Long GBPUSD -15pips

I keep doing it! I keep getting greedy, wanting to get back to winning and keep trading dumb trades.
Even though I believe the set up was defensible, I don't think I was exactly prepared to take it, as it is not my set up exactly. 

It's very frustrating calling the levels right but not being able to trade them. The problem is not with this set up exactly though, it's more with the execution. I had a winning trade and increased position size as I had a winner and now I'm back to square one. I'm trying to get all back in 2-3 trades and my head keeps betraying me.

I am not learning my lessons unfortunately, and it's very frustrating. I said I wouldn't trade every day, that I'd wait for my set ups, that I like to trade Tue-Thur, and keep blowing it.

Here's the set up, looking for GBP to expand higher, with USDX confirming it was going lower.

Various Trades

Trading demo is definitely very different from trading live funds, that's for sure. Trading live funds, even at such small blips as I am currently trading, will do crazy things to you. I've been awfully off my game, albeit the difficult markets. I have been exiting out of positions early, taking trades early because I'm greedy, freaking out and closing without touching my stop loss and then see the move pan out. I am not moving my stop to break even soon enough. Basically, I am not following my trading rules.

For the past week, I should have been positive, or at least neutral, instead of down -0.35% as I am for this week and -0.7% for the month. I am overtrading, changing my mind, doing crazy things. I need to settle back to my routine and let that pan out.

I thought NZD would go down to 0.6780 and tried a swing trade, even though I like trading short. I exited out early, then retook the trade, even though I was not close to my stop yet. After that, I trailed my stop too close and never re entered the trade, then it dropped over 100 pips.

I exited out of a Euro trade early, then it moved just fine in my direction. I did not close my Cad long trade when I was up 58 pips looking for 60, even though we'd just taken out a high, and many more.

I took two positions at the same time, even though my  mantra is not to do more than one, as I am either long or short dollar.

I have to keep trading with the smallest size until I am back to my original level. I never expected to have such a losing streak, with 8 of the last 10 trades pretty much losers. This portion of my trading needs to be about learning and growing my account little by little. Eventually it'll grow and I'll be doing well, but I don't need to rush these things. My 3% weekly goal is attainable and just fine, no shame in that. I need to go back to that, even though with current trading size I'll be looking for something like 0.5% return per week for the foreseeable future.

I took 6-7 trades this week, while away from my computer, going off my phone, way too many bad things. Really disappointing to be in this funk. Hopefully I'll learn from this, at least I'm getting a bit better from what I was doing last week but still, not in my A game.

Short EURUSD -30pips

I once again let somebody influence my trading and it cost me. I moved to 2 micro lots after making that 0.3% back, and looked to short Euro thinking it'd go lower with a stronger dollar closing their respective gaps. 

I was up 20 pips and thought about moving my stop to break even. I had in my head somebody telling me 'it should be okay to run with no problem from here' so I was afraid I'd miss on the move.

I saw the news at 3am and even thought it looked suspicious but went to sleep as not much happened. When I woke up I was down some 20 pips and was hoping it'd continue lower after a retracement.

I was wrong and it moved higher some 100 pips for the day, netting me a loss of 30 pips.

I'm back to 1% gain for the year, which is still better than losing money and the markets have not been all that great, but I need to go back to my bread and butter trading which was working just fine for me and was yielding the results I wanted.

My stop here was way too high for what I like trading, even though the set up still looks good to me, sometimes things can be unexpected.

But I need to more to break even and preserve capital when I want to, and I need to take profits when I feel comfortable too also.

Despite all the set backs, I feel like I'm learning a lot and can see a lot more set ups forming. I'm leaning towards my day trading plus some scalps throughout the day as well if I see something that I really like or something that's tradeable, although I don't want to go crazy with trading all the time.

I also need to be better with my journaling my trade right away, and updating the information afterwards.

