goodoboy

Thank you. The comments makes sense. Everything must be analyzed (and included in the journal) and calculated such as the entry, exit, why the entry, why the exit, why this stoploss, why I break-even, why I moved the stop up/down! And all this analysis has to do with price action and reaction.

Thanks for the comments. In the strategy, should I include when to adjust stop once the trade is my favor? I think in my strategy, the trade management part, I need to identify in what cases I want to break even and adjust stop in order for the entire method to be well defined. If I understand your writing correctly, the strategy must be well planned and executed as such so that I am not second guessing myself in order to see true results. Do you mean trade the strategy exactly how its written? Thank you

Thanks DbPhoenix for the comments. I will moved our conversation over to http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/wyckoff-forum/13708-trading-journal-trading-log.html#post156091

You right. I move the stop up three pts above entry once price action starting taking off and missed two points in profit. And when I did this I was taken out. I will have think about the trade management. I keep thinking I will miss profits. I will note this on the journal.

Thanks Db. This trade was apart of the strategy and plan I am building for myself. Also, this is SIM trade, I hope no trouble for me trading SIM (with real emotions) I only have one strategy: 1. Take trades between 7:30 am tp 10:30am. 2. Buy/sell with trend and momentum of the day. 3. Buy/sell only on a retrace to test the support/resistance that held (need more work on this part) 4. Trade management once in and know target in advance. Of course a bit more detailed than that. But that's a start.

WOW, thats amazing. Do you think some inside information going on there? It is odd. But what can we do!

long 1379 target 1384.25 reason for trade is because trend is up and I saw 1378.25 as a support over night and took the trade once that support was test and then held. Just now I exit at 1382 with +3 pts.

Can you explain a bit what you mean by "imposing your biases" on what I see while observing price movements?

Thank you so much for this trading plan. I been reading it for about 4 hours and taking notes as begin to form my strategy. This is a good read so far and helps me start from the basics of developing a strategy/method for me to trade efficiently in my sim account. Atleast I can save my capital by starting off right. I reply with some question or comments soon. Thank you.

Thank Steve for the comments and advice. Its always helpful for the newbies.

Thanks for comments. Do a lot of traders or institutions acutally use systems for their trading?

Thanks, I look forward to the article. Just getting some times to review the message this past week.

Thank you DbPhoneix. You are very resourceful and helpful. I am reading your trading journal now. Good advice on the market data replay software.

Keep it simple right!!

Excellent example for me to study. Thanks. This is where I struggle at on entry after price retrace. I have no problem drawing the horizontal lines on ranges. But its the price action knowing if price rejection on range or place to enter. You have any reference material for this subject? So, for this example entry would be at 1378.75 on the price rejection bar with a 4 tick stop loss? :)Yes, the indicators get in the way at times. Just adds more thought process.

