NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





Trading spot fx euro using price action


Discussion in Trading Journals

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one Adamus with 599 posts (455 thanks)
    2. looks_two Zwaen with 46 posts (38 thanks)
    3. looks_3 SammyD with 30 posts (12 thanks)
    4. looks_4 Big Mike with 18 posts (17 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one Big Mike with 0.9 thanks per post
    2. looks_two Adamus with 0.8 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 Zwaen with 0.8 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 SammyD with 0.4 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 136,831 views
    2. thumb_up 619 thanks given
    3. group 51 followers
    1. forum 844 posts
    2. attach_file 898 attachments




 
Search this Thread

Trading spot fx euro using price action

  #771 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789


forexfactory.com
 
Code
AllDay 	CNY 		Bank Holiday 					
1:55 	CNY 	M	Non-Manufacturing PMI 
AllDay 	EUR 		German Bank Holiday 					
08:00 	GBP 	M	Halifax HPI m/m
08:15 	EUR 	M	Spanish Services PMI 
08:45 	EUR 	M	Italian Services PMI 
09:00 	EUR 	L	Final Services PMI 
09:30 	GBP 	H	Services PMI 
10:00 	EUR 	M	Retail Sales m/m 
Tent 	EUR 	M	French 10-y Bond Auction 
Tent 	EUR 	M	Spanish 10-y Bond Auction 
Tent 	GBP 	L	10-y Bond Auction 
12:30 	USD 	L	Challenger Job Cuts y/y 
13:30 	USD 	H	Unemployment Claims
15:00 	USD 	H	ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI
15:30 	USD 	L	Natural Gas Storage 
18:30 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Powell Speaks

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: Fine
Mental: Also good
Fatigue: Improved, sleep debt probably only 3 or 4 hours.
Higher Time-frame: Looks very much like the start of a rally.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 81
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 17
Asian Session: Big jump at 03:00am for reasons unknown. Range 45.5, ATR 3.5. China is on holiday. What did the Aussies do?
Pre-Session Summary: HTF trend is up, unusual strong rally at 03:00 points to a trend day.
Pre-Session Psych Issues: the usual - working out the difference between what I want to do and what I plan to do and then making sure my decisions follow at least the latter, ideally both.

Session Review

A lesson in watching setups and not trading them.

I gave up on the morning session after I realised I was too tired to think straight and took some shut-eye, deciding I could trade the US session start. That was also a minefield, and I had to stop at 15:15 and I knew there'd be no time for post-session analysis if I tried to trade the 15:00 action. So that was it.

Lessons Learnt
Hopefully.



You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
Are there any eval firms that allow you to sink to your …
Traders Hideout
Deepmoney LLM
Elite Quantitative GenAI/LLM
NexusFi Journal Challenge - April 2024
Feedback and Announcements
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
Exit Strategy
NinjaTrader
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
39 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
26 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
GFIs1 1 DAX trade per day journal
18 thanks
  #772 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789


forexfactory.com
 
Code
AllDay 	CNY 		Bank Holiday 					
07:00 	EUR 	M	German PPI m/m
10:00 	EUR 	L	PPI m/m
14:15 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Dudley Speaks 					
14:30 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Stein Speaks

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: Hmm, could be a bit better but not bad enough to affect trading
Mental: Good but as usual still getting annoyed by my indicator with all the little fixes it needs
Fatigue: Don't know. Presumably still some sleep debt, seems to hit me at about 10:00am
Higher Time-frame: Definite rally in progress now, although it's not 100%. Could be more convincing, especially with yesterday's weak advance and the initial break-out failure.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 78
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 16
Asian Session: Very quiet, 11.5 point range, 2 points ATR. Obviously doing penance for yesterday morning's huge rally.
Pre-Session Summary: if the doubts about the rally and the quiet Asian session are anything to go by, we'll probably get a range day. Germany is probably still 50% on holiday after yesterday's Re-unification Day.
Pre-Session Psych Issues: Slowly getting a grip on how seriously disturbing my constant stream of thoughts about possible entries is. It's like listening to a chatty teenage girl on a bus talking about the boy she fancies. I could go long at the end of this candle, could go short if this candle doesn't extend above the last one, could go long if this inside bar is broken to the upside, blah blah blah.

