setup to open on the EUR/JPY (Setup number 2)
The only problem i am facing is that i do have a few big EURO events this week. I might cut down on my risk…still ot sure what to do, if you guys have an opinion i would love to hear it.

[Pip-Skywalker]

I set up a Sell Stop order on EUR/JPY yesterday when the market opened. Ideally it would have been in profits, but obviously traders are waiting for the high impact news coming from the EUR tomorrow.

The way the order is set up, i should be safe…if current price action remains.
Basically price has been stalling the entire day, and if the news is positive, it will push this pair up, and if it’s negative, it will push it down, and activate my pending order.
If the news breaches the high of my setup candle (Fridays’s Pinbar), i will cancel the order.

Here are the details, and a screen shot of the setup.

Pair: EUR/JPY
Time Frame: 1D
Position: Short
Type: Sell Stop (Pending Order)
Entry: 118.787
Stop Loss: 119.303
Risk in pips: 52
Risk in %: 2.9
Lot size: 0.63

For those of you who follow this journal, i already had a winning trade on this pair about 2 weeks ago.
The original plan with that trade was to leave a small portion of the trade to run to it’s full potential, but then i decided to play conservative.
Now, price has broken a significant level, and if momentum continues hopefully i will have another winner on EUR/JPY.

Target levels and the entire process of managing the trade, and trailing my stop loss will be determined once i am actually in the trade, and depending of what type of volume i get. If the volume is big enough, of course i want to leave the trade open to reach it’s final target, but if things are moving slower, i will play it conservatively.

I consulted Baby Pips’s ( i’m not sure this is how you spell that) Market Milk to check the trend indicators, the oscillators and volume. And still, it seems this pair has a little more steam to go, before the bulls put their final foot down.

And also, i think that this whole Brexit deal weakened the EUR, since it does not look good when one of the more powerful countries in the world wants to leave. But we as traders don’t care about politics in the absolute, we just care if and how that is going to help us get pips.

[Pip-Skywalker]

I got stopped out on my EUR/JPY short at 1:49 GMT + 1

That big volume green candle was did the damage. I am -3% on this trade (as in every other trade)
So, what happened?

Well, rememmber in a previous post when i mentioned i need to be more careful about my setups? Well, i thought i was, but i really wasn’t.

The setup in itself was perfectly valid, but as i mentioned previosly, if my Stop Loss is bellow a 100 pips, i need to be vary of economical news events. My Stop Loss here was 52 pips, and i believe this is the main reason for this loss.

Basically there was a bunch of news events for the EUR the JPY and GBP (which affects the EUR) which were positive for the EUR, and negative for the JPY, so today the EUR/JPU rallied almost 100 pips, which is insane, since the 7 day ADR for this pair 62 pips, so almost double the volume, and from the looks of it, it’s all because of the news.

Here is how the calendar looks like:

I understand that i learned a valuable lesson today, and there is no point in being depressed over this. But god dammit 2 losses in a row, just after i started getting my momentum. But this is the path that we as traders must go through. Now i understand that if this was a real account, i would have been really pissed off. Not because i am letting my emotions get in the way, but because i could have prevented this.
Losses are normal, but it hurts when you could have prevented them.

So for the next trade, i need to be mindful of:

1. Stop Loss Size

2. Economical Calendar

Basically, if the SL is small, make sure that there are no major news catalyst for the upcoming week, This is especially true for trading the Daily charts, i don’t think this is a regular occurrence for the Weekly, or at all for matter on the monthly.

Now i will try to find another setup.
If there is anything you guys wanna add, please do, any input is valuable.

[ponponwei]

Basically, if the SL is small, make sure that there are no major news catalyst for the upcoming week

Yeah and even then you don’t know what will happen. There may be no major news but if Trump tweets something or some tragedy happens you’re still SOL.

I always tell myself “I wouldn’t have known” and that I made the best decision based on what I knew at the time. Hope you don’t beat yourself up too much about this! There are many trades still waiting to be taken!

[Pip-Skywalker]

Trump can effect the scalpers, at least that’s what i have seen so far, not long term trades.
But thanks

[aalcaraz]

Have you tried using ATR to place your SL? that may help

[Pip-Skywalker]

I haven’t updated my journal in 17 days.

Here we go

As i was doing my Weekend Market Analysis i decided to make a small but significant change in my trading strategy.
On the second strategy i trade - the 3 SMA, i will cut out the 4H timeframe.

