So I have completely revamped my trading plan, and I had basically jumped into the market with the tools i had in my tool box. To be honest I felt a bit rushed as a set up was occuring as I had finished. So here are some charts of the play. Also I will be mostly focusing on % capital now but i will also include my pip count.
Both of my trades where in GBP/CHF here is the daily level i was targeting
Trade 1
Price:1.4377 SL:1.4402 TP: 1.4327 closed at SL
Here you can see I actually took a 2nd touch. This was due to my rushed actions lack of preparing before the trade. Now this set up inside a daily level I ended up taking the retrace in because it was very small amount pushed into. I personally believe daily levels are very powerful tools.
Net: -1% -25.1 pips
Trade 2
Price:1.43955 SL:1.4454 TP:1.43405 closed at reduced SL 1.44342
I have re entered teh same trade deeper into the level. We made a pretty good move down after almost getting stopped out twice. I had about 40 pips of paper profit, but because I didnt have a concrete plan in how to scale out or get to BE. I didnt and just stick 100% to my guns. I think that may have been a mistake that I will try to correct in the future.
USD/CHF short
Price:.90636 TP:.90434 SL: .90834 Closed at TP
My levels:
My entry:
This was a brilliant trade, It was inside a daily level 4H level and 1h level. I picked the top of USD/CHF within .3 pips you cant get better than that, less than half a pip. It instantly went straight to my profit target, I do feel like i left a lot on the table. But to be honest i had no idea it would break down that far. Anyway it was a very profitable trade for me.
AUD/CAD Long 1
price: 1.04532 SL: 1.04301 TP:1.04832 Closed at SL.
Here i Took the start of the 4H level. I knew that the area highlighted may be a problem, so i entered a significantly smaller risk size than usual. still felt confidant in it, we climed into slight profit for a bit but nothing worth writing home about, max was about 6-7 pips.
Net: -.288% -30 pips
AUD/CAD long 2
Price:1.04317 SL: 1.0412 TP:1.0462 closed at SL.
I re-entered here deeper in the level. Also had confluence for the daily S2 pivot point. Also there was an internal 15 min level within the overall level. That was in confluence. The TP was also well under most of the mass above but still didnt even get close.
Net: -.546% -19.7 pips
I am currently short Usd/JPY I will post the results as the trade resolves.
I think this rough image i put together explains why what i did was a mistake. I know its very crude but hopefully it helps others avoid my error. This assumes that price even goes up at all, which for me it did, and the mass above isn’t strong enough to overwhelm the level. Personally i have been working on this in my free time but didn’t heed my own advice. i hoped putting this up here would help make sure i heed my own lessons. :17: :::::face palm:::
My USD/JPY trade closed for a loss. I was 4 pips away from my TP before I was stopped out. I was asleep while it ran and just woke up to see it as a loss anyway.
Took 2 trades yesterday, an EUR/GBP long that was really sweet hit both TP targets. The reason I didnt post was that the USD/JPY short I had didnt close, I took my Full TP but my resolve was tested many times. Currently in both those pairs again today, looks like in the thin markets I am going to have to carry over the weekend. I will post charts and details over the weekend, I have been really busy today and probably going to get to bed. Cheers guys and Good pippin’
EUR/GBP Long
Price:.84944 SL:.84632 TP: .85244 TP 2: .85556 Closed at new SL:.8545 -TP squeeze
Scale out 1: .85254 - 75%
Levels
Here we have a virgin daily level with monthly and weekly pivot correlations. its also at the top of the level where a lot of turns take place. As you can see here on the 1H there is a TON of mass there. Also daily S1 was right above the level and daily S2 was right below my SL, I didn’t include it because i saw the turning on lower time frames and entered on the 1 min.
Actually I moved my TP to a higher level at this point and took of most of my position with the scale out.
Ignore the stuff on top, that trade will be explained later on.
Results: Scale out 1: + .33% +42.5 pips
Position closed:+.211% + 50.6 pips
NET gain: .541% 1.082:1 R:R
This was a hell of a ride, I never held a trade this long. Well i have just never seemed like i was under so much pressure. Anyway this was a re-entry of a previous trade where i got stopped out. I re-entered but had a larger stop and got 1:1. It was a decent win. We came so close to my TP several times and it really started to grind me down, because after that we would retrace and eat so much of my own profits. so difficult.
EUR/GBP Short
Price: .85735 SL:.86048 TP:.85427 Closed at TP
Scale Out:.85525 - 75.1%
Levels
here is a close up of the level i was in. We had stacked levels here, actually that fib is the 61.8% line drawn from the high and low of the year so i thought it was pretty significant. Also had good confluence of daily R1 and R2 around the level.
Actually my limit order got missed at that level due to me miss typing, but also it didn’t actually get there due to spread anyway. So i ended up having to play catch up, took it on a retracement of that 15min bear candle. I could have been more patent to get in at a better fill, which i felt regretful about. Torn between getting in and not missing it vs getting a better price and possibly not getting it at all. This was already after missing my limit order at the orange line. as you can see price never actually touched it. I put my SL above R2.
My winrate was 50% which is crap to be honest, a lot of my trades were winners that turned losers. Gotta work on that. But I am currently in 2 trades right now that are carrying over the weekend that are in profit. If i take those profits right at this moment my winrate will be 58% which is much closer to my target 70%. But considering this week i just started trading a new plan and everything its alright. We ended in the green, and i followed every one of my rules.
