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Spot FX Day Trading: The Jigsaw


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Spot FX Day Trading: The Jigsaw

  #1 (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

Taking the plunge with my own futures.io (formerly BMT) journal. I've been keeping a handwritten journal since I started full time trading in February '11 but who's going to see that apart from me?

A little about me. 40yrs old, UK born and bred, beautiful wife, 3 kids and a dog (yes a lab!), live in the countryside. I have an income from a business that allows to me spend all but one day a week on my trading learning curve. I make my own cider and am a sports nut.

I've survived this far after having made every rookie error in the book (and still do notch up a fair few of those). And after:

- buying a system
- adapting the system endlessly
- not trusting the system
- learning to code
- coding the system for backtesting, stress testing, etc.
- ditching the system wholesale
- giving up and having a cry
- taking stock and deciding to give it all another go

I am now happy live trading which I started again in May '12 after going to SIM for a protracted period. I returned 2.35% of my account equity in May and am down -0.2% for June (and unlikely to trade before July).

I'm looking for a 30% return p.a. and have designed my money management to (hopefully) get me there without too much of a rollercoaster ride. But to be honest I also see breakeven after costs as success!

Trade spot forex through MB trading using Ninjatrader. Primarily trade off 15 minute charts but can also take some signals off the 5 and 60 minutes timeframe. Trade the majors and a few crosses (I monitor 10 pairs in all). I trade most days and will take a whatever signals are valid - 30 or so a month for the last couple of months.

Thanks to everyone on futures.io (formerly BMT) - it is a wonderful community of trading troops.

I'll upload my trades hopefully once a day, or as they happen starting in July.

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  #3 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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Congrats on the journal!

Mike

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  #4 (permalink)
 
mokodo's Avatar
 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
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Day one of my nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) journal (and I didn't lose any money!!).

Noted up my charts for a 10am(BST) start, I find Monday morning price action to be a bit jumpy and I tend to be too excited - and have taken trades just to get involved in the past. A delayed start time helps me settle and (try to) get in the groove.

My TE indicator shows everything into exhaustion (purple areas in panel 2) after the big move up on Friday and was showing a lot of indecision with price switching around a fair bit (see AUDUSD chart, pink areas).

I was not expecting any trades and did not get any signals. Closest was the black dot on EURUSD at 11am.

Entry would have been under 100period SMA (small red squares under the signal candle, sma is the orange line)
MACDh shows divergence on the 5 min chart (marked as the blue line in the histogram)
Price is coming off upper resistance in a falling channel

I could not take this entry as the stop loