jmont1 

I meant to quote that message because it is asking you to evaluate your assumptions. First off, just to admit I am not overal successful in trading, primarily through some of the same issues you are facing. Your checklist(s) may spark benefits in me or allow me to provide hard won advice to you. Is your checklist that simplistic (not a diss.) Do you actually have a document or spreadsheet for these many checklists? Do they link so an answer in one will be noted in the others? I like the idea that they have interdependencies. The primary one that seems to simple is “Setup.” Another one that looks like it would belong as part of a spreadsheet would be “where will trapped traders bail?” Do you have a spreadsheet or automated checklist?

The checklist is something I can look at, pinned to the wall above my laptop, and scan over in minimum possible time. I need it to remind me as quickly as possible of all the steps I need to consider before I enter a trade. It's a learning process and I hope to internalise the checklist so well that I won't need it anymore.

I think to a certain extent, forcing myself to read the checklist at the point when I realise the setup has started means I might miss the entry. So as a beginner, nice slow moving setups are ideal for me. I've been doing this 3 months now and it seems to be getting there, but it's a slow process. Actually I could chuck out a few of those bullet points because I have internalised them - like "chop vs trend" and "principle" and "trading mode"

So you are right, the whole process is documented more thoroughly in my trading plan - or at least it is meant to be: you've caught me on the hop because I've changed my checklist a lot this last week and I didn't update my trading plan document. But there is nothing very clever going on. It is just text describing what my action plan is. I also have another unrelated file where I keep print-outs of charts which show significant types of price action, but that's more like a scrapbook and difficult to manage.

No trading yesterday, figured it would be a sideways day and took the time out to do a big review of my trading last week and came across a couple of hours of price action which I'd traded which I really couldn't work out what to do even with hindsight, but looking back at my daily notes I realised with hindsight in review I'd credited the periods as good setups. Have to watch out for that. No point wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking back at it in hindsight, it's already difficult enough to learn stuff without giving myself false impressions from poor review technique.

Almost got caught out by the clocks changing in NY. Wondered why there was so much volatility an hour earlier than usual at the end of the Asian session.

Following up my goals from last week, I made only small progress at

(a) ensuring that I go over the order entry checklist
(b) focusing better

Poor results in (a) were no doubt due to poor attempts at (b).

To improve my focus, I picked up a book called 10 Minute Toughness. Mainly for sports, it's also meant for business, or any performance-dependent activity. Got to find time to read the book first.

So my goals tomorrow - same as today - (a) order entry checklist use and (b) focus.

Trankuility 

Using small stops and targets you'll miss a lot of big moves, at least that's my experience. But that's ok, don't need to catch them all. Position yourself to take advantage of what you can and try not to get discouraged when you get out and miss a larger move. To me that's just comes with the territory of using small stops. Although I have been working on staying in longer.

What ive done to stay in a trade longer was to move my stop along a ma like a 55ema and just say to myself..hopefully price does go my way long enough to lock in B/E + 1 or 2 to cover spread and allow price to run...gradually move stp furthur up..or just move it w/ the 55ema and let price take me out or take my profit along the way somewhere...

Not that Im some expert by no means

Happy trails

Need more oversight of my results that my trading log isn't giving me because I don't record the missed setups.
I'm sure I'm still missing 3/4 of the setups and I need to make sure my review with hindsight really tells me why I missed them.

Wednesday had 12 setups in my trading session - marked 1 to 12 on the 3-min chart. The pips p'n'l are conservative rather than optimistic, where I missed the trade:

(1) About 15 pips on offer in long Break-Out Pull-Back. Missed it as didn't see the triggers and was very bearish due to daily trend down (it was a long)

(2) 8 pips on offer, short Test setup. Missed it after deciding to get some more sleep for a bit

(3) Realistically on 3 or 4 pips. Break-Out Pull-Back long setup. Just missed it by a minute as sat down again at screen.

(4) 6 pips on offer. Break-Out Pull-Back long again. Got it. First part on target, 2nd part had to bail for less.

