Trading Without Charts

WARNING IM NOT A TEACHER
this post is kinda crappy and probably doesn’t explain how I have been trading very well so be gentle.

*** Introduction ***

You can skip this it is just a background info on my attempt to develop a personal scalping system.

I have been having success trading without charts over the course of this last week and a half. About 1-3 hours of trading a day before I get tired of it. And about 10-30 trades during that period of time.

One market hypothesis is that past prices don’t affect future prices. This is not fact but I felt like this idea supported my method which is essentially tape reading in a simple form.

I found through trading 7 years of historical tick data played at 10-30x the normal speed it was incredibly easy to “ride” price waves at that speed. So I have been slowly decreasing the playback speed and have recently started trading live. With slightly lower success results but none the less success.

*** My General Rules ***

[B] 1. Hide your “Unrealized P&L” It is only there to inflict greed and fear and by only paying attention to price I seem to go from zero to hero when trading. I manage my risk through low leverage and cutting losers quickly[/B]

  1. Take profits are manually taken so they range anywhere from 0-10 pips.
    (I leave a trade when I believe price as slowed sufficiently that staying in the trade is increasing my risk instead of my profits.)

  2. Stop losses are quick and manual Later explained my stops are typically 0.1-0.5 pips from my entry so losses are hopefully 1-1.5 pips total. The manual stop means pay attention and be quick because price can go negative quickly so cut em quick.

  3. I trade during Asian sessions. I read that price seems to range more during asian sessions and since finding a trend requires looking at and deciphering past data on charts and picking the right direction which I seem to get wrong more than not I choose to be unbiased in my trade directions.

  4. This is considered scalping so who knows. I hear that there are no long term successful scalpers. Which is why I have been testing this on the 7 years of tick data at various portions throughout each year. But times change so don’t bet the farm, bet demo bucks instead.

*** Trading Method ***

After prepping yourself this is how my typical trade setup goes.

Example:

USD/JPY
Spread 0.6-1.2
MBTrading
500 Dollars Deposit
1000 unit trades

So my last trade went something like this.
I watch the last digits of the bid hit these numbers in this order.
887,886,883,885,888,
883,884,880,878,877,
876,879,882,875,874,
875,877,880,875,876,
870,865,864,870,867,
869,866,867,866,865,

I paid attention to
how quickly price was dropping and returning back up.
and how far price had gone down and when it had stopped pushing lower numbers

I felt that I could get in at around 867 and exit hopefully at a higher price

My stop would be at 863 (.1 pips lower than the previous low of 864)

I then wait for price to make this similar slowing down of movement but in a positive direction to signal my exit for TP.

In a nutshell I watch price to get a feel for its average movements and the speed at which they react come, then enter when price has trouble continuing those movements.

Example movements

up 2, down 5
up 2, down 5
up 3, down 4
up 3, down 3
up 4, down 3
go long here

Sometimes i do trading without the charts with the help of percentage price changes alone so that it will help me pick better trades. Scalping this was can be good too.

Interesting technique, I will agree with you fully, when the past price action is laid out for all to see it becomes incredibly hard to not automatically associate future price movement with where it has been in the past, our brains are hardwired to interpret patterns, but it is crucial to understand that the market is in a truly unique state each and every moment of each and everyday. So I can see how this method could be very beneficial at producing unbiased results. Cheers to opening me up to a thought I would never have considered before. Good trading out there!