Short NZDUSD +20pips

I was watching the news event live at 6:45pm for NZD, thinking it'd want to trade higher to close 0.6980. I was hoping to catch a retracement to go long. Price never retraced and shot up to 0.6970 but began to stall. I figured it'd trade lower from here so I took a short at 0.6966 looking for 40 pips.

I did not like the price action so I cut bait at 0.6946 for 20 pips. I've been pretty desperate for a good win, so I should've moved my stop to break even or +5 or something and then let it run. 

I'm trading with the smallest size as my trading has been sloppy and I need to make back my returns.

I'm currently at 1.6%+ for the year, which is less than stellar. I closed April (first month) at 1.3% gain.

EURUSD +11pips

When I was trading demo I did not let other's opinions influence me, and at first, I started with my real trading the same way, but as soon as I took one loss, I was a deer in the headlights. I've been super sloppy, getting in and out of positions without sound analysis, not trusting what I'd been doing prior, etc.

If I'm day trading, I can just go for 1:1 risk/reward scenarios as I was doing, or even the 1/1.5 that I had gotten comfortable with, usually in the form of 20 pip stop loss, 30 pip objective. I closed this trade too soon instead of moving stop to break even and just seeing what it could do. I could've gotten the 30 pips back from the losing EURUSD trade.

Alas, I was influenced by somebody else's idea of the trade and closed it.

EURUSD -35pips

Been trading with the smallest of sizes as my trading has been sloppy, I've been overtrading and I don't have the experience to be doing this in this market environment.

I've also been sloppier about my journaling. I was just plain wrong about the direction of this trade and it cost me.

I'm finding out that when I'm wrong about a trade, I just get the full stop because it's going in the opposite direction, then because I have a tight stop, I can probably play with smaller stops than 35 pips, need to know to trust my levels, and if I'm wrong, just be wrong quickly.

Various Trades: - 25 pips

I'm really disappointed with my trading for this week. I followed my rules and was up 30 pips. Then I got greedy and started to listen to other's trading advice and screwed up. I traded New York which is not a favorable set up for me so far and lost 20 pips. Then when I wanted to short Euro, I shorted half Euro and half in Cable because of somebody else's idea, I got stopped out of that, and closed my Euro short that would've let me up for the day because I lost track of my trading at this point.

I also saw a long on USDCAD that I was not able to trade on for fear of continued screw ups and losing even more money.

I over traded this week. Listened to other's advice. Got greedy. Felt fear. All the bad habits of trading I experienced in 48 hours from Wednesday night to Friday morning. 

I really need to learn to trust my process, trust my set ups and follow my rules. I lost 1.5%, so I'm up 1.5% for the month on my first month trading, with a week to go. This is quite possibly better than most people but it's disappointing. The main thing that drives me crazy is listening to somebody else's trade. That never works because you don't know the set up, you don't know when to cut it, what to look for. 

Also, Euro just broke 200 points higher on the election news to open the week which would've been my play for this week but I have no idea what it'll do now.

Moving forward I need to follow my rules, that I even wrote down on Tuesday in my notebook. I'm quite disappointed in myself but I think this will be a learning experience.

Long EURUSD +30pips

Wanting to get back my losses on NZDUSD from last week, I saw a potential set up on EURUSD.

I figured USDX would fall from current levels and Euro might be a good buy, with highs waiting to be taken out.

 I was in and out of the trade while I was sleeping and made back a bit more than my loss from last week with half the position size. Overall, I could've waited for more now that I know what I'm looking for better, but anyway, a good trade for me.

 Back at +3% for the month with a week to go.

Long NZDUSD -10 Pips, 0.3 Lots

I had been expecting the dollar to continue lower all week as previously  noted. Therefore, I was looking for foreign currencies to rally. 

Looking at all possibilities, I thought NZDUSD gave me the best risk/reward so decided to place a trade here. I set an entry of 0.6940 looking for 0.6970, and a risk of 10 pip stop only.

The trade moved a bit in my favor but just continued down throughout the day. The trump speech in the afternoon finally got this moved but I'd been long stopped out of it.

