dale the 8400 level would have been a clue there were bar lows and a bar high there so if i hit that level i would have moved my stop to be. then i would have been stopped out for be but to me be goes in the win column 
I hate to get off topic, but could someone show me the link to James16 method so I could learn it. Thanks.
Hi Dale,
Very good question, Dale. I donāt know the answer. 
You got a point there.
A lot of currencies I was dealing with had fixed exchange rates at that time. Also some of the currencies I was trading at that time had exchange controls like the South African Rand.
I meanā¦a broker is a market maker. I wasnāt doing that.
Perhaps trader/dealer is a more accurate description.
Youāre most welcome, Dale. Send me a mail whenever youāre ready.
Regards,
cas
Start here and then use the search bar up on top to find more
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/4150-james16-group.html
Thanks alot!
hey jaybird thats the wrong link they gave you.
http://forums.babypips.com/free-forex-trading-systems/27030-james16-pin-bar-analysis.html
sorry for the wrong link, glad johnnykanoo corrected it.
Yes John, indeed a quite worrying one, isnāt it?
Donāt worry though, I made already some ācybermeetingsā with Jamesā philosophy and trading techniques, and I appreciated. Just too fond for systematic vs. discretionary trading. But thatās me.
Bye
Fabio
Hey Dale - think I can echo a lot of your frustration, I know you have had a ton of advice, and donāt think I could possible top it. Oh the dreamstealing world of trading!
Seems like the experiences youāve faced are just trading. And perhaps fear is causing some hesitation in your decision making. Market timing plays a huge part, whether its days, year, months or minutes. Get in at wrong time, you suffer. Like you Iāve lost a Lot of dough in stock marketā¦timingā¦didnāt have money before, then when I did, I came from the warren buffet armchair school of investing, buy good companies, etcā¦ BANKS!!! No stop loss, nothing, right on the cusp of tipping bull marketā¦Itāll come back up, they saidā¦Bit less clueless now. Have bought the lows with any miniscule amounts I can get hands onā¦Swine flu, buy pharmeceuticals, etc, smash and grab, just aiming for breakeven to less loss. (will take a while)
My fx is easier as I am way undercapitalised, blew my first teeny account, clueless and learning the raw emotion of real money, albiet 50c a unit. Now on 2nd miniscule account and not caring, its going up, for now, but not putting any money in till Iāve regained first lost account, and till I can become consistent. Iāve been doing it 2 years. From a internet course where I was meant to be a gazillionaire in minutes. Scalping pre-europe/london open. 3 pips a day. 10 months I stuck it on demo before realising I hadnāt a clue. Then I tried James16, but I did not at that time have a clue about price action, and there is a ton of different ways to skin that long term
cat on his website. So I started learning. I was in Jamesās room here on baby pips, I learnt a lot from him, but not being used to swing trading and sitting in front of a screen 8 hours a day, waiting on a set-up, I ended up jumping on anything that moved, and I disliked sitting way up in a trade only to see profit disappear as market whipsawed.
Now Iām doing my own thing. Iām a scalper. I trade mostly pre europe/londonā¦ideally 6am - 8/9.30 depending on momentumā¦ It moves enough to give some profit, but not so bad that you are chopped to bits in whipsaws and often sets tone till US opens. After half nine news is done and dusted, nothing much happens typically till us news/stock market opens. Around 4āish London closes and takes profit, so usually a small move then, if market is not in a trendā¦know that from Jamesās room, but I donāt really trade it these days, I donāt risk my gains, burnt too often in past.
I donāt care what the market does after Iāve made my money, thats the next days targets. Iām out before the top, and out before the bottom. I donāt get 100 pip runs, but donāt need too. 5-15 with big enough unit size is enough to make equity curve rise. And thats mostly doable, whatever the trend. Typically when I lose, my losses are bigger than gains, but I try to scale them out, eg, if I think my bias is right Iāll add 10 -20 -25 lower down, (not in that order!) can usually get at least B/E to small loss, but if Iām plain wrong Iāll lose roughly 2 days to a weeks gain, not insurmountable, but Iāve learned thatās just itā¦Iām only as good as how I behaved in last losing trade.