Session Review

The market went through the usual times for Frankfurt opening and London opening without showing any sign of life but eventually at 08:00, it dropped down to the Asian Low. I figured a break-out failure here would be a high probability trade. At first it looked like it wasn't going to break out, and then it broke out with more volatility than I expected but the setup still made sense to me in real-time.

Now afterwards I think the break-out volatility was a good sign of bearish strength that should have been obvious. The bar was 5 points, the biggest bar of the day so far. Followed by another bear bar of 6.5 points. I see where I was misled - I figured it was leaving a big tail hanging there, so I figured it was bullish. So in hindsight, it was kind of bullish, but it didn't totally negate the fact that the bears had just pushed the market down 12 points in 2 bars.

To be truly bullish, that candle with the lower tail should have been a bit smaller, or had a larger tail, or a bigger follow-up candle upward.

The market retraced to the Asian low line and stalled for a couple of 1-min bars - in hindsight, if still bullish, I should have had my entry buy stop just above the asking price here to catch the move up when the bounce back down failed to materialize.

But I didn't - made the mistake of looking at the 20 bar 3-min EMA (but in my experience that's random when ranging), and looking at the sort of ledge made by the highs of the 5 or 6 bars before the break-out.

Then the 2-min stall on the Asian line was broken by a surge upward - presumably a few trapped traders covering their break-out short trades.

After the 6 point push up, it stalled again for a couple of 1-min bars and I got in on a buy stop a point above. There was still a good risk to reward ratio. The move then disintegrated well before my target at the Asian High. I had my stop lingering around 5 points below my entry, and I pulled it up a bit after the first bear candle had broken the consecutive series of higher lows. Maybe I should have ditched the position straight away since the rallies and drops in this volatility tend to be smooth. I bailed out at the market after 2 bear candles and a bearish looking doji.

I have to work out whether it's just the beauty of hindsight that says my long entry should have been lower, at the Asian Low after the market had retraced up to it but then not bounced. In real-time I wanted to see it push up a bit and then retrace to let me put a stop at the new high.

Also, the pull-back after the break-out created a small swing high, but it was no higher high. That was what I was thinking, but in truth a break-out failure at a level doesn't require me to wait for a higher high.

OK so not a perfect trade, cost me 1.5 points plus commission but definitely concrete failures I can act on.

The market ground its way slowly down from there but I don't have good experience trying out my setups when the market lingers at S/R levels so I stopped an hour early and gave my mind a sleep-fix.



Lessons Learnt

So I'm still sleep-deprived, I felt the wave of fatigue hit around about 09:00am but I'd got a full night's sleep, I didn't want to quit - makes no difference. I crawled into bed at 10:00am and managed to sleep happily for an hour. My unthinking reaction is that sleep debt gets set back to zero after a good night's sleep, but it doesn't. Sleep is like a bank account that can go from zero to full, and a good night's sleep is like a salary, it keeps it on full. But when you don't sleep enough, you make a withdrawal and it doesn't get paid back by a normal night's sleep. You have to have extra sleep to make up for it. Your brain can get used to the fatigue, but it still operates at a lower level, it just doesn't seem like it.

Lots of little learning opportunities today in terms of price action stuff - most of which I had just forgotten.

The psych stuff and shutting down the constant thoughts about entries improved. Such bar-by-bar analysis blocks off the correct analysis I should be doing.

I want my mind to be quiet enough so that I can:
- look at the market clearly from both directions
- weigh up strength and weakness
- let things just occur to me that busy thoughts would block
- pick up on the subconscious feeling that I'm looking at a good setup

It's probably rare that I'll get the opportunity to sit here and do such an extensive post-session analysis, but I guess it's also so long because I'm still getting back into it.

I'm doing this with real money not sim now, since (a) I reckon I will be break-even anyway and (b) I think I've done too much sim trading in the past and I developed a sim trading mindset, sometimes just 'trying out' trades and telling myself it doesn't count etc etc.

Since I'm working to a money-based deadline (i.e. the level I'm prepared to let my total net worth sink to) rather than a time-based deadline for getting profitable, it makes sense to me to decide I'm going to allow myself 2 grand GBP. If I blow that, then it's back to the grindstone, earning some cash the usual way.

