What is your strategy? Sounds very similar to a strategy I had that had good results, but I’m currently working at the times I’d need to be on, so don’t get chance to do it.
I’d look at the first bar or 2 on the DAX at 8am and try to get in on a move as it usually makes big moves at that time. It often then retraces or carries on, either way can be profitable. Key is to getting good entry points because that index moves fast
I tried to explain my approach in my first post. And i am happy to answer specific questions.
I work part time. Half because of our daughter, half because i want to trade both openings.
I won’t continue this trading journal for a little while. Me and my wife/accountability partner decided that the initial benefit of a public trading journal adding pressure on me to stick to my trading plan is not needed anymore. I did a good job the last months and achieved live trading profitability.
Surprisingly, an active participation on babypips is rather unsettling at the moment. We have a lot of different traders on here with different trading styles and everybody thinks that his approach is the best.
I want to focus on me and my strategy right now without being given unasked advise. My wife, an auditor, will guide me the next few months while i target very ambitious scaling steps to achieve my goal to become a full time trader at the end of the year.
Then you will hear from me in this journal again.
Have a nice time!
good luck.
Hi @Worker_Bee I also trade the Dax with a similar style.
Tom Hougaad trades the Dax open, the Dow and Nasdaq open in his free Telegram channel. He is a very high stake trader and can be a bit aggressive, but there is a lot of useful educational material on his new ‘resource channel’ and his website TraderTom.com
You are doing well, all the best.
After nearly 3 months with only minor profits around 1R each month, i decided to work on and trade a second strategy, while still trading my old index opening strategy.
Main reason for this is Professor Pips who told me to diversivy with more than one strategy and @flamingoproxy who is critical about trade management methods strategies like mine are using (2R all or nothing).
I call it “intraday swing trading” because it tries to buy low and sell high in those price swings. Basically i am looking for an extreme point against my daily bias (trend on daily chart), where trend traders would place their stop loss, to bet on an intraday reversal around this point (not exact at this point). When i identify a range a trade against trend direction is allowed.
I enter with limit orders and a rather wide stop loss to give price enough room to overshoot. Target is 1R but there i give me a lot of flexibility to lock in minor profits with my stop loss or exit at any point if i think it would be wise. If a movement looks very promising i try to get more than 1R.
With this strategy i only trade the opening of DAX.
I traded this strategy live since Wednesday and made 3,3 R with 6 trades and 80 % win rate so far. I’ll keep you updated.
sorry if i came across as a “critic”!! 
yes, that’s definitely intraday swing trading! 
it all sounds good, and most promising - wishing you well with it and looking forward to seeing more 
You don’t have to apologize. I have to apologize that i felt a little offended. As long as my first strategy was working very well, i could’nt understand what your problem with high RRR was. But in this sleepy phase right know where i trade just above breakeven for several weeks, i can understand it better.
It feels good to have a high winning % and seeing constant progress, a smoother equity curve. It will be interesting to see which of my two strategies will perform better in the long run.
I have to admit, that i ditched my old strategy (for now).
Seeing success with an often winning low RRR system showed me that this kind of trading style suits me better. Even when my old strategy was still generating profits i was a mess because they were so small in comparison to February, March and April. Even if my old strategy has a comeback i would rather trade my new strategy (if it remains profitable).
I thought about my scaling plan a lot too. With my old strategy i was focused on a monthly performance. I wanted 8R per month and if i made at least 4R i was allowed to increase my risk. Problem was, in my good months i stopped trading around 8R. I could have made more, around 10-12 R those months. On the other hand. in the last months in which i traded around 1R each month, i got very frustrated.
With my new strategy i have made a new scaling plan. I want 5R. No time limit. If i have 5R i increase my risk. And after i am at my full account size, i will withdraw a small part.
I hit my goal today. Tomorrow i increase risk to 5 € per trade.
A thing i noticed, that i became very focused about making money. I don’t think about having a nice statistic anymore. I take even 0,1 R profit and i am happy about it and end my day. Like today. I needed 0,1 R to reach my 5R goal and took it without hesitation.
Thank you @flamingoproxy that you consistently insist that low RRR strategies are superior to high RRR strategies.
Woke up today, saw DAX at Fridays higher low, my bias is long so i went long with half of my position size and made a quick 0,25 R in premarket. Didn’t trade the opening live only on demo, because i already made money today.
If i would have traded it live, then i would have made another 0,5 - 0,75 R. I am feeling bad despite i made profit again, 8 days in a row. I never did something like this before. Why am i so greedy? Why can’t i be happy?
I have to work on this.
So i had my second loss today, as DAX fell through yesterdays low and didn’t looked back. After todays NY session i will analyze if my daily bias (long) has to change or not. For now it could still be a pullback.
I was thinking again.
I have better chances with my new Intraday Swing Trading Strategy on low volume trend days. When price moves slowly in trend direction on the daily chart with a lot of retracements.
I manage my new strategy not like a swing trader would. I aggressively move my stop loss when price moves in my favor and i get out with minor profit, too. I don’t wait for the other swing high/low to take profits. This is what we call “scalping” right?
After a while, i am a bit disappointed with myself that i lost my nerve and paused a so far profitable strategy (my old index opening strategy) because it wasn’t profitable enough for two and a quarter month. This is really bad behavior.
