One problem or area of focus is cutting losses when I am trading. I have rode out the L/O session thinking the fiber will drop . I hope I will be in the profit zone when NYO happens . What I have learned over tonight is to set and let it run its course regardless how the “PIPS” may fall and use my own analysis for trades. When I started typing the post I have reached breakeven. Hopefully it will continue.
Anyone got any ideas on today’s cable action? Lifeless!!!
I’m curious about the poll at the top of this thread. As it reaches such huge numbers of pages, posts and hits. It’s interesting to see the final tally of the poll. At one time you could click on the numbers and see who voted. Did that feature get disabled?
I closed the trade with $40 profit. I have to drop the live account and go back to demo. I am hovering around what I invested into this market 3 months ago. So, I guess that is a milestone and not blowing another account.I will get this thanks Mike for all the info.
Have the ‘How Professionals Use Indicators’ and ‘High Probability Price Patterns’ videos been posted any where yet , ICT did post they would be up Sunday , the links on first post still show processing and nothing on livestream.
cheers
mark
He may have said sunday but he didnt say what sunday
Well I took my first trade of 2012 at the LO on Fiber.
I entered a short just above the high of the asian range at 1.2880. I had a convincing area of resistance right above that figure from previous swing lows on the 1 hour chart, as well as a previous asian range that price dropped from and had not yet traded back up to (hopefully supply). I am at work at the moment so I don’t have my charts, but there was also a pivot in the 1.2910 area. I placed my stop at 1.2915 to clear that area of resistance, and the previous asian range lows by a few pips. Since my stop was 35 pips, my first TP was 35 pips down at 1.2845 for half off with the remaining half going to 1.2760. Anyone who has looked at the charts can see that unfortunately for me, this was a loss.
I have funded an account with $1000 to start off 2012 with. I wanted to start it with an amount that I will have no emotional attachment to and will be able to follow all of the rules with.
Basically I have 2 plans as to what to do with wins or losses. If the account should have a drawdown to $500, I will stop trading until I have reviewed [B]ALL[/B] of my trades, and review [B]ALL[/B] of the videos again. On the other hand, for every 20% in wins that I achieve, I am going to boost the account by 10%, until I get to a $5000 balance which then should have more cash significance. By setting up these guidelines for funding, I am ensuring that I am not rewarding myself for losses by adding to a losing account and constantly bringing it back to the original $1000. However I am also ensuring that I am pulling consistant wins out of the market, the account will grow rather quickly by rewarding wins.
For the next trade, my risk will now drop from 2% down to 1%. Hopefully I can bring the account back up to $1000+ and bring the risk back to 2%, but if it should be a loser, down to .5% I go. Using ICT’s risk guidelines, and my reward for wins, it should be easier to hit $5000 than $500 
Sigh, I just can’t stop beating myself up about this week’s fiber trade 
It could’ve been so amazing if I had just trusted my analysis What do you guys do when you make like 5 losses in a row? I’m thinking of taking a break for a few days to gather myself…
Hey PureMuscle…
Sounds like you’re letting your emotions come into play. I wouldn’t worry about missed trades or losses. I missed the big fiber trade as well, but no worries, i know there will be plenty more to come!
As for 5 losses in a row… I would definitely take a break. We are near the end of the week anyways so I would take today and tomorrow off, enjoy the weekend and come back fresh next week.
I like this plan. If you are going to go the route to reduce risk per trade to 1% on the next trade, then .5% if another loser, I assume you will stay at .5% until your account equity returns.
I like this. The part that struck me wrong was waiting until the account would be at $500 to review trades. You had a losing trade today. So your at $980. If you have another loss a the 1% mark…you’re at $970.20. To get to $500 risking .5% per trade would be an incredible losing record where you would be systematically losing money. This would be at least 50 more losing trades and more because scaling down your entry to .5% means the amount risked is reduced every trade.
By the time you got to a balance of $500…you’d have to double your account to get to breakeven.
What I might suggest is if you get to $900 account balance using the risk guidelines you state…you’d still have your 2 losses taking you down to $971. plus another 20 losing trades or so. I’d take the break then and review what’s going on because you’ve lost 22 more trades than your winners. Figuring out what’s wrong and fixing it then means about 11% is needed to return to break even.
Think about it…do you need more than 50 losing trades to know that something’s wrong. Wouldn’t you know somethings wrong at 20 trades lost? And the recovery of 11% is much more realistic than a 100% recovery.
Shoot…I might even think taking a reset at $950 might be appropriate. At that point, you’re still about 10 trades down.
I agree with learnintopimppips on this. That plan sounds golden. But that is a very good point made there.
