I think it’s great that you are so open to feedback and that you are willing to learn from your mistakes. It sounds like you are making good progress in your trading journey. Keep up the good work!
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Weird. I’m looking at trades. I’m wondering why some trades break resistance, and some don’t.
I’ve done tallies, but I haven’t found anything that gave a satisfying answer. The tallies show me what happens, but no interpretation. Well, at least not this time.
I was looking at two examples where price breaks resistance, but I just couldn’t understand why.
If I see a bearish sign, then a bullish sign, then bearish, and bullish again, which one am I supposed to follow? It was really bugging me.
I eventually got my answer. You know what I did? I zoomed out! Simple!
I zoomed out and saw that there was a previous higher resistance. So, these bearish and bullish signs were all just part of the random walk!
Wait to get in, never wait to get out.
The only person I can remember disagreeing with that was an estate agent trying to sell me a property who was telling me the time to wait was after you had bought.
Obviously he was selling an investment. That viewpoint won’t work in trading.
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Right. Timing is key. Several times I waited too long, only to watch my profits shrink. One time, I had my entire account up 30%, I didn’t understand my exit signals very well, but I had a gut feeling that the market was about to turn.
And sure enough, the market turned and my profits shrank down to about 10%. It was horrible trading.
So, yeah. timing exits is important. A bad entry will turn into a loss, but a bad exit will just mean less profit.
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Timing exits is the hardest thing in trading.
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I was looking at a CAD/NOK chart. It’s kinda funny.
During the course of about two and half months price pushed resistance. During that time there were two separate bearish signals that pushed resistance. It would start trending, but never gave any bullish signal and just pulled back to resistance.
That means that I would have to take two losses during the course of two and a half months before I caught the third signal which actually started trending.
The problem is that there was ONE opportunity to go long before price pulled back to retest resistance. But the signal is so questionable, that if I’m open to taking that signal, I would have to be open to taking such questionable signals all the time.
And I’m trying to get away from such trading. That means, I just have to eat that loss.
It is worth remembering that a significant volume of foreign exchange deals are done by businesses and funds and not just by speculative punters taking a view on rate change direction. Their profit is based on other factors and not just on where the exchange rate might be in the future. In other words, they do their transactions whenever the rate is “right” for objectives. Some examples:
An importer buying goods in a foreign currency will buy whenever the exchange rate gives a competitive price to sell in his domestic currency.
Oil is mainly priced in USD. Importers will take advantage of favourable exchange rates to buy in.
Pension/investment funds move funds between various sources, and in various currencies, to meet their porfolio objectives and will act when the rates are most favourable.
These kinds of business activities tend to form certain common and repetitive levels of exchange rates where transactions are activated - hence supply/demand.
But these levels are not to be found in the short term timeframes frequented by speculative activity. In these cases S/R is usually driven purely by short term traders looking for such levels and self-fulfilling them in the near term and in otherwise directionless markets.
These speculative S/R are not really based on any powerful underlying fundamental driving force, rather, they may be just a fibonacci level, for example, or a common MA like a 200-period SMA. They may hold and reverse multiple times but will be swept away in an instance whenever there is an underlying concrete force driving price.
I think this kind of lines up with what I was trying to explain above. What might appear to be S/R in a short TF chart disappears completely in a longer TF such as a daily or weekly or monthly chart. I.e. those TFs that reflect the underlying activities of the major commercial and financial interests.
at least that’s my take on it…
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I just finished my trading. No new positions. I had a couple stops that got hit. Nothing worth re-opening.
Several pairs are just doing the random walk. Either that, or I’m not certain of what direction it’s trying to move. So, I’m staying out.
There were a few pairs that normally I would have traded because they looked like something was about to happen. ¨Something¨ is a very vague word in terms of strategy. It really just sounds like there’s no signal, but I feel like jumping in. That’s not a good reason to open a position, and it never was. That’s never worked consistently for me. That’s why I didn’t take those trades today.
There were also some signs that I missed, and I was thinking of trying to jump on that moving train, but the losses I would incur
I’m trying to understand what price is trying to do in some charts, and I feel a little rushed. I take for granted how long it can take for a sign to appear on D1. It could be days, or even weeks.
Patience, young padawan.
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I’m looking at my EUR/USD trade from last June…
I wrote a long post explaining a problem I noticed in my trading. But my connection dropped and I lost my draft.
Anyway, a problem I noticed is that I don’t follow the signals when I see them. I noticed it in my EUR/USD trades last June, and also in an SEK/JPY chart from 2022. They had the same bearish signal, but EUR/USD had a very clear contradictory signal, which I missed.
Next, I have to figure out WHY…
I’m not really practicing trading today. Instead, I’m reviewing my mistakes.
