MidKnight

Hi Thales, Can you elaborate on this term 'digging into' at all? My failed short we are dissecting looked to me like it was showing an important resistance area. Sure, I can see the differences between our two charts if I look at bar by bar - but that isn't what I mean when I say that they look similar to me. I mean in general, in both cases price goes into an overlapping type behaviour. Kiwi has mentioned that the duration of this was longer in my trade - good point. I partially justified the extra bars because the time of day when I came in was Tokyo opening area, so I was being less stringent on the number of bars. Maybe I just shouldn't trade during that time of day for any 15m trades, but it would be OK for the larger time frame stuff. With kind regards, MK

Once the market failed to take out the previous low, I 1/2'd my stop. Got taken out at 150.43 for a 16 pip loss.

OK, I can see what you mean, but it doesn't look so dissimilar to your post here does it? All my best, MK

I only just remembered that today it is an NFP number tomorrow morning in the USA. Often the FX waits. Not the best backdrop when looking for a decent move

What can I say? I'm not trying to disprove the simplicity of what Thales is showing. But if just selling lows and buying highs is all that's required and I end up with more losses then winners, hopefully it will serve to vet some the filtering he is using. If it really is that simple, than I should come out on top like his daughter has Recently Thales has been mentioning about a certain look of which I also mentioned in prior posts. I wonder how he conveyed that look to his daughter as this sounds like something experience based?? All my best, MK

Just got short gbp/jpy. Entry was 150.27 with a stop at 150.60, 33pip risk. First target for 1/2 is at 149.87, with the next target for 1/4 at 149.27.

Good post Kiwi, the pictures help. I'm starting to become more inclined to just trade off the 15m chart but look at the 240m as a target and scale-out (even adding?) size adjustment factor. My hunch is this side of it can end up more mechanical, but I really need to knuckle down and get some study behind me on this part. The nzd/usd trade I took was based off the 3 hour chart, so that is why the entry was so high up from it's recent range and the stop was much wider than the others I have been doing. With kind regards, MK

Hiya, Mostly I have found esignal fine in terms of reliability and speed. I did experience an instance of significant delay that was erratic. I liaised with a manager at esignal customer services and over a couple weeks, the problem was fully resolved. Esignal provide the data via comstock, so it isn't as direct as getting the data via something like IB, which get it direct from the exchange because they are a broker. At least, this is what the esignal manager told me. However, when watching the two data feeds side by side, I cannot notice any actionable difference in data delivery speed. With kind regards, MK

Hi Thales, I appreciate the comments. I see your point on that nzd/usd trade. I was probably over fixated on the larger daily trend and thought that taking out a minor high on the 3 hour chart would be resumption of trend and off to the races. Throughout my trading development, I have had instances where I do see the market really clear and obvious things jump out at me. I'm being patient, and just wait till I see it. Then for some reason usually after some success, I lose that clarity and things that are more obscure seem obvious. It's overconfidence. I usually need to be humbled again to regain that clarity. Hopefully as my experience continues, I can work on eradicating this cycle. Good comments regarding the trade management. I will continue to experiment in this area and apply various scenarios over the weekend. Hiya Kiwi, I actually have all my trades as being with the larger time frame trend (to me that is daily chart). That's the beauty of 'trend' though, you can always find one time frame in agreement with trade direction Thanks a lot for the comments and questions. It all helps me learn something. With kind regards, MK

Trailing stop was hit on the short GBP/USD. Got 1 scale out for 25% of position and stopped on the remainder for a 17pip gain. Total result was an average gain of 20 pips. I moved the stop from BE to 1.6520 as the thinking was if the market rallied back up 50pts, then how likely is it to go down and hit my lower targets. I thought it wasn't so likely and could just as easily keep going up beyond that last LH. Bit of a bugger, near its peak I could have exited the entire thing for a total position R:R of 2:1. Instead via trailing it and looking for more, I ended up with less than 1:1.

Just was stopped out of this trade. I managed to get the first target filled while sleeping but then it came back to take me out. Looking at this 3 hour chart, I can't see much else to do about it. Should I have tightened up the stop? Was I right to give it breathing space? In real-time, I thought it hasn't showing me a LH so I'll stick to the original stop. The scale out reduced my risk from an initial 77 pips to an average loss on the trade of 57 pips. A decent result for hitting my initial stop - 74% of my initial risk. Sure, I could have dropped down to smaller time frame but I'd like to stay away from that as a solution, otherwise I will continually get shaken out of decent winners. With kind regards, MK

Beginners luck mate Yep, that one is hit and I'm at BE. I'm trying to just take the really obvious stuff and I'm totally amazed it is working. I need more trades under my belt to see just how lucky I have been. All feels good so far, thanks a lot for the sharing of information. I'd probably not be re-visiting this style of trading now if it wasn't for your posts in this thread. Any critique is warmly received if something looks off. I'm a rookie with the breakouts. Don't worry about my feelings, I am thick skinned (and thick skulled too, so I've been told) - See :crap: no pain at all With kind regards, MK

sold the drop here on GBP/USD (demo account). Short from 1.6537 with a stop at 1.6567. First target for 25% of the trade is at 1.6507. The next set of targets below will lay off 50% of the position. I'll move to BE once the first target is filled.

