At the start of your journal at the beginning of this month you were talking about longer term trades and long term chart MAs. Does this latest post indicate that you are now focusing far more, even entirely, on short term moves?
I am just interested how you are seeing your trading horizons changing (or not!) as the weeks go by.
Is EU your main currency pair interest?
Great question! You’re calling me out on my own word. Thank you!
My answer is yes and no. I still have a few long-term trades. The DKK I’ll be holding that for about a year.
AUD/SGD, I plan to hold for 6 months. But, that could change during next week.
I previously wanted to trade W1 on one account, then trade D1 on another.
However, someone suggested I try focusing on D1 or H4 for more action. Because so much can happen in week.
I want to see faster profits, and gain more experience , so focusing on the D1 is a good fit for me.
As far as EUR/USD, there is a lot of volatility, and I think there are more opportunities for trading. So, I would like to make it a higher priority.
I’ve been crossing my wires this whole time.
Enter one trade with a MA entry and trendline exit.
Enter the next trade with a trendline bounce entry and exit on a MA bounce. I’m getting better, but I still mix things up.
I think I have to reorganize my trades.
I have two accounts: one for swings and the other for trend line trades and trades with a target profit.
I’ve been mixing my trades on both accounts. It’s turning into a mess.
What I can do is place my TL trades, then turn off all my drawings, and look at the MA only. This would help me trade one strategy without considerinng the other.
I’m looking at several opportunities that I’ve missed due to fear and confusing myself.
For example, I was short on the EUR/USD. From my swing account I opened a trade, but treated it as a trendline trade and closed it upon the first green candle.
I was AFRAID price would retrace all the way back up to the MA20. But, it didn’t all all. It kept going down.
The good thing is that I locked in my profit and opened a new position. Locking in profits is great. But I could have just moved my SL. But, I panicked and just closed it.
I assumed that price would retace back to the MA. But, that’s me expecting the market to do what I want it to do. I’m not the boss here. The market is the boss.
It’s like surfing AGAINST the waves. You USE the wave’s movement in your favor.
I wasn’t doing that.
I’m gonna take some time today to think about some steps to help me organize my trades.
One nice little development is that for the last two days, I only check my trades twice a day: in the morning when I do all my trading, and at night.
It’s quite difficult. But, I think it makes sense. There’s no use trading based on a candle that hasn’t closed yet.
There are so many things that can happen before that candle has closed. So, I’m learning patience. My eagerness to trade is not an entry signal.
My entry for MA entry is an MA crossover or a MA bounce. The bounce will require moving the SL to BE as soon as it no longer interferes with price fluctuation. This will reduce losses and help me survive multiple fakeouts.
This is where I’m having trouble. My MA trades.
My channel trade entries are compromised by my confusion with the MA activity. I thought mixing them would make my decisions clearer. But it’s doing the opposite.
I don’t want to seperate them becaue part of me fears the possibility of the trades contradicting each other, and being wrong twice. That’s fear not logic. Logic says I’ll break even until one of them is proven profitable.
Gotta take some time today to write some ideas down and be more organized.
Here’s a screenshot of my current USD/JPY trade. I was watching this range on the 1D. I was trading the blue resistance line. At first, price bounced it, and I shorted it. However, it continued to break through that resistance and hit my SL.
Fortunately, my strategy calls for me to place an OCO. I did. So, even though my SL got hit with my short order. My buy position got triggered and I’m in the green. If I hadn’t placed an OCO, I would have missed this opportunity to profit. The best part is that I didn’t have to do any additional work-- I just place my order there with an expiration date for approximately in 1 week, and leave it there.
This is a small improvement for me. I just have to keep doing it.
TRADE JOURNAL TEMPLATE MA trade.pdf (30.8 KB)
I also made some adjustments to my trading journal–MA trades only.
I have another template for trend line trades. I’m trying to keep my strategies separate.
Lately, I’m reducing my risk to 1%. However, I could have up to two trades on the same pair. So, the same pair, same movement could have up to 2% risk.
It’s difficult to settle for 1% risk, but as I see the need for risk management, and as I see the potential for profits, I feel slightly less desperate for money, and it’s easier to settle for 1% risk.
Later, as I feel confident in separating my trend line and MA strategies, I can return to 2% risk per trade. In that case, there is the possible scenario in which I’m risking 4% on the same price action. But that would be coincidental.
If I were to do that now, it would be subconsciously intentional. So, 1% risk for now.
In this first picture, it’s an upward channel. Proper SL management would have saved me from the loss. I would have closed at a small profit. But I didn’t move it. I learned about better SL management recently, and I’ll apply it in the future.
This second picuture…I made the mistake of adjusting my support trend line. In hindsight, it doesn’t make sense. I see that now.
I agree with you. It was a very good idea.
I’ve been so busy lately. I spent the weekend journaling instead reviewing charts. I opened several trades without creating the journal entry, or only partially writing the journal. So, when the trade is over, two weeks later, I don’t know why I entered the trade, I don’t have the screen shot…a lot of info is missing.
The journal takes me an hour and half or more when I have to play detective and find out what happened and why. But when I journal the trade before opening the position, it’s about 30 minutes or less.
Now, I’ve closed several positions, and now most of my money is liquid and only one or two prospects. No bueno.
I think of my money like how airlines think of their planes. “If that plane is on the ground, it’s wasting money. Refuel it, clean it, and get it back in the sky.” If my money is liquid, it’s wasting money.
If I have no entry signals, then fine. I just have to wait. But if I haven’t done the research, then I must assume that I’m wasting time/money.
I still have some trades to journal, but I gotta wrap up March 2021. Probably, I’m just gonna have to do some short cut journal. Just wins/losses.