I know the adage - if you can't make money in sim, why do you think you can make it with real money? There is nothing stopping me going back to sim with new respect if I get a good caning, but right now it seems like I've got a lot to gain from going live, even if it costs me. I am possibly too confident, although I constantly examine my situation objectively if that's possible, and so far, I've no reason to believe I can't at least break-even over the next month.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #773 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789



forexfactory.com
 
Code
00:01 	GBP 	M	BRC Retail Sales Monitor y/y
	GBP 	L	RICS House Price Balance
07:00 	EUR 	M	German Trade Balance
07:45 	EUR 	L	French Gov Budget Balance
	EUR 	L	French Trade Balance
11:00 	EUR 	M	German Factory Orders m/m
12:30 	USD 	L	NFIB Small Business Index
15:00 	USD 	L	IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: Great. New chair = improved posture, better perspective. Now my trading's going to be ergonomic hehe
Mental: Hopefully no hang-ups from yesterday which was a wash-out after stopping before I'd even started due to our youngest causing issues. No more problems for him but I was beginning to think I am just never going to be allowed to trade.
Fatigue: Just starting now at 13:00 so hopefully past the fatigue stage.
Higher Time-frame: The daily chart has developed to the point where the 8 days of consolidation just look like a blip in a longer term up-trend - there's an easy to spot trend channel from Sept 6th. That puts us in a deceleration phase ready for a drop back down at some point soon, max upward scope 1.3650, downside target 1.3400 next week.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 78
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 13.5 - taking a real beating at the moment. The lowest intra-day high on this ATR is 12.5 back in August.
Asian Session: range 24.5 points, ATR 1.5 (tiny!). My data is showing a big tail on the session first bar at 22:18 last night, 16.5 points. Must be bad data, irrelevant anyway. However bearish session, definitely.
London Session: Just about managed to reverse the Asian drop, but seriously quiet. Range 21.5, ATR 4 points. Bullish but quiet, especially early on. Dead almost.
Pre-Session Summary: HTF trend unconvincing. Range day in the making? Or is the Asian bearishness and the EU inaction a precursor of a drop?
Pre-Session Psych Issues: I am tired. I can feel it while trying to do my psych visualization. Switching account over to sim.....

Session Review

Guess I have to call it a trend day. More like a grind. I was worried it was going to be the same as yesterday with only one setup. Today had 4 resistance levels above the market though and there was some kind of interaction at all of them.

The volatility kicked off early at 12:45 but it was premature and died back again until 13:30 when the market put a spike up through the Asian high / EU high / 60 min swing highs, and promptly retreated. In retrospect I think I overinterpreted this bearish strength when deciding to go short here. The 3 bear bars that followed looked like a decent pull-back, so I had 3 clues that hinted at a further drop

- bearish spike above
- convincing retrace back down
- signs that we were in for a range day, i.e. we would bounce back down from here

I had a short entry stop in place and it was clipped, entering me short at the low of 7 candles that I had to sit through before it went down significantly.

When the market was down at the low triggering my stop, it looked like an up-down pair which is what I was after as a short signal. I realised too late that I should have had my stop 1 tick below to make sure the pattern was completed - or should have held off until the close of the candle.

I had my exit stop just above the top of the level, and in fact again I had it too close so I moved it up a point and that saved the position from a stop-out.

I have to admit I wasn't in sync with the PA at all. If the market had moved a tick higher at this point, I would have bailed anyway and considered reversing. The stall on the 1-min chart was extended. However the short tendency was then betrayed by the 3 bears - a little candlestick pattern of 3 consecutive, equal-body-size bars coming out of a stall, going in the same direction, with no body overlap. If I hadn't been short, I would have entered here.

The drop only went 10 points though and the down-up pair on the 3-min chart finished it and gave me a PA-based reason to exit.

At this point I lapsed in concentration - I guess the fatigue was taking its toll - and that's why I was in sim. I took the down-up pair as bearish alright because I was using tight stops in a ranging market, but I didn't change to being bullish yet.

I saw the 10 point drop was the same as other 10 point drops earlier today and realised that this meant the bears hadn't gained control - they should have pushed down a bit further. Yet I ignored it when the market stalled again immediately and compounded my error by staying on the 1-min chart. I broke my entry rule requiring 3 3-min candles at a setup before an entry. After realising this, right on cue, the market reversed sharply and rumbled over my exit stop. It's difficult to see the pink entry marker on the chart but it's on the same bar as the exit.

That really banished the fatigue.

Minus 2 points and minus 5 points.

The market sprang straight up and into setup 2, putting in an even bigger upper spike, but the subsequent pull-back wasn't nearly so bearish. Plus this resistance level was just yesterday's high, so not very important. I figured 1.3600 was a very good bet, and a scalp with 1:1 R:R placing the stop below the previous bar was a valid entry for the setup. I put a buy entry stop in after the market retreated a little, figuring that a return to this level would lead all the way to 00. Obviously looking at the next 2 bars, you see it stalled instead.

I had both targets right at 1.3600 and after the stall they did get hit.

I think that trade was borderline dubious despite the profit, because I obviously had the risk-enhancer neurotransmitters flowing at that point after the stupid full stop-out in 1 bar / trade 2. Not an A+ setup.

Plus 5.5 points

I knew I had to be more careful and at setup 3, there was only 1 bar so it was way too quick at 1.3600, but it dropped back down and lingered at yesterday's high again for a good few bars. At this point though I could not work out anything and practically fell asleep at the laptop. I crawled off and slept for 20 mins.

I was at the screen again by setup 4, looking to see what 1.3600 would offer, however I didn't see any obvious PA - because I was still trying to get back into the swing of analysis. I was trying to get long but the 1st target was 1.3606'5 and all that said to me was 'don't trade'.

It was also conflicting that we had what appeared to be a bull trend day in progress, but the latest move up over the last 30 mins was less convincing that the previous move up, slower and shorter. After breaking the nearby resistance level, it retreated back to 1.3600 and looked pretty bearish but my session was over. No worries, I'm pretty sure I was in no position to put on a good trade.



Lessons Learnt

Not really sure what to put down to fatigue or to other reasons. I do know that fatigue exacerbates the emotions, so the mistakes I made today are simple to ascribe to that. Whether the experience of controlling myself under fatigue taught me anything, I'm not sure. Could have a negative impact even.

Possibly better to can the session when tiredness first rears its ugly head, get a kip and do something constructive afterwards. I'll probably know better tomorrow.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #774 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789


forexfactory.com
 
Code
07:45 	EUR 	M	French Industrial Production m/m 
09:00 	EUR 	M	ECB Monthly Bulletin 	
	EUR 	L	Italian Industrial Production m/m
12:00 	GBP 	H	Asset Purchase Facility 
	GBP 	H	Official Bank Rate 
Poss 	GBP 	H	MPC Rate Statement 					
13:30 	USD 	H	Unemployment Claims
14:45 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Bullard Speaks 					
15:30 	USD 	L	Natural Gas Storage 
17:20 	EUR 	H	ECB President Draghi Speaks 					
18:01 	USD 	L	30-y Bond Auction
18:45 	USD 	L	FOMC Member Tarullo Speaks

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: OK
Mental: not sure my home office environment is in an ideal state today with family coming and going. I'm hoping the disturbance won't cause any turbulence.
Fatigue: I figure I'm carrying more sleep debt than previously thought due to taking sleep yesterday mid-morning but still needing more mid-afternoon. Let's call it 5 hours. Plus this last night was rubbish, approx 5 hours.
Higher Time-frame: Appears to be a swing high forming to lead into an extended drop. However that doesn't rule out a higher high before any down-trend starts, i.e. we don't have a lower low on the daily yet but the current rally from early Sept looks really old.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 79
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 14 thanks to some late action or it would be seriously lower.
Asian Session: Healthy 40 point range with 3 points ATR and definitely bearish although stopped at 1.3500 - not enough bear power to get past yesterday's low despite having lots of time on the clock after putting in the session low.
Pre-Session Summary: Bearishness from yesterday and from Asian session, volatility is up, 1.3500 probably needs a higher escape velocity to move off.
Pre-Session Psych Issues: Apart from the usual effort to reduce the chatter in my head and get a bit of clarity, there is a bit of extra background noise from events at home so I'm going to sim trade today unless it all calms down early on.

