Profiting from noise. Price Action Trading on tick charts

Second trade closed out at adjusted stop. 1.1n return. Losses from last Friday recovered, a bit for the piggy bank. Tomorrow a new day.

:grin:We are not worthy:grin:

You have a following, including the VIPER.

The Ever Not Worthy VIPER

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Well, very tight range today. 33 pips. Tuff gig trying to squeeze a trade in. If it happens it happens. If not then tomorrow.

Sit on your hands and wait.

Hey, big B, is the counter right 13 days? Hope you and yours are OK

The Ever Wondering VIPER

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Allā€™s good bro

Just chillin doing my thing. Sitting back eating popcorn watching the ā€œbig boysā€ prove they have little dicks.

Actually, in hindsight should of continued posting my trades. We changed from a trending to ranging market and I had a few losses

Had to adapt from trading breaks from pullbacks to support and resistance zones. Will this week break and start/continue a trend or will we stay in a range? For the moment ranging so looking to short off resistance.

Funny how people seem more concerned over ā€œstarting competitionsā€, ā€œdealing with emotionsā€ and ā€œdealing with dilemmasā€ than the actual act of trading (which is as boring as ā€¦). Sounds to me like they want to go swimming but are afraid the water will get them wet.

Whoā€™s old enough to remember this

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Yep, I agree with you @_bob. Seems nowadays the site is all about traders and little about trading.

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I remember when I first started this thread and also jumped on with forexmike over on his donchian channel thread. Even my failed harmonic trading thread back from the early years. There where a few (not many) interested in what we actually did. They came on board, shared and threads developed. Now it seems like the blind leading the blind with a simple who wants to join my facebook group and we can lose money together is all the rage.

We live in a world of excuses when all it takes to lose weight is to eat less and exercise moreā€¦

but Iā€™m ā€¦

Struth, people these days canā€™t even get a book study thread going. How are they ever going to learn!

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Iā€™m staying out at the moment, Just got home from work. With news later Iā€™ll listen with me eyes before applying risk

Back bragging. First a straddle trade I have placed. A picture says a 1000 words

Next a brag. Have a look at the account balance. $2028. Today I doubled this account. 5 weeks and 1 day. Luck, skill, 5 years hard work or just momentum. I think the later, hard work and momentum. I would expect things might just be a bit harder over the next couple of months

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So itā€™s 9 oā€™clock New York open. Got caught by what looks like now a fakey long. But had the straddle trade in place so have caught the move back. Have cancelled the TP but set a level marking a 2n return. Will now manually close out the trade.

Edit. Stop loss moved to break-even.

Congrats! I donā€™t know that it matters how you did it - money is money, and the bank ainā€™t going to ask if it was skill or luck that got you your check :slight_smile:

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Totally Brilliant @_bob - 10 x 5 weeks in a year - = $1,024,000.00 if you continue to double every 5 weeks ! :slight_smile:

How many trades mate ?

Thats a pretty impressive performance by any yardstick. Congrats

See this is the kind of flexibility that you need to have to trade profitably, even if you flip the trade for a beakeven, including fees of course, it is a Psychological win. Well done Braugh, and trade on dude.

The Ever Sebastian Inlet VIPER

I am not sure that I would generalise quite that much.

Certainly, as a short-term, e.g. intraday, trader I think there is a strong benefit from managing oneā€™s trades and being ready to adjust according to rapid changes in price development and outlook. But that can also restrict profits if not handled professionally and with experience such as @_bob does and has (thats just to guarantee a ā€œlikeā€ from _Bob! haha!). For example, prematurely moving a stop to BE and getting hit,

But with longer term trades, I am not so sure it is so relevant apart from the normal periodic review such as end-day, etc? Or what do you think?

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Thanks all, but lets put this in perspective. I lost more over the years leading up to this.

Iā€™ve taken a total of 93 trades in this period in line with the 4 trades/day target. I have made a nett total of 153 pips. My base %risk has started at 2% instead of the 0.4% itā€™s designed for. I have used a lot more. If there was another zero on the end of the account balance would I still be using 2%, hell no. So in reality if I was following my rules Iā€™d only be up 20%. Still thatā€™s anomalous and I would call it an exception not the norm.

One key is the money management I have been using. Thereā€™s a lot, shit there is a duckin lot of talk about how MM is the key but no-one actually goes into facts in any detail. Could it be they are just repeating commonly marketed beliefs to help explain why people lose at this game.

Iā€™ve been using a notional balance as suggested by the turtles plan. I have used the max account equity balance obtained as this balance. So when my account was at $1500 my risk was 2% of $1500. Then when I had a run of losses and the account balance dropped I still traded a notional balance of $1500.

