I agree with you here. My weekly charts are showing AUDUSD as a sell, and NZDUSD as a buy. Since these pairs move in tandem then I am going to wait for confirmation.
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AUD/USD on M1 is in a range. That’s what I’m seeing. However, it seems to not like smooth swings. Same for NZD/USD.
Last night, I had to work late, so I woke up late. Hence missed opportunities. I opened one trade quickly.
I lost a trade and I didn’t put a straddle order. My only problem is that I got burned twice with that.
However, one bad experience shouldn’t discourage me from using OCOs and straddle orders.
What I could do is make each straddle order a total of 1% risk. The buy order is 0.5 risk, and the sell order is 0.5% risk.
One trick I started doing is place a normal order for a bounce, then place another order which is super close to the SL. This way the risk and margin is minimal while the pip value is high.
And in the event that price doesn’t reach that close to my SL, I have another order that’s further away and very likely to get triggered.
The past few mornings, I’ve felt rather chaotic. Not organized. So, I’ll be making a to-do list.
I like scanning my charts first thing. I have a watchlist of everything I should look out for, but all the information seems overwhelming. I need a better system so my brain isn’t overwhelmed.
I have a little bit of a different format where things are spaced out more and not so squished together. I’ll be toying with that over the weekend—if I have time.
I would like to analyze some of my losses. I have quite a few to go through unfortunately. Learning from them is key.
My swing approach has changed. I look for consolidation, rather than bounces, even though that’s a good entry point.
One account is for swings (long-term) and the other is for S/R bounces.
I’ve been taking some losses on my long-term account. I’ll have to assess why.
I think I’m gonna have to re-think my trading rules.
There are times I think that I think the consolidation is done and price is breaking out, but it fakes so I forget out it. But I think I gotta keep trading that until it comes out of consolidation.
I’ll take some losses, but when it breaks out, I’ll have a great entry.
I may suffer three losses, but if I’m right, I’ll recoup that money on the first day of true breakout.
I’ll write down dome ideas today for trading rules dealing with such scenarios, as well as others.
This morning, I tried something a little different.
I started my morning by scanning all the charts for potential set ups. I was surprised to see that I went thru all of them in about 15 minutes.
I organized all the pairs so it’s easy to scan thru.
I made a list of each pair that had some potential. However, on second glance, some pairs had more potential than others.
There were a few trades that normally I would have taken, but this time I tried to just let them go. If there’s too much uncertainty, I’m trying to stay out.
I get the “but what if…?” voice, and I’m learning to ignore it.
I’m thinking of changing my strategy a bit. I have about 12 trades in progress.
However, the SL is quite wide. So, the profits are modest. I’m even trading GBP/ZAR. What the??
I’m trading…I think it’s GBP/JPY…I’m trading 0.01 lots. My liquidity was low and I just wanted a piece of the action.
But I think I might start being more selective…
Back to the lab…
I’m watching EUR/USD on M1 and I see some very tight consolidation. The MA20/50/90 have convergered.
I’ve seen so many times on D1 how these three MAs come together, and then price does a big swing. But on M1? It could be a major trend that lasts for months.
However, the problem is that it recently broke out of a 13-year downward channel. Normally, when price breaks out of a channel, it doesn’t return. Often, but not always. The market is always right.
So, I’m thinking that price will either go bearish and bounce the MA20 on M1 (or somewhere around there) and go bullish very aggressively, or break thru and go bearish aggressively.
I actually think it will go bearish, but I have to prepare for alternate scenarios.
What do you think will happen?
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TA is bearish for me on the monthly.
All this hype about the US printing money and how it’s going to devalue the dollar, most likely the exact opposite will happen. This is just my personal opinion, I did not read this anywhere so obviously I could be wrong, but the USD appears strong on a long-term, TA perspective.
Now that I’ve said this, we can watch it shoot up to the moon, lol.
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Yeah, and that’s where I’m confused. I’ve learned that early entry means everything.
I’m short right now. But, if I’m gonna go long, I need some kind of support zone. But the nearest S/R is from an M1 2015 resistance zone at 1.16380
That’s a bit far. But, it is right above this MA convergence.
I often look for MA bounces.
It’s annoying because anything can happen. But there are always clues.
I may have to set two or three different orders with moderate risk.
If you were to read it, it would be a report about what already happened. And we’d be too late for an early entry.
I drew pink TLs. The support line is based on the two bounces, and it has bounced it a third time, it looks like. This is the W1.
I moved my short position’s SL to BE just in case it reverses, and in my short-term account I opened a long position. We’ll see how this plays out.