I’m realizing that I have to be flexible in my trading. Meaning that just because price bounced support, it might not hit resistance. If price decides to reverse before hitting resistance, I have to go with it. I gotta just follow the signs, AND be on the lookout for contradictory signs.
I just have to be patient, and try to follow the signs and ride the trend.
I’m looking forward to the coming week! Let’s go!!
I’m starting to feel like my practice charts aren’t really helping much. It’s something to do, but I think walking thru charts is a better help.
I like the idea of practicing charts. It keeps me busy, and makes me feel like I’m being productive. But it’s just a screenshot. A very close screenshot. It’s difficult to see the whole picture.
I’ve started walking thru some charts. That means I pick a chart, and just mark the chart as I move forward. It’s not the same as my speed trading charts, but I can draw on the chart and see everything as well.
When I look at the charts, everything seems so simple. The clues are there–right in my face, and I’m getting better at interpreting them.
But I’m not reaching my potential yet. Nowhere near it. Getting closer, though. And when I start getting steady profits, it’ll be about the trade–not the money.
I’m so grateful for everyone here who keeps talking about demo, demo, demo. If I didn’t swallow my pride and go back to demo, I’d have lost so much cash. Almost all of it, actually. But thanks to demo, I still have my funds and can continue trading live when I’m ready.
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I’ve had the same chart on my screen for almost two hours. I see how it should be traded.
I took a look at a CAD/CHF chart, and I’m seeing the same simple signs. I think I’m reaching a point that there’s not much left for me to learn.
I don’t mean that I know everything about my strategy/trading. I mean that for my current level, there’s not much left to learn. Nothing new to learn. At this point, I’m learning the same thing over and over.
In order to advance to my next phase, it’s not about studying or practicing. It’s about trading the market correctly: observe the signs, mark S/R, wait, and take the correct signs.
For now, it’s not about studying–it’s about DOING. Not studying, but application.
A speaker I like named Eric Thomas said you can’t keep studying forever. At some point you gotta get tested. He said you can’t keep praying and singing. At some point your faith has to get tested. You gotta get tested by life. Cry if you must, but get up and get to work.
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One thing I look for is contradictory signs. My strategy requires I look for contradictory signs near reversal signs. Usually, they’re pretty straightforward.
However, I was just looking at an AUD/JPY chart from 2021, and there were THREE contradictory signs within FOUR days.
How confusing, AND annoying!!
The final contradictory sign was actually at a support level. Unfortunately, not all contradictory signals occur at S/R levels.
Something I started doing once in a while is looking at a complete chart and just map out what my strategy would look like–losses, S/R levels, entries and exits.
There’s no challenge of reading the chart as it unfolds, but it shows me what roller coasters can occur. And now I’m trying to label each trade and explain what’s happening and why I took it. This helps me cement my strategy application, rather than ¨I don’t know, it just seemed like a good trade¨.
I’ve been feeling a bit burnt out lately. I have to keep going. So, I’ve reduced my study blocks from 45 minutes at a time to 30 minutes at a time. It’s been less stressful on my mind. Instead of thinking about my discipline, I can focus on trading.
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I keep missing the same kind of trades that I’ve been talking about for the past year +. I’ve caught a few trades, but not as much as I should.
So, there’s SOME improvement. But it can be much much better. It seems there are levels to what I want to achieve. Levels of understanding charts. It’s frustrating because I thought it wasn’t a process. I thought I would simply correct the error in my thinking.
Well, it’s not that simple for me. Most of the time, I see what I should do, but I have doubt, so I don’t take that trade because I think I should wait for a better sign. I think I’m doing the right thing, but in actuality, I’m giving in to fear.
I’m still practicing trading, and analyzing charts. I’d like to make more trades that are in alignment with the strategy, and less of the ones that afterwards I wonder why I even took that trade.
Patience, young padawan.
My biggest challenge is the random walk that occurs between S/R bounces. It can be very confusing, yet very profitable.
This is where I have to improve. I’ll work on collecting some practice charts, specifically for this. I’ll get started on this right now.
Taking some time to review my losses from the past few weeks. The fear factor is real. I already know that.
Recently, I was going long on a bear trend trend I thought was turning bullish. But then there was a very strong bearish sign. I didn’t take it because I was in denial. I did the opposite of what I should have done because I assumed I was wrong. And now that trend is bearish, of course…
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It’s funny. I never gave much thought to prop firms. But Alphahavoc’s prop firm challenge got me wondering!
If you have proven to yourself in demo that you can trade profitably, then you don’t have to worry about trying to build up funds, or trying to work extra hours so that you can save up $30k. That’ll take way to long.
The prop firm is the perfect solution. How else can you trade someone else’s money with such limited risk?
copy trading, hedge funds
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This is good. I distrust and disregard all s/r levels on my trade time-frame, D1. But what you point out make sme think maybe I should be taking a look at monthly and yearly s/r zones.
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