This is the D1 for GBP/AUD. I’m using my trend line strategy. I was on the fence about opening a short trade. I should have opened a trade as soon as it bounced resistance. but I didn’t.
I was about to enter a trade at the dotted yellow line but the R/R for that trade was 1:1.6 and I ALMOST jumped in even though I knew that RR is not worth the trade.
Instead, I’m setting an sell stop at the solid yellow line for a 1:2.9 RR. This is much more acceptable. So, either I get the trade I want, or I’m not trading.
I had a range trade that I wss shorting on the 1D, NZD/USD. It went up to breakout of the range, and hit my stop.
Then, it triggered my long trade that I put in case of a breakout.
But after that it reversed and went bearish again.
That’s pretty annoying. However, each trade was 1% risk, so 2% all together.
I looked to see what I missed that made me lose, but the only thing would be a wider SL.
Possibly that SL would have to be too wide…I’ll take another look at it later.
Sometimes, the market just does what it does. And this is why risk management is key. To help survive these unexpected moments.
Maintaining a journal can help you improve over time.
My errors for March 2021 and the remedies.
You’ll see I’ve repeated the SL management mistake.
Late entry has also gotten me into trouble.
The OCO problem has been ongoing. I’m doing them now, but I gotta make it a permanent habit.
I’ve had a string of losses. Fortunately, only 1% risk each trade.
However, I decided to back test my strategy.
Using a strategy in which I jump at every single signal, I lost 10 trades in a row. That’s not very good.
So, I’m going back to scratch. I’ve done well with range trades and pretty good with channel trades (except for the fake outs).
So, tomorrow I can sleep in because I’m backtesting tomorrow.
And I feel good because I’m getting closer to a strategy that works!
I have two accounts. One account for MA, and one account for trend line trades and short-term trades.
I’m considering switching from focusing my money on MA trades to focusing on channel/range trades.
Basically, I go to M1 and draw my trend lines. I’m looking for patterns that form and try to get an idea of where price wants to go. For example, on USD/CAD here, toward the left there is a channel with orange lines, when I zoom in to the D1. This helps me set target profits. These are my favourite types of trades because once I open the trade and…I set it and forget it!
I’m still feeling things out. But one of my rules is not giving up. Winners are not born, they’re made.
Another trader posted that he’s quitting after two years. He makes me think of this picture.
Great things can happen if quitting is not an option. You’d be surprised what you can do. Just gotta adapt. Small changes–that’s it. If what you’re doing doesn’t work, just try to figure out why. It could be as simple as asking a question. Instead of making a thread “I’m quitting, who’s coming with me?”, it could have easily been “I wanna quit, but I’m staying, who’s with me?”.
He could have asked for suggestions, or just read books. However, I don’t know that cat’s history or struggles. I don’t know what he’s going thru.
We’re talking about forex. It’s literally a ticket to your dream lifestyle. Something like that doesn’t come easy. Success can happen to anyone, we just have to be willing to do what it takes.
Anyway…trend lines. I’m considering switching to a TL strategy that doesn’t include the MA at all. Basically, I have to wait for 3 bounces and draw my lines. Then, set my order and an OCO for back up.
I can still trade breakouts, but you never know what can happen. I’d hate to not profit from big swings. There are some huge swings out there. I suppose I could try swing trading, but the MA20 on the D1 isn’t working for me.
Not at the moment, at least. Perhaps, there’s something that I’ve overlooked. I’ll keep testing and thinking about it. Sometimes, the thing you’re looking for is closer than you think.
Aah, but do you!!! (not even a little occasional peep at it?) Go on, be honest! 
haha. Sure, I’ll take a look if I’m reviewing charts. But, I don’t think “oh man, price is reversing. I should close.” I just leave it alone. I don’t adjust my SL if I’m trading a range. In a channel, depending on what’s going on, I’ll move my SL to BE, but that’s it.
Even though, I’m looking at the chart. I don’t have to adjust my order. It’s completely different from how I’ve been swing trading.
@tommor had mentioned before. “don’t be lazy! make the winners big winners”. But I didn’t understand how to do this exactly.
I got the idea to wait until it’s safe to move my SL to BE or enough profit to cover my spread, then I can add another 1% position. At that point I could even risk an additional 2%, because my original 1% risk is protected by my SL.
To do this, I have to pay attention to my trades. Gotta reveiw them each morning. Can’t leave them for two days because I could miss an opportunity.
I was backtesting my MA strategy on the D1 EUR/USD chart. I just picked a random time: end of October 2012…I think. I traded every signal and lost 10 times. That’s bad.
Basically, it was a consolidation period. But I was hoping to catch the breakout at the very beginning of the swing–right from the MA bounce/breakthru.
I went back to the drawing board and thought about focusing on ranges and channels.
This has been bouncing around inside my coconut all day. And I had a moment of clarity: I can still use the MA, but at the right time. I just have to look. It’s not suitable for all pairs at all times.
Here’s an example:
There’s a rhythm of consolidation/swing. Using the MA20, 35, 50 I just have to wait for the three of them to come together. I call this conjunction The Three Kings. Or, if you’re a fan of the Dark Crystal, we can just call it the Great Conjunction.
The only problem is that there are not too many of these. However, this is one technique that helps me avoid too many fake outs. I just have to look for a consolidation period and look for the Three Kings. With that kind of consolidation a swing is bound to happen. I can set a straddle order on the outside of the highs/lows of that consolidation, and just wait. Once it breaks out and clears my BE point, I can add 2% more. Now, I can wait for price to cross the MA as my exit signal. At the MA20, I can close my first 1% position, then at the MA35, close my final 2%.
I’ve noticed it in different pairs. There may not be so many opportunities like this, but this is one way to trade the MA. One strategy in my tool box.