My curve is like the market, hiccups along the way, up/down/sideways and I know my limitations. Unlike you, Iām hopeless at trend trading, inevitably, Iāll enter just at the point its retracing 100 pips, or its a false breakout, never to be revisited this side of june. But as markets range a lot thereās always the reversal bounce. For instance, usually, unless trending wildly, ļæ½/$ retraces every 30-40 pips. Retraces enough and iāve made my days money. If not, thereās always tomorrow, if you havenāt a massive loss to overcome. If you buy low, sell high, the stop is small, plus watching miniscule price action, you can see when the big boys are inā¦price just movesā¦that 10 pips you nursed finger on trigger evaporates or makes your day. Wild spikes, buy/sell area? 10-20 pips from S+R/T/L area? You can choose to participate or step aside.
Things change tho, this works for now, and as like me, we donāt have a long track record, yet have experienced a lot of change in our trading history, we will adapt too or give up.
Good luck Dale, you sound as if you have much more of a clue than I have, but a thread that really helped me in understanding price, was Billy ray valentineās no brainer trades on forex factory. (am I allowed to mention it) Fundamentals, I look at every oneās opinion, maybe take their bias, but opinion matters not a jot, when you are sitting there going - stock markets/employments up - why is price doing the opposite!
Cut or runā¦maybe its Just finding its buy/sell level.
cheers, apologies for long winded response.
Good evening everyone.
Hey āMEā:
Thanks for taking the time and going to the trouble of commenting on my chart. OK: I see where you would have gone with this. Tell you what: Iām going to keep and eye on that chart and see where things go. Itās odd though isnāt it: the āprice action boyzā would LOVE a setup like that whereas the ātrend following boyzā (like me) will do ANYTHING to AVOID that type of setup!!! LOL!!!
happydays (nice login name i.e. makes you FEEL good)!!!
WONDERFUL post and thank you (and believe me: when it comes to being ālong windedā youāre in GOOD COMPANY)!!! LOL!!!
DO NOT EVEN MENTION BANKS TO ME!!! LOL!!! Although it IS IRONIC that come to think of it (thanks TO YOU for reminding me of YET ANOTHER of my āpast stellar performancesā which Iāve spent a good while trying to forget about): I did EXACTLY the same thing last year when the financials were ādropping like stonesā!!! LOL!!! āTrying to pick the bottomā!!! NOT EVEN WALL STREET āGURUSā with a LIFETIME of experience would have tried that!!! But being the āhot shotā that I (thouht I) was (Iād been making BIG percentage gains for around seven months before that): I KNEW where the bottom was!!! Citigroup, AIG, Freddie, and Fannie, Lehman Brothers (to name but a few)!!! Any of these āring a bellā??? LOL!!! You know: there is (apparantely) an OLD OLD saying on Wall Street and it goes something like this: āin a bear market (when trying to pick the bottom) you will usually run out of money long before you run out of ideasā!!! LOL!!! Thatās JUST what you need to hear when youāre long on just about every financial stock (without stops OF COURSE i.e. āthe bottomā is ZERO and stops are for OTHER people who donāt know what theyāre doing) and theyāre going āD-O-W-Nā!!! LOL!!! YET ANOTHER lesson learned!!! The scary part: I would have done the SAME THING RIGHT NOW during this past rally WITH NOTEABLE EXCEPTIONS being that I AT VERY LEAST would have used stops and employed money management and taken the losses āon the chin like a manā. That said though: ten or twenty small losses in a row will NOT do wonders for a mans confidence!!!
Anyway: I must say that this thread has highlighted the fact that itās really easy for someone to return to their āevil old waysā as it were WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT!!! Maybe this is it. Maybe, now and then, we need to āget togetherā like this for a āreality checkā!!! I know for AT LEAST the next couple of months: Iāll simply ACCEPT the direction of the trend and not try to fight it or (EVEN WORSE) try to figure out WHY itās going in one direction or another!!!