Session Review

Started out with a long drawn-out test of 1.3500 and whether it was going to hold or break. The technical setup started in the Asian session and really early volatility at 06:00 looked like it was holding already. Although yesterday and the Asian session were pointing down, the PA was saying 'up', with chop.

There was a simple upside-down head-and-shoulders building with the neckline at 1.3505 which I didn't trust at all, since I was expecting 1.3500 to trap the price here for a while.

One issue I had was with the 'test' setup which my least favourite, and this was an overextended version. Combined with the general noise coming from the other side of my office door and the fact that I still felt fatigued, I had pretty poor levels of conviction about anything I saw.

After the crucifix at 07:46 I put an entry buy stop in just above 1.3500 on my live account but the subsequent candle which did break the doji went nowhere. I decided it wasn't a strong enough signal and cancelled the order.

I then turned a bit bearish - the bulls had stalled badly, and the last push down looked quite strong, I figured 1.3500 might break after all. I tried getting short after the 2 dojis just before 09:00, because the bulls had stalled out again and it looked like we were dropping into a sell-off. That also turned sour as it hovered over my stop entry for too long, and I canned it too. I figured I was paying too much attention to a nice risk:reward ratio and not enough to the actual bearish strength.

Then I took a break for a while at what turned out to be the ideal entry point for a long.

I tried getting in on the pull-backs at 2 and 3 but wasn't quick enough with my stop entries, or better said, experienced a fair bit of hesitation. The first pull-back was too volatile for my liking, I wanted a smoother transition back into the rally with a little bull bar where I could enter as it got broken to the upside, but the first bull bar just kept on going and trashed my risk:reward plan.

The second pull-back at 3 was too quick. It was perfect but I dithered for 5 seconds and missed 2 or 3 ticks so I gave it up.

The market then arrived at the Asian high 4 and made a really weak break-out so I was all ready to get short at 10:30 but it went the other way. I decided it created a new break-out so I had to give it 3 bars again, and then as it looked like failing again, I had to stop. I could have put on a set-and-forget order but I figured with real money on the line, I'd better just stick to the basics at this point. Just as well since the market came back again after only 5 points.




Lessons Learnt

Turning down the constant busy search for entry points is working, it's not so hard at all, although I just can't turn it right off otherwise I won't find any entry signals. I need to spend more time on the basics, looking at the setup, trying to work out if it's a good setup. It's no magic though, I need to carry on practicing, getting experience at it.

I tend to make my entries technically too complex in terms of what I want to see. If I spend more time just observing the current setup and going over the current PA in relation to the rest of the setup, the preceeding market swing, or the session as a whole and the higher time-frame too, then it might just occur to me to enter immediately at the end of the next candle. Instead a lot of the time I agonise about 1 tick more or less risk or 1 tick higher or lower for the entry.

I also need to start taking notes again. I went out immediately after the trading session and two hours later doing the write-up, I couldn't remember half of the details of what I was thinking during the session.

The best set-up today?

The move at the end of setup 1.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #775 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789


forexfactory.com
 
Code
07:00 	EUR 	L	German Final CPI m/m
	EUR 	L	German WPI m/m
10:00 	GBP 	L	CB Leading Index m/m
14:55 	USD 	H	Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment
	USD 	L	Prelim UoM Inflation Expectations
Day 1 	ALL 	L	IMF Meetings 					
16:00 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Powell Speaks 					
Day 2 	ALL 	M	G20 Meetings

