MidKnight

Hmmm, yeah - I didn't understand what you were getting at there either...

I'm done here for the night as the frustration is eating me up. 3 losers tonight totaling 6 losers from 6 trades for the week.All of tonight trades were 'with the trend' trying to short the pound. Yeah sure, all the losses were tiny but that won't help get profitable if one doesn't get a winning trade. This style of trading I'm finding extremely complex as there are so many subtleties that I cannot get any traction mixing them altogether. One would think that using a simple method, some traction could be gained within 4 weeks, but I'm just not seeing that - especially this week. I can go counter trend and lose money fast, I can go with the trend and lose money just as fast - the concept of trend just seems irrelevant to results. The concept of cutting ones losses fast is too difficult to execute in real-time. I'm exiting every trade too fast and all for small losses, its meaning I don't get any winners. Forex usually is moving slow and doesn't give me the same pace I would get on index futures to try and feel a valid break. The entries I'm taking are mostly leaving me to enter on the minor false breaks. Simply buying high and selling higher or vice-versa is not the key to success with this method - it is complex, but the complexity is undefined and fuzzy (intuitive?), and thus, so is how to succeed with a style such as this.

It was indeed a good trade idea, but I believe it would have been ticked out at BE.

Thales, isn't that pound short less than 1:1? I thought you didn't do trades like that (assuming stop is at the recent DT pivot highs).

Don't feel bad Gabe, I'm on a run of 5 losers in a row at this time. My overall results for nearly 4 weeks of this are net 8.85 pips. Worse than pathetic IMHO. So don't feel bad.

Thanks for the reply Thales. Looks a bit different on my charts from IB data. For example, I don't have that same HL pattern you have on the 240m chart or that large gap you are anchoring off. I get the general point though. With kind regards, MK

Hi Thales, How come you would have been interested in a long with so much overheard potential R close by? With kind regards, MK

Not a great start to the week. Already 3 trades and am in the hole -14.5 pips total. All the entries were valid as in they were breakouts but the context was wrong in all of them. Bottom line, context wrong = trade probably loser. This is the key to this style, IMHO. I didn't see anything right at the open like Thales did, and then as the market was selling the buck there was R too close for me to jump on.

Yes, I was aware of it but figured if it gave a LH and broke a L then it would continue for some down towards the range low again. It turns out this thinking was wrong.

Hiya, I'm open to this idea for short on GJ because of the large move down on Friday and now it has tested what I would consider the immediate R. Looking for at least a move down to the bottom of the range. EDIT: 2021 EST, already exited for a -12 loss.

Aloha Don, I guess what I was trying to establish was if your way of trading is higher frequency. I don't really understand what you are doing yet, but if I understand these fractal things right, then it looks like a higher frequency style - which of course is fine. I'm just trying to establish the differences between what you are doing and what Thales is doing. With kind regards, MK

Hi Don, I still don't fully understand what you are doing. If it is just anticipated fractals (previous bars h/l broken??) then you would certainly be getting many many more trades per day than Thales would - wouldn't you? For example, on that chart you posted here, how many trades does that give you? I know the thermal imaging sensing hindsight goggles are on, just answer the best you can though. With thanks, MK

G'day all, In adapting to this new schedule I'd normally be napping right now, but my neighbor has other plans and is banging something into the ground - how I'd love to move to the country where my closest neighbor is 100 acres away.... This post is more for my own progress throughout this exploration than anything else. Maybe over the weeks ahead this will show improvement. If not, hopefully the why not can be seen. Overall, a better week than the weeks prior. I only traded 3 nights due to sleep adjustment getting used to order control with Sierra charts 'chart trading' feature. Thales made some great posts on cutting losses and I was given some good opportunity to apply and think about some sort of management approach on how I will do this going forward. At the moment it is a sort of feel thing based on pace. Maybe that is as good as it will get, but I'll spend more time over the weekend study trying to see just how good that is. Spent more focus this week on the 15m timeframe for its assessment of overall trend and near S/R. Still using the 240m S/R, but I just can't expect it to react immediately off this high timeframe S/R. I need to develop the sensitivity to seeing (feeling?) how the immediate price is reacting to the bigger picture S/R. It's a weakness of mine with respect to S/R trading. Most of the weeks trades were of the high/low failure type and continues to be a struggle for me to go with the trend unless a decent sized pullback is underway. On Friday I pushed myself to take a with the trend move on EUR/GBP and was rewarded quite nicely. The situation was slightly different than what I would normally call 'going with the trend' in that the market had gone up strongly and the had consolidated in a tight range for quite some time (from memory, it was like half a day?) and then broke out, pulled back to test the consolidation and I ended up buying the break of that pullback high. Pretty slow market that pair though and I may take it off my tradeables watchlist. Some total stats since exploration (BE trades count as losses): Average winner: 0.97R Average loser: 0.43R Average w/l: 2.23 Profit factor: 1.48 What did I do right last week? Explored cutting losses quick and was pretty happy with that result Became a little more systematic on my targets and also the trailing stop What can I do better next week? Reduce the number of pairs looking for opportunity on, it is leading me to spend a lot of time manually scanning and ends up spreading my study of real-time price movement too thin to keep properly immersed. Focus more on what the market has been doing rather than becoming immersed in scenarios of what could happen at XYZ. I'm not saying that isn't good to come up with scenarios, just that I have a tendency to become absorbed into them and end up ignoring the now.