I would take the rest of today (which shouldn’t be hard given no kill zones left today) and tomorrow. Separate the emotion and the urge to make it up. There will be other trades.
I would take this week as a lesson to trust your own analysis and trading plan and not let the thread influence you. That’s the lesson here.
I have been trading primarily short this week. I’ve taken 4 short trades. 2 profitable, and 2 not profitable. I am down a little on shorts this week as my losses were bigger than my gains in terms of dollars. Even though this week has been very bullish…trading short didn’t have to mean unprofitability…or if you are unprofitable, not by a lot and could be close to breakeven.
What I would suggest is looking at the 5 losing trades (I’m assuming they were shorts) and figure out what went wrong there. It was possible to trade short and be profitable or breakeven this week. It’s not solely a case of having the directional bias wrong. So far this week, the correct bias was obviously bullish. It makes it harder to have success going against the correct bias. But having the bias correct isn’t required to maintain capital.
That’s my biggest learning from this week. My bias has been very bearish and taken many shorts. But I’ve preserved capital which I view as a success. So far this week, to have a movement of about 300 pips up. And maintain capital (I’m down about .5%) trading in the wrong direction gives me a lot of encouragement on trade and capital managment.
As a member of the community trying to offer support…can you look at the 5 losing trades in a row and see what could have been done better. Trading short didn’t have to mean significant losses this week even though it’s been bullish.
Good point Learnin, I went short 2x this week. Losses>Gains for now. +10 on 1 and -30 on the other. It’s been a bullish week and you’re right it’s still possible to be profitable. Tomorrow is the last day, let’s see what will happen, if it’s a bullish week, the high or low of the week will be formed (most of the time) between Sunday and Wednesday LO. That would mean the low on Sunday/Monday is the low, the rest could go up. Fractal low and we re now in a buy market flow based on daily candles. Could be a nice way to close the week tomorrow.
First of all don’t beat yourself up. It’s the past, you can’t change the past. Take tomorrow off, don’t even look at the charts just do something else not related to trading. Then this weekend go over your trades one by one. Find the reasons you were wrong and write them in your trade journal. I’ve personally learned way more from my losing trades than my winners.
Then clean your charts. Delete everything from them and start over from the top (weekly, daily) going down. Don’t read other people’s analysis before you have done your own. When the new week starts reduce your risk and don’t force the trades because you feel like you need to win something back. Patience is key here, remember One Shot, One Kill.
:57:
Hey fellow ICT-ers,
This is a weekly EU chart going back to 2003. This 1.2970 level is pretty key. I’m counting 4 times (denoted by the ‘x’) where price stalled here and spent a couple weeks being choppy. I also counted 8 times where price seemed to touch this level and reverse course.
Remember, this is a weekly chart that’s fairly compressed to show a long period of time. It can be debated how long prince consolidated or reversed quickly. But I think the point is this appears to be a very very key historical SR level.
Just something to consider. sometimes it’s respected this level. SOmetimes it’s overshot by a couple hundred pips and then reversed. But regardless…this is a key level.
We don’t know when, or which direction yet. But if history is a guide. When it decides which way its going to go…it will go quite a ways.
Hoping to be lucky enough to have a swing trade entered when it breaksout and ride a monster pip gain.
GLGT
Smart money in action.
LO - drop action a few pips below Asia range.
On 2 days 2 pairs.
Cable
Fiber
Awesome stuff.
Wally
Yeah…today was a learning experience that the quick dip below the AR can be the judas swing. I thought we were following the template to a tee where there would be a quick dip, judas higher, and price fall off. But in today’s case, the dip was the judas.
Making mental note. Pay very close attention to the AR and be nimble to go the other way if the quick dip is a judas instead of a stop raid.
Not sure if that makes sense…refer to the template if needed.
The question is, how does one determine whether this dip down is in fact a Judas or the Asian Range stop raid as illustrated in our Sell templates? It can be very difficult trying to discern this when watching the price action in real time.
For those who went long during LO and caught the majority of the profit release portion of the day, I’d be really interested to know the premise for your trade, as well as what made you anticipate the Asian Range dip as a Judas instead of a simple stop raid as depicted in the Sell template.
In hindsight, the only reason I see for assuming a new long position at LO this morning was because we have made a fractal low on the daily chart (on Friday, Jan 13). According to the Power of Three concept, after this fractal low was made, we’d be looking for longs, which would make us anticipate the Judas down instead of following the Sell template.
… Perhaps I just answered my own question here? Well, if anyone would like to share some insight it would be appreciated.
Have you watched the video on the first page entitled “Handling Losses & Inevitable Drawdowns?” It is extremely helpful to hear that a pro trader loses, and loses a lot.
I like it. It rewards positive behavior and fosters a learning environment. Good luck!