Overall, I learned that this Easter week is not good for trading as the movements are not clearly discerned.

 I'm not too concerned about the drawdown as losses are expected, and I had become too complacent with the trading. Looking forward to getting on the positive side next week once again!

GBPUSD Short +12pips 0.1Lots, +13pips 0.2Lots

I was looking for a short on the cable thinking it'd run the stops accumulating under the consolidation happening and that USDX still had room to run to 101.

I set my order and I got about 30 pips but wasn't moving much after that. I wanted to get 60 pips and get a 3R trade, so I held. The trade started going downhill and eventually closed it.

I'd rather get my 30 pips and be done, than have to sit through hours of price not exactly moving or going sideways, especially in this market. If we had big ranges I'd be inclined to wait through New York session but I'm not at that level yet. I'd rather stick to my trading rules for now and then learn more as I go along.

 I was also looking for EURGBP to go higher from here, but that never materialized.

Despite some mistakes with position sizing and profit taking, the account is still growing at a reasonable rate. I want to make 6% monthly, and in 7 weeks, I'm at 9.29%, which is on pace to achieve those results.

EURUSD Short +30pips 0.2Lots

Today I'm really excited! I made my first live trade and it was a winner: +30 pips and +2% on my account. I have been interested in trading for a long time but had not managed to really start until late last year and all the hard work is paying off. I am happy because of my understanding more than the monetary gain. Although eventually I'd like to do trading for a living, I am in no rush as I have a stable job that I like and want to remain there for years to come. Nonetheless, it feels really good to finally take a trade and see it pan out.

I decided to take a similar trade on the demo to keep track of my progress. I say similar because the data feeds have different prices so it won't be exactly the same, but the concept that I'm using to take the trade and objective will be the same.

I was looking to short the Euro one more time as I thought dollar had still room to run, plus EURGBP looked like it would finally trade to 0.8590. I placed a sell limit order looking for 30 pips and a stop loss of 20 pips. I could have increased my trade size but chose not to do so yet and go with my standard 0.2 lots, and a 1.5R trade. 

I woke up and I had almost reached my goal but missed it and started to freak out, this was around 5am, and knew I'd get a retracement before NY but decided to stick to the rules and hold it. It was a struggle and could not sleep well, but in the end, the trade panned out and I was able to make my 30 pips.

I learned a lot from this experience and look forward to continuing on my journey. Here's the updated MyFxBook as I close the month of March. 

The account is up 8.45% in six weeks, which is almost 9% and comes out to 6% monthly which is my goal to duplicate my money yearly.

EURUSD Short +30pips 0.2Lots

I did not see anything I liked on Monday and I decided to not even look at the markets for Tuesday. I think this is very important because as I get more and more comfortable with my trading, I don't need to be forcing things everyday. At first I was looking for a set up everywhere, and if you look hard enough, you can see both the buy and the sell scenario.

Another thing that I think is important, is that I've seen more experienced traders making some predictions on Twitter and I've not let them affect me. Sometimes it's a relief having some confirmation from other sources, but the best teacher in my opinion is experience so I'll go with what I'm learning.

Anyway, here's what was happening yesterday:

I had done my analysis early on and noticed I could potentially see a short in Euro or Pound. I thought cable was way too extended for my liking and decided to look for Euro. Euro had moved a bit already and I didn't think it'd give me an opportunity to sell on a limit order as the price I wanted was too close to the current price. I decided to take a short right then and there, with a 20 pip stop loss and looking for 30 pips for a 1.5R trade.

 Dollar had some room to go to take out the buy stops above 100.00 so I thought it'd be a good idea. I wasn't sure we'd get to 1.0770 stops on Euro and decided not to push it.

I woke up this morning to see that the trade had already panned out for a cool 2% gain in the account.

Since I opened this demo account I'm up 6.45% (February 14th - March 29th) for six weeks. I'm happy with my development and I have learned a lot. I'm ready to trade live and see how that affects my trading as the psychology involved is probably a lot tougher than demo.