This quickly recovers loses and amplified winners but it comes at a cost. Thats draw down. In this 5 week period I suffered a 42% draw down period. Back to reality, to protect the balance the plan calls into use a step notional balance instead. Meaning I would only review and adjust the notional balance up obtaining a target say 50% account increase. Those review point I have yet to figure out. For now Iā€™ll keep the high risk plan active.

I think this is called taking responsibility for your trades. Again from the turtle book on trading, profit is made from one or two good trades a year, the rest of the time yourā€™re happy to just break even - it keeps you in the game. I donā€™t think itā€™s that different at this level. The market doesnā€™t respect the ratios I want it to hit. Take yesterday trades for instant. I was only 5 pips from my target when I made the adjustments. A wiser man would of closed out and booked the profits as the markets reversed. By setting the B/E I was saying I accept I missed this opportunity but will survive to trade another day. And the B/E was hit and Iā€™m trading again today.

As for longer term traders, I think they have it much harder than me. Donā€™t know how they do it.

Anyhow, starting to collect some good data. Canā€™t wait to see how this evolves of the next few months.

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Well, even if you are long term you have to be flexible enough to realize something is not working. For example, lets say you are working on the weekly euro, you enter at .1600 short, thinking that the trend is down, and drawing a trend line from the down bar top, in the double top formation, to the top of the next leg down, 1600 seems like a reasonable position, and a hold through 100 pip stop, to ride the break below 1600 seems worth it. So since it did not work out at what point do you capitulate and close the loss, then reverse, seeing as the trend line was broken. It is all the same, just a different fractal.

I have observed that _bob has hit a market that suits his current style/system, but that may not last forever. The challenge in the future will be to recognize when the market has shifted, and either stay out, or use another tool to match the market.

Right now range trading using momentum works very well, but will it work next week, who knows. You have to take some losses to find out, even in long term range trading, your last trade of the range will be a loss, either you will be short and it will break up, or you will be long and it will breakdown.

The ā€œdaily reviewā€ would be about right for a longer term trader, weekly/daily, it is my observation that it seems like this translates to what _bob and I do every day, within minutes or even seconds. It is also my observation that longer term traders hesitate to flip, or ā€œbreak evenā€ because of the thinking it will always come back. Well maybe if you wait 20 years, but unless you are an ā€œInvestorā€ and not trader, 20 yrs is a bit long.

The Ever Fractal VIPER

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I am not so sure about that with the longer term trades. I think it is maybe easier to act according to pre-set rules such as line breaks etc with longer term trades rather than spontaneous reactions to a sudden spike/blip or reversal that occur in the short term environment. I donā€™t see why a weekly trader would keep moving the stop level just to keep a position open in that it ā€œshould come right eventuallyā€. But that goes for all levels, I think?

My trading has historically always been on intraday 1hr / 15m / 5m charts because I like to trade when I feel like it, take days off when I feel like it, and because I believe personally that it is easier to make ā€œ10 pips with 10 lots than 100 pips with 1 lotā€ - but mostly precisely because I enjoy the spontaneity and originality of the short term markets and the dexterity and mental agility that it requires.

But I think this is really all part of the process of developing oneā€™s own personal approach and learning how to combine flexibility with discipline - or how to change your mind in an instance without being a cowboy trader! :smiley:

The ever enjoying chatting with VIPER, or the Pieman, (or even with _Bob :smiley: :smiley: ) Simple_Simon :slight_smile:

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Well my experience with longer term traders, and not just retail, is the tendency to not take a loss. Dennis Gartman, Bill Ackman, even G. Soros Group before it went private family holdings, are some pros who are guilty of this, and it led to massive losses. Also the Usual suspects here and other boards, MarketSurfer comes to mind.

One would think that with more time to analyse what the market is doing, would lead to a better outcome, but human nature is what it is, and the fiddling is still there only on a longer timeframe.

I know what you mean by a sudden spike and the feeling of I have to do something, it still happens to me, because I have more of a weakness for missed opportunity than for loss. But over the years I have learned to stop and think before touching the mouse, sometimes purposely placing my hands in an exact position on my knees, this helps break the cycle in the brain, and I am able to look over the Context and Premise to see if they are still valid, before taking action.

The Ever Handy VIPER

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That is very interesting!! (I hope @_bob , you donā€™t mind this little interlude?). I just wonder how much such people were reliant on, and reactive to, technical analysis rather than a fundamental outlook?

I could imagine that a fundamental basis would be far more loose in its interpretation, and also maybe sheer position size makes it difficult to decide when to adjust various exposures and profiles in a portfolio-type matrix. Certainly not as easy as yes/no, in/out, open/close, sit on hands.

There are so many unappreciated benefits to being a sole trader in retail forex, if only people could recognise them and utilise them beneficially!

Happy Thanksgiving! :slight_smile: