Nice of you hachiko to let us all have a giggle before the Weekend starts! 
Reminds me of the time I thought I was going to take my stop loss for a failed short trade but instead of buying out of the short, I sold and doubled my loosing position. I thought i had closed out my trade with a small loss but then I noticed my unrealised loss figure moving bigger and bigger for some reasonā¦:eek:
OK, it late now and I must quit.
Before I go, however, I want to end with a word of encouragement.
I have recently downloaded a program that is a radio control model aircraft simulator.
It is a lot of fun learning to fly the aircraft in real scenery.
The computer is amazing in how it shows the plane smashing to bits when you crash.
In fact the whole thing is so real, it is an amazing program.
In the beginning, all you do is crash the plane (you have a choice of planes and scenery!!).
This goes on for ages until you get some control and manage to stay in the air seconds longer before you crash again.
I have got to the point now where I can land the plane in a very rough fashion.
This is just like forex trading.
Every time you crash, you are reminded of your forex failings.
So close are the parallels that I found that after some flying, I was able to trade forex with more confidence than before.
For those interested in some motivation to do well in forex, googleā¦ "clearview flight simulator - download."
You can have a lot of fun and with the adrenalin flowing, you will do better at your trades!!
Goodnight - back for the last time tomorrow.
If Sweetie is anything like our cat, he will loudly complain to anyone who will listen about the travel that is required for the moving. 
I find that cats are generally quite conservative, but after a while the new house will become the āroutineā and Ginger will be a happy cat again, especially if, as I understand it, Tymen will be moving to a slightly cooler climate.
Just closed my last trade for today with 10 pips profit. 11 wins, 1 loss today. Iāll take it.
My theory is that every single trader is just a little different. So what works well for one may not work as well for another. Some have full time jobs, families to care for, or school exams coming up. Each must find her or his own path. If your path is to follow another in theirs, perhaps you are lucky. For most of us, it will take months or years to find our path.
I worked for others for over 20 years, selling my life one hour at a time before I retired and became self employed. After 22 years of trading, I woke up this morning an hour earlier than usual at 4:30 AM wondering what the London open was. I was so excited that I couldnāt get back to sleep, so I got up, made my coffee and started my daily routine. I settle into a chair so comfortable Iām embarrassed to say what I paid for it, and fire up the three screens and the best PC I could find. I replace the PC with the best every year. I get a tax deduction on it.
First I open the economic calender and see what news could ruin my day (or make it). I turn on Bloomberg news and let it play in the background. Sometimes I turn the sound down and just listen to some nice music. Then I start my pair analysis. Since I have analyzed the same 10 pairs every morning for years, I have them mostly memorized and really all I have to do is catch up on what happened while I slept. I start with the longest TF chart, monthly, and look at it in a quick flash. Itās pretty well imprinted on my retina by now. I do the same with the weekly, just a quick flash to refresh my mental image and remind myself of the direction of the very long term trend. Then the real analysis starts. I go to the daily chart.
Tymenās thread is about trend trading, which is the reason I opened it since Iām a trend trader. So I will stay with that trend theme, but Iām looking at lots more than just trends. Iām looking at individual candle patterns, multiple candle patterns, trend lines I have marked over time, Bollinger bands, pivot points, high lows, S/R, major moving averages, and yes, indicators. I have three charts designed for each pair so I can always have one that is fairly clean with a minimum of junk on it. If other traders are looking at this stuff, I want to know what they are seeing. If they were looking at astrological signs, I would want to know what they were seeing. I use just about everything except Elliot waves. I never could make sense of those. This works for me because I have trained my eye to it. I wouldnāt really recommend it as it could lead to analysis paralysis. But Iām mainly looking at two things, what does todayās candle look like, and of course, reminding myself of the daily chart trend. I encourage everyone to make a careful study of candle formations. But as always, take what you like and leave the rest.
My loss today was a stupid one. I got on the wrong side of USDJPY and didnāt get off quickly enough. The good news is I reversed my position when I realized my mistake and made more on that pair than I lost earlier. I guess I need to re-read my own rules, eh? I think you can trade for 50 years and still make boneheaded mistakes. Larry Tisch (once owned CBS) was very successful and built up the multi-billion dollar Lowes Investment Bank from scratch. Near the end of the dot com bubble, he was sure stocks were overvalued, so he sold S&P 500 short. He was right, but early. The S&P 500 kept climbing to outrageous levels, far beyond any reasonable evaluations. He thought he was so well capitalized he could ride it out. When he finally gave up on the trade, he had lost one billion dollars on that one trade. That reminds me of another saying. The market can remain illogical longer than you can remain solvent. Oh well, water under the bridge now. Letās move on.
