A Noob Logs His Trades for the Lols

[The Catabolist 10]

I wanted to keep a log/journal of my trades so I know not only the numbers of the trades (lot size, entry, exit, etc.), but also what the hell I was thinking when I went in to it. Hopefully not too long from now I'll be able to look back and repeatedly see where I was going wrong so I can continue to improve my system.

 

I only make two or three different trades per day right now since I'm taking it slow and not just throwing out shotgun trades.

 

Everybody, noobs and pros alike, feel free to comment or ask questions or tell me how dumb of a trade I made was. I'm doing this to learn and with any luck, other members here can too.

 

 

My track record: https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/practice-time/400559

(Note that I am currently using a demo account. This is after losing half of a real account and realizing I needed to slow down and get good with demo before I jump in to real trading. I do still treat it as if it's real money and am cautious but not over-restrictive with my trades).

[The Catabolist 10]

Didn't get a chance to log all of today's trades as I was waiting on a moderator to approve this post, but I do remember my USD/JPY

 

It's showing resistance at its current level, a H4 swing high which alerted me to fibo. So I've got a 0% lining up with a resistance level and decided to shoot for the 38.2 retracement. Set a reasonable s/l just above the top end of the resistance. Felt confident because the trade jumped out at me and had multiple signals lining up.

 

Dropped .03 lot on it (normally do .02) and wouldn't you know it, the s/l was tripped about a half hour later, but I checked it and it only hopped up then back down. It was still showing resistance I just happened to set the s/l the slightest bit too short.

 

Normally I accept defeat, recollect myself mentally, and move on, but I felt good about this one so I took a second swing at it with only .02 just in case. So far it's hovered below the s/l (I used the same one as before) and I'm excited to see where it goes. Will update later.

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

  The Catabolist said:

I do remember my USD/JPY

 

Hi,

 

The yen is generally a difficult market to trade . . .

 

Does it have clear sustained trends, with obvious pullbacks for low risk entries? No.

 

Does it enter sustained long term trends that last for years? Maybe, but you'd most likely get chopped up on your entry.

 

Is it obviously mean-reverting? No.

 

The closest that I think that I could get to describing its behaviour is to say that it trends in "deep" channels. By "deep" I mean that the distance between the top and the bottom of the channel tends to be quite large. Your best approach is probably therefore to trade off the top of a downward trending channel, and the bottom of an upward trending channel. This seems to be what you're doing, so assuming that you apply appropriate position sizing it's hard to see you getting into too much difficulty over the long run.

 

Hope that's helpful,

 

Bluehorseshoe

[The Catabolist 10]

  BlueHorseshoe said:

Hi,

 

The yen is generally a difficult market to trade . . .

 

Does it have clear sustained trends, with obvious pullbacks for low risk entries? No.

 

Does it enter sustained long term trends that last for years? Maybe, but you'd most likely get chopped up on your entry.

 

Is it obviously mean-reverting? No.

 

The closest that I think that I could get to describing its behaviour is to say that it trends in "deep" channels. By "deep" I mean that the distance between the top and the bottom of the channel tends to be quite large. Your best approach is probably therefore to trade off the top of a downward trending channel, and the bottom of an upward trending channel. This seems to be what you're doing, so assuming that you apply appropriate position sizing it's hard to see you getting into too much difficulty over the long run.

 

Hope that's helpful,

 

Bluehorseshoe

 

 

 

This is actually very helpful, thank you. I'm trying to focus my efforts to only 1 or 2 pairs at a time and after I've made my trade, move to another 1 or 2 and so on (this is only limited to the USD majors). I've only been going through the AUDUSD, EURUSD, and USDJPY so far, but if you say that the USDJPY can be a rough road, I'll be very careful while traveling it.

 

On a positive note, I had a damn good day all in all. My theory of the USDJPY was just finally confirmed as my t/p activated after all, leaving me with a 34.4 pip profit. If I subtract the 10.2 pip loss from my initial shot at it, I'm still left with a net 24.4 pip profit which makes me especially happy because it wasn't luck - I knew what I was shooting for.

 

It timed out well in the sense that it shortly regressed back upward after it set off the t/p so my timing was pretty much spot on.

 

 

 

 

I'll be aiming to start analyzing the GBPUSD next. Wish me luck

[The Catabolist 10]

Went short on GBPUSD. It's hanging closer to its D1 resistance than its support, though it's not exactly on the resistance. Hit a swing high on the H4 and is hanging right around there with signs of a reversal (pinbar, stalling price). This also lines right up with M30 and H4 resistance.

