Time to crack some pips ICT style!

Trading Systems
81

Right, I’ve decided to write a few thoughts on how I will measure my success as a trader :smiley:

I think the overriding goal that I will be aiming for is not to be consistently profitable, but rather to consistently know when the odds are heavily stacked in favour of a particular trade, and ONLY THEN to act upon it. This concept alone will undoubtedly ensure long term profitability, and at the same time it will cure my disease known as “Impatience”.

It is no secret that us newbies struggle with emotions, over-trading, revenge-trading etc. So I feel that if I can train myself to just let go of some of these feelings I will put myself in a much better stead to become successful. A few thoughts I would rather never have in my mind would be along the lines of:

  • “This doesn’t look like a perfect time to enter but I’m sure it’ll still move down (up) at some stage”
  • “It’s outside of LO, NYO and LC but I still think this is a key level and I should take the trade anyway”
  • “Dammit, I just lost that trade but I’m sure if I get back in now that it’s gone all the way to my stop, I’ll be safe and hit the absolute top (bottom) of the turn in price”
  • “The market flow is upwards but today it looks like there was a Judas Swing upwards above the Asian range right into a strong resistance level - Let me take a short position!”
  • “Oh YEAH! I just scored a cracker of a win! I made 8%! Wow, so close to 10%… Hmmmm… maybe just one more trade and I’ll get there… Let’s do it!”
  • “Dammit, another loss! I need to get my winnings back, but I also need to cut back on risk… Ah screw it, I know this will be a win, just look at it - let’s keep the risk up, maybe even take a double position…”
  • “I’ve reached my goals for the week and it’s only Tuesday… I will surely make a few more pips… Let’s give it a few more shots!”

Hahaha ok well I don’t know about other traders, but those thoughts have definitely crossed my mind countless times, and they consistently result in a loss of consistency, so to speak :wink:

I feel that if only I can eliminate these niggling thoughts and just focus on taking trades with very high probabilities of success, then I will become successful. So I will regularly come back to this post to measure myself up and see how I’m doing at pushing these thoughts aside (and perhaps adding a few new ones :p).

All for one and one for all! :smiley:

82

Hi,
Thanks

83

PM,

Your initial thought is kind of like the old saying, “You don’t buy a drill because you want a drill, you buy a drill because you want a hole.” If more of us took the mindset of I am looking for the right set up (rather than getting impatient to hurry up and make trades to make money), the result would be the profitablility we are looking for. :slight_smile:

85

PM

Don’t take the following to heart bro, this is not trying to kick a fellow musketeer when hes down, these are my words of advice to help him back to his feet…

Ive been following your FXBook, and im glad you shared, it helps with transparency and im hoping it is also so we can help you…

The one bit of advice i wanna give, is you need to start applying strict money management in your trading…
Im not claiming to be no miracle worker when i trade and say im perfect, i cant even be consistently profitable yet, but if i can compliment myself on one thing, its my strict money and risk management on my trades…

This week, so far, youve made 2 trades, both losers netting you -4.42% down…
Right now below is my screenshot of my personal trading log that i keep, check out my “amazing performance” last week…

Week 2.jpg700×421 48.1 KB


Every single trade that week was a loss, i made mistakes, i reacted to the market, i over traded, i made pretty much all the noob mistakes i said i wouldnt!
But check out my results for the week, net loss of -4.01% - but that was in 5 trades… If your making a bigger loss than me, and im making over double the trades you are - theres something wrong…

Risk and money management can be one of the single most important factors in determining our success man… One of our biggest advantages when trading is that we have the ability to control our risk, but our profits are virtually unlimited, we can let them ride… If we can find a way to consistently make pips, while minimized losses and maximizing profits - you’ve landed the holy grail…

Like i said, i dont want this to be a kick when your down, i want it to be one of your helping hands up…

You can do it bro, us musketeers all will :wink:

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and lets own this market man!

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86

Nice log SanJ and thanks for your transparency. It’s like we’re each our own versions of Hercules at war with the Hydra and seeing that the same titanic effort is required by someone ahead of me is a greater balm than I can tell you.

GL and GT :slight_smile:

Mike

btw, this is such a noob question but is there a way to change the hours at the bottom of MT4? I confess I’m really struggling to get a grip on the time differences - especially the Asian Session.

And here’s my Myfxbook link - just to keep honest. :slight_smile: Nothing to see really, but soon…

https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/mt4-demo/329878

87

Hey Pipowski

As far as i am aware, the trading times of MT4 are completely related to your broker timings. So every broker will go with their standard time, the best thing to do will be to ask them which time zone there in…

After that, check out Clint’s threads, he has an awesome thread and write up on time zone’s globally which will give you everything you need to know

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88

man PM, those are spot on! It’s amazing, not only do we all fail in the same way, but we all have the same thoughts just before doing so!

