My name is Owen and I will be using this space to publicly document my trading for a while. This may be a short journal for two reasons:
I am undercapitalised
I am not very experienced trading with price action and have just discovered it two months ago via Nial Fullers website.
I started trading this way as I have a full time job and a family and it fits in with my lifestyle as I just need to devote about an hour a day to the approach.
I like to thank Nial Fuller and Jonathan Fox who both have excellent websites and provide great free info. I have not yet subscribed to thier programs so not affiliated in any way :58: Just a shout out to say great free info :35:
My starting balance as at March was 1000 Euro. Consequently it has dropped to 485 Euro and now back to about 1000. I am aware it is too small an account to trade daily or 4 hour frames but I am using it as a learning experience. The rapid drop to 485 was due to being super impatient as there were NO signals to take so I took 3 correllated JPY trades on a friday evening which all failed (gambled for excitement)
Prior to price action I was convinced daytrading was for me (courtesy of a book called “Pitbull” by Marty Scwartz) - Great book, but after 9 years and not one profitable month I realize I am not a daytrader
Currently I am long Gold due to a daily pin fired off a few days ago. I got in at 1550 level with stop at 1539 and take profit at 1595. This trade is working and I have moved stop up to 1560 level to lock in some profit.
Have just hit stoplosses on :
Short NZD USD (Failed 4 hour pin) Lost 16 EUR
Long GBP CHF (Failed 4 hour pin) Lost 44 EUR
Hi
get there.
you seem to be on the right track so far except for the emotional excitement
that cost you some cash. Nial’s, Fox got good stuff for free. I am a Chris Capre trained
PA trader, i only use PA in my trades and the record is quite viable
as far as luck is concerned, I wish you all there is but with PA you don’t have much to worry about.
GRIX
Thanks for the encouragement GRIX,
I have not heard of Chris Capre. How are you finding your results under his methods? Have you been trading with him for a while now? Can you give your honest comparison between his methodology versus a J Fox or N Fuller?
I am still trying to come to grips of what is a valid signal and what isnt but think I am making progress so far
well even though Price Action remains to be price action, with Fox you get lots of free stuff that’s unstructured. for Fuller I only have limited exposure to his work. But for Chris, the courses are well structured and additional trading psychology mentorship by chris to all the students at a personal level, makes me select his course and recommend it to others any day.
Trading in direction of dominant trend
• at an area of “value” (pullback to sup/res)
• with a “catalyst” PA signal in direction of dominant trend.
• PA = pinbar reversal, pinbar fakey, engulfing bar or 2 bar reversal
This should give me a better than 50% chance of success.
What this chance of success is right now I do not know but I am hoping it’s better than 50% if I follow the rules above.
[B]What is my R:R?[/B]
1:1 minimum
[B]Conclusion[/B]
If my winning % is greater than 50% (say 53%) and my R:R is better than 1:1, statistically I should take that trade everytime. Like a casino does.
This is a successful system. (in theory) and WILL make money over time.
[B]What is my risk?[/B]
If my winning % is 53%, I should expect to lose around 47 trades out if every 100 I take. [I][/I][B]Even if following the successful sytem above to the “T”[/B]
[B]When can we expect these 47 losers in the first 100 trades?.. Anytime. [/B]
(They could even happen all in a row) Low probability, but possible.
With my current account value:
• Can I sustain 47 consecutive losses? No
• Can I sustain 10 consecutive losses? No
• Can I sustain 5 consecutive losses? Maybe
So my weakness is my lot size / or account size
I need to either drop my lot size (not possible with my broker)
And, to be honest, if I drop my lot size I would not take this seriously. Just like I don’t take demos seriously. This is just me.
Or increase my account size (possible through debt and/or savings)
[B]Final Conclusion:[/B] Increase account size to give yourself a more realistic chance of avoiding ruin and making a +ve return in the long run. Good to understand why you need sufficient capital even with a successful system.