(5) 6 pips on offer as even ideally 1st entry had to be scratched for 2 pips loss. Break-Out Pull-Back short. Missed it completely since too focused on 2nd part of previous trade in other direction.

(6) 20 pips on offer. Pull-Back setup. 2nd chance to get in on trade (5) but so close to target, I would have taken next S/R level down as target. Missed it - don't remember how. Obvious doji break entry.

(7) 13 pips on offer. Break-Out Pull-Back short. 3rd chance for trade (5). Entered well but bailed early, guilty of pulling stop down too quick.

(8) 10 pips on offer, Pull-Back short, part of trade (5). Missed it, annoyed at previous stupidity.

(9) 6 pips on offer, Break-Out Pull-Back failure long setup. Missed it, too bearish, ignored trigger.

(10) -2 pips at Pull-Back failure for a short. Missed it anyway.

Took another trigger that I should have ignored in this consolidation area, -2 pips.

(11) 15 pips. Break-Out Pull-Back failure for a long. Missed it, took a short & lost 3 pips.

(12) 25 pips Break-Out Pull-Back failure for a short (inc. -2 for aborted long entry). Took the long entry but missed the reversal. Got in on the big trade eventually for 19 pips.

So 94 pips on offer.

I got 18 of them.

I missed 2 setups because I chose to go back to bed to get rid of the fatigue.

I missed 7 setups just through missing the signals, having the wrong bias, or hesitating.

I took two trades that in hindsight that I shouldn't have - one was not a proper setup, I forced it, and the second I went too quickly in the wrong direction.

I took three setups according to plan, getting stopped out early on one by keeping my stops too close.

So 3 out of 12 for entries and 2 out of 12 for exits.

I hope it's this easy to do the review in future - it did seem like a relatively easy trading day so I fear it will degenerate again.

I'm getting seriously disillusioned with the 2 part trades. I generally do worse on the 2nd part, getting stopped out at a lower price than the initial target, instead of catching a runner. The 2nd part also distracts me from the next setup especially when the next setup is in the other direction. I'm going to ditch the 2 part trades for now and just use 100K for the 1st target. There are not that many occasions I remember where the market ploughs straight through S/R without giving another setup and chance to re-enter.

One observation I had is that it seems like counter-trend moves are often not triggered - they just happen a lot without warning. No proof yet but it seems like that.

I'm also getting the hang of giving signals a weighting, instead of just adding them up for or against - which is pretty rough and ready way of doing it and often leads to me overemphasising the importance of some triggers. i.e. I think I'm judging strength and weakness better. Not that it's come through in my results yet though.

Finally just added some more notes on stop management to the chart mark-ups and how loose or how tight I play them. It's a whole game on its own even without entries so I'm going to have to write it into my trading plan because at the moment I've only got some really sketchy details.

Need to get back to trading now - got to do some actual trading along with all this theory and review stuff.

I like your idea of how you are numbering the trades you took and missed. Do you really feel trades not taken because you were getting rest because of fatigue should be considered missed trades?

thewardiknowof 

I like your idea of how you are numbering the trades you took and missed. Do you really feel trades not taken because you were getting rest because of fatigue should be considered missed trades?

Haha, well it's a personal thing. I didn't get enough rest before the trading session when I easily could have, so my non-trading life affected my trading. The way I look at it, I made a trading management decision not to get that rest when I knew I should take it. So that should figure as an issue in my trading review, something to improve.

Did you figure out what my S/R levels were based on? It's pretty crude but I don't have any alternative at the moment. I am considering subscribing to the futures for 6E to get the volume, and then I can plot high volume node with that horizontal bar chart indie. That would be v interesting. One of the drawbacks of forex - no volume.

Plus these last few days I have a bunch of really quite close together S/R levels and it seems like price is interacting with all of them.

