Cory2679

This would have been filled a little while ago, but the PA is uninspiring...

Possible earlier short entry off a smaller degree of swing...offers better R:R...

It didn't turn out that great (<1R)... I'd consider a short at the break of the blue line on my 13 range chart... -Cory

...and do you mean ≥ 50 ticks net per week, or do you mean ≥ 200 ticks at the end of 4 weeks (for an average of 50+ ticks per week)? Thanks, Cory

Hey Thales, Just curious...how come you used ticks as the benchmark, rather than R? -Cory

There was a nice, good ol' fashioned resistance/123 trade on the EUR/USD this morning...I trust somebody made money with it. I'm short, but really I've just been playing around with my new Oanda demo account this week, getting used to it (I closed my FXCM account due to the new spreads). I'm going to start back serious Monday. EDIT: The green lines aren't all PT's...they're just a guide to see when price has hit 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, etc. -Cory

I give up! Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still seeing pretty much the same thing...I feel long biased. HOWEVER, I suppose, since it appears price is sort of digging into/chipping away at that support...perhaps, if price does breakout to the downside, the bottom may fall out and it declines down to the swing-low. We are in a (short-term) downtrend, afterall (but which may be losing steam though, in my view). I'd almost be game for a short or a long, given a break of either of my horizontal blue lines. :crap: -Cory

I can see that one, thanks.

Not for me, either...

Let's not sell him short...I believe there was an 88k day in there somewhere!

UB, Just curious...would you classify support and resistance on a chart in the same category as "candles, profiles, market delta, etc."? Cory

This is the type of trade that really does strongly catch my attention. I took a modest 1R out of it this morning...my only trade. I didn't catch Thales's 5R trade this morning. :embarassed: I've only been trading breakouts/123's up to this point...perhaps I should expand my horizons... I'll be posting real-time regularly to this thread again beginning this Monday. I think it is something that has helped me in the past. -Cory

Hey guys, At around 5pm EST, Thales asked me to take a look at the 6J, 15M & 240M, and post to this thread anything I saw "interesting." I've posted my charts of what I see. I'm not sure if it's what Thales was looking for, though...nothing really strongly caught my attention. I may be missing something. -Cory

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking...which to me probably means my answer is "no." Of course I know what hours which countries are "open" and I know what hours the CME futures trade in the pit. But no, I couldn't tell you what "bell to bell" time is in "the minds of the pros"...unless you just mean 5pm EST - 5pm EST (Syndey open through NY close). So, forgive my ignorance, but I'm a little confused. I don't know about "the prior day's low," but I could tell you that the trades were basically in the midpoint of the most recent large move...so my feeling was "it could go either way." With a short I was anticipating a retest of the lows, and with a long I was anticipating a retest and possible break of the high (due to the trade being a perceivably higher low, and due to the fact that price had broken resistance...the resistance being the pivot highs that were created during the multiple tests of that low level). I honestly do make an attempt to get a grasp of "waves or swings, what others call market structure, what still others call context, etc."...perhaps I just do a poor job of it...my "view" at the time can be seen on this chart: (I haven't posted charts like this because when I post "today's trades," it's only to show what trades I took...not to give an explanation/context for each one.) With my NFP trade, I just basically bracketed the swing high and swing low that price was in the middle of leading up to the announcement, and price fell so the short filled...I am inexperienced trading news, but my logic was that the direction the price breaks will indicate a large move in that direction...but of course, I was proven wrong...this was not really a "typical" trade... I assume you must have bought around 1.3550ish? I believe that's more how you've been trading lately...buying support, selling resistance (as opposed to breakouts/123's). What I just don't understand is why you were so long biased....being at a midpoint of a big move, I wasn't biased either way...if I had to pick, I'd probably be biased long just because of the new high that was made...but the prior low was still a test of the lows, so I wasn't necessarily convinced...was it because of a TTT level? (I just got the book in the mail today...haven't started reading it, yet). I'm sorry if I'm just not getting it and if I'm missing something. I'm a bit frustrated with myself... -Cory

I'm also considering revisiting range charts...