I like that one Kiwi. A weaker situation on EJ (so, I thought) and have jumped in! EDIT: 0128 EST - I'm out BE. I am starting some exploration of more aggressive trade management and in this case it appears to have cost me. On the attached chart I am showing where I had decided to move to BE should it trade through. Well, the market did by 1 pip and then traded up to my BE stop (the break point) and then back down. EDIT: 0133 - Funny how I thought EJ was the weakest but its turned out to be stronger than the alternatives I was considering at the time (GU, GJ). EDIT: 0147 EST - Here is a 5m view of this trade along with an attached question (3rd image) for Thales.

3 cheers for no slippage :cheers: I like this one, even I can see it clear and obvious! Just waking up from my power nap :missy: ...... So far looking like yesterday. A bad case of the old 'you snooze, you lose' syndrome.

Hello Sirs :yes sir: I'm not one to push brokers at all, but IB have a good ECN model with tight spreads and because it is a true ECN, you can even go in between the spread if you like. Good deal I think, just the platform is not that intuitive for FX IMHO..... To Thales & JohnJohn: Yes, I know I had been fighting the 'trend' all night. It was the worst type possible for me because the pullbacks were more like clumps instead of nice clean simple pullbacks. I was OK with my trades because it was an exercise at keeping my losses tiny and also I didn't end up revenge trading. I'd just like to comment on the use of 'bars'. I totally agree with the comments about bar irrelevance. I too don't want to ruffle any feathers and have a big debate because I know how dear one can hold ones trading beliefs. Use whatever works for those beliefs.... but anyone using geometry (trendlines, gann fans, ellipses....whatever) should at least be aware the effect of changing bar intervals have on their lines. With kind regards, MK

....................... EDIT: 0552 EST, I probably have the jitters now with the freedom to take a tiny loss. Exited the trade already as it broke 1 tick above to fill me and then retraced back 1/2 way to the stop. Exited for -8. Can't seem to get anything working tonight, probably because I'm fighting this entire move....

............................... EDIT: 0125 EST, filled on the short USD/CAD, canceled the EJ long. EDIT: 0138 EST, exited the USD/CAD for -4 pips (even though the chart annotation says -3, the fill report turns out to say -4)

Hi Forrest, Yes that is the discussion I was referring to. I haven't trained my eye or developed a feel for it either.

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I'd like to just dart back to the trade mgmt immediately after the entry is triggered for a moment. A few days ago, Gabe's stops seemed to come up for discussion in that they appeared to be at non-logical levels. Gabe could confirm it for us, but it probably wasn't his stops we were seeing but instead just his exit. In retrospect, Gabe was probably doing what Thales has been talking about here. Taking a small loss and re-entering. Sound about right Gabe?

Thanks Don, that is very clear now - good post! With kind regards, MK

Yes Thales, that is part of my purpose of exploring what you are doing. It isn't comfortable for me to trade like this, but I'm hoping through the exploration I will end up surprised and change how I'm trading for the better.

That is an awesome post, I am pasting that into my trading wisdom scrapbook. Thanks for the comment.

Hi folks, I'm willing to try and play for GJ breaking out of its multi-day coil. EDIT: 2236 EST, noted that UJ is at 15m support zone....