So Iām looking at the daily chart in my morning pair review. I always look at my favorite pair first, then work down the line to my least favorite. I look at todayās candle. It tells me a lot. What direction did the market move overnight, did it form a long wick, how far has it moved, is it forming part of a possible multi-candle formation like a star or engulfing pattern or a head and shoulders, etc. And of course, I remind myself of the direction and strength of the daily trend. Then I work my way down through the charts, spending more time on the 4H, since it has formed 2 candles while I slept. I examine each chart and carefully observe the trend on each chart, 4H, 1H, 30M, 15M, 5M, 1M. The whole process takes 5 to 10 minutes a pair.
When Iām finished with a pair, I have a decision to make. Is the trend clear enough on this pair to trade? Sometimes the decision is obvious. The trend is clear, the movement is steady and predictable and all I need is a good entry. I make a mental note of what Iām looking for before I enter and wait and watch until my best entry point occurs. I can go over this analysis and selection process more if someone is interested, but I want to get to trade management as soon as I can.
So I go through each of my favorite 10 pairs, looking for trend following trades. Iām looking for about 4 or 5 pairs to trade. I can usually find them, but Iāll take what the market gives me, not more than 5, but 1 is OK. If itās zero, I just keep studying. What I want to do here is diversify my trades. I may lose a little on one pair in a particular day, but if I win in 3 or 4 others, I still have a good day. Diversification of risk is an important and rarely discussed money management tool. If you canāt afford to diversify by trading multiple pairs, you are trading too large a position for your capitalization. Think that over carefully. We can discuss it more if anyone wants.
Tymenās BB DNA entries have greatly improved my entries. Iām probably entering with a 5 pip advantage now over the systems I was using before. With 5 trades, thatās at least 25 pips a day in my pocket. Very cool! So I keep putting on small positions, 1/5 th of a full position, until I have my 5 trades on, or whatever I can find for the day. Of course, each pair has a spread, so I start out losing 10 to 15 pips and my profit line always starts out negative. But not to worry, my system will have it positive very quickly. Thatās because my system is to only take trades where the long term established trend is in my favor. Essentially, Iām taking trade entries that are short term retracements against a longer term trend. Now you can see why Tymenās BB DNA entries work so well for me. Iāve been practicing identifying and trading long term trends for years. Tymenās system identifies the best possible retracement entries for those long term trends. But thereās another trick. 
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Graviton,
Thanks for the words of wisdom, and thought process behind what you do everyday.( The steps you take each morning to get started. )
The description of the psychological growth you had to go through is very helpful. As you read from many noobs, it is a big process to learn how to trade, and then once you start trading and lose some trades there is a lot of doubt that creeps in. Having others talk about what they went through once they are on the āother sideā is helpful and encouraging!
Really looking forward to this and hope it happens. I feel like there are quite a few of us who got hooked on this thread for something exactly like you have described. Thanks again tymen for keeping such a close eye on this thread youāve created.
Actually, there are lots of tricks. Tymen advised that if you were going to do live trading, do not trade under-capitalized. If you get nothing else out of this post, please consider your position sizing. Trading under-capitalized is the greenest of greenhorn mistakes you can make. Say you have missed meals and lived like a monk to save up enough capital to open an account, please do not waste your time and money trying to trade under-capitalized. If you have saved $1,000 and think you can trade minis and make a couple hundred in extra capital each week, please be realistic. That would be 20% a week. Do you have any idea what 20% compounding per week at 52 weeks turns out to be in annual return? Find a compound interest calculator on-line and figure it out. The best traders in the world make a small fraction of that, and they have years of experience and resources that are out of this world.
If you have scraped up your life savings to open a $1,000 account, you should be trading micros. Yes, thatās right, 10 cents per pip. So you think, gee, I busted my buttocks all week to make 200 pips after spread and now all I have to show for it is a lousy $20? Be reasonable, calculate that return per year when compounded each week for 52 weeks. If you can do a small fraction of that, week in and week out, with minimal drawdowns, that would rank you among the top traders in the world. Show that record to a hiring manager at any trading house and you will be hired on the spot. The hire in is about $200,000 base per year, but in 6 months with a good trading record you can negotiate twice that in commission. And do you know what the top traders in the world make? About $1,000,000 to $50,000,000. So, if you want to turn $1000 into say, $1,000,000, I can tell you the best way to do that. It can be done and in a lot smarter ways and a lot shorter time than you think. But donāt blow the whole thing trying to get there trading under-capitalized.
Look at it this way, when I started trading, they didnāt have micros. I had to trade mini contracts and odd lots. I wasnāt very good at it. I budgeted myself $500 a week in allowable losses and I was losing it every week. Many weeks I would hit my loss limit before Friday and just have to quit trading and study and paper trade the rest of the week. I had saved money from working hard for decades, but I was bleeding cash at a rate I couldnāt sustain. I had children still at home (I married late in life). I was scared. I was studying and trading 80+ hours a week and losing everything. Then I found my path, just before I had to start selling body parts to put food on the table. You are getting this same education for free, or at a very low cost. Donāt screw this up.