Well, I think that's pretty much what I've decided on...the post above! (This is subject to change before Monday.) I'll choose a profit-target or two based on the fib extension tool...or S/R (if the fib tool doesn't line up with S/R on the chart). I'll trail by natural stops...and I'll stop and maybe reverse if I get a "123" against my position. I'll get to BE once PT1 has filled. ---------- The only thing left to work out is the ripcord situation...whether to even do it, if I do it...under what conditions?...if I do it, what is my plan for re-entry?...etc. I'm leaning toward avoiding it altogether for the time being (due to my lack of skill/trigger happiness with it), but I haven't made up my mind 100%. I'm going to take a little break to get some other things done I have to do, then come back, review my plan, think more about the ripcord, etc. ---------- My only hesitation here is that I feel like I might not be cutting my losses aggressively enough! But on the other hand, I do want to "give it room" to a certain extent. I wonder if it's possible to do both...or if it's one or the other... ---------- Any thoughts?

When I first began trading the approach I'm attempting to trade now, I had a much less aggressive approach with trade management... Basically, I had 1 or 2 profit targets...no BE point, no pulling the ripcord, nothing.... EDIT: Well, actually I believe I was getting to BE after PT1 filled... I would just trail my stop by natural stops... I guess that's basically the other extreme of what I had been doing... I'm almost leaning more in that direction again...with what I'm doing now, I'm so aggressive that I end up cutting profits short/chipping away at profits by pulling out and re-entering. If I'm going to pull out and re-enter, I'm going to need to do it completely different...this just wasn't working out... I looked back at my charts from the week, particularly Mon-Tues, and I'll see what appears to be a great winning trade on my chart, and I'll look at my results and I will have made something like 0.25R or 0.5R on it (EDIT: or worse...taken a loss!!). That's certainly a red flag to me.

NOTE: The above post was submitted prematurely (I hit "Submit Reply" when I meant to hit "Preview Post"), so if anyone had viewed it prior to this post, you may want to look for changes that have been made, if you're interested. -Cory

I'm sitting down now to work on my trade management strategy...here is what I had been doing... - When I take the trade, I base my position size off of my theoretical initial risk...then, from the beginning, I set my stop-loss to -0.25R. So if my theoretical initial risk is 20 ticks, I'll set my stop at 5 ticks. - I get taken out most of the time. Then I'll re-enter on a break of the high (long)/low (short). - When I re-enter, I'll base my new stop-loss on the high that was created between my entry and my re-entry (short), or the low that was created between my entry and re-entry (long). I'll adjust my position size down if the new risk is larger than 1R. So, that's how I manage entries/re-entries...here's how I manage PT's, etc... First, I was trailing by "R"...so, when I was up 1R, I'd get to break-even, when I was up 2R, I'd move my stop to +1R, and so forth. I set my profit targets based on Fibonacci Extensions... Get to BE: 127% level PT1: 161.8% level Move stop to PT1: 227% level PT2: 251.8% level When price gets fairly close to a PT, and looks like it's going to reverse, I would pull it to lock in some profit... Also, sometimes, if the chart was contrary to fib extensions/1R,2R levels, I would conform to the chart... Trade 18 from yesterday was the exception to all this...since it was the NFP announcement, I gave it wiggle-room and set my PT to an arbitrary +2R...I figured if it broke on the news announcement, it would continue in that direction (I was wrong)...I usually just avoid news (NFP/FOMC)...

When I label something like "trades 18-19," that means I took the trade, pulled out, then re-entered (hence two trades). I count two halves of the same trade as one when it's split up for multiple PT reasons.

The funny thing is, that was/is still true...and I felt like I traded solidly today, according to plan...even looking at my chart in hindsight, I think I did really well as far as the trades I took...even looking back now, I really wouldn't have done anything different (of course, maybe I should have...maybe I don't know what I'm doing at all! ). Soo...what I think may be the problem now is my trade management... I guess that's a project for over the weekend...and my trade management is pretty much 100% unambiguous at this point so that will make it easier to address and make changes to... It's funny...my worst day in a while, yet I'm actually really not very bummed at all...because I addressed the problems I was having and identified yesterday, corrected them, and improved the trades I took today...it's just now I have a different problem, but I'm looking forward to working on it this weekend! -Cory

Today's Trades Oh, the humanity...-2.39R today...

You're right, I misread.

Well, I just now pretty much went from really bummed to pretty excited. It just clicked with me what's "wrong." For the last couple of days, I've, without realizing it, basically reverted back to my "old" ways! (old meaning the last couple weeks)...I'm approaching everything almost the same way I was before I began only trading the EUR/USD, etc. (I won't go into details)...now that I've realized it, hopefully I can get right back on track!

Today's Trades I don't even know what to say... -Cory