The pivot is the (High + Low+ Close)/3 for whatever time period you are finding the pivot point for. Before I start trading at 8:00 AM, I like to find and plot the pivot point for the previous 4 hours (4:00 AM - 8:00 AM), and try to take mostly longs if above it, and mostly shorts if below it. I don’t have an indicator that does it automatically, so I just find the high, the low and the close of the 7:00 AM candle, add them up and divide them by three. Then I just put a horizontal trendline at whatever price I come up with. Hope this helps!
I’ve been enjoying following everyone’s progress on this thread!
I just got done with my 3pm session. I was able to get 14.1 pips with one trade. I opened 2 lots. First one with a SL of 10 and take profit of 12.9. I initially had a SL of 20 pips and a TP of 23 pips for the second lot. The reason I picked 23 was because of the most recent minor support. After a few minutes into the trade, I felt like the market was not moving fast enough to get 23 pips in this session. So I broke my own rule and exited the trade at 14.1 pips, which is not bad, I am happy with that but I guess I still need to learn to stick to my own rules. The trade is below,
EUR/USD, 2:56, entered short at 1.29837 at closed at 1.29696. I know I was supposed to enter at 1.29800 but the price moved too fast and I wasn’t able to enter at that price so I ended up just putting a market order in.
Total for the day: +65 pips
Month to date: +65
EDIT: I am just looking at the chart again and if I had stayed in the trade, I would’ve hit my profit target of 23 pip. Oh well, Live and learn.
i just submitted my post and got bounced off before it posted. lavaman, nice to hear from you. i did something a little different after entering my trade today. i moved to the one minute chart as things were very slow. i still maintained line 2 as my S/L but it never got touched. the trade:
2:45 short, .6616, S/L, line 2
3:25 exit, .6595, touch of 5, it moved lower before close but i tok the .6595
+21
march total, +252
i will not be trading at 7:00, so see you at 2:00 am.
Thankyou Chasingpips, I am not sure if it’s beginers luck or if i am actually using the system the right way. But whatever it is, I will enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully it lasts a very long time. And also, thankyou Bernie for this incredible system.
Well, my trading today. I did not have time to post earlier.
I also got a nice TP trade at 8:05am.
But the rest of what I did was not nearly as nice.
First, at around 2am I tried to apply Bernie’s new rules to eur/us.
2:25 - short at 1.29095 on cross and close below the line 2. Wasn’t a good idea:) - 2:40 - exit at SL -21. Because I used half the pip value, I count it as -10.5.
Then, after the morning TP trade (despite my smart conclusions regarding staying aside when it’s not going your way:rolleyes:):
8:50 - 10X short at 1.3035 - SL -9.9;
9:10 - 10X short at 1.3035 - SL -9.9;
9:30 - 10X short at 1.3025 - SL -9.9;
10:55 - 10X long at 1.3020 - SL -9.9.
There I finally decided that I got enough and quit.:mad:
Don’t be down about it, you’re still up considerably for the month! I’ve been very happy to see you doing so well after our time of extreme frustration.
Quick update y’all:
After I burned through two-thirds of my first live account, I’ve been on demo just trying to learn more about why price moves, where it goes, and how it reacts to certain areas (fibs, S & R, etc.). Before, I never paid attention to things like, whether price snapped back after a breakout or stalled before continuing on. Little things like that can tell you A LOT about what the bigger players are doing. I hope to incorporate these things into whatever system I settle into when I go live again (very likely something like the goji system, as I still implement aspects of it in my demo trading). But for now, I just see what’s going on, wait for good setups and place a few high probability trades (at least I think they are) a day. I’m learning patience now, and working really hard on accepting loss and not revenge trading (as this is what ALWAYS gets me).