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: Fit, with new chair finely adjusted. Yeah. Back straight, posture good. Forget about naked trading, it's not what you wear, it's what you're sitting on that counts.
Mental: Should be good.
Fatigue: Low - put in a mid-morning siesta. Leaves nothing of my morning but it banishes the millstone of tiredness - at least for the day, usually.
Higher Time-frame: Looking seriously like it's in the middle of making a big swing high and getting ready for a leg down. Definite deceleration of the rally from early Sept. Nothing definite in terms of direction for the day, apart from the bullishness from the Asian and European sessions. 14:55 news might spur the rally on or bounce it back down.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 79
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 16 - coming back up from worrying low levels
Asian Session: 27 point range approx - ATR 3 points - nice PA for an Asian session. Respected some hourly resistance levels at its high.
London Session: No reversal of the Asian session, looks like the good PA led straight into a rally - not a lead pipe cinch for a trader but probably as good as it usually gets. Ploughed through and took out the 1.3550 resistance, had a bit more trouble at getting thro the old lows from Monday and Tuesday and then ran out of steam for reasons unknown to me halfway to 1.3600.
Pre-Session Summary: No higher time-frame bias, just bullish for the day on behaviour so far. Market is retracing back from it's high this morning and might bounce or break through the short hour of consolidation that was 09:00 to 10:00. Volatility has fallen right off though, so any resurgence is likely to be trickier than usual. There's a high priority news event at 14:55.
Pre-Session Psych Issues: Late for work - need to make sure I don't let any impatience affect my thinking.

Session Review

Didn't have to worry about impatience. Needed more help staying awake until something happened.

The volatility that usually comes in with the US opening didn't appear until 14:30, at the earliest estimate. That made me think all market participants must be waiting for the news event at 14:55 but that was more of a non-event.

The market took ages to get down to 1.3550 and due to my bullish bias after the morning rally, I re-invented a support level at 1.3558 where the morning rally had taken off again out of the 09:00 - 10:00 consolidation. I spent a while hoping that the market was testing this level as a retrace in the rally, but the late influx of volatility was all in the wrong direction and looked nothing like a break-out of 1.3558, and anyway the news event was due.

After the weird PA with dojis and shaved bars littering the chart, it looked much more like a pending break-out of 1.3550 but it never came. The uncertainty of my analysis almost caused my brain to melt down. Instead of patience and waiting for it to form a bottoming pattern or a signal, I let it wind me up.

I gave up on it and decided it was just not going anywhere. Not a great display of patience. However after a couple more bars I started getting back into it and was bullish again - there were two hits on 1.3550 that failed and a doji signalling a drop that didn't come, and a higher low, so I started reconsidering the bullish strength.

Then typically it put in that impressive 6 point up-down twins sell signal, but it wasn't quite perfect and anyway I hesitated at the point of entry and blew it. Poor performance, money-saving result. However my dithering to get short somehow caused my mind to get stuck in short gear, and I missed the implication of the up-down signal failure followed by a nice tail hanging down under a decent bull bar. Should have been in there like greased lightning but was left standing in the dust.

That would have got me long at 1.3559 at last - but I finished at 16:00 and would have put a break-even stop on with both targets at 1.3580, so it would have earnt me nada anyway.



Lessons Learnt

- too much hesitation and dithering to put on a trade. Lesson - need more experience before I call it a problem

- getting fixated on one bias and missing the strength in the other direction, not seeing the weakness in the chosen direction. Lesson - regroup quicker at the end of each bar / pattern / opportunity missed etc - read the trading cards I carefully composed and printed out for the purpose.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #776 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789

This is a luxury since my family are away, giving me time I don't normally get. I need to do this every week, but finding the time is just desperate.

Anyway this week: looking back on what I did, I can see a few points.

Entering on a stall purely on my bias without a clear signal, I could have done so a couple of times. I see the need to re-define this in my trading plan and stick with it because entries are causing most of the problems at the moment. First of all I'm trying to tone down the amount of thought I actually put into identifying a decent entry, because I'm generally over-doing to the detriment of other parts of my analysis. I should just develop a reasonable plan and stick with it for a while without changing it.

What I've been doing so far is just allowing myself the option of both entering at a stall if I want to, or just waiting for the move and getting stopped in. Because I'm generally a bit too risk-shy, I've not been entering into the stall and I've been waiting for the move. But I'm too worried about the possibility of it being a trap, so I dither and miss the move.

I need to be pretty confident about my bias, and then enter at a stall with a wide enough stop to prevent getting stopped out by any initial fake move that quickly reverses back into my direction.

However the problem is determining my confidence in my bias. It's better if there are triggers, and I guess I should wait until I see a trigger signalling the direction of my bias. Friday's 16:00 move is a great example.



