Sessions Breakout strategy journal

well…

Hello… Finally gathered some courage to create a journal here.

I will layout the strategy in a future post. I am demo trading this strategy.

I only trade two pairs: EURUSD, GBPUSD

3 Likes

Day 1 (15.07.2019)

Well… this was yesterday, but I will posted today so you can get an idea of what happened

Placed trades:
EURUSD short @ 1.12614

  • SL: 1.12876
  • TP: 1.12352

GBPUSD short @ 1.25442

  • SL: 1.25817
  • TP: 1.24880
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Day 2 (16.07.2019)

I am going to start the day with an update on those 2 trades.
I manually trailed stopped the 2 trades I placed yesterday up until a few minutes ago when I closed them.

EURUSD short @ 1.12614

  • Closed @ 1.12224 (+39 pips)

GBPUSD short @ 1.25442

  • Closed @ 1.24183 (+126 pips)
2 Likes

good job! I’m a bit upset I didn’t leave my sell stop open smh. This is what I had set up last night and for some reason I never opened it smh

1 Like

That’s a nice setup.
My chart looks similar to yours. I entered the position before the range, right at the cross of the EMA band with the trendline. Although my system gave me another entry signal (after the breakout of that range), I did not take the second trade.

nice! do you normally trade when the ema’s cross? I used a similar strategy when I firstttt started trading, but overall it wasn’t very effective

ok… the strat…

The core concept is: trying to take advantage of the volatility of London/New York sessions. I picked London and New York and EURUSD, GBPUSD because there are within my timezone and I don’t have to take extra efforts in order to be able to trade them.
As a side note I also backtested the EURJPY, so Tokyo/London sessions with promising results.

I trade on the H1 chart on both currency pairs. I will call the first h1 candle in the London session “the first candle”. After this “first candle” I will set pending orders in both direction: long, short.
For GBPUSD:

  • LONG: high of the “first candle” + 15 pips
  • SHORT: low of the “first candle” - 15 pips

For EURUSD:

  • LONG: high of the “first candle” + 10 pips
  • SHORT: low of the “first candle” - 10 pips

I risk between 1-2% of EQUITY/trade and calculate my position size depending of SL I chose.
For TP I usually aim for 1:1RR on EURUSD and 1:1.5RR on GBPUSD.

Exceptions:

There are times when the price starts moving (a solid candle) before the first candle after the London. Why? Because Frankfurt opens one hour earlier than London. In this cases I place the pending orders after the first candle in Frankfurt session.

Day 3 (17.07.2019)

Hello

So far no trades have been triggered today. I’ve setup pending orders based on the first candle in the Frankfurt session.

Update 1

GBPUSD trade triggered long @1.24320

  • SL: 1.23798
  • TP: 1.25103

H4 chart for GBPUSD

Update 2

EURUSD trade triggered long @1.12264

  • SL: 1.11983
  • TP: 1.12545

Day 4 (18.07.2019)

Good morning!

Although yesterday was Wednesday the market was slow and rangy. Both trades are in profit at the moment. Moved SL to BE for EURUSD.
I’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.

Update 1

Placed pending orders for EURUSD based on the Frankfurt candle, because it is engulfing also the London first candle.
I did not place any pending orders for GBPUSD. The Frankfurt candle was showing indecision (long wicks on both sides with very small body) so I waited for the London candle, but the price moved aprox. 40 pips to the upside after London opening. Placing a pending order for a long position would mean waiting for the price to move another 15 pips towards the upside. The SL would be too wide and the TP (based on 1:1.5RR) pretty far away, so I decided to not place any trades. For the already active trade on GBPUSD I moved SL to BE and will manually trail stop it based on the m15 chart.

I hope my thought process explained makes sense.

Update 2

Looks like the band of EMAs pushed the price back. Closed everything. Now we wait…

GBPUSD long @1.24320

  • closed @ 1.24655 (+33pips)

EURUSD long @1.12264

  • closed @ 1.12329 (+6pips)

Update 3

EURUSD trade triggered short @1.12238

  • SL: 1.12453
  • TP: 1.12023

Update 4

After the EURUSD trade got triggered I moved SL to BE. If I would’ve trailed stopped the trade manually I would have gotten out with 10 pips in profit.