OK, I got a bit off track. I was going to tell you some tricks. Sorry.
OK, back to tricks. Iāve given you one of the best. If you are trading with $1,000 trading capital, diversify your trade into 3 to 5 pairs at 1 micro each. At least until you get the hang of this. The risk is actually much less over the long haul than just trading 3 to 5 micros on one pair. Itās a bit more complex, but youāll get the hang of it with practice.
Some other tricks are scaling in and scaling out, which is part trade management, which I finally got to.
The first step in trade management is to enter trades you can manage. Forget scalping the 1M and 5M time frames. Those trades put you up against the trading desks at Goldman and Citi. They have real time order flow information, multiple live news feeds, the latest in computers and software, a team of the best traders working together being charged super low spreads. This game is hard enough, that just makes it impossible.
So you say you canāt find enough trades to make any pips on the longer time frames? Thatās like saying you are driving your car faster so you can get to your destination before you run out of gas. You need to at least trade the 15 minute charts, 20 or 30 minute are even better. Iāve already told you how to find 5 trades a day with pair trend analysis, so letās assume you have gotten up early right after the London open, I guess thatās after work for those down under, and been very patient and waited for 3 to 5 trading pairs to come to you and took the trades for 1 micros each. Now what? Now you let the market work. Say your average spread is 4 pips, and you took 4 trading pairs, now you are starting out 16 pips negative, but be patient. Some will go positive and some will go negative. If they go negative more than 10 pips from entry (+4 pips spread, so you have lost 14 pips), close the trade. So say one of your trades go bad, close it and you have three still running, your account balance has dropped by the 14 pips on the closed trades, but whatās this? The negative profit on the three remaining is turning positive. They will keep turning positive, unless you made all very very bad choices. If any hit your 14 pip loss limit, on a trade, close it.
Tymen puts two lots on and takes profit from one at TP1 and the rest at TP2. I trade both more conservatively, and more aggressively. I put one lot on, and when I get about 15 pips ahead, I put a second lot on, when the first is 30 pips up I take it as profit and put a third on and so on. On the first I took 30 pips profit, the second is now 15 pips up so I can move itās SL to BE, and the third is risking 14 pips on itās SL. If it goes up another 15 pips, I throw another lot on and ride it for a bit. If it goes bad I grab up all my pips quickly and finish with about 30 to 80 pips per good trade. In the best trades Iāll wind up with five lots on and a guaranteed profit never risking more than an initial one lot SL.
Some I ride to the moon with a 100 pip move. But thatās rare, like once every one or two weeks. But if Iām too aggressive, I can lose back what Iāve made. So it takes a bit of practice, but youād be surprised how quickly you can get the hang of it if youāve traded before. This is more conservative on the front end than Tymenās TP method, because it risks less on the initial SL (one lot instead of two), it is more aggressive on the back end because itās putting more lots on just when Tymen is taking his profit. The logic of it depends depends on the fat tail of the markets, or their tendency to trend, or in Tymenās system, you are lots more likely to see a BB walk when trading with the major trend, than against it. I havenāt tested both systems head to head in an honest test, so I canāt say which would work better. Itās just the way I learned to trade and it would be hard to change now. A test would be very difficult because my system is much less mechanical than Tymenās. In reality it probably depends on the individual.
In the end, you have to find your own path, Iām just pointing out a few sign posts. They may not lead to where you want to go. One thing is for sure, putting the stop just below the extreme candle rather than using my old system of a fixed stop plus spread saves lots of pips. And using the CBL for entries yields better entries than any other method Iāve found. Itās a bit early to say, but it looks like his system is making or saving me about 5 pips a trade. That more than offsets the spread. In trading terms, thatās HUGE! But managing good trades is easy and trading three or four good trades at a time you pick it up fast.
The next trick is managing a bad trade :eek:, and that starts by only trading with the trend.
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So you were the one that the EU ministers were talking about, being responsible for driving down the GBP and Euro! 
Just kidding dude. Thanks for giving us a piece of your experience.
So I guess getting a feel for the general investment/economic sentiment plays a large part. Risk adversion /risk seeking, important news/events affecting a currency. Kinda like choose your battlefield 1st, the one you know the terrain the best and then use the various weapons and tactics that you have learned to fight with in order to give a bigger probability of success?
Would you also say that knowing how to backtest and having programming skills are essential to get new weapons and tactics or is it OK to acquire these things in places like babypips?
