In my opinion, you are on the right track. I see also great opportunities in intermarket analysis, but thats another story.
I think the most important thing is to master the craft of trading first. That’s what ICT wants to teach us in my opinion.
Once we have this background, switch to other markets or building own approach becomes just easy.
lol, just one small note. Today I mentioned at babypips chat that I have short limit order at 6522. I was again smart, hehehe, if I kept ICT advice and put that order around 61.8% retracement at 6510, instead of my “improvements” I would be 150 pips richer (100% ext., my favourite target with these methods).
Haha, I struggled with the same thing for a little bit.
I just eyeball the spot in the exact middle between the 62% and 79% and place all my orders there. If it gets hit it gets hit, if not, oh well.
Personally, I find that most OTE’s that have a large reward to risk and win rate are when you place orders at the 79% level, you can place a nice tight 30 pip stop which usually happens to be after a support or resistance level, and a 90pip to 120pip TP. I usually set my SL to breakever + 1 pip once I’ve caught 30 pips, then I exit 25% once I’m +60 pips, and set my SL to +30 pips. Then I let the trade run to my ultimate or stop me out at with 30pips.
Regards,
Clark.
Trade #4
Date: May 5, 2011
Time (GMT): 8:28 AM GMT (Pending Order)
Live
[B]Pre-Trade:[/B]
Currency Pair: GBP/USD
Market Bias (Long Term): No clear bias
Market Flow (Daily, 4H, 1H): Long on daily, short on 4H and 1H
Position Taken (Long/Short): Long
Trade Style (Swing, Scalp, etc): Swing
Risked Percentage (%): 0.5%
Lot Size: 0.04
Stop Loss (in pips): 23
Take Profit (in pips): 73
Entry Price: 1.6483
Notes & Comments:
Decided on taking this trade as I felt that Cable was going to bounce for the 1.6453 level and aim for its previous high. Was rushed in doing my pre-market analysis and entered a pending order
Entry Screenshot:
[B]Post Trade:[/B]
Exit Date: May 8, 2011
Exit Time: 8:28 AM GMT
Exit Price: 1.6456
Net Pips (in pips): -27
Net Income (% growth): -0.52%
Notes & Comments:
Very bad trade, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was rushed in my pre-session analysis. Fundamental analysis did not give me a clear bias of bullish or bearish. The fractals for market flow were giving mixed signals, and major news was being released as well. My trade was triggered AND stopped out at the exact same time. Market must have been very volatile, and my pending order was triggered after London Open. This is lesson well learned. Make sure to prepare in advance, give yourself time to do the analysis work before going into a trade. If there is no clear bias, DO NOT take a trade, there will be more opportunities throughout the week. Also, try to place SL after a significant S&R level, had I done that, and set my SL to breakeven once 30 pips in profit, I would have saved myself a loss.
Closing Screenshot:
Regards,
Clark
[B]London Close Trade Weekly Stats[/B]
[B]Week 7[/B]
Trades taken: 3
Winners:1
Losers:2
BE:0
Pips Gained: +16
Pips Lost: -56
Net: -40
[B]Stats to date[/B]
Trades taken: 23
Winners:17
Losers:5
BE:1
Pips Gained: +277
Pips Lost: -95
Net: +182
Analysis: The ratio of winners to losers looks good at first glance, but I am not happy with the way I am managing the trades. For the most part the entries are good (hence the positive win/lose ratio), but I’m exiting too soon and not seeing the rewards I should. I have known this for a few weeks, but this week has really made me sit up and take note as my winner [B]should have[/B] mitigated the full blow of at least one loser. Sadly it didn’t.
Going to sit on my hands for a few days and wait for what hopefully will be the ICT London Close Strategy.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone.
It seems like to me most people this week had a losing week. I think the reason isn’t due to our analysis or trading, but simply news. I am considering on avoiding trading every major news week, because it just seems like I end up losing. The majority of my losses come from this, I think this could be a problem for myself, and a few others too.