Below is my trade history taken from MyFxBook.

GBPUSD Long +25pips 0.1 Lots, +40pips 0.1Lots

The closing of positions earlier makes it hard to account for how many pips one makes. Making some pips and securing profits gives me some peace of mind, and in this case helped me to hold the rest longer, but I'm not a huge fan of this approach, I think I'd rather just frame trades in 2:1R and be done with it instead of struggling through the motions for hours to get something done.

Anyway, onto the trade: went long at 1.2475 looking for 1.2560 as an objective. It went to 1.2530 and gave a lot back so I started to get nervous, I never know how to manage the position when this happens. For this time around, I decided to take out something with a favorable move, and leave the rest so I could practice.

USDX was choppy at this time but cable looked stronger and I thought they'd take out 1.2530 but did not see 1.2560 happening anymore.

Even though having some profits felt good, I didn't want to see what I had evaporate so I closed when I got some retracing move. Eventually, 1.2530 was taken out but given the time of day I felt more comfortable just getting out there.

After a month and a half of demo trading for real, unlike past experiences, I feel much more comfortable with my plan. I just need to start framing trades with better risk reward, or at least holding for it as right now I tend to close positions erroneously. Any loss for the full stop of 2% risk takes me out considerably, while I usually make something like 1.5% per trade.

I am ready to go live with my trading in April and feel very comfortable with the approach I've managed to finding setups.

NZDUSD Long +0 pips

I didn't really frame this trade in anything in particular, other than Michael mentioning he thought AUSUSD was going to go higher, me not wanting to trade his idea, and thinking I could try something similar anyway. I didn't get stopped out for -20 pips by chance, then I got some pips higher, but collapsed the position for 0 pips when nothing really happened.

I need to think more independently as Michael's idea was actually a losing trade as AUS collapsed, so lesson learned: do your thing and learn from it. Fortunately in this case, I didn't lose anything on it.

EURUSD Short -28pips 0.2 Lots

 It took me a while to write down this trade, as it happened on March 9th (two weeks ago), so I have to try hard to remember. The basic premise was that I expected the USDX to continue higher, and therefore, foreign currencies to drop against it. In this case, the Euro was giving me a setup after having taken out the highs previously.

Dollar traded lower, Euro traded higher from my entry and took me out at -30 pips with 2 lots.
Thinking I was going to be able to get something back by filling in a void, I tried to get short at 8:30am NY, but realized fast that it was a 'revenge' trade and got out for +2 pips which was smart as Euro went even higher after that.

 There are going to be losers in trading and I need to accept that, I had not had a losing trade in a while. What's important to learn is that I'm being more right than wrong in this small sample size, but I'm not getting as much reward. I need to get to at least 1:1, as right now, this single loss put me back substantially in my account and that's unacceptable, I'd like to frame 2:1 trades if possible going forward.

Short EURUSD +44 pips

The amount of pips doesn't always translate well, if you scale out of the position in a trade, these were 20 and 24, which is the equivalent of 22 pips for the profit, so it's hard to make projections sometimes with these numbers.

Anyway, I was still looking for a short on Euro as I had placed an order the previous day but did not get triggered. Fortunately, there was a new opportunity in this currency once again. 

Once again, I placed my order as a sell limit at night and went to sleep.

Sell at: 1.0539, stop loss 1.0569, looking for 1.0490. 

By the time I got up, euro had already moved 20 pips and taken an old low in the lower time frames. I decided to take half of my position off here and let the rest run.

Dollar was pulling back a bit at this time and euro was taking its time to drop so I decided to look for 1.0495 instead. It dropped to 1.0496 and retraced. I had moved my stop to give me 24 pips to 1.0515, and that got tagged. I was up to 63 pips at one point so it is a bit frustrating see it all go back but I'm still learning and seeing things for myself will certainly help.

I've taken 4 trades since I opened this account on the 14th of February, for a net of 79 pips, and 2.63% gain in two weeks. I'm well within my objective of 6% per month to duplicate my account yearly and will be looking to go live in April.