Yes, EUR and GBP have been very good to me. Look at the monthly, weekly and daily trends of the EUR, any doubt which way a trend trader will trade? If they donāt clean up their mess, Iāll ride the EUR to parity. George Soros said it will go to parity. Guess which side heās trading on? Iām not sure if he is right, but Iāll trade with him for now.
Yes, I chose my battle field. There are pairs that I couldnāt make money in on my best day. Look at the longer term charts. They are almost random. All chop chop.
When I started trading, there was no baby pips. Heck, I donāt even think there was an internet. Things were much harder then. Kids have it so much easier now. I say, get your tools wherever you can find them. If they work, put them in your kit. If they donāt throw them away. Just my opinion.
If Iāve helped even one person a little bit, then Iām happy:D
The more you trade, the better you get, the less doubt you have. Now, I have no doubt at all. Iāll lose a trade now and then, but Iāll make more back. I know that. Happy Trading.
Graviton, you never mentioned any of your tips/tricks.
Red
There were a few buried in there. Some will get something from it, some wonāt. Iām not much of a teacher, not one at all really. Wait till Tymen gets back, heāll show you some great ones Iām sure.
Graviton, some interesting info cheers.
Just to clarify, are the retracements you trade with or against the long term/short term trend?
Iād ask with more clarity but typing on the iPhone is a headache!
Graviton, just re-read your posts. Really useful info there, has got me thinking.
Do you use your 5 lot system with every trade you take? Which version of the cbl has proved most effective for you? Do you always close each lot at 30 pips profit, or leave some to ride?
Have you thought about starting a new thread to share your experience? I can imagine it growing into a highly useful pool of information.
Thanks again!
Just to clarify, are the retracements you trade with or against the long term/short term trend?
I understand. I only trade with the longer term trend, usually the daily and 4H. The retracement that Iām entering could be on the 15M, 30M or 1H chart. The 15M gives lots of good entries, and Iāve caught some good long trades off it in the direction of the major trend. Though for the 15M & 30M,I would also want to see the 1H trending in the same direction of the trade. I never trade countertrend. But thatās just me. I think Tymen has made it very clear he recomends trading with the trend also. He has probably tested that. Most people seem to be having better results with that also.
[QUOTE=Graviton;188404]Just closed my last trade for today with 10 pips profit. 11 wins, 1 loss today. Iāll take it.
My theory is that every single trader is just a little different. So what works well for one may not work as well for another. Some have full time jobs, families to care for, or school exams coming up. Each must find her or his own path. If your path is to follow another in theirs, perhaps you are lucky. For most of us, it will take months or years to find our path.
Graviton Hello, I am far from your experience (only 2 years ā¦), but as I said before, everyone has to adapt the advice and the method has its own personality, to feel good with this method .
Iām sure weāve all been in Tymen, a mentor and guide who has great qualities merchant, but also a teacher, who can say things pleasant or unpleasant to hear.
It is not necessarily pleasant to be told that if this is too complicated for us, it takes more work, try, try, stress, and above all persevere.
Trading on the small TF attracts beginners as there are many jobs to do very (especially too!) Quickly, and I do not know of traders who succeed in this exercise, and certainly not beginners.
I do not pretend to give lessons to anyone, but the method BB DNA, the big advantage of rules that, if not simple, can keep your own graph clear that not look like a fireworks display July 14 (French forces ā¦), and gives a success rate elevated.
Just do violence, and do not hesitate to challenge the secret???, Work, work, work and more work, and when you have finished working, you just WORK has more ā¦ uh, well I think ā¦
For if I forget, do not forget your family, friends, good causes, generosity (see Tymen), life what, I am now a miracle, and our most precious guess what it ā is???
Because of what happened to me I have plenty of time trader, and try to improve myself again, again and again, and still counting ā¦, but I try to give a little of my time and my energy to those in need.
Good enough I will keep quiet and stop talking about my little person, but to summarize, at all, listen, watch, ask, try, work, persevere, because the road is long, but it can meet so many interresting Like all those on this thread, where everyone support his best who is temporarily in distress.
I am very happy to be here with you! 
A thousand apologies for my imperfect English ā¦:o
Iāve always trusted the logic of trading with the long term trend. To do otherwise seemed like trying to swim against the tide.
The only difficulty comes from trying to backtest, but only in that it makes it a slower process.
Thanks again
I try to use the 5 lot system with every trade, but for most I only get a couple or few in. About once every week or two I will get all 5 in and let it ride as long as I can.
After the first closed at 30 pips profit, I may let the next run to 40 pips if the trade is developing well. Looking back at my logs Yes, 30 pips then 40, if it will go there. If the trade plays out, as often happens, I just take what I can.
I may start a thread some day, though Iāll probably wind up putting the good stuff here anyway. I suspect we have much more discussion of trend trading to go. Itās my favorite subject