Maybe i increased risk to fast and wanted to much to quick, setting myself under pressure. Maybe strategies with a low winning % aren’t for me after all. When they work great i can live with a win % of 45 - 55 % but when it drops to 33 % things get hard when this lasts a couple of weeks.
I read into this Tom Hougaard and see why others above said that he would trade like me. His entries often match mine with my old index opening strategy. But his management is like my new management. He scalps for a small profit and in addition to that adds if he thinks he hit a runner.
I researched as many strategies as i could find from him (Premarket Range Breakout, School Run, Rule of 4). I was astonished to see how easy his entry rules are. My old index opening strategy had a lot more rules to prevent me from entering when it was likely that i won’t hit a runner. He doesn’t need that many rules because he gets out quick when he is wrong and when he is right he probably is out quick, too.
I created some other strategies myself. Now i have a basket of 8 strategies (partly mine, partly Tom Hougaard), including my new intraday swing trading strategy, that i will test mainly on DAX. I won’t trade in the afternoons regularly anymore.
I went back to demo again. Trading 0,01 contracts / 0,01 € per point in DAX. Fresh Start!
Yesterday was the first day of testing. I will share my spreadsheet everyday with you from now on:
As we are visiting our family the next three weeks, i can only trade scheduled trades. Premarket Range Breakout, School Run and Rule of 4 (next FOMC Day).
+14 points today. It’s ok.
Edit: Positions were Short, Long, Long. Sorry!
+29 points today, +137 points in total. Again, i am satisfied with my progress.
Promised my wife to pause next week if i am feeling like i just have to trade and not learn my new strategies. Last word on Friday but it is very likely that i will only trade FOMC on Wednesday next week.
Edit:
Decided to improve my daily journal entry with charts. But as charts slightly differ from broker to broker, especially on the lowest timeframes, i won’t use tradingview, but a screen of my actual trading chart.
In the image above you see a 1m chart on the left and a 5m chart on the right.
First trade was a breakout above the 8-8:59 am high, marked with a little green box. I test Tom Hougaards Premarket Breakout Strategy without any changes with a 9 point SL and a 6 point TP. Today it worked and i got 6 points profit - without slippage this time.
Second trade was a 5m school run, an adaption of Tom Hougaards 15m school run. It is basically a breakout of the second 5m bar after open at 9 am. I was able to get a nice push in my direction and lowered my SL with every 1m bar, I was a little disappointed to get taken out with only 7 points in profit.
Third trade was a 15m school run, a breakout of the second 15m bar after open. Again i got a nice movement and raised my SL with every 1m bar. After a little consolidation price spiked in my direction and i decided to TP almost at the high. I decided to do so because i watched this happen a lot of times and knew that chances are high for a retracement after this “ending bar”. I am proud of this exit for 16 points.
yes indeed - rightly, i’m sure - interesting!
i had not heard of “school run” (in this context) until you posted; i know nothing much about this Tom Hougaard person except that i see him pretty widely recommended by people i trust and respect, so i must take a good look, when i can - and it’s my turn to thank you for the prompt in that direction
watching with interest, here - a breakout of the second M15 bar of the Dax? Interesting - wishing you well
+22 points today. It’s ok, but it could have been 15 points more.
Lets dig into the trades:
Premarket Range Breakout: Today i had a problem to place a Stop Sell Order because price pushed down hard few seconds before open. I entered with a Market Order and TP was hit immediately for a huge slippage and only +1 point.
5m School Run: Again i had a problem to place a Stop Buy Order and entered 7 points above the high of the second 5m bar (15945) of the day per Market Order. I put my SL to breakeven as soon as price made its firtst push and got stopped with ±0 points.
5m School Run Reentry: As price retraced i went long again at a better price 15943. Because i didn’t liked the big red 1m bar and was expecting a Double Top i manually exited this trade at 15960 with +17 points in profit. Unlike last time, i was wrong and missed another 15 points profit.
15m School Run: Didn’t like this trade at all because i had to enter at 16000. After i reduced my initial risk of 38 points gradually as price went up again after the initial retracement i put my SL to breakeven when it made a new high. I chose to exit with a +4 point profit when those two pin bars formed. I can’t remember a single time that price pushed higher after this pattern.
Overall it was a good day, with +22 points and a +159 in total.
Yes i saw him recommended in this forum, too. But only after @Johnny1974 recommended him to me personally i looked into his trading style. Thank you for that Johnny.
+1 point today for a +160 points in total. It could have been a very profitable day, but i got taken out of a runner.
Lets dig in:
Premarket Range Breakout: It didn’t work today and i got stopped with 2 points slippage for -11 points. I didn’t have a high expectation of this strategy from the start. It didn’t contribute to my positive balance and loses way to much. It could be fine tuned to catch an early runner like on the first day of testing, where 50 points were possible. But this would mean a lot of losses at the start of the day. I want to stop trading this strategy. Whats your thought on this?
5m School Run: Raised my SL to breakeven quick because there was resistance at 15962 (Pivot Point) and was stopped ±0. No reentry because price respected resistance and i waited for 15m school run.
15m School Run: Great movement, but i was in a weak state of mind. It is ok to agressively move my SL when price is near breakeven but when price was at +17 points i decided to lock in profits to breakeven for the day. After stopping me out price crashed for at least an additional +25 points.
But overall i am satisfied with +160 points in 6 trading days. I will make a pause next week. Only trade i try to take is FOMC on Wednesday.
Let me know what you think of my progress so far.
Tom would be proud of you. 