EURUSD short @1.12238

  • Closed @ 1.2220 (+2 pips)
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Day 5 (19.07.2019)

Good morning! I placed pending orders for both pairs
For GPBUSD I used the Frankfurt candle, for EURUSD I used the London candle.

Now we wait… Today is Friday so things might move slowly.

Update 1

Looks like EURUSD does not plan on moving slowly

EURUSD trade triggerd short @1.12449

  • SL: 1.12829
  • TP: 1.12069

Update 2

Moved SL to BE+1 for EURUSD trade

Update 3

EURUSD short @1.12449

  • Closed @1.12279 (+17 pips)

I manually closed this trade before the week-end.
I think that’s it for this week. I will post later today or tomorrow the week review.

Cheers

Mate this journal… you’re trailing stops, manually closing trades, moving to breakeven, not taking some trades and taking others, sometimes using London candle, other times Frankfurt candle, you mention a risk reward but you’re always closing early… It’s so difficult to make sense of what this all is. Almost a journal of what not to do. Honestly I Hope you prove me wrong but I’ll call it now that this journal wont be around a long time. Best of luck anyway.

Hi mate

Thanks for the comment.

I don’t have to prove you anything.

Cheers!

1 Like

Week review (15.07.2019-19.07.2019)

Potential trades: 10
Trade taken: 6
Capital increase 11.43%

It’s been a good week. There were 2 trades that I could have been taken on 16.07, one on EURUSD and one on GBPUSD (adding to the already opened positions in the same direction) that could have turned this week into a “great” week.
Another thing that comes to mind is that I should leave trades to run. Usually the trades on EURUSD have small TPs of 25-30 pips. If I am trying to protect the profit moving SL to BE I might not leave enough breathing room for the trade to play out. I have one idea on how to improve this but I need to back-test it in order to put it into practice.

See you tomorrow!

Cheers!

Day 6 (22.07.2019)

Good morning

I placed trades based on the Frankfurt candle.

GBPUSD trade triggered short @ 1.24788

  • SL: 1.25165
  • TP: 1.24222

Day 7 (23.07.2019)

Good morning

Yesterday was Monday and the market was slow and choppy. My GBPUSD trade fluctuated between positive and negative territory. Another surprise to me is that EURUSD trade was triggered.

EURUSD trade triggered short @1.12019

  • SL: 1.12263
  • TP: 1.11775

If this trade gains momentum I will manually trail stop it on m15 chart.

For GBPUSD trade moved SL to BE+1

Update 1

First of all, I did not place any short trades on GBPUSD for today because the SL was too wide and the TP too far away.

For the active trades, both reached full TP
EURUSD short @1.12019

  • closed @ 1.11775 (+24 pips)

GBPUSD short @ 1.24788

  • closed @ 1.24222 (+56 pips)

Update 2

GBPUSD trade triggered long @1.24739

  • SL: 1.24160
  • TP: 1.25609

EURUSD trade triggered short @1.11741

  • SL: 1.12880
  • TP: 1.11207

I am not to happy about this trades

  1. The SL are too wide, especially for EURUSD (~52 pips), for GBPUSD is right at the limit( I usually skip trades with SL bigger then 60 pips)
  2. They are in opposite directions. EU and GU usually move together and have orders triggered in different direction is a bit wierd.

Taking this into account I am might close the EURUSD trade manually.

1 Like

Day 8 (24.07.2019)

Good morning!

As stated in the previous post, I was thinking about closing the EURUSD position. Left it over night, but not much happened to it, so I closed it manually this morning.

EURUSD short @ 1.11741

  • closed @1.11449 (+25 pips)

Currently I have only the GU trade opened. We shall see what today brings. No interesting news today in the calendar, so we might have a good day.

Update 1

Placed pending orders based on London candle. For EURUSD I haven’t placed any short trades.

How have you been doing so far since you started the method?

Are you making any changes to your parameters?

Sorry guys. I can’t post for a while. I have some family issues.

Cheers