For the London Close, I usually try to catch at least 30 pips, this usually results in a 1.5:1 reward to risk, so my winners are usually able to cover losses quite easily. The only problem is finding a setup on a regular basis, which I can’t. 
Regards,
Clark.
Personally I think that many traders underestimate the volatility (albeit sometimes shortlived) that can come from a big news announcement. Of course they can sometimes give great pips if you position yourself on the right side of the story, however for me they are unpredictable enough that I just give the major announcements a wide berth, at least an hour either side, and much more for NFP (I stayed out altogether today). I treat Forex trading very much as a long-term career, and for me the best way to make that work is make my trading mechanical, and to avoid as many variables as possible. I much prefer to trade a market that I feel I can read, and for me that means avoiding news.
I agree that this was quite a newsy week, yet I still had a decent trading week, banking over 7% on my account from only three days’ trading (Monday was a Bank Holiday here and I did not trade today as it was NFP). I achieved most of the gain by largely avoiding end of day (to much news for most of the pairs for my approach) and by doing my intraday early in the day, 0530-0830, to avoid trading near the big news announcements.
In my last five trading days (three this week, and only two last week as I was on holiday early in the week) I have put 11% on my account, I placed 20 trades and had 17 winners. I am not saying this to show off (I know guys who outperformed me, I am by no means an expert) but to illustrate the point: it is very possible to make good pips in most markets as long as you keep your wits about you and know when to sit on your hands.
Apologies if I have gone into preachy mode, I just think that the impact of news is often underestimated, and that it is important to know when to stay out of the market and when to time trades to hit the cleanest market conditions.
I agree that this was a difficult trading week from the point of view of news, but there were still opportunities to make some good pips. I traded EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, NZD/USD, AUD/USD and EUR/CHF, so there were decent opportunities to be had on a number of pairs.
Apologies if this sounds smug at all, that is really not where I am coming from, I am trying to be helpful so please take it in that spirit!! I used to be less flexible in picking my trading moment, and would certainly have lost money this week in those days. These days I just avoid the news and find clean air in the market and there is generally a setup to be found for most styles of trading.
ST
Using ICT’s methods I took 1 trade this week which ended in a loss of -1.5% and ended up doing very well with another strat that covered the loss and gave a nice gain. Not a typical week for me using ICTs methods so hopefully next week is better.
I’m lovin this loser bandwagon, its damn refreshing! I ended the week -1.66%, 2 full-size losers and one small win. I knew to avoid the bank holiday and NFP day, but still didn’t get lucky!
In the past I would’ve tried to makeup my loss on NFP day, but I didn’t this week, so I’ve got that to be proud of at least. Better luck next week everyone (minus Simon, you continue to rock those markets 24/7)
Thanks for your thoughts, Clark. I just spent 40 minutes writing a reply but Babypips stole it as soon as I posted! I hate it when that happens. I should know by now to at least copy the reply before posting it. I definitely have a love-hate relationship with this site.
I am going to wait and see if there is something in the LC course that gives me confidence in holding my winners to 38% retracement of the day’s pip range.
Regards
Haha, yeah, I make sure I also copy my reply before posting it… It’s happened several times now… =/
Well in the video where ICT had described briefly about the London Close scalp, he mentioned a TP of around 30 pips, and a SL 10 pips away from the 100.0 retracement level. But besides that there isn’t much back up for that just yet. Personally, I have looked at the historical charts, and anywhere from 30-60 pips is more than do-able. Depending on the daily range of course; wider ranges offer up larger, proportionate retracements back into the ADR. I usually adjust SL’s as the trade progresses.
Here’s how I do it:
Depending on the trade, I will measure the SL in pips, and if the price is going in my favour, as it reaches a 1:1 trade, I will set my SL to BE+1. So if my SL was 23 pips, for example, and I’m up 23-24 pips, I will set my SL to BE+1. This usually works great when I am targetting 50-60 pips during the LC. Just trying to maximize gains. =) Edit: While, minimizing risk.