The reasons are:

1. Too many signals

2. Economical events affect the setups more than i am comfortable with

3. Again, too many signals

Trading needs to be a balanced act, for me at least, it’s more important to trade in the zone, with a good flow, instead of executing every-little trade signal i get. This will significantly cut down unnecessary screen time, and increase my effectiveness, or so i believe. Even though some of my biggest winners were from this time frame on this specific strategy, quality over quantity is the game i am trying to play.

So, as of this moment, on both my strategies i am only looking at the Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Time Frames. Of-course, if necessary i will zoom down to 4H to have a better look at price action, but my setups will not be based on the 4H Time Frame.

[MattyMoney]

Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Time Frames.

My trading has improved significantly since I started focusing on these time frames, mostly weekly. Things move a lot slower and entry points are not as accurate but if you cut your position sizes in half and only trade in the direction of the trend, once it starts moving in your favour then just scale in and aim for the next S/R level.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Thanks for the input.
This has also been my experience, as far as entry points, they might not be as tight as smaller time frames, but at least they are higher quality.
But, i am not comfortable with scaling in. I just risk 3%, play it ultra conservatively, and then scale out as the trade develops.

[Pip-Skywalker]

I trade 28 currency pairs, and rarely focus on one.
But i am noticing something interesting from a technical perspective that is happening with the most popular Forex pair - The Fiber (EUR/USD) on the Monthly time frame.

This is a long term outlook, and it will be a top down analysis.

This is how the monthly chart looks for this pair.

Map:
Pink - Monthly
Blue - Weekly
Red - Daily

Obviously this pair has been in a bearish trend for the past 12 years.

Even though the horizontal level has been broken 2 times before, and now again towards the downside. With the volume we have seen this month, price came back up to retest that significant level, and it touched the level to the pip, and immediately went back down, signifying strong market rejection. The monthly candle is still ticking, and we are seeing a formation of a very nice pinbar on the monthly time frame. Of-course, we need for that ticking candle to close in order to make any type of a decision, but so far it looks promising.

If we zoom down to the weekly time frame, we can see a combination of a railway tracks and an outside bar, but both formations very ugly looking, and not the type of price action i would like to get involved in.

For now, i don’t plan on putting a sell stop order based on this weekly candlestick formation, even though i am tempted. Right now, it’s important that i am noticing heavy market rejection, and a potential further move to the downside.

And lastly, i want to share what is happening on the daily time frame.

Basically, after that big push to the upside, price went in to retracement mode, retaracing to the pip to 61.8 Fibbo level. This is great, cause it’s a signal that all the traders are looking at this level.
My train of though is that if price breaks bellow the 61.8, and retests it from bellow, that could be my entry signal, since it will be a confirmation that the bulls are regaining control, and the downtrend is continuing.

Here is the daily chart with Fibbo:

Without overloading this post with to many screnshots, if you zoom up to the Weekly and Monthly with the fibbo, you can see that all formations line up to the 61.8.

Conclusion: I know i have a bearish bias, and want to go short, weather i will get that opportunity this month on the D, W, or a i will play it uber safe by waiting for the monthly to close, remains to be seen.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Here is a good example of why playing it conservatively is a better trading strategy. At least from my point of view.

This is EUR/CAD - Weekly TF.

I set up a pending sell stop order based on the previous week’s candle, which was a pinbar.
The trade would have been activated if price ticked 5 pips bellow previous weeks high (conservative approach), but since the bulls rallied, my position never got triggered.

If i would have played it aggressively - which meant clicking on the sell button as soon as this week’s candle opens, i would have scored a loss now.

I’ve read a lot of good arguments for being aggressive, but to be honest with you, none of them make sense to me, or to be more precise to my style and philosophy of trading.

[Pip-Skywalker]

There has been a significant increase in volume in the Forex markets lately. This means that levels, that should have been retested in a few weeks or months, are being tested right now.
I’ve got a bunch of potential opportunities, mainly on the weekly time frame.

All of these are potential pending order trades i am looking to take once the market opens on Sunday evening. Of course, if price doesn’t make a crazy 100 pip move on any of these pairs today.

Also, all of them are pinbars, or heavy market rejection. Obviously i can’t trade all of them, some of them do stand out as better looking from a technical perspective.
I will have a look at this again tomorrow, once the candles actually close, to reassess the situation, and pick a pair i am going to go for, while consulting with the economic calendar.

1. CAD/JPY - W

2. EUR/GBP - W

3. GBP/JPY - W

4. NZD/JPY - W

5. GBP/AUD - W

6. EUR/CAD - W

7. CAD/CHF - W

[Pip-Skywalker]

After a long process of elimination, i managed to get the 10 potential setups down to just 2.

EUR/CAD - W
GBP/JPY - W

I took in to consideration major levels of S/R above and bellow, and also cut out pairs that were double. So if i had GBP 3 times, i would pick the best GBP pair.

Also, i risked 3% in total, about 1.60% on one pair, and 1.40% on the other.

Here are the setups:

[Pip-Skywalker]

Update:

This is a mid week update on my 2 previous stop orders. The full picture update will be on Friday evening, because both setups are on the weekly time frame, so that is the time frame i will base my decisions on for managing the trade.

GBP/JPY got triggeed

• Details:

Entry: 133.089
Stop Loss: 122.440

Target: I have a combination of open target & major levels of S/R, depending on volume. The open target part is a time based policy. Basically i close the position upon the close of the first profit candle, or a close 50%, and leave another 50% for the second reaction candle if there is any. But the forex markets are not always so generous. so sometimes we have to be a bit more patient and actually wait for some potential profits.

Here is how the current chart looks like:

Today there’s a bunch of important news on the calendar for GBP.

Let’s see what will happen.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Weekend update:

My EUR/CAD sell stop on the Weekly did not get triggered, so i will cancel the pending order once the market opens on Sunday evening.

But, my GBP/JPY short is 121 Pips in profits

Even though it looks grandious, it’s only 0.44% gain on my account so far, since it’s 1.5% risk from my account, with 400+ pip stop loss.
But regardless, on Sunday evening i will close 50% of the position and trail my stop loss 121 pips to reduce the risk as much as possible.

Here is the chart:

[Pip-Skywalker]

I’ve finished my weekend market analysis, and found one pair i could set up a pending sell stop order for Sunday evening (Monday)

NZD/USD - D

A major swing to the downside has finished, and on friday price hopefully finished the retracement segment. The pink line that you are seeing on the chart is a monthly level of S/R.

But i am not trading a reaction of the monthly chart, i am hopefully looking to trade a bounce from A Fibonacci area (between the 50% and 61.8%). Friday’s candle is one of the formations i trade in this strategy. We have a hesitation bar, or a sandwich bar. Even though it’s not the prettiest looking one, it is respecting the Fibbo levels.
So my plan of action is to place a sell stop order 5 pips bellow the lowest point of that bar, and the stop loss 5 pips above the highest point of the bar. So if price ticks bellow, i will be filled in, which also signifies that price is bouncing. But if price takes out the highest point of that bar, than i will cancel the order.

Pros: The sandwich bar is to the pip precise touching the Fibbo level of 61.8%, and the more precise the level, the better the signal.

Cons:

1. The hesitation bar is not considered a high quality signal, since it does not indicate market rejection, but market confusion. And as an added problem is the crazy volume we’ve been seeing lately, which could easily trigger my position, and then hit my stop loss.

2. Also i am not liking the heavy rejection we got on the Monthly time frame. Take a look at the chart

Course of action:I still haven’t made my final decision, but if a do enter it will be with a smaller lot size because of the added risk. Opening smaller positions is something i am doing because of the worldwide outbreak and the massive volume we are seeing in the forex markets.

What do you guys think?

[Emekadavid]

I enjoyed reading your trading journal. It inspired me to open one of my own. Thanks and keep posting.

[Pip-Skywalker]

Both my trades are currently in profit, here are the details.

GBP/JPY - W

Profit in Pips: 110 (as of this moment)

This is no surprise here given that the pinbar was massive, so it’s gonna take at least one more Weekly candle to secure some profits. Because 110 pips, with such a massive Stop Loss is nothing to write home about.
But it’s good that my bias was correct, and i am in the green. On friday i will have a clearer picture of what to do.

---

NZD/USD

Profits in Pips : 28

I’ve written about this potential setup here

It was based (and still is) of the Fibonacci level of 61.8%
The first candle i got was a massive hesitation candle which did not get triggered, and this was on Friday. So Monday’s candle did not trigger the setup, but it gave us a smaller hesitation candle (sandwich bar) which was inside the previous candle, basically Monday’s candle totally engulfed Tuesdays candle.
This is the first time in my trading career that i am trading g this type of a setup. I have two formations in one, and both of them are part of the lower quality setups from the Part Time trading strategy that i trade.

But as you can see, today this trade already got triggered. Of-course i will have to wait until the end of the day to make a decision of what i am going to do with this trade and how i am going to manage it.

For me, this is important from a psychological perspective, because after the 2 losses i had a while back, i kinda backed away for 2 weeks or so, because i was starting to get emotional.

[Emekadavid]

Nice. I can see from your charts that you trade pure price action. Am I correct?