The best thing I did recently was buy a dry erase board and hang it on the wall in front of me. It has a quote I made about being cool, accepting loss and taking breaks and it also has my max lot size for the day, a calculation of my equity minus 3% which is my self-imposed stop-loss for the day, and my equity minus 10% which is my self-imposed stop-loss for the month (at that point I would go to demo for the rest of the month). I also have a check list that says “news”, “pivots” and “calm”. I plot the news, plot my pivot point, drop a few trendlines or support and resistance on the chart and then, if I feel I’m relaxed enough to enter the market, I check everything off and get to it. I know many people don’t need to force themselves to be discipline like I do, but right now it seems to be working. I’ve decided to cut back my leverage, and I typically only use 5:1 leverage, but it all depends on my where I put my stop-loss, which I now let the market tell me where to place.
With reduced leverage I don’t feel so antsy. I’ve made a 7% increase on my demo account since I started it last Monday, and I’m very happy with that. Hopefully I can continue this and maybe try going live in April if the results keep up.
Thanks for the good words, I’m not so down about the loss as I’m about myself being “the one who never learns”:mad:. How much more do I need to stay aside when it’s quite clear you’d better stay aside?
Yes you can do it like that Lavaman, but I use a downloaded pivot point calculator, you punch in the previous days high low and close and get out from that 7 lines; 1 pivot 3 support and 3 resistance, most will be well away from your trading time but if they are close jsut plot them like Lavaman says as a horizontal line.
If it ever moves past the pivot line is will run a mile!!
chasing et al, i will be on the audio tomorrow at 8:00 am. chasing, i offer this as a suggestion only, trading has to be up to each individual. you may not want to ascribe to the four trades per day that i am doing because of the time. what if you tried one trade per hour starting at 8:00 am. if that trade was exited by 8:20 am, let’s say you would walk away until 9:00 am, etc. i really am liking this one and done that i have been doing, though i know it’s probably not for everyone. today, i had only three trades. i was having my taxes done at 7:00 pm. i had two BEs, at 8:00 am and again at 2:00 am with the one trade of +21 at 3:00 pm. as you all know, i am tickled pink, with a +21 pip day. as such, though, i am not sitting for long periods of time in front of the computer. i figured it out for my brother-in-law week before last and i spent a total of six hours per the week at the computer. again, that was per the week!
well, this is the moning i took two trades at the 8:00 am hour. i did so because my first trade was a BE. i was also talking to chasing at the time. he was on the e/u and he took a nice trade. the morning’s trades:
7:50 long, .6595
8:00 exit, .6595, BE
8:30 major news
8:40 short, .6610
8:47 exit, .6600 +10
march total, +262
2:00 +71
8:00 +71
3:00 +72
7:00 +72 (-39)
i have an obligation this afternoon so i will be back at 7:00 pm.
i didn’t get on the audio this morning because i entered a trade on the a/u at 7:30 am. i was up early. when checking the news, i also saw that the usa would have their fomc meeting announcements at 2:15 pm. normally, that makes for little volatility during the time leading up to 2:15 pm. as such, i was waiting for any profit on the trade and did not want to take the time to jump on the audio. i finally got out at 8:09 am with a +4. as such, i am going back to sleep, i think. i will be back today at 2:00 pm. i will jump on the audio then to see if anyone else is on. this looks like it may be a strange afternoon. if nothing is done, even statement wise, it should be $$ positive, anything else could be $$ negative. we shall see. the morning’s trades:
2:00 long, .6615
2:25 exit, .6626, +11, close above line 1
7:30 short, .6602
8:09 exit, .6598, +4, wanted to take any profit and wait for the afternoon
i really believed that the news at 2:15 pm would be dollar negative. normally, i do not do what i did. at 2:12 pm i put in an order of about 1/2 of my normal position at .6620. remember, i felt things would be dollar negative. i believed this, so i did not think i was gambling. well, i was right, and did not get filled. “order canceled (bv).” i have no idea right now what that means, but because i was right and did not profit, I HAVE NO ENTHUSIASM FOR TRADING. i did put an order in for .6700, then saw the spread at 7 and canceled. see you at 7:00 pm.
Hey Bernie,
“Order Canceled (BV)” means the order was canceled due to a bounds violation. It means that they could not fill your order within the bounds you have set. I would think if price was moving real fast or if the spread was high this might happen if you have a pretty tight bounds setting.