I really intend to print those out, with the heading “Poisonous Thoughts”

you’re really on to something there…

reminds me of some good reads I had on this blog:
Brett Steenbarger’s TraderFeed

edit:
I tried to think of some more, but damn your list is thorough!
This is all I came up with:
[B]“I really need to find a setup today or else I’ll probably
miss the big move for the week and never reach my goals!”[/B]

90

Hello Puremuscle,

that´s a nice list of thoughts…Seems that you are on the right track.

I´ll try to folow your thread more times…

Keep up the good work :cool:

91

While Sanj is correct there is something I have learned. Dont worry about what time your MT4 says it is. Just line up the market times with the clock at the bottom right of your screen. Once you know what times you are looking to trade the MT4 plattform is irrelevant. I find this little website to be quite helpful just select your timezone and it will tell you what times you are looking for. I think it even adjusts for DST good luck

Forex Market Hours

92

Thanks for the posts guys and especially my brother SanJ :wink: I am particularly ashamed of my risk management lately, I kept justifying it by the fact that I am taking a two week break from trading soon (honeymoon :smiley: getting married!), so I kept telling myself that I need to just hit one big trade to make up for the time I’ll be away - big mistake! Thanks for pointing it out SanJ, and please keep telling me when I do it, because making it public is the best remedy, trust me :stuck_out_tongue:

So anyway, as I said, today was my last day of trading before my wedding, and by PURE higher timeframe S&R, i managed to kill it with 200 pips in 2 AUDUSD trades from the magical 1.02 level, netting 14%… I won’t lie, its great to make such a huge profit but I was risking 4% and I wasn’t scaling back after my earlier losses this week… But go easy on me guys, I’m getting married :wink:

See you guys in a few weeks! Keep the pips coming boys - All for one and one for all!

93

Congratulations PM! :slight_smile: God bless you, your fiance, your wedding day and your honeymoon. You’ll miss this but I bet you’ll also get some much-needed rest from it too.

Good for you, man… well done.

Ski

don’t know if this’ll work, but here… this for you and yours :slight_smile:

Mr Blue Sky - YouTube!

94

I hope i didnt cause any public embarrassment bro, next time i can spare the lectures over private message, but whatever will help you !

:o!!
Congratulations man! Amazing news… Hope you have an amazing wedding and honeymoon and you and your wife are really happy together :slight_smile:

Will look forward to your return to tear up the market again :wink:

And im glad you managed to leave before your break… and kill it one last time! Celebrations all around…

See you soon buddy!

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95

Nice man! I was watching that trade on your Myfxbook the whole time. Went from +40 to 0 to +40 to 0 over the course of a day and then BAM! +100 pips.

Congrats on getting married too, wish you the best brother!

96

I hope PureMuscle doesn’t mind, because after my stupid mistakes this past week I read that advice like it was directed straight at me. I think that’s what anyone who has made errors in their money management would feel. It was a great post, stern but necessary for noobs like me that still struggle with handling emotions. Thanks SanJ!

97

Congats PM

98

Thanks for all the well wishes guys - I am pretty excited :stuck_out_tongue: Thankfully I will have a wife who is very supportive of forex trading :smiley:

Cheers guys and Cheers ICT - thanks for a cracker! :smiley:

PS: SanJ bro always make scoldings public! It has a much more lasting effect on me! :wink:

99

Yes boys I’m back! :smiley: I had the most amazing honeymoon and a good break from trading :stuck_out_tongue:

Let’s get back to it! Although I think I’ll get going from Monday again :slight_smile:

All for one and one for all!

100

I couldn’t resist and I traded NFP… Although to be fair, it was looking like a pretty safe bet :slight_smile:

Anyway, that one trade just made my goal for the week :stuck_out_tongue: I will post my analysis later when I get home:

Pair: EUR/USD
Bias: SHORT
Entry: 1.23807
Exit: 1.23162
Result: [B]+64 PIPS[/B]

SanJ and tycoon83 - Why don’t we start a Three Musketeers thread? :smiley: We can use it to discuss our trade ideas. Or else we can create a group I suppose - what do you think?

101

I’m easy bro, if you think we can keep up with it then lets go for it!
…i dont think the ICT wolf pack forum is that busy, we could use that one if you don’t want to monitor too many threads.

102

Welcome back bro!

Hope you had a good break and an awesome wedding and honeymoon :slight_smile:

Creating our own thread sounds good to me man, but like Tycoon said, if we can keep up with it all as i know you two already have your own threads going and stuff… But otherwise, yeah im down man…

Hope your both keeping well and raking in the pips :slight_smile:

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