Trading journal

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
607

My first time hearing about it. I had to look it up. Basically it’s a system right? Based on trading cycles?

If it works for someone, then great. I don’t want anyone’s system. I’ll consider other people’s suggestions, but not someone’s cookie cutter strategy.

I want my own strategy. Everything I need is in the charts. To be honest, I have no concern for what strategy other’s are using. This endeavor is more than just about money for me. It’s a journey, and I don’t want anyone else’s input pulling me in a different direction.

Trading is 100% personal. At some point you have to make the strategy your own. The strategy will eventually morph into something else as you use it.

If you give me an ABC strategy, I have to adapt my personality to that. It’s more natural to adapt a strategy to me, than to adapt myself to a strategy. My personal flaws will come out and morph that strategy and it will start to fail.

But once, I practice and study, eventually I will mold the strategy to fit me.

That requires the same amount of work as any other random strategy though. There are NO shortcuts. I really believe that. If someone had a killer strategy, I’m curious why would they take time out of their day to start developing a marketing campaign for it.

If I have a killer strategy, I have so much more free time, and I have money. Why would I occupy myself with another job? I’m free to travel, buy an original SEGA GENESIS and play Ninja Gaiden all day, go surfing, eat ice cream, visit friends and family, test drive a ferrari, and finally finish the LOTR book series.

Nah. Why do all that when I can spend time making commercials for youtube?

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608

Yesterday, I took time to find some programs for mind mapping. I found some free ones, installed them on my microSD chip, and I got to work on it a bit today. It’s gonna take me a while to finish it. And I’m gonna have to do multiple diagrams for different scenarios.

But I have to make sure they don’t contradict each other. And I also have to test it. It’s fun, though!

609

Yes something along those lines. The people that use these concepts say they trade in line with the big banks and they say the markets are manipulated. They say the big banks use market structure and S/R levels to stop retail traders like us out as they know using S/R levels where we’re likely to place our stops etc.

I dont know if i would call it a strategy but more a few concepts that helps them have an insight on what the big banks are doing.

I watched a video on youtube though, and there was a guy saying that big banks are more likely to be fighting one another rather than trying to fight us retail traders because we represent so little of the market!

Agree on this. You just have to keep going until you have something that sort of works, you then tweak it multiple times until it works better and is in alignment with your lifestyle!

Hope you smashed the markets today! I for one didn’t, gonna make an entry into my journal in a bit.
Good luck with it mate!

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610

I agree with this. I’m sure the banks aren’t worried about such small amounts of money coming from retail traders. Perhaps there are ways to figure out what they’re doing against each other, though!

That part makes sense to me.

611

A large bank (liquidity provider) has always got to be the counterparty to an institution. And institutions will always be conducting transactions to procure goods and services even if the currency is working against them.

Easier to explain with an example:

Pretend you’re in the treasury department of an airline. Your department’s made responsible for all the fuel payments. When fuel prices rise the airline still has to buy fuel. It won’t stop operations just because the cost of fuel shot up, because that leads to even more losses. So you’ll hedge against the fuel price rising even higher.

You’d shop around all the liquidity providers and get the best price available on the market. You’d still be buying fuel at a considerable cost but you’ll be implementing risk controls to protect yourself from even larger losses. You’ve achieved your goal of protecting your organizations future operating capital from a potentially volatile and crippling situation. And the bank makes money from being the counterparty.

In this instance there’s no fighting or tug of war between parties. They are both winners because they both secure their objectives.

Edit: Bear in mind that organizations need to know how much money they have to work with for their financial year. Budgeting among the various departments, more often than not, is planned to the tee and is pretty tight. They cannot afford to have an unknown open ended risk even if everything indicates the price will work in their favor. They will still prefer hedging to avoid black swan events that could wipe them out. For airlines they were crises like 9/11 & COVID.

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612

I’ve been thinking about going back to demo. I’ve made some mistakes, and my trading hasn’t been going well. However, I see some price action now, and my strategy is correct. Executing the strategy properly due to fear or misbelief is another thing.

JPY crosses are starting to reverse. Will they continue? I don’t know. But they’re looking that way now. Had I been more confident, and followed my strategy, I would have gotten in at the right time. I would have lost two or three times (as my strategy allows) and then I would have had gotten the perfect entry and I’d be catching the swing.

But that’s not what happened. Also, I’ve been trying to catch some retracement trades. I don’t like them. My strategy can be applied to retracements, but retracements are so unpredictable, I think maybe it’s best for me to stay out of them. I’m not sure.

So, now I’m thinking of putting my training wheels back on and going back to demo. But now, after seeing how my strategy worked on these last few pairs, (even though I messed up), I’m wondering if perhaps I’m as bad a trader as I feel like I am. Maybe my successes are clouded by my losses. Maybe my faults are overshadowing my victories so much that I’m OVER correcting.

Maybe trading more isn’t the answer. Maybe the answer is trading LESS. Maybe I’m closer than I think. Going after swing trades are the big fish, for me. And, maybe going after the smaller fish are what’s killing me. Sometimes, S/R trades are right on the money, and sometimes, they’re random disasters. But that falls on me because I’m the one drawing them up.