By 15:30 I should have been bullish. We'd had already at this setup:
  • a failure to continue down after a big bear bar
  • a double bottom
  • a failure to drop a few bars later after a nice tail up / partly formed 123 reversal - the failure could have been a long trigger but I wouldn't know where the entry would go.

so then the bullish move did happen with a 7 pointer bull trend bar. That was without a trigger though.

Then it got reversed immediately, almost forming a up-down pair. The short entry would have been the break below the bull 'up' bar of the up-down pair.

But that failed too after 2 bars, and that should have been the trigger. It should have been a reversal entry at the high of the previous bar.

Need to convince myself of this.

What is adding to the problem is my poor awareness of 'quality' of the setup I'm looking at in real-time and the lack of confidence in my analysis & bias. I've heard too many people say 'only take A1 setups or entries' without really being able to interpret that into my situation.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #777 (permalink)
 
mokodo's Avatar
 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 525
Thanks Received: 348


Adamus View Post
Because I'm generally a bit too risk-shy, I've not been entering into the stall and I've been waiting for the move. But I'm too worried about the possibility of it being a trap, so I dither and miss the move.

Result, you have not put in trade and probably regret it? Have you thought about scaling in, half at the first moment of recognition (the stall) and the remainder as your are stopped into the move? If you are wrong after the first step your losses are half, if you are right on the move you likely have a better average entry price.

Decisions do not always have to be so black and white, you can decide a bit act a bit, track it, commit more, or scale back. There is a branch of decision theory which splits decisions into two camps, 'tree-felling' where you have clear goals and information and decide to go all in for the goal. And 'hedge-trimming' where goals and information are less clear, changing, etc. Where you do a bit, re-assess, repeat, feeling your way through the decision.

know thyself
Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #778 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789

Excellent suggestion, although I'd have to think carefully whether the justification for it is a sound technical one or primarily a psychological crutch.

Have you tried it as an entry strategy?

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #779 (permalink)
 
mokodo's Avatar
 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 525
Thanks Received: 348

I am trying it out this week.

know thyself
Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
  #780 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, home-grown Java
Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
Posts: 1,085 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 471
Thanks Received: 789



forexfactory.com
 
Code
02:00 	USD 	H	Fed Chairman Bernanke Speaks 					
07:00 	EUR 	L	German Import Prices m/m
07:45 	EUR 	L	French CPI m/m
09:30 	GBP 	H	CPI y/y
	GBP 	M	PPI Input m/m
	GBP 	M	RPI y/y
	GBP 	L	Core CPI y/y
	GBP 	L	HPI y/y
	GBP 	L	PPI Output m/m
10:00 	EUR 	H	German ZEW Economic Sentiment
	EUR 	M	ZEW Economic Sentiment 
	GBP 	M	MPC Member Weale Speaks
AllDay 	EUR 	M	ECOFIN Meetings		
13:30 	USD 	M	Empire State Manufacturing Index
15:00 	USD 	M	FOMC Member Dudley Speaks

Position size: 2 x US$50K
Max risk per trade: 10 points (both parts) / 1% real money account size
Daily time-out: -20 points
Daily full stop: -40 points
Physical state: Fit. No problems there.
Mental: doing OK. No recognisible issues beyond what I'm currently learning to control better (hesitation / fear / busy but useless thoughts)
Fatigue: Should be getting lower now after 9 hours sleep last night.
Higher Time-frame: The formation on the daily of a swing high is still in progress, no reason to change that view. So can expect a lower low today since the action so far has got us down past Wednesday last week's low already.
20 day volatility: (10 year max 287) 79
20 hour volatility: (10 year max 96) 13 - dull market. But yesterday - Columbus Day - a holiday or not? It looked like a normal day although I didn't trade, I was just watching thinking the US was on holiday.
Asian Session: 21 point range, 1.5 points ATR, so quiet.
London Session: 90 point range, nice big drop strangely triggered by good data with some nasty volatility at the release. ATR up to 5 points. Thro 1.3500 and thro Wednesday last week's lows, touching some 60min lows from end of Sept.
Pre-Session Summary: Trend undoubtedly down for the day but it should be far enough since the daily time-frame is in consolidation. Today's bar so far fits in nicely with the idea it's forming a swing high, so we should see that this low of the day will hold. My one doubt about that theory is the news event trigger - it went the wrong way on good Euro news. How likely is it to retrace the whole move? No idea.
Pre-Session Psych Issues: Trying to make inroads against the FUD on order entry. Should be OK since I went over my trading plan for entries and am hoping that re-inforces my intent at the crucial moments.
- still trying to reduce the chit-chat in my head about unproductive entry strategies etc.



