PIPhanger's Trading Journal "I'M A BEAR"

Trading Systems
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[B]Welcome to my BEARISH Trading Journal!

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  • I will be limiting myself to Shorts only… I won’t even think about Longs.
  • Wont concern myself with the missed stellar moves higher.
  • No Daily Direction
  • No Market Flow
  • No Market Structure
  • No Bias (just be a BEAR everyday all day)[/B]

[B]1st Week of Testing: April 29, 2012

Last Week of Testing: August 3, 2012

3 Months of Results[/B]

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[B]I will NEVER Deviate from this plan.

I will be trading mostly London Open and occasionally New York Open.

Risk on each Trade will be limited to 1.5% and lowered when needed.

I won’t be trading during NFP Fridays and Bank Holidays.

I won’t be trading during High Impact Speeches.

After taking 2 Losses I will be taking the rest of the Week off! [/B]

This is a Trading Model that ICT has created for me to follow to help me become a better trader.
He is going to be going into greater detail with this Trading Model in the coming Months.
I will then be going back through this Model and revamping it to fit anything he adds to it.
By using this Model I will learn Market Structure, Flow, Momentum, and Market Maker Models.
I will learn more by trading this way than any other way as stated by ICT himself.
I will be trading this way for 3 months and then convert to being a BULL for 3 months.

Here is a list of things you can expect to see in this thread:

  1. Screenshots of my charts, with annotations for trade setups/trade entries/trade exits
  2. Text summaries of trades I have entered, and the reasons for doing so
  3. general market commentary
  4. general self-analysis on my psychological/emotional state

and much, much more!

Enjoy!


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My Performance…

I will be keeping track of Trade Executions and determine if I traded perfectly as my rules stated or if i made a mistake and traded againist my rules…

Executed Perfectly: 0
Executed Poorly: 1

[B]Total Trades:[/B] 1

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[B][U]Trade Example (May 15th 2012)…[/U][/B]

[B]H1 Chart of Cable & Fiber…[/B]

[B]The Valid Trade for my Plan was on the Fiber (EUR\USD)…[/B]

  • Day of the Week is Tuesday.
  • Resistance Level from Higher Time Frame at 1.2860 and Institutional Level 1.2850.
  • Hourly Overbought Condition on Stochastic.
  • Judas Swing Up into Key Resistance during London Open.
  • Asian Range Low and Above was Sell Entry.
  • CPP and Above for Sell Zone.
  • 127% Traders Trinity Extension Level.

[B]The Cable (GBP\USD) was Not Valid for entry on this day…[/B]

  • Day of the Week is Tuesday.
  • Resistance Level from Higher Time Frame at 1.6120 and Institutional Level 1.6100.
  • Hourly Overbought Condition on Stochastic. (NOT VALID)
  • Judas Swing Up into Key Resistance During London Open.
  • Asian Range Low and Above was Sell Entry.
  • CPP and Above for Sell Zone.

[B]Chart Art…[/B]

  • Red Horizontal Lines are Key Resistance from Higher Time Frames.
  • Blue Solid Horizontal Lines are Institutional Levels.
  • Pivots (CPP is Violet, MR1 is Black, R1 is Gold)
  • Blue Dotted Horizontal Lines are Asian Range.
  • Blue Trend Lines are Bearish Stoch Divergence.
  • Green Trend Lines are Bearish SMT Divergence & USDX SMT Divergence.
  • Gray Box’s are 1HR OTE’s.
  • Green Box’s are 1HR Stoch OverBought Conditions.

[B]M15 Chart of Fiber (EUR\USD)…[/B]

[B]M15 Chart of Cable (GBP\USD)…[/B]

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The official BEAR HUNT begins starting tomorrow May 1st 2012!!

GLGT

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[B]May 1st 2012 - Short Setup on EUR/USD (BreakEven)[/B]

Entry: 1.32537

Exit: 1.32521

Pips: 1.6

Update: This trade isn’t setting up like I thought it would, the cable is scaring me because it looks like a perfect buy setup. I might have to cut bait on this trade…

Update: I just let this trade run to see if R1 would hold as resistance, when price came down the first time to my entry point I exited the trade with a 1 pip profit…

[B][U]EUR/USD[/U][/B]

  • Kill Zone: London Open
  • Hourly was Overbought
  • Judas Swing Up into Key Resistance 1.3250 / 60
  • Daily Pivot Sell Zone
  • Upper Trinity Sell Zone
  • OTE Sell Pattern within HTF OTE

click image to enlarge

Entry, Stop, and TP1 ScreenShot

click image to enlarge

GLGT!

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Hey, PIPhanger!

hope you managed to pull few pips out before stopped on today’s trade?..
…was wondering if you accept ‘‘intruders’’ in your thread or it is more like online trading diary? :slight_smile: I would love to post comments, questions, observation if you let me to. thanks

however, I’ll be lurking with interest :slight_smile:

cheers, Nick

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Looking forward to your success piphanger! Hope you reach it!

if you even get hurt and you feel you’re going down…

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Hey PIPhanger…

Just thought I’d intrude and post some thoughts as i took the same trade on the fiber today…

I saw the exact same entry you did too, and i initially had a limit sell at 1.3260… However, i cancelled it and ended up getting in short at 1.3271 - reason, i zoomed out and looked to the left… Go back over your chart and you’ll see 3 significant swings which i figured stops will be laying out, for any significant move i figured the big boys will aim for those - liquidity purposes and then run it down… So even though it was psychology draining not entering when i initially thought - as i thought i’d missed the entry, it soon came back up, ran all those areas including last weeks weekly high, and i got in short…

I ended up taking profit at 25 pips, but getting stopped at BE before the big move - which sucked of course but happy to be 0.37% up instead of down…

Anyway, think today was a classic, ‘look to the left day’ as ICT teaches… Hope this doesnt sound patronizing, just sharing thoughts from one student to another

Good Hunting :57:

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Yes by all means, post comments, questions, observe, and lurk all you want…

I am hoping more and more people stop by to hopefully help me figure out my flaws…

And yes I got 1 pip I think. I set my TP close to my entry because if price came back to my entry I wanted out of the trade since I didn’t execute it correctly. I’ve very happy that I didn’t get a loss on this trade, but bummed I didn’t enter in the correct spot. Thinks to work on yet.

See you around…

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Thanks, I’m sure I will have to watch that a couple times each week…

See you around…

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Thanks for the reply and the help, Yes I was also looking at those levels, but wasn’t sure when they would raid those stops. I guess my focus was more on the key resistance level. One thing I’m having a hard time with is shorting above the key resistance level since I have in my mind if they break above it then price will only go down to this level and then become support…

As you can see I was wrong and they just slammed it down.

There is just something I’m not observing correctly about price action, not sure what it is yet, but hope to fix it.

Any help is appreciated…

See you around…

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I was stuck on this for a long time too until I realized how order blocks actually work. It’s not just one specific price where you have a bunch of orders but more of a zone…Have a look at this youtube video which explains what order blocks are and how they look like. It’s a bit long but I believe this is fundamental knowledge into the anatomy of the market: Order Flow Live Event - YouTube

Let me know if this helps at all…

edited to add: I do draw single horizontal S&R lines but as price as within reach I like to draw a 10 pip zone using the rectangle box in mt4 and will usually enter as it enters the box.

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Thanks for this, I will watch it tonight and take notes…

I really appreciate all the positive feedback and help guys…MUCH APPRECIATED!!!

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OK, thax for letting me stay, wont spam too much, promise :slight_smile:

first of all, want to make it clear, I’m not here to teach or give advices, I’m here to learn alongside you. I feel I’m pretty much in the same boat, my equity is in downtrend and I was very, very frustrated last week. 3 trades => 3 losses, even thought, I was right on the direction… :56:

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I liked the system ICT tailored for you a lot (makes perfect sense to me and pretty easy to follow rules), so from last week I’ve been concentrating on the ‘‘ICT PIPhanger System’’ lol
just clarify, this the lifestream recording from 15.04.2012 (Price Action Examples & General Knowledgeon Babypips Inner Circle Trader - live streaming video powered by Livestream), right?.. or I got it wrong?

I also wanted to suggest you using few more ‘‘filters’’ on your trades: if you hunt for setup above (as u looking for shorts) the opening price as well as above asian low (NY midnight as ICT puts more weight on that or ideally both, EST and GMT midnight), this will shrink you ‘‘killing ground’’ even more. The other thing I’m finding good for reference too is the 200% extension on the asian range (hope you know what i mean, will post picture tomorrow as have headache now and going to bed soon), lets say AR is 30 pips, I’d look for some reaction level around 30 pips above the high where the Judas might bounce…

wanted to comment on your yesterday’s trade too: first I think there wasnt SMT at the time u entered, so this wasnt a valid entry really. Also, judging by your entry price, you entered at market, which means you chased the price more or less, would suggest you concentrate on limit orders instead (this is what i’m trying to do too). ICT for example, enters trades on limits about 90% of the time (i asked him before).