 

I noticed it hit the M30's fib retracement of 38.2 on its way down while the M5 shows a harsh jump below its bottom Bollinger Band and under 20 on the Stochastic (12,2,1). I let it jump up a bit first and went short.

 

Set the S/L at the H4 Fib 0 level and the T/P at the 38.2. As a final point, the distance from the T/P to the starting price is about 4 times the distance from the S/L to the starting price (with other positive signs pointing my direction). This is a good setup of a trade all in all in my current noobish opinion.

 

Just dropped a standard .02 on it since it wasn't JUMPING OUT AT ME

Edited October 17, 2012 by The Catabolist

[The Catabolist 10]

It creeped up about 40 pips more and continued to reinforce signs of stalling at this price level, so I dropped .02 more into it (keeping the S/L and T/P at the same absolute numbers)

[The Catabolist 10]

Well, the trade was a bust. My S/L was set at a good point so it stopped the trade as my failure was confirmed. I wish I wouldn't have gotten over excited and added more volume to the trade, but that's something I'll just have to keep a lid on in the future.

 

What I'm more concerned about was another .02 (totaling .06) that I don't remember entering. If it was a program issue or something of the like, this is troubling because had this been a live account, I would have furthered my loss with no intention to. I'll have to keep a close eye on this.

 

Net Loss: 25.1 pips

[ForexTraderX 10]

Hey Cat... you should post some charts of your trades, with some information about why you took them, where your stops and targets were...etc...

 

this way, people (like me) can give feedback and tips on what you are missing, and what you did correctly...etc.

 

 

Short of finding and hiring/persuading a professional trader to privately mentor you, posting charts and the like is probably the best thing you could do to learn at this point, IMO.

 

FTX

[The Catabolist 10]

Okay, thanks! You make a good point. I'll post the charts/prices. Sorry about the hiatus this past week. I'm back at it.

 

Hit the AUDUSD

 

Wasn't too sure what to do with this one. I need to make a couple trades to get in the habit of it before I kept putting it off. It seems silly but it's a part of how I learn so it had to be done.

 

I noticed it seemed to break past the 'range' between the 10 and 20 day SMAs for the M30 chart. This makes me think it's a bit more likely to go up, at least temporarily.

 

The H4 gave me a good place to start for figuring out s/l and t/p. I figure if it's going up, it'll try and hit the 0.0 again. If I'm wrong, then the 38.2 is a good s/l.

 

The D1 significant fibo shows that it might try for the 61.8 again.I don't think it's a coincidence that the D1's fibo 50 ended up being the t/p and its 31.8 was the s/l. It provides a little extra backing to my idea. We'll see where it goes!

 

 

RECAP

• Buy Price: 1.03652
  
• S/L Price: 1.03300
  
• T/P Price: 1.03850
  

Edited October 29, 2012 by The Catabolist

[ForexTraderX 10]

  The Catabolist said:

Okay, thanks! You make a good point. I'll post the charts/prices. Sorry about the hiatus this past week. I'm back at it.

 

Hit the AUDUSD

 

Wasn't too sure what to do with this one. I need to make a couple trades to get in the habit of it before I kept putting it off. It seems silly but it's a part of how I learn so it had to be done.

 

I noticed it seemed to break past the 'range' between the 10 and 20 day SMAs for the M30 chart. This makes me think it's a bit more likely to go up, at least temporarily.

 

The H4 gave me a good place to start for figuring out s/l and t/p. I figure if it's going up, it'll try and hit the 0.0 again. If I'm wrong, then the 38.2 is a good s/l.

 

The D1 significant fibo shows that it might try for the 61.8 again.I don't think it's a coincidence that the D1's fibo 50 ended up being the t/p and its 31.8 was the s/l. It provides a little extra backing to my idea. We'll see where it goes!

 

 

RECAP

• Buy Price: 1.03652
  
• S/L Price: 1.03300
  
• T/P Price: 1.03850
  

 

Aright Cat... for the most part i've been away myself this week... other than a few losing trades I took. Anyway, first problem I see is that I have no idea what time zone your MT4 is spewing data out from.... I see you got long on October 29th, at 6:01 AM... problem is, I don't know what 6:01 AM is. I see your post with the charts occured around October 28th, at 11:18 PM Central Standard Time (which is about 12:18 AM New York Time, on October 29th)...

 

So, if you could do the following, it would be greatly appreciated:

 

1. Let me (us? whoever else is watching this thread I suppose) know what time zone your MT4 is in... so, when it says Oct 29th at 6:01 am... well, what time zone is that exactly? I don't see how it could be GMT, or EST (which are the two most common time zones quoted around this forum)... So, give us some sort of standardization so we can look up your trade on our charts, and all be on the same page.

 

2. Also, I would STRONGLY advise that you use a different charting provider other than MT4 for your daily charts. Reason being, I find that having a forex day end at 5:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is the best time to have your daily charts start and end at.

In other words, if you lived in New York, and your chart time was set to your local new york time... then when new york time hit 5:00 pm, your daily candle would "end", and you would start a new daily candle at 1 second past 5:00 pm. Why does this matter? Well, admittedly many say that it doesn't matter because forex is a 24 hour market, it never closes...blah blah... however, the close of the U.S. session at 5:00 pm EST is traditionally considered the "end" of the trading day, with the NZ (and AU) markets bringing in the new day at the close of the U.S. session.

 

So many of your daily candles will print a bit different depending on when your day "rolls over" into the next. With experience and time, you will probably be able to see the same basic message on a daily chart, regardless of the daily cutoff time, however in the beginning (now), I would have your day set to end at the time that the largest proportion of traders also have theirs set to end, which is the 5:00 pm new york time each day.

 

I for one ONLY use the 5:00 pm EST cutoff as the end of my "daily candle", and this has served me well for years now.

 

Give us info on my point 1... and then for point 2, I would simply say you do this for your future daily chart analysis.

 

Once you reply with this info, I'll probably be able to give you more of my own take, and a more insightful critique of your analysis and this trade.

 

FTX

[The Catabolist 10]

  ForexTraderX said:

Aright Cat... for the most part i've been away myself this week... other than a few losing trades I took. Anyway, first problem I see is that I have no idea what time zone your MT4 is spewing data out from.... I see you got long on October 29th, at 6:01 AM... problem is, I don't know what 6:01 AM is. I see your post with the charts occured around October 28th, at 11:18 PM Central Standard Time (which is about 12:18 AM New York Time, on October 29th)...

 

So, if you could do the following, it would be greatly appreciated:

 

1. Let me (us? whoever else is watching this thread I suppose) know what time zone your MT4 is in... so, when it says Oct 29th at 6:01 am... well, what time zone is that exactly? I don't see how it could be GMT, or EST (which are the two most common time zones quoted around this forum)... So, give us some sort of standardization so we can look up your trade on our charts, and all be on the same page.

 

2. Also, I would STRONGLY advise that you use a different charting provider other than MT4 for your daily charts. Reason being, I find that having a forex day end at 5:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is the best time to have your daily charts start and end at.

In other words, if you lived in New York, and your chart time was set to your local new york time... then when new york time hit 5:00 pm, your daily candle would "end", and you would start a new daily candle at 1 second past 5:00 pm. Why does this matter? Well, admittedly many say that it doesn't matter because forex is a 24 hour market, it never closes...blah blah... however, the close of the U.S. session at 5:00 pm EST is traditionally considered the "end" of the trading day, with the NZ (and AU) markets bringing in the new day at the close of the U.S. session.

 

So many of your daily candles will print a bit different depending on when your day "rolls over" into the next. With experience and time, you will probably be able to see the same basic message on a daily chart, regardless of the daily cutoff time, however in the beginning (now), I would have your day set to end at the time that the largest proportion of traders also have theirs set to end, which is the 5:00 pm new york time each day.

 

I for one ONLY use the 5:00 pm EST cutoff as the end of my "daily candle", and this has served me well for years now.

 

Give us info on my point 1... and then for point 2, I would simply say you do this for your future daily chart analysis.

 

Once you reply with this info, I'll probably be able to give you more of my own take, and a more insightful critique of your analysis and this trade.

 

FTX

 

 

 

Alright, I will be doing just this. I was terrible this past week again, but this week I'm going to add severe focus and at least make one trade per day.

 

I'm personally trading in GMT-5 (EST), but my MT4 seems to be in GMT+2 since the trading day on Friday ends at 23:00 / 11pm in MT4 which for me is 17:00 / 5:00pm.

 

So based on your post here, I'm going to try and get rid of this confusion and pick up a new client. I plan on getting some trades set up today after the market opens up (though nothing crazy since it's such low volume on Sundays). I wonder how Hurricane Sandy has affected and will affect the New York trading session.

 

 

UPDATE: I could download a different platform, but it will have to be different from what I use once I go live since my only realistic live option is MT4. The major difference is initial deposit needing to be higher and lot size larger, though I could simply scale those down mentally to be similar to how live trading would be. Also, the new platform will factor commission in so I'm curious how that will affect it since the MT4 approach only uses the bid/ask spread for compensation.

 

UPDATE AGAIN: I realized I could use this other platform for charting and decision making, then simply use MT4 to actually place the trade. I think I'll give this a shot.

Edited November 4, 2012 by The Catabolist

[ForexTraderX 10]

  The Catabolist said:

Alright, I will be doing just this. I was terrible this past week again, but this week I'm going to add severe focus and at least make one trade per day.

 

I'm personally trading in GMT-5 (EST), but my MT4 seems to be in GMT+2 since the trading day on Friday ends at 23:00 / 11pm in MT4 which for me is 17:00 / 5:00pm.

 

So based on your post here, I'm going to try and get rid of this confusion and pick up a new client. I plan on getting some trades set up today after the market opens up (though nothing crazy since it's such low volume on Sundays). I wonder how Hurricane Sandy has affected and will affect the New York trading session.

 

 

UPDATE: I could download a different platform, but it will have to be different from what I use once I go live since my only realistic live option is MT4. The major difference is initial deposit needing to be higher and lot size larger, though I could simply scale those down mentally to be similar to how live trading would be. Also, the new platform will factor commission in so I'm curious how that will affect it since the MT4 approach only uses the bid/ask spread for compensation.

 

UPDATE AGAIN: I realized I could use this other platform for charting and decision making, then simply use MT4 to actually place the trade. I think I'll give this a shot.

 

Ya, i'd strongly recommend a charting package that shows a forex day ending at 5:00 pm EST. I find daily highs and lows to be one of the most significant factors I use when determining possible entry, stop, and target points... and if your chart shows days differently then the "official" time...then what may be a price level that you believe the market will reverse off of because it is a previous "daily low".... well, if it's not a daily low that corresponds with the largest proportion of other traders... you could be in for a lot of frustration.

 

FTX

[The Catabolist 10]

Made this trade about 5:15pm EST on Sunday, 11/4

 

EURUSD:

Price: 1.28249

S/L: 1.27990

T/P: 1.28880

 

Looked like a good swing low on the H4 and is also a support AND swing low on the D1, so I entered here. Set the S/L for below the next lowest point prior to this swing low on the H4. Set the T/P on the 38.2 fib retracement on the H4.

 

Fingers crossed.

Edited November 4, 2012 by The Catabolist

[The Catabolist 10]

  ForexTraderX said:

Ya, i'd strongly recommend a charting package that shows a forex day ending at 5:00 pm EST. I find daily highs and lows to be one of the most significant factors I use when determining possible entry, stop, and target points... and if your chart shows days differently then the "official" time...then what may be a price level that you believe the market will reverse off of because it is a previous "daily low".... well, if it's not a daily low that corresponds with the largest proportion of other traders... you could be in for a lot of frustration.

 

FTX

 

Alright, the one I'm using now has a better platform with an interface that I'm growing to like a heck of a lot more. On top of that, it's EST-1 (GMT+4 I think that would be) so that's closer to the "official" close. I definitely understand where you're coming from with your reasoning behind that so I too take it seriously. Hopefully this helps.

[Obsidian 10]

  The Catabolist said:

Went short on GBPUSD....

 

there are some useful GBP/USD price patterns here, you might want to take a look:

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/technical-analysis/12745-price-patterns.html

[The Catabolist 10]

Well, that failed. Price kept dropping. So, since it broke through a support pretty well, I'm going to assume it has some decent downward momentum try and go for a very short-term sell and see how it goes. Used the previous S/L as a starting point for the S/L this time. Made the T/P simply something that's within a reasonable distance outside of the Bollinger Bands on the M5. I waited for the price to jump outside of the top BB on the M5 and reach high on the Fast Stochastic (12,2)

 

Monday, 11-5-12, 6:40 PM EST

 

EUR/USD

Selling Price: 1.28010

S/L: 1.28100

T/P: 1.27910

 

Gonna see what happens.

[The Catabolist 10]

Quite the success! This trade went basically how I expected it to. And given the confidence I had in it and it was a smaller pip trade, I sold .10 lots instead of the standard .02. This would have been a $10 profit (on a $500 account). Factor in the ~$3 loss from the first trade and it's still net $7. It's a great feeling to know I made a proper choice.