Net capital gain over the week (locked in): +.12%
NAV (including massive weekend spreads of 10 pips which is retarded BTW): 1.01%
still deciding if i should lock that down even at massive spread or just wait for monday, I am definately nervous about the weekend gap.
here are the results for my over the weekend trades
USD/JPY
Price: 77.371 Closed:77.187
I exited this one early because of the news from IMF saying that they justified the Japanese intervention, so I just closed it. Actually i was only 9 pips away from my TP but spread accounted for 10 pips which ate up most of my profits, but its better to be safe than on the other end of a sovereign intervention. Although i would have hit tp today no problem, that kinda ticks me off.
Net: .615% 18.4 pips
Cable Short
Price:1.60842 SL:1.6132 TP: 1.5964 Closed at profit squeeze 1.59963
Unfortunately here It would have made my complete target, but i was locking in profits. so a net profitable trade i cant complain. This is a 4H level nested inside a virgin daily, very good entry. I got a 1H wick fill which i love and then we made a good amount of % capital
Net:1.836 % 87.9 pips
Total : 2.45 % capital
I have 2 open positions at this moment they arent looking so hot, but I will post when they resolve.
Here i took a fresh daily level, it was quite wide and had a main 4h level with a minor 1H level inside. I staggered my orders in order to capture the whole level while maintaining 1% risk, ended up a loser but that’s OK. We had an amazing parabolic entry and a huge gap in liquidity, as this trade was put on sentiment was risk on. But as the Italian bond sales went off the euphoria started to wear off it returned to a slow grind down. It was in profit for a while but as the sentiment and lack of large pressure upwards it failed.
Net: -1.001%
EUR/USD Long
Price: entry 1: 1.36505 entry 2: 1.36339
SL: entry 1: 1.36257 entry 2: 1.35989
TP:1.37149
Here was a correlated level, this one was not as pretty as cable, but it qualified. But again by the time this triggered sentiment was already falling, and this pair was under tremendous pressure.
Entering a trade going against D TF bias will always cost you money in the long run. Always.
So buying on a bearish sentiment for 10, 20 or 30 pips and selling on a bullish sentiment for equal pips always end up costing you when you do net calculations.
Direction for the day or even the week a times can only be one way.
This one worked out well. really amazing since i just had a limit order checked it on my phone, then i was TP’d by the time i checked again. Actually i was like where did my trade go, oh wait my balance is up.
Ratio: 1:1 for 30 pips
Net:1.25%
EUR/USD
Price: 1.34550 SL: 1.34850 TP: 1.3425
Here tried the exact same trade, i knew i was going into a daily level. But i had contrasting options on what to do. I figured since we were at the top of the level and there were not any levels within levels there i could take it down. Unfortunately thats not the case. Was again going for a 1:1 ratio scalp.
Net: -1.22%
USD/CHF
Price: .92168 SL: .92367 TP:.91727 Closed at .91845
Levels:
Here you can see how much confluence we had surrounding this level, i was very confidant in this trade. Especially since I was really getting a RR on this but the squeeze stopped me out. Anyway still a successful trade and i picked a top so that’s always nice.
Entry chart.
this is a 30 min chart, as you can see i caught exactly the wicks on this one. Amazing trade if i mgiht say so myself. I may have given up 2-3 pips because i didn’t continue to squeeze after i got down to 5 pip range. But in the end the trade ended up very close to TP. Also i got 3.55:1 RR
I guess it depends what you mean by Bias. since a majority of my trades are counter trend. Sure i believe that the daily levels are the most important thing but all of my trades will be when price comes down into my level for a long or up into my level for a short. So I will always be against the most recent price action. So I would disagree that it will cost you “always”. But yes if i am trading against longer time frame order flow then yes. But if you also look through all my trades I am catching “falling knives” or picking tops, with pretty good success. I know we have had this debate many a time. I think its just the difference between our systems. I have no qualms taking the trades I have taken. If i was faced with those types of set ups again i would take them, especially that GBP/USD long.
Also the direction for the day does not have to be only 1 way. I have seen sentiment change intraday and with large moves instigated by those changing biases. Especially with the constant shifting between risk on and risk off lately. Its what the sentiment is at the time you enter the trade that matters. The sentiment during London may differ from NY, or depending on if major actions in economies occur after the releases sentiment may shift as well. The ebb and flow of sentiment, tech and fundamentals are always in motion. Some faster than others, but each are always moving.
- BoE projects [B]bleaker domestic outlook[/B] as euro area concerns intensify
- UK activity to be [B]'markedly weaker'[/B] in the near-term but acceleration to 3% by 2013; no mention of recession, most extreme risks facing eurozone situation cannot be quantified
- CPI profile shifted lower and reaching only 1.5% by 2014 to suggest further stimulus is required to hit target
- '[U]Limits to what domestic policy can achieve[/U]' but more QE from the Bank almost certain; question now over timing - we think no move until February.
EURO
- [U]Intensification of the euro crisis[/U] may start to ask big questions again on the s/t resilience of the euro as a reserve asset, if there is a crisis of liquidity and depth, reversing the moves since 1999
- As '[B]contagion to core'[/B] intensifies so the pool of euro assets as an acceptable store of value may shrink. Germany to be pushed to extreme values that will only be accepted by 'captive' euro funds, while others are encouraged to exit
- On a simple matter of core market scales, [U]USD and even JPY may find themselves on the rise[/U]
- Recently, [U]repatriation as well as ongoing diversification flows have been bolstering the euro,[/U] or at least providing demand for sellers to distribute into - that might change if the current deterioration intensifies
I took a long USD CAD and was stopped out for 30 pips. Not at home for the moment but I will post a chart tomorrow. It’s the only trade I took today. I have some limit orders in the market at the moment but only time will tell what happens.
Here is the chart from the USD/CAD trade, The X’s represent the trade that lost out. Then I re-entered as my trade idea was still valid and we hit my TP pretty much perfectly. Then fell off.
Net+1.25%
