I am pretty new to the forum and rarely post, but figured that it was about that time to create my own journal.
I have been at this since March and the learning curve has been very steep. I started out with basic price action after reading Al Brook's books, but then have branched out with more books, forums, etc. to where I am today.
When I started out, I naively thought that I knew what I was doing, but I didn't and even if I had, I had no discipline. I ended up losing 2k before stopping and switching to a sim account until I know that I have conquered my demons. I am now of the opinion with a good setup and strong money management that you can win at this game.
I tended to take loads of trades and I find that nerve-racking. Now, there are fewer trades and better risk to reward ratios.
Now, I believe that I am approaching the time where soon, I can go live. I don't have a live data feed, so will be trading on market replay which is good in some aspects - one being that I don't have to sit around and wait for a setup (the other being that it is free with NinjaTrader :becky:)
I use the CCI, 34 EMA, ADX/DMI along with a dual time frame stochastic. What I look for is a break from the trendline for a reversal and a couple of good bars against the trend alongside a Stoch cross-over (unless the ADX is over 30 - then it must be waning in power). Typically, I will look for a pullback for an in-trend trade or a trend-line on a 30 minute chart - they tend to have a lot of pull.
I have a lot of rules, but probably the one that I am not so great yet is trading counter-trend. I generally don't wait for either the cross-over/ADX wane/strong reversal bars. If I go with trend, I make money, so in this I am starting to come around to the idea of not going counter-trend.
Anyway - I will probably start with the market replay that was the 26th before submitting my first submission.