Session Review

Got to laugh now looking back. I think I got thrown in the deep end here. The market spent my whole session jumping backwards and forwards across a 15 point range.

Started out @1 around 13:00 and it looked pretty much like the market wasn't going to get up to 1.3500 but there was no way to get any sensible R:R out of an entry unless I'd had the guts to put in a limit sell after the highs around 13:00. Problem was, I was kind of bullish overall and so when a spike up came, I wasn't interested.

I considered ditching the 1.3485 support level in favour of getting some serious R:R with my target at 1.3480, but that wasn't exactly following the rules.

The market then put in some clear interaction with 1.3485 anyway from 2, proving my stupidity, bouncing upwards for 3 bars. I was still bullish so I was looking for an entry but those 3 bulls bars offered no signals and I couldn't get clear R:R for the scalp up to '00 from there anyway luckily. I tried to find the right moment to go long, but in future I have to admit, those 3 bulls bars really weren't great bullish PA.

Instead, it topped off and dropped down with some of the long-awaited volatility appearing. That brought a clear buy signal with the down-up pair, but the up candle was too wild, the entry should have been on the break of the high but that was practically at '00 already.

By 14:30 I should have been ready to take a long entry, but the market's oscillations after that 14-point candle were just totally non-directional and I guess I just got confused by the whole scenario and missed the significance of the spike down to support and back.

So then 1 bar later and the whole situation is reset - I was biased towards a more bullish outcome at 3 and of course didn't get it. The reversal pattern giving the green light to go short, in hindsight, is the bear candle exactly on 15:00 but to catch the break of that low would have required a market order as both it and the next bar were shaved. Definitely no allowance there for my preference for at least a little bit of tail above before I enter short. That's a totally untested approach to 'confirmation' that I seemed to adopt just recently.

As the market approached support at '85 again at 4, it pulled back up briefly and I figured we had a reversal already before even touching '85. The second green bar had me ready to go long but I couldn't pull the trigger because again, I couldn't get my entry order in at '92.5 which would have given me the R:R I wanted, with the stops at '86.

Again, it topped out and dropped off and gave some clear bullish signs as the break-out bar was pushed back up. That was a weak break-out. I wanted 3 bars at the level before entering though, and after the 2 bull bars with big bearish upper tails, I could have entered at '92 in the same place I'd tried to enter long before - but this time I was waiting for another retrace down before entering and it never came.

This left 5 as my last setup before stopping and again I was bullish, seeing a bit of acceleration into 1.3500, but when the obvious bearish signal came, it was too good, I figured the volatility was going to cause it to oscillate around '00 wildly and I thought it seriously unlikely that we'd have another trip down to '85, and had in the back of my mind the idea that 16:00 would bring a trend change. So I missed that one too.

Lessons Learnt

I'm overcomplicating stuff again. Talking to myself too much about this that and the other when I should be watching the PA and analysing what it's done.

I'm also over-interpreting the influx of volatility. I need to increase the size of the moves I expect it's going to make, but that's all.

So I've got a trading plan and I guess it's slowly getting ingrained, steps 1,2,3, but I tend to faff too much still and mix the steps up while mucking around with the entry stops.

It's simple once the setup is playing out:

- decide where the stops will have to be
- wait for a bar showing distinct change in direction / confirmation of direction
- check the stops and the targets and the R:R are still good to go
- enter when that bar is broken in the right direction, preferably at the point of a significant 1-min time-frame signal especially if the 3-min time-frame setup isn't looking so obvious

Well I feel like technically I have regressed since before the summer, but maybe it really is just harder at the moment.

I'm going to try simplifying it by entering market orders when I see my price hit. Requires more resolve but less action.

The best set-up today?

Number 5.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread Reply With Quote




Last Updated on July 1, 2016


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts