Journal - London & NY Open

[TheRabbi 10]

Ive been registered here for a while and havent contributed so I figurred journalling my live trades would be a good place to start .

 

Ive been sim trading forex for 9 months and have been able to keep it green for the last 2 months , ending around 12/20/11 to take a break . Im trading my live account as of 1/3/12 .

My experiences shape my convictions about trading and what works for me is just that - what works for me . What Ive learned is that KEEPING what you earn in trading is the difficult part and much more difficult than putting on a trade and having it go in your favor . Controlling what I give back either to the market , my broker , my software provider etc. is where the money is at , again , this is whats working for me so far .

 

A few of the things I grasped early are .....

1. It takes an exponentially larger gain to offset a loser .

2. Trade when the most traders are offering me their money .

3. Profits only exist when you close the position .

4. Prices dont move in one direction forever .

... Among others .

 

My method presently is to trade in the direction of strength on the USD based pairs that have the highest daily ATR and only from the london open --> asian close(ish) and NY open till about 1030(ish) . Im watching only a 5 minute chart and plotting what I determine to be swing highs and lows . Price closing beyond those levels indicates strength to me and I enter after retracements seeking larger gains than what Im risking . As long as my average gains are larger than my average losers then Im not overly picky about stop amount > 2% of capital but I wont take an entry if the bar Im refferencing to enter is wide ranging or exhaustive . And so on .

 

Right now its friday > lunch and Ill post some charts when I settle in before mondays open . Hope I can contribute a little with what Im doing and have a good weekend all .

[RealDemo 10]

Welcome, look forward to reading more about your trading.

[TheRabbi 10]

Welcome, look forward to reading more about your trading.

 

Thanks . Mondays a bank holiday in US but I'll see what prices do and take it from there . Heres how I saw fridays action . The arrows only point to where price closed beyond the swing levels. The zigzag is set to 3 bars and the wave % is set to zero since Im not interested in wave lengths at this point , only price breaking beyond recent boundaries of price . Since GBPUSD & EURUSD's daily range is around 120 pips recently Im only trading them . USDCAD and USDCHF have an ATR of around 90ish but I keep an eye on them for perspective . If the USD is bearish on one and bullish on the others then I tend to keep my ears up and do whats right so as not to trade against the grain . I prefer to pass a couple trades if things are not looking right . Ill also pass a few if theres major news events very soon or multiple major news events spread throughout the session causing widespread waiting or whipsawing .

[TheRabbi 10]

Price shifted gears a couple times . Ill wait till > 0800 and see what comes my way .

[TheRabbi 10]

No trades 1/17 tues.

[TheRabbi 10]

No trades today 1/18 wednesday . Have some work being done at home that needed me to move my PC gear and everything else for a few days so Im focussing on getting the work done and out of the way .