Thanks for replying I do have a trade journal that I have been daily keeping up for the past two weeks. Is there a thread here where I can read on how to keep an good detail trading journal? I have not been keeping up with ratios and monthly net. Mistake on my part and I'm will to start keep a spreadsheet with this information starting this week from Monday. I should take me a good 30 days to accurately record my progress as you stated above and then review the outcome. Before this week, i was taking maybe 2-3 trades per week. But as I develop my plan moving forward, I am making a commitment to atleast take 1 trade per day. I even record the trades I don't take or miss. [quote name=DbPhoenix;155922 He made so little progress because he thought all he needed to do was keep practicing. There's an old observation about the man who has twenty years' experience versus the man who has one year of experience twenty times. Unless you keep careful track of what you're doing and why and how much you profited from the work' date=' if anything, you'll just spin your wheels. I notice from another post of yours elsewhere today that you missed an entry again. Do you keep track of when and how often and why this happens? Is it happening less? Do you have a plan for dealing with it? And so on. Practice is great. The central question, however, is (a) what are you practicing and (b) are you reaching your objectives? Db[/quote] Yes, I missed a long position today and I am not too happy about that. I don't like when I miss out on big runs like today, especially when I am staring at a level where I want to enter and a bunch of other stuff is going through my head like: 1. "wow GDP is just inline and the market not selling off" 2. "the hourly, 15 min, and 5 min is very over bought and although the trend for today is upwards and for the last two days I went long when the trend is upwards and had good success, surely it can't go any higher" "Forget the indicators, obviously the trend is up, get on board" 3. "Today is Friday and I notice the last few fridays very choppy, but the trend is up and when the trend is up, i look for retrace, define the risk (stop loss), whats the reward (target), enter the trade, manage the trade to get as many pts as I can get until target is reached" 4. "OK, I missed the entry I wanted and now price is at the next resistance. Well, lets wait for a retrace after this resistance breaks. Also, watching the 15 min slow stoch and rsi to return to oversold level at the support and then I enter off retrace once the slow stoch shows buy signal. Besides, yesterday, this work method work nice. And worked nice last when I was follow price action around the 1354 level. 5. "Its friday, i missed my first entry, just forget about it, more than likely volume is about to die off. Wow, ES is at 1370 now, Darn I wish I would i have pulled trigger at 1365, I know thats a pivot area, I should have taken the risk and kept price target 1376 as my reward. " 6. "You know the rule, after you miss the first two entry in an uptrend in the morning, done for today. Just have to watch now" 7. "ok now price is way up here at near 1376, time to short. No no, counter trending I will never do again, cause I lost money doing this about 3 times in the past. Sorry, I pass on that." "I work on counter trend trading later on, too risky" 8. Acutally there was a channel that broke out too, and I still did not buy on the retest of the upper trend channel. measure move of channel was to 1376 as well. Those where my actually thoughts dismorning. here is how I plan to fix the issue cause it happens pretty often, except the last two days. Last two days, I woke-up, market in uptrend, good, data already out, market didn't care, look for retrace, i got in, rode it up. made a mistake on not defining my target on one trade, but on the other trade did well. Here is what I am thinking to fix the issue: 1. Trade what I see on the charts. If economic data comes out and its bad, and trend for the day upwards, wait and observe price action for sell off at the next support level. if supports hold buy on the re-test of that support. 2. Review the price action of today charts over the weekend look for other entries i missed. Once again practicing cause I am sure i will see a day like this soon. 3. Stop thinking about the news and how bad economic is and why the market is going up on all this bad news and wow es up nearly 40 pts in two days in the morning when I am trying to focus on entry and exit. That thinking while trying to trade is bothering me. Forget the news and the numbers, look for a trade setup. 4. Forget the indicators when I know the market upward or downward from over night action. Pick an retrace and get on board. 5. Forget what day it is! What direction is the trend of the day, wait for news to come out, wait for reaction, look for retrace get on board. Atleast I know I reduce my risk if I 1. buy/sell in the direction that momentum is currently going, 2. buy/sell when risk vs reward is attractive doesn't matter what day is. 6. Don't buy before news of course 7. I need to figure out how to buy/sell on retrace when market moving up or down. 8. Use the indicator (15 min rsi and slow stoch) when price action is not moving as fast. Am I reaching my objectives, no I am not. Main reason is because I don't take enough trades. But that will change cause I will take one trade per day for next 30 days to measure my results. What I am practicing. My current method is: 1. My current method taking a trade in the mornings (7:30am to 12pm) in the direction of the trend for that morning. No trading before big news come out. 2. Technical analysis, resistance/support, chart patterns, trendline, pivots,volume profile. I hope that explains enough. Thank you

Thanks, I review when I come back.

LOL, i was waiting for slowstoch 15 min to enter over sold. But joshdance warned me to forget about those indicator on days like this.

Ok, i understand fully what you mean. Identify the low of the pull back and then wait for a retest of that low, then take the risk with a tight stuff. good risk vs reward. Makes sense. Thank you

Thank you kindly. Just to understand better, do you mean if price test an area of interest and then retest again? In your chart price is doing that well.

You was so right when you stated pick a trend a get on board cause anything could happen

Wow, what a move. For the past three morning, I have been doing well with 1. asking myself are we in uptrend or downtrend for the day? If yes, i know i need to get on board 2. Pick a pull back to a support/resistance and get on board 3. find a price target to take profits. So today, I woke-up and same process, trend of today is up from overnight. Just need to wait til news on Advance GDP q/q numbers come out. News came out and inline and market did not react negative to it, although numbers not improving. Well, I hesitated and missed my entry cause i was thinking about this news that came out. I guess lesson learned is stick to what the chart tells me and disregard the news. And follow the trend. I am kicking myself on this one.

Thanks for comments. 1. How can someone know if they are trading the wrong market incorrectly? I am thinking the only way is through practice to so what they like. Correct me if I am wrong. Of course practice with a demo account and not real capital. 2. Why did this person stay in the same position for 5 years? Unless there is some other process to learning, all I can do is keep learning (reading and listening), practicing and asking questions.

Thank you kindly. I need to spend sometime with volume profile reading a bit this weekend.

Yes, I look for candle stick patterns, still learning of course. I look for candle stick patterns for reversals at resistance levels. Likewise for support levels. But currently, counter trend trading (for instance looking for a short today) is not in plan. But lets say price drops to a support area, lets say 1366 which is r1 pivot I have, if I see morning star pattern, thats a some good evidence for a reversal at that support, in an intraday uptrend market. So I would take that risk. Of course I am no expert here, just my thoughts on how I see it. Looking for short today has not even cross my mind. IMO