And last, did you catch todays short in LO?.. was pretty good setup, by the time i got to charts (about 8:15 gmt), was too far south to chase it unfortunately.

GLGT!

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Everything in my rules are word for word of what ICT gave me to try…

He gave me these rules after a livestream event one day, it was only during a chat session. As he was typing out everything I just copied it all down.

He showed some examples of what he was talking about but then after I reviewed them myself I don’t see how they follow the rules because they weren’t at R1, 1HR wasn’t overbought, etc… I tried asking him about these trades and how they followed the rules he gave me but never heard back.

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I guess I’m not really lamenting over my missed trades, but more of pointing them out for personal reference to see how I could or should of traded it…It just seems like a lot of moves I miss and I am just sitting on my hands none stop because I most be lost…If I post the missed trades then maybe someone out there could help and show me what I might have missed…

This week if a perfect example of me missing something in my trading or something is broken with my mindset…This week was a down week, but yet I found one setup and that setup wasn’t even a good one? So if I am just focusing on setups only was this week just not a good week for my Trading Model, or am I clueless and need to go back to studying my plan?

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AK, I really appreciate your comments, this is the positive reinforcement I need in my trading…I was looking at this week as it should of been a perfect week for me, but having someone else tell me it just wasn’t that great of week is what I need…

I guess the real setup was on Monday and since I told myself I wasn’t going to start until May 1st kind of left me hanging for the rest of the week.

I will try to stay positive and change the way I blog/post and only post the trades I take and leave the missed untraded out of the question for now…

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and yes I had a hugh gain of .08% this week…better then all my previous weeks…

but we aren’t thinking interms of profits so this is the last time I will talk about my profits and only talk about setups as to which my plans say to take…:smiley:

GLGT!!!

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Hey, how you doin’ PH,

sorry for the late replay, been busy last few days…

just wanted to show you the sell setup for 02 May as you were saying there is no setup. Not like I got it, but it (was bout 2-3 candles too late) was there and pretty much off of your ‘‘Bear Text book’’, lol
IMO this was ‘‘shot of the week’’ setup on Fiber.

Cable:

  • OTE
  • Above AR low
  • MR1
  • 1.6220 instit. level+HTF S&R
  • weekly Trinity sell zone+trinity level itself
  • SMT

Fiber:

  • small OTE (asian high to the low in LO)
  • Above AR Low
  • just above MS1
  • 1.3212 Key Level + 1.3220 institut lvl
  • weekly Trintity Sell zone and bang on trinity level
  • SMT
  • as Fiber was the weaker pair (lower highs), this was the better choice to short and gave some 90+ pips profit potential…
  • also Fiber was showing early sings of weakness not being able to re-test the asian high…

USDX-Fiber-Cable SMT:

There was also a little stinger on Fiber (5m), just to give you extra confirmation to pull the trigger:

As you can see, pretty much text book trade… the only missing condition was overbought 1H oscillator (as per your set of rules), but to be honest I’m not really sure why ICT gave you this, which is right opposite to what he’s been teaching us for 2 years now: no indicators on the chart! also this could be potentially dangerous relying on indicators for your trading… I wouldnt give to much weight on it thought (as long as you have the other boxes ticked), if you do some back tests, you’ll see the oscillator is very rarely overbought on 1H when you want to enter… just my opinion again.

Hope this helps a bit. And well done this week, you got better results than some of us, 1.6 pip profit is still profit and you’re in da green, lol… I couldnt take a single trade this week, so 0% added to the account, which aint too bad looking back at last 4-8 weeks, lol

GLGT!

p.s. just wanted to comment on your remark about missed profits… this, imo is rather poisonous thinking (ICT had rant on this not far back too) man, those pips are not your until in your bank account, so forget about them… plus you breaking one of the rules on your system: 2.) [B]Don’t concern yourself with the missed stellar moves[/B] higher

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Also, I wanted to share little tool I made for myself, it might help you somehow.

In the effort of making my trading as mechanical as possible, I figured if I have a check box list this will kill my emotions and will eliminate the opportunity to ‘‘think’’ while at the trade station… Green light => Shoot, Red Light => Sit and Wait. Simple (so I hope).

I basically took what ICT gave you as a rules, made it universal for longs and shorts and added few extra tools/rules I’m comfortable with. Feel free to change it as you like to suit you (if you’re not sure I’ll change it for you).

I’m open for suggestions how to better it. For example, is the points given relevant to the weight (importance) of the tool, is 51% of the points enough to take me into winning trade, etc.

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