Cheers akeakamai, appreciated the thoughts.
I kind of feel a lot lighter without the (fairly…) mysterious (to me at least) COT report & OI being added to the mix of attempting to divine the day’s directional bias. M Flow, S/R, higher TF Fibs, all stuff i understand, will keep plugging away.
cheers.
Hi guys. I am still here and really enjoying the thread.
I had a 5% positive month of May and a ropey start to June but I am happy with my progress and have got a hold on my discipline demons which was about my biggest stumbling block, thus far, to consistant, modest, compoundable gains :59:
My question to y’all is on how you used the US Dollar index. I note some folk look for S/R levels which I don’t as to my mind, S/R levels are clusters of buy/sell orders at identifiable implicit or expressed values. As folk don’t trade the usdx directly (maybe with ETFs a bit?) I’m not sure S/R applies but I find it useful for identifing a trend and try to trade with it, or at a minimum not trade against the usdx.
I don’t apply indicators to the usdx but with a top down analysis I think it can be a useful momentum indicator as well.
Is this how you guys use it or do you do something else?
ICT this one is for you!!!its the best way I can show my appreciation for all your hard work as this trade,although small was easy with all you have taught,without well that would be a different story!!!
Many thanks.
First real live London open!
Trading strategy:
Live mocro account Euro 5k,currently unleveraged,risking 0.05% per trade,max 2 per day eg if the first fails one more and out for day!
Trading Cable or Fibre london open/New york open.
Reasons/criteria for trade:
OTE pulling fib from yesterdays L to H.
Confluence of DS2, 79% and institutional figure 6350.
Price bounced off this fib configuration all day of the 1st june
Stop loss:6330,institutional fig acted as S/R 26th may.
entry:6360,institutional & OTE,acted as support 5th,6th & 10th may.
Daily chart opened at bottom of candle(tip of ITC a few days ago).
Take profit was set and I had to go out,if not I would have scaled out profit and let trade run.
Smart money tool indicated a divergance on both 15m & 1h starting at 07.45(Note platform and all my times are GMT+1).
Pivots are NY time.
Any feedback/critique would be greatly appreciated.
I have 2 questions about the trade,can anyone see how I could have entered earlier and caught more of the move?
I currently have to close a trade and re enter to scale some profit out,is there a better way?
Many thanks to all contributors,you’re all helping me along the way!
Jeff
P.s how do I get my chart pic uploaded full size on page and not as an attachment?
Haha, I saw the heading, and did a quick search on Google, and realized it was a broker… dang. Looks like I’m back to using the web browser. The Skype idea sounds good! Why don’t you just do my analysis every night for me too? Perhaps even trade! 
Regards,
Clark.
Hmm, that’s a good question… I apply some basic price action such as S&R and candlestick formations to determine a short term retracement or a continuation. Generally, I am only looking to figure out what the next daily candle stick will be, and usually, I’m pretty darn accurate! I think with the state the US economy is in right now, it’s pretty mixed so I feel trendlines are “slow” in catching retracements. But figuring out the next daily candle is a breeze and that’s all you really need to trade the next session!! =)
Regards,
Clark.
Best of luck AK, will be looking forward to seeing your progress. =) If anyone here has fully grasped what ICT has taught to date, it’d be you. Just remember to not feel pressured.
I just need a few more months, I think before I feel confident enough to “trade” and not just practise like I am now. If you don’t mind me asking, do you have a rough idea of how long this 100% ROI will take?
Regards,
Clark.
Here’s a rookie question for the crowd. Is non farm payroll scheduled for the first Friday of the month every month?
Yep, first Friday of the month every month
Thanks Clark that was just what I was looking for, a different way of using the tool.
I usually only use the lower TFs just prior to opening a position, basically as a “gross error check” but adding a daily directional bias, especially if it adds confluence to the Asian H/L is something I’ll be looking at this coming week.
We’re talking about the US Dollar index btw.
Hey Jeff,
this one looks like turtlesoup to me - again hehe. Didn’t trade this one today, just the move from S1 to CPP.
But maybe I see this pattern too often - but it would have worked out again 
Could also depend on news, not quite sure about that. I will watch it closer and see how often it occurs and how often its accurate
greetings
Oh, the 100% was referring to the increase from 2500 to 5000, but I do have a rough estimate for getting to $10,000…and that’s about June, 2012. So doubling in about a year, takes about 6% per month, consistently. My real goal is to have $60,000 in about 4 years (give or take a year), and I will be able to make some more deposits in between that time. That’s the point I get to quit my job (again, hahaha) and do FT trading!
and thanks for your kind words! You’ll be trading ‘for real’ soon enough, I’m sure. Have some fun in University too if you can, are you going to U of C?
Cool, thanks!
Goodluck AK! Personally I’d keep risk low until I got used to trading that much, after all that is a 100% increase. Later when you’re used to the volume you can always up the risk. But, it is entirely up to you and either way best of luck!
Turtlesoup is not a pattern that I know enough about to trade, and so if someone could supply me with some information I would be very grateful. Is it just a case of raiding the stops?
It’s when price is trading is trying to break a resistance/support near another resistance/support level, when it’s ranging in a small box. Once it finally breaks the first S/R it will propably break the other too, just too reverse in the opposite direction. That’s what I caught from the ICT videos I’ve seen some of them and most of them worked out really nice. But I was asleep when it occured today =)
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the fib represents a low to high in 4h chart
greetings
Thanks! Your words of caution are well heeded. “Trader’s Vertigo” is very real, I experienced it myself when I first traded an account over $10,000. It’s similar to the “went Live and choked” phenomenon you see so often. When you get to an account size that you perceive as “large”, funny things happen in your risk perception. I kept depositing money to keep my account over $10,000 and I kept losing it and dropping under the 10K mark. It was like an invisible wall. I mean the methods I was trading back then were crap compared to what I’m trading now, but I still remember that bizarre 10K wall.
But anyways, last year I was trading a ~$15,000 account, and I was risking…let’s just say a lot… so the volumes I’ll be handling with this $5000 account still feel small lol.
I didn’t mean to build it up this much in the thread, but it’ll be interesting to see what the attention does to my results. I don’t feel nervous right now, but maybe that’ll change when the bets are on the table 
Basically yes. Read up on “The Turtles” , a group of trained breakout traders, and the pattern should make lots of sense.
I found a nice pictograph of what we’re talkin about. I didn’t look too hard to find this one, but it’s got the basics. I’m sure there are clearer examples if you looked harder…
Hi Ali,
I think ICT mentioned this book in a video if you want to learn about turtlesoup but also he mentioned to teach that as well. The book is : Street Smarts by Laurence Connors and Linda Raschke.
[B]Everywhere I look, I see 100 pip trades![/B] :eek:
Just searched for it on Amazon… bit of an expensive book, but it looks like it probably has a lot more setups than just turtle soup.