I am honestly starting to believe in this concept of begginners luck… Even from my days a wannabe daytrader it always seemed the initial couple of trades were winners, followed by a string of losers.
No different with my Price Action journey over the last month. My first couple trades went off without a hitch and hit targets in quick succession. I followed this up with a couple of small losers and then string of correlated JPY losers (revenge trading), which really knocked me.
But its good, I kinda needed that cos I was getting ****y with the initial winning streak. It made me re-evaluate the initial winning trades and looking back I cant even understand my thinking behind them. No PA to speak off… shorting at swing lows, buying at swing highs…
So guess I needed a big hit to make me re-evaluate.
Please guys, if you’re reading this you’re probably more experienced than I am. If you see something I am doing wrong, please bring it to my attention.
So as it stands my PnL is going nowhere. Currently have a long Gold trade on for a few days whcih was making decent gains but now retracing a bit and giving back profit. And my short EUR AUD trade which is about 50 pips in profit.
I took the EUR AUD trade based off a daily pinbar reversal (See previous post for setup). My intial risk was 30 pips and target is 190 pips. [I][/I][B]The question is should I now take the stop to break even? Or leave as originally set up?[/B]
I only traded one mini contract (@ 1 AUD per pip) , so cannot lock in half…
My long gold made it all the way to 1590 (target 1595) and then suddenly retraced to 1570 where I was stopped out. All in all made roughly 211 Euro on this one (initial risk about 180Euro)… Not grand but successful in the end.
My short EUR AUD from yesterdays pinbar reversal still in play and up about 70 pips. Stop moved to BE.
See below for Gold Chart showing entry at pin (yellow line 1550) move up to 1590 and eventual stop point 1570
Curse this gambler in me!
Havent taken a trade all week (apart from closing two from previous week) and I’m getting trading anxiety! :eek:
I’ve been here before. And I recognise that this is precisely the feeling I get before blowing out my account. I feel like I should be in a trade! Not hitting the buy or sell button for 4 days is getting to me.
Well, its good that I recognize this and journal it.
I need to remember that I am doing this to make a return and not for excitement.
Reading further along on J Fox’s thread here on babypips I see he trades on average 3 to 5 times a month :o
Taking only the most pristine PA setups with max confluence of factors in his favour. Not to say he doesnt have his share of losers… but by his trading style I realise a few things:
Hes not trading for excitement
He is well capitilized to be able to generate his livelyhood from only 3 to 5 trades a month
He is probably as close to stress free that you can get in trading
He believes in his system
I think I am starting to get that question that all “gurus” say you should ask yourself: "Why am I trading?"
I was (prob still am) trading for excitement.
Ok, I have decided to leave the trade on in light of this being a minor support level as well as the pinbar being formed overnight in the asian session.
I have just taken 3 trades each based off the four hour charts
And to be honest I dont feel positive about them… All three immediately going into loss and JPY one quite heavily. Do not believe any of these are A+ setups.
Short EUR CAD (Pinbar at Swing high)
R:R = 30/190 CAD
Concerns = Against dominant trend
Long CAD JPY (“Fakey/Hikkake” at 38% Fib retracement in direction of dominant trend)
R:R = 5000/8000 Y
Concerns (Smallness of the PA compared to previous bearish bars…)
And immediately punished for taking an invalid signal at a zone that I didnt mark on the chart
Not 5 seconds after I realized the CAD JPY Hikkake was invlaid and it gets stopped out.
Lost 45EUR
I am learning that when I get stopped out of a valid trade, it doesnt feel bad at all. (Just bad luck and move on)
But when I am stopped out on a crap trade, it feels pretty bad.
Next day update— To add insult to injury I see price has gone down to my originally marked support area (red line) whch is also in 61% retracement zone and formed beautiful pins on most JPY pairs. Price moving nicely upwards now.
Wait for the significant zones with significant PA