Next up in my analysis: see how far back I get in retracements to see if I can place smaller stops and go bigger with lot size for the same risk.

Short EURUSD -15 pips

With dollar failing to make lower lows and showing strength, I saw SMT in Euro as it made another high. I was thinking it would finally drop and decided to look for a short.

My trade idea was short at 1.0600 looking for 1.0535 which was an old low.

Dollar was retracing to a +OB so I was not terribly worried about what might happen as it was showing a willingness to rally.

 Euro had moved some 20 pips originally but right now wasn't showing willingness to drop so that got me nervous as ICT mentioned they might to a 3-top pattern before dropping it.

 At this point Dollar was still holding on but nothing was happening in Euro.

I lowered my stop to 15 pips and decided to learn from this experience if it indeed trade higher as it wasn't really my call that it wouldn't drop.

 Euro did end up making a higher high that day and dollar failed to make a lower low, so this loss can be mitigated.

Short NZDUSD +15 pips

I have been looking for NZDUSD to reach for 0.7125 Daily +OB, but it had failed to do so, so I was looking for it one more time.

As I've been doing lately, I look at the price past midnight and see where we open, where we could go and then go the opposite way. I set my sell limit order at 0.7170 and went to sleep.

When I woke up, NZDUSD had moved to 0.7154 which was an old equal low, even though I expected it to move lower, it had previously failed so I decided to take half of my position off here for 12 pips after it gave back a few pips at this area.

I was afraid that dollar would fill in what I thought was a H1 void as it was breaking below the OB, so I trailed my stop to break even.

Price went back up and ended up taking me out for a 3 pip profit.

I think I moved the stop tight very fast, but also 0.7125 was never reached, and Kiwi gave most of the trade back.

Overall: +15 pips that taste like too few.

NZDUSD Short +35 pips

February 14th, 2017

After two months out with negative market conditions and a long trip to South America, I finally decided to try things out once again. I was skeptical of going with short term trades as I have not touched them in a while but this is definitely my preference for trading so I decided to start practicing once again.

My only two possible trades were short the euro or short the kiwi. The kiwi I was looking for a drop to 0.7125 from last week when it was trading at around 0.7210 but I did not get a fill with my limit order.

This time around, I saw price action that looked promising going into London and placed a limit order at 0.7190 looking for 0.7125 once again.

I woke up at 6am and the trade was up 3 pips or so. Not being mentally tough, I was already thinking of lowering my stop and what not. At around 7am, or so, the trade was in the red for 15 pips at one point and I did not know what to do. I was already questioning my ability to place trades, especially short term.  I've noticed I've gotten better at seeing where price is going in the daily, but so far had not executed properly.

Anyway, I decided to ignore my worst instincts and let the trade develop. It went positive again and when I was at 5 pips or so thought about closing, then thought about lowering stop and what not. I held and was thinking of changing my take profit as it was approaching 9am or there abouts.
I missed a spike to 0.7155 and was regretting it as the price was again at around 0.7180.

At this point, I changed my take profit to 0.7155 and thought I'd manage it from 10-11am. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) some things came up and could not, and the trade closed at 35 plus pips, at 0.7155. The trade went to 0.7135 but reversed after that.

Overall, I'm glad I avoided the trap of lowering stops or taking profits of a few pips. I held the the killzones and time of day theories and did better because of that.

The negatives: I had not checked Forex Factory prior to trading, so that could have been a factor in my trade, and also taking profit right away. One caveat though, was that it was already around 10:20am when I changed the stop so it was a profit taking hour anyway.

I still think NZD is going to 0.7125 so I might look for another opportunity to get in.

The charts:

The Monthly chart shows 0.7125 as being the mean threshold of the three consecutive down candles.

   There's a +OB at the 0.7125 level on the weekly.

Daily shows equal lows below 0.7125

What I was seeing at midnight or there abouts.

What happened during the day with NZDUSD.