Regards,
Clark.
What percentage of your account are you risking per trade, Simon? You say you are trading 0530-0830…is that GMT? So you are taking trades in the Asian session and closing them before 08:30 GMT? This is not a kill zone, but are you following other ICT criteria?
Regards
The problem is I have been getting out before 1:1 as I have come across support or resistance at a pivot prior to that level. I guess it is a case of trust, really. If I risk 1% and see price turn back at an SR when I am 0.8% in profit, then I jump on that profit for fear that I will lose it all. What then might happen is that it goes back to +0.4% before going back up to over 1% (1:1). Maybe there is nothing more the LC course can give me in terms of technicals…maybe it is just a case of overcoming the urge to jump on profits.
Another of my problems right now is that I am trading 0.1 lots and they can’t be split. What I should do to get over my fear is take initial profits at the point I am now (if I don’t trust it getting to 1:1), and bring the SL up to BE+1 on the rest just as you suggested. The consistency is certainly there in terms of win ratio on set-ups, and so maybe I will move up to 0.2 lots so that I can overcome the fear by splitting trades. That seems a little ****eyed, doesn’t it? Increase lot size to improve your trading!
Regards
Interesting that babypips didn’t allow a word that means ‘logically abnormal or absurd’ just because it thought I was writing about a part of the male anatomy! I wonder how it would react if I wanted to write about a rooster…
Alternatively, deposit more money? If you can’t trade how you want, I think that’s a good enough reason to add a bit more.
Yes, akeakamai. There is no problem in allocating more money. The problem lies in the fact that I have set a very conservative goal for myself, and one that is now hindering my progress.
How is everybody else managing their allocation of funds? Is everybody starting with a set amount and adding no more to it as the weeks and months go by? Or are there others like myself who are waiting for the results to play out before allocating all of their potential funds through incremental rises? I am interested to know how people make the decision to up their stakes. Number of trades taken with a specific win ratio, or just adding funds when and as you have them?
Regards
I started out with the burned out remains of my attempt to trade full-time. I had $18,000, and I thought I could make 10%-15% per month and grow my account from there. Miserable failure, had to get my job back, and I had $8000 left over. Some of the drop was just withdrawing living expenses because I only had 3 months saved up. It was excellent experience though, not just the trading, but living the full-time lifestyle, so I can’t really call it a waste.
Anyways, I left $3600 in the account, and then I lost $1500 “attempting” to trade ICT methods with terrible risk management rules. I was in a terrible mindset, I just failed my full-time trading plan and to be dreadfully honest, I just wanted some revenge. Then ICT gave me the wakeup call to trading stupid like that, and so I’d say I started with $2100.
My plan now is to add approximately $2000 every year (starting this Fall), which is simply my extra money from working. Very small I know, but it’s all I can gather together right now. I aim to get back to full-time trading in 4-6 years. As a last last resort, I might end up going to some members of my family for capital. I hate the idea of trading my family’s money, but if I had years consistent results, I might not feel so bad about it.
and lastly, I know goals are important, but if it’s hindering progress, you might want to admit that when you made those goals, you didn’t know what you know now, and it might be time for some rethink. No?
Thanks for listening!
I don’t like the fact that you lost so much, but I like the fact that you shared your story. Thanks.
Trading can be, and is to most people, an addiction to random rewards. Just like drugs can activate the “reward pathways” in your brain, so can trading. and if you’re addicted to being in a trade, you aren’t going to be able to trade with patience and discipline. I think ICT calls this being “pipdrunk” but it’s so true and hardly talked about at all on these forums.
I share my story like a recovering addict would because it helps remind me that I cannot afford to be like that again. The pain of that memory keeps me in line when risking my money now. That’s how I think of it anyway, it’s not neccessarily an advisable route for all to take!!