But if I can be more selective about those kinds of trades and focus more on momentum and swing trades, I’ll do better. Maybe.

Hmmmmm. I’ve got a lot going thru my mind. You know, I think I’m closer than I realise. I had some losses that I think are distracting me from what I’m doing right. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m focusing on my losers too much.

It gets hard to tell if I’m doing things right because I’m watching so much. I found a trade that I missed this morning because I left a note to myself to not bother checking it for now. I ended up checking on it anyway, and I missed a nice trade. So, it’s a problem of too much information to keep up with.

It’s becoming impractical. I follow some trades, get some losses, check on other trades that I missed out on, then I come on here talking about losses. If I followed just 5 pairs, for example, I can follow all of them, and examine every little move that happens.

I know I’m close because I’m seeing how my strategy works in real time. But my execution is a problem. I’m gonna go back to demo, and take a chill pill.

613

Not sure if the jap pair s are starting to reverse yet Dushimes

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614

You’re right. They could continue bullish. Could be a retracement or reversal.

I’m treating the move as a reversal for now, until I see a sign that it will continue bullish.

That’s the key for me. Paying attention to what’s in the chart; not just what I want to happen.

The market is always right.

615

Today been pretty exceptional because of the fed meeting yesterday . You never know.Yen might he tops next week even then that might not be a continuation as you know

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616

Taking time today analyze losses. I’m grateful for my account with Forex.com. They have a downloadable platform and I can see all my trades, the open and close for date and price.

IG has it also, but I haven’t been using IG as much because I had a problem and had to move my money.

Anyway, market’s closed, and it’s time for some analysis.

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617

I’m less than halfway thru my analysis and already I can see a big problem. Most of them time, I’m just not following my strategy—I’m self-sabotaging.

Not exactly a pleasant thing to learn. Or is it?

It means the strategy works, the problem is ME.

So, at least I’ve solved part of the puzzle. The glass is half full!

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618

If that is true then the realisation is a big step forward! :slight_smile:

When things are not working right people often tend to tinker with the strategy or endlessly change their strategy, neither of which is going to resolve anything if the problem is in the driver and not the vehicle…

Now you can focus on the core issue! But don’t let the realisation depress you, it is a common feature mostly found amongst those who are intelligent, analytical and devoted to their work.

It can be resolved but you will probably find that this characteristic, or tendency, will always be present in your trading! :smiley:

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619

Well, that’s nice! Haha

I think you’re right. Thanks!! I’ll have to overshadow my tendencies with profitable habits.

I’m gonna practice in demo for a bit, then go to trading micro lots live.

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620

I’ve been guilty of that twice in the past. I think it is a good outcome - to realize that you can set rules, then break them. By analyzing the results, you move forward, become smarter, and less likely to cause those variances. That is what I call them - variances. And about real mistakes - like if you were supposed to go long and went short instead, or you miscalculated otherwise, my own analysis after 760 trades was that on balance they were insignificant. There were about 20 mistakes out of the 760 trades, and they all added up to about 0.01% of total trades. The far greater contributor to the lack of positive edge was where I had made rules and broken them - sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously.

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621

Yeah, so actually JPY did a big retrace yesterday and faked me out.

It made me question my strategy a bit. Not completely, but made me wonder about some small details that were worth looking into.

The good thing is that as I’ve been doing my analysis, I’ve been keeping the pictures if charts.

So, if I have a question, I don’t have to start from scratch everytime—I can just look at the collection of charts I have already.

I haven’t finished, but I like the idea of having a collection of data at my disposal.

622

Watching fewer pairs is much easier on the brain.

However, I still missing certain moves that I should be catching.

I think I have to be willing to take more calculated risks. And also pay closer attention to market moves.

It’s like I’m being strictly reactionary and not anticipatory at all.

I’ll keep working on it. I’m currently trading micro lots. 0.01 lots. It is a bit of relief.

I have worked on a diagram, but just one. I’ve been taking pictures of charts the past two days.

But I have to put that info into a mechanical strategy.

Some moves are so unique, it’s hard to have a strategy for it. Or is that just an excuse? I think it’s just an excuse. That makes me sound like there is no strategy.

Also, I want to make an effort to be more productive with my time. I want to spend more time doing forex. I’ll be taking time to reorganize my daily schedule to include more sleep and more forex time.

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623

This week was an actual set back. I was studying retracements and was trying to catch all the ups and downs of different pairs I’m trading.

Several losses. The good thing is that it was in demo. There are lots of clues to when a retracement is gonna end or begin, but it’s kinda new to me still.

Basically, it has me wondering if it’s best to get in on a reversal early and just ride it out to see what happens, or go after all the movements…

624

I think you are very wise using demo for more experience I know some of the most experienced and shrewdest on here still do.

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625

You’re right about that. I’m trading my normal size lots on there to make it more realistic.

Do you still use demo sometimes @greenscorpio ?

626

No I’m afraid not ,I’m very selective regarding choice of trade these days and just wait for what I’m looking for.i have argued the difference between demo and live regarding getting use to financial gains and losses.Though in your case to test and practice it’s an excellent way to test and gain more ,without losing.money .

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