Billbb 

What ive done to stay in a trade longer was to move my stop along a ma like a 55ema and just say to myself..hopefully price does go my way long enough to lock in B/E + 1 or 2 to cover spread and allow price to run...gradually move stp furthur up..or just move it w/ the 55ema and let price take me out or take my profit along the way somewhere... Not that Im some expert by no means Happy trails

Hi @Billbb

I added a 20-bar EMA to my trading chart recently and I often use it to bail out of trades, if I get PA around it that looks ominous. Sometimes do it with entries too if I miss the initial entry. Works half the time!

Adamus 

Hi @ Billbb I added a 20-bar EMA to my trading chart recently and I often use it to bail out of trades, if I get PA around it that looks ominous. Sometimes do it with entries too if I miss the initial entry. Works half the time!

Hi Adamus,

Ive used 4 smaller ones to go w/ my 55ema. a 4 , 8, 12, & 16, to create a fan sorta. In the begining of my journal u can see'em..Ive deleted'em in order to clean up my chart..dont put labals or anything on'em.

Idea was to help put pa into perspective..when pa broke thru all 4 or not it would determine to stay or get out...also when the begining of the fan would break thru 55ema (think red one?) it could be an entry or allow pa to retrace back thru the fan not exactly touching 55ema yet..the closer pa is to 55 the better as pa makes a 3 candle swing back in direction of trend.

Cant remember why 55 is critical, I havta go back in my material to find out..its a critical point thu as pa reverses or continues.

I just peaked @ pa..I missed it..would of been on the hammock anyways it broke that support area.

Adamus 

Did you figure out what my S/R levels were based on? It's pretty crude but I don't have any alternative at the moment. I am considering subscribing to the futures for 6E to get the volume, and then I can plot high volume node with that horizontal bar chart indie. That would be v interesting. One of the drawbacks of forex - no volume. Plus these last few days I have a bunch of really quite close together S/R levels and it seems like price is interacting with all of them.

Yes I understand how you are coming up with your S/R levels now. The reason I was wondering is because there were so many, rather near together. I had found it hard to trade with so many close together when i was using only the 30 min as my HTF so I actually backed that off to the 4 hour (I trade EUR/USD spot also). My charts were cleaner. trendisyourfriend also gave me some suggestions on better defining the trend. Very helpful, in my opinion.

Not suggesting you change anything. If your method is working for you, STICK WITH IT.

Best of trading to you.

Today was sideways all day but not so bad, managed to come away with a profit. Sets me up for a profitable week if I handle tomorrow OK. Missed Monday's trading so less time to screw it up

Had 8 setups today.

(1) Break-Out Pull-Back short setup, fails costing 3 pips. Took it once for -2.5 pips, took it again for -2.5 pips

(2) The failure of (1) - long trade. 19 pips. Took it, messed up entry, got 13 pips, almost messed up exit too.

(3) Break-Out Pull-Back setup short continuation, doesn't achieve target, 4 pips reasonable, got it.

(4) Break-Out Pull-Back setup long continuation, scratched for B/E, got it.

(5) Failure of (4), short, 4 pips probable. Missed it. Not concentrating.

(6) Break-Out Pull-Back setup long failure, 1st entry -3 pips, 2nd entry 15 pips. Missed it, hesitation.

(7) Break-Out Pull-Back setup long continuation, if not entered long already in (6)

(8) Break-Out Pull-Back setup long continuation, failed to achieve targets, should have bailed for 4 pips. Held
on too long for B/E.

So got 5 out of 8 setups. Managed 3 out of 5 exits OK. Made 1 false entry.

Total pips on offer: 40 pips. Achieved 12 pips.

Preferring to work with a single stop and target. Feels much better to get all the pips in the bag when the first target is hit.

My goals from yesterday - still working on them. I set an indicator to beep at the start of every 3 min bar, so when I'm in a setup, I quickly run over the checklist for entries, or when not in a setup, I run over the strength/weakness analysis. It helps that the first thing on the entries checklist is "focus!"

I've stopped doing 15mins sessions with a timer - I take a break now when there's no immediate setup and with the bar timer pinging me every 3 mins, I stay focused or I can tell if my focus and concentration is slipping away and do something about it.