Closed the aud/jpy trade this morning when I got to the PC. Not a very 'systematic' exit. Once I saw that it was getting a decent reaction from resistance on the 60m chart then I exited with the idea that I may try again to the long side after some downward movement. The initial risk was 33pips and the average exit turns out to be at 67.25 pips. So roughly a 2:1 reward for the risk. Overall I'm quite happy about this one, mainly because I resisted so many urges to exit and end up cutting this winner short.

That was probably one of my flaws with my early BO trading experiences. Thanks for this post. With kind regards, MK

Sorry to spam the thread, just one more update before going to bed. Have entered a long on NZD/USD based on the 3 hour chart. I'm not sure if this was a good idea as you can see by the horizontal line I place on the trade it was entered below the spike. I felt this was the more important level to break rather than the spike. Any comments from the BO masters is welcomed. This trade has a 77pip stop. 1/2 the position will be covered if those 3 targets get filled. At that point, I will move to BE. This trade management feels too simple. I have a habit of making things complex. Is it needed? Maybe a trailing approach, but I've never been good with trailing in the past. Any thoughts? All my best, MK

LOL Kiwi - ya never know, maybe I am starting to like this! Yes I got a little of this yen cross movement, forrestang. Update on the AJ trade here. A few hairy moments for me, was 'certain' I was going to get stopped out in that tight cluster just after entry. Proven wrong again. Hardest part for me with this is sticking to the simple plan. Because the duration is so much longer than I am used to, I feel out of control or that I 'know' what's going to happen next. Stuck with it so far and its worked well. Stop is sitting at 81.40. Exited out of 6/10 of the original position. Just in wait and see mode now.... As an aside, I was thinking of doing an add somewhere, but where I was going to do one was at the 81.60 area but instead I had targets still unfilled there. Hmm, so I guess if doing the adds, probably need to stretch out targets or be more confident in a decent favourable move.

Just got long (demo account) aud/jpy at an entry of 81.35. Targets are set for 75% of the position. I'll be trailing by 30pips until BE is hit once price gets to 81.50

Thanks for the comments Thales and Kiwi. I'll be thinking more about the exiting as going forward. Both brought up some good points. I was pleasantly surprised to get a positive result on the 2 trades from yesterday because as I mentioned earlier, my previous experience with breakouts as a newb 5 years ago was brutal. Maybe this can start to change my perspective on that. So far so good! I probably should have exited heavier at the 4 hour chart low test that I termed a false break. Maybe even scaled out lighter in the first 1/3 area and heavier in the second 1/3 area. Part of the reason why I was willing to let it come bounce back and give away all those pips on the last 1/3 was because it was with the general daily trade direction. Definitely more study required for me on this, but getting my feet wet in real-time is helpful, I think. While sleeping I got taken out of the usd/jpy trade at BE as well. Only managed to hit 1/3 of my 1/3 scale outs. Probably too greedy on those. I was trying to squeeze out every tick on them because the entry felt too close to the first support area. I'll get better at this over the weeks ahead. Here is the usd/jpy result.

This one is all over now. Best exits gave me 2/3 layed off before sharply reversing on a false break low. Unsure how to trade this much differently other than exit more heavily around that low rather than pray for more downward movement. If anyone has other ideas pleas chime in. It did suck to give back ~75 pips on 1/3 of the position Overall R/R on this trade turned out to be about 0.66 - too low for getting a decent amount of MFE I feel. This could have been approximately doubled if I'd used the stop that Thales suggested earlier.

Got in on the short and have small profits so far. Stop is moved to BE. Here are 2 charts, one showing the trade as it got stopped into, and the other just moments ago.

I'm back on the usd/jpy thing again....orders are out there with targets covering 2/3 of the position. See if it can breakdown this time. Entry set for 90.12 with a stop at 90.35

OK, I see where you mean - thanks. Had I done it with a stop like that, the R/R could have actually been decent, even at the first target hit. You are nearly correct in your assumption, the entry was 1.6744 (you type 1.68xx, I thought that must be a typo). The trade is still going...hasn't done much and is coming up on the 8 hour mark. Longest hold I've done in years With kind regards, MK

Cheers Thales. My initial risk was 34 pips. I felt that maybe I entered a bit aggressively by using the wrong range. You can see from my latest post that I entered basically at perhaps a more significant low and maybe that instead should have been the breakout point. As can be seen now that it has happened, once it did finally break this other low, it kept dribbling down and has yet to come back within that range.

Finally a little love on this gbp/chf short. Been over 4 hours so far. 1/3 has been exited for an average gain of 25 pips. The horizontal red line is my stop sitting at BE. I gotta say, this has been a very humbling experience though as at least a dozen times (probably more) I was sure the market wouldn't go any lower. Any comments on this entry, too aggressive? range not picked well? With thanks, MK