Iād like to āshareā (I HATE that word: itās so āsupport groupā) the following with everyone (I found this in a document ONLY THIS MORNING written by someone known as āHawk Eyeā whoever he / she may be BUT it ātouchedā MANY nerves):
BEHAVIOUR RESULTING IN TRADING LOSSES
[ul]
[li]Refusing to define a loss[/li][li]Not closing a losing trade even after acknowledging that your analysis was incorrect.[/li][li]Having an opinion regarding market direction. Let the market tell you the direction.[/li][li]Not following the rules of your trading system.[/li][li]Being immobilised to take a trade.[/li][li]Establishing a successful track record and becoming over confident and reckless and disregarding your money managment.[/li][/ul] All PERSONAL FAVOURITES OF MINE!!! LOL!!!
Anyway: thanks again to everyone. I KNOW there are many people enjoying this discussion so FEEL FREE TO ADD TO IT!!!
Regards,
Dale.
tee hee, least weāre not dead yet!!! (tho longer term plansā¦well lets just not go there now) Tomorrow is another day (NFP) Iām oot for weekā¦like a wee flutter on the races. Cheers
Hello again,
You speak for yourself!!! LOL!! Iām about as alive as I can be for a āfinancial corpseā right now!!! LOL!!!
So youāre going for a āwee flutterā then eh??? Oddly enough: Iāve NEVER been a gambling man myself (thank GOODNESS i.e. CAN YOU IMAGINE JUST HOW MUCH WORSE THINGS COULD BE)!!! As a matter of fact: I get REAL pis*sed when somebody compares what we do to gambling (while at the back of mind, OF LATE, I WONDER MYSELF)!!! LOL!!!
GOOD LUCK!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Dale,
Iāve been on the sidelines with this thread and itās been a good read so I thought Iād chip in too. I can sympathise with you as Iāve been there and made the same mistakes. Iām still trying to recoup my initial losses some two years later. And the cause of my losses? Well, I think that is one of the most important points of this thread - having preconceptions of what price SHOULD do and trading against the trend because you KNOW that it WILL reverse and it never does.
The upshot is, trade WITH the trend and listen to the price. Forget what you think you know price will do and let it tell you what it IS doing.
That said, Iāll take a shot at analysis on your zipped charts. The trend as we know is up, so in general terms I would avoid any shorting opportunities unless we entered consolidation and saw a break south. If I took a short, it would be a scalp - a short lived trade for whatever I could get.
So, we see the reversal bar and choose to take the break of the low. Thereās three options to playing this trade now - take the profit once you have a comfortable amount, which would mean having got out somewhere down the lower wick of the first candle; alternatively move the stop from 0.84700 to BE which would have lead to being stopped out; or lastly stay in the trade waiting for your predefined TP to be hit (whatever that may be), keeping you stop above the high. Now that we are into consolidation a break north would stop out as a loss but a break south could be prove to be a significant trend change and bring in some pips. An opportunity would arise to move the stop to BE and try and manage the trade downwards.
I hope some of my ramblings made sense there!
There are many ways to look at trading but all those ways require at least one eye. Many people donāt realize this and that is the cause of all problem, and since we as human beings like to deceive ourselves then the problem goes unresolved. The only consistent way to trade and make money every week, month, year etc is to have a trading system that enters NO more than 3 trades per week(if not you are gambling) and has at least a 90% win/loss ratio(over at least a month) with STOPS in place at all times. Note: Iām not saying other trading systems will not work, but if one understands trading to a certain degree then they will see the that itās pointless to do otherwise and sooner than later they will realize that they have to change strategies(because you are operating inside a system that unfolds in a myriad of ways). You have to have the Master Key that opens all the locks!
I think my āmindset problemā with this type of trading is that Iām just so āconditionedā to be trading an āalways inā system (always stop and reverse) that I simply cannot see āprice action for the treesā!!
This reminded me of the old saying - āStanding aside IS a positionā!
I often use that as justification for not taking a trade if Iām āunsureā about it. If things become clearer I can always get in later.
Dale - I meant the opposite - Iām not trading NFP as I think itās like a flutter on the racesā¦
Cheers and good luck with it all.
Good morning everyone!!!
I hope youāre all having (will have) a good day!!!
MatW2009:
Thank you for your input. I TOO have heard the āno position is INDEED a positionā. Iād agree with that. The only problem (is it a problem???) is that, as Iāve said, ALL of the trading systems (dare I call them that) are based on being āalways inā i.e. ātrue reversal systemsā so itās hard to decide when to NOT take a position WITHOUT āsecond guessingā such a system. BUT: your point is WELL noted!!! And thank you.
fxelitetrader:
Thank you too for your short and āto the pointā post. Do you think that MAYBE I could borrow that āmaster keyā from you sometime??? LOL!!! Thanks for your input.
happydays:
Sorry. Ok. I get it now!!! (I had āFawlty Towersā on the brain when I read your post about āthe flutterā)!!! LOL!!! Yes you are right: NFP equals āgamblingā at the moment. AGAIN though: Iām āalways in or always outā so itās a bit difficult for me to āchooseā!!!
NOW LISTEN UP GANG!!!
Iād like some input from everyone on what Iām about to post!!!
This is something that is now (well: for a good few months now) bugging the āliving sh*tā out of me!!!
Let me describe a scenario here.
Letās just take one very simple trading system as detailed by BOTH Alexander Elder and Larry Williams (Iām a BIG Larry Williams fan for what itās worth)!!!
Both of them detail a simple EMA trading system that works as follows:
LONG when the EMA is rising and SHORT when the EMA is falling (letās assume only one lot per trade and letās not worry about money management or stops or anything else here right now i.e. read on and youāll see what Iām getting at here).
Now let me just add here: both Larry Williams and Alexander Elder agree that a 22 period EMA of the AVERAGE PRICE must be used when trading anything SHORTER than the daily time frames (the CLOSE should be used when trading the daily and longer time frames). So letās assume weāre going to be trading the four hour time frame and therefore will be using the AVERAGE PRICE.
So far: so good.
NOW:
This VERY SAME SYSTEM (above) would have made MANY MANY MANY points / pips on just about ANY instrument you could find to trade since this last āupā rally started about three or so weeks ago (or short on highly correlated instruments). There is no question about this.
HOWEVER: take this VERY SAME SYSTEM and āslapā it into MT4ās Strategy Tester!!! Run the Strategy Tester for all available data (on two different MT4 demo accounts I am able to download data that goes back as far as May 1999). Run the EA. Guess what??? Itās a DISMAL FAILURE as a trading system. You can do the same thing with Wilderās ADX. You can even add all the other āextra bitsā as Williams (Larry) and Elder suggest e.g. MACD or some of their very OWN indicators. It matters not. MT4 will indicate to you that you are wasting your time with these systems. REMEMBER while you are reading this: we are talking about data from 1999 onward!!! You can EVEN try RSI and / or Stochastics. Same dismal results.
BUT: HOW COME when I put the same stuff on MY charts I CANNOT for LOVE NOR MONEY see where these SAME systems fail!!! So what happens: NO SOONER do I ādesignā and code a trading system than it goes to MT4 for testing and returns dismal results. So what happens: I āscrapā the said system and start looking for something else. BEFORE you pass any āwisecracksā here READ ON!!!
HERE IS MY PROBLEM WITH THIS!!! And do NOT get me wrong here. I am NOT looking for SOMETHING (ANYTHING) to blame for the fact that these systems do not APPEAR to āhold upā for long periods of time. Iām NOT blaming MT4 or anything like that. MY PROBLEM THOUGH IS THIS: from using MT4 to back test systems such as these the results are showing REALLY that between 1999 and around 2006 / 2007 NOT A SINGLE TREND FOLLOWING SYSTEM MADE ANY MONEY. THIS I find EXTREMELY hard to believe no matter WHAT figures are being generated by MT4. I JUST CANNOT believe that (and believe it or not it is NOT because I DO NOT WANT to believe it i.e. itās JUST NOT POSSIBLE I donāt believe). Can you see what Iām saying here??? I mean: I KNOW what I said in my FIRST post on this thread about my āold timer gurusā but I suppose I MUST be honest and say that I DO NOT BELIEVE that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them cannot make money trading so they write books and give seminars. THIS TOO (in spite of what I said) is a bit of a āstretchā. If you like: take Bill Williamsā Profitunity Trading System and āslapā THAT into MT4ās Strategy Tester. Youāll AGAIN get VERY dismal results for the same periods. Now BEAR IN MIND: ALL of these authors ALL have PhDās in one field or another so THESE ARE NOT DUMB PEOPLE and Iām 1 000% sure that they are FAR more intelligent and logical than I am!!! If you want to try some more āup to dateā things: try John Carterās āstuffā from his book (the trend following systems). THE SAME THING i.e. THE SAME DISMAL RESULTS. Sorry: but THIS I just find FAR TOO STRANGE!!! I mean at VERY least AT LEAST ONE of them would be right SURELY!!!
So my question is this:
What is everyoneās ātakeā on FIRST: what Iāve said above and SECOND on AUTOMATED back testing??? Please note: Iām NOT talking about trying to optimize these systems or ācurve fitā them to suit my own needs. Iām talking about trading systems and methodologies that have been āthought outā and developed NOT BY FOOLS but by people who have been in this business (in most cases) all of their lives. SOMETHING does not āgelā with me here.
I EAGERLY await your input.
(And please: Iām NOT looking for trading systems here. AGAIN: Iām am talking about a CONCEPT here).
I thank you for your time.
Regards,
Dale.
I think the problem is that you have read too much books about forex trading and you havenāt really seen the picture for yourself. Let me tell you a little secret, NO ONE WILL EVER SELL A SYSTEM THAT REALLY WORKS! They will most likely create one that resembles the one they have or just sell you some crap they know donāt really work. I have been trading for over 4 years and I have never read a book about trading :eek: Trading is not an academic thing where you read and memorize and then take a test to see how good your memory is. Itās about observation and application, like a scientist in a lab, there will be many trial and errors. NOTE: Iām not saying education is not important but rather self education is the best route one can take.
Sorry elite, but this is really āburning meā!
As a full-time scientist for about 15 years (sigh, no more longer! :() I have the impression your ātakeā of the scientific work is a bit āromanticā. Of course there will be ALWAYS trial and errors, but coming out of [B]very well, systematically, patiently, methodically[/B] educated people. The āself educatedā ones, there, will have [B]no chance[/B] of finding anything significant. Theyāll probably spend their all life just repeating the errors of the past.
To my knowledge there is no exception to this rule since the times of Fleming, or alike, that were times when you could not repeat the mistakes of the pastā¦ because there was no āscientificā past, basically.
Iām not convinced of trading being much different.
Bye
Fabio
FxElitetrader has a good point. To me it also looks like youāre depending too much on the āsystemā. Why is that no robot can make you rich??? Because they canāt make human desicions.
I think the best thing you can do is find a method (not a system :D) you like to trade. Scroll back at least one year and start advancing your charts one day at a time. Write down your entry, SL and also a profit target if you trade with one when you see a signal, and advance more, until SL is hit, or you have an exit signal (profit :)).
At the same time you could see what happens if you moved your stop to break even after a x-pip gain.
Make good notes of every entry signal and what you saw at that point, same goes for the exit.
This will make you see exactly WHERE the method failed, and maybe you can avoid that kind of entry in the future.
Do not forget to draw trend, S/R lines, fibs or what you normally would use to trade, so it will be a real life simulation.
Itās a lot of work, but Iām pretty sure youāll learn 1000 times more from that, then by running back tests on MT4.
Me