To be honest, if there’s hype about devaluation, the opposite could happen. making suckers of retail traders, haha. That’s the game.
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This morning, I took a step backwards. I did my old routine of randomly looking thru charts. It took 5 or 6 hours. Waaaaay too long.
I have three simple steps. That’s my new routine. Scan all charts for set-ups and take notes, open new positions based on those notes, check up on open trades.
Simple. But, I got distracted with the first chart I looked at.
Try again tomorrow.
By the way, yesterday, because I did my routine half-way I missed a few good opportunities. Gotta do my routine completely and each day.
It was really hot the other day and at the end of my shower I cooled off with some cold water.
It got a little too cold for a split second, and that cold water immediately triggered my brain to say “I will follow my trading plan! I will follow my trading plan!”
Funny how the brain works.
This morning was better than yesterday. I did my three steps.
I got distracted a few times, but then I got back on track.
Some trades got closed, but I didn’t log them. I’ll do that tomorrow.
However, I’m sleeping in. Sometimes, I need 8 hours.
Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll do some journaling.
I wrote down some trading rules.
I had written some down last week, but I feel like I need to write them again.
To be honest, I feel rather anxious about writing rules because I don’t know how it would limit my trading activity.
But @Johnscott31 recently mentioned in a post that doing less is more when it comes to trading.
The trick is knowing how to distinguish a signal from FOMO.
I have about 10 trades running at the moment on my swing trade account. I’ve had some losses but waaay more losses on my short-term trade account.
The entries are trickier on my short-term trades. The risk is lower, but the amount of trades I’ve lost is too high. Maybe 10 or so for this month.
I think I’m perhaps forcing trades and not being focused. I’ve done a better job this month as far as not taking certain trades. But I have to do better.
What if I trade only half as much? But I think this is what more experienced traders talk about. Trading for the sake of working. Frankly, it’s a waste of both time and money.
I gotta give it a try, even though I can feel some internal resistance to the idea of trading less.
Part of me wants to start next week. And the other part says tomorrow.
Tomorrow it is.
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I am in no way to say what you should or should not do.
In my posts here and more on my blog all I try to do is talk about trading from my own personal experience - knowing that a majority of others will experience the same or similar things
And here is my take on your last post - ten trades at the same time is FAR TOO MANY.
Why would you want to spread your concentration so thin across multiple markets?
This just does not make sense to me. Sure follow ten markets, but ten positions all at once?
I could NOT do that by along way.
I liken an open trade to a single entry on a to do list.
One or two you can get them done. But too many entries only leads to mental clutter.
I can see how industrious you are as an individual, what with running this journal, work and trading.
But just maybe being such an action oriented individual is your Achilles heal in trading.
It really would be interesting to know why you think holding 10 leveraged positions at the same time is beneficial?
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I was feeling that money should be working; not sitting still in my account. So, I’m trying to put every dollar possible to work.
However, my trading rules have been more blurred lately.
And this is what has brought me to the recent realization that maybe I should try the “sniper” approach as opposed to the “shotgun”.
It makes me anxious to just think about how much less trading that could mean. But, I have to think how much more efficient that could be—money and time wise.
You’re not saying what I should or should not do, you’re just talking about your experience. But, I think I’m having very similar experiences to what you’ve had.
And even what Mark Douglas has talked about it in the Disciplined Trader. It’s just a matter of following your trading plan—mechanically.
And while trader psychology may not be the holy grail, it’s certainly a step in the right direction for me.
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Being able to trade on margin means even with one position you can make very respectable returns.
There really is no need to push things too far by having too many (and often highly correlated positions).
If I had to trade bigger in some sense I would up my % risk to 5% on one trade, rather than many smaller positions with risk of 0.5, or 1%
Not sure what your comfortable risking but that is the way I would handle the idle capital conundrum.
You’ll find your own answer - but I’m sure many would agree with me 10 positions is excessive.
If it was a stock portfolio fair enough - but it’s forex and the leverage plays tricks on our mind
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Thanks. I think I’m gonna take a break today. No new positions. Maybe an entry order…
I’m just logging some trades in my journal—and looking for patterns in my losses.
I think I need some time to digest my thoughts.
Besides, right now EUR/USD is tricky, and I’m watching that closely. For the most part, today I’m not actively trading.
By the way, this is a nice little thread, not getting the attention it deserves. I’ll try to follow it more closely from now on.
It’s not easy documenting your progress particularly after a few losses - all motivation can dry up and the last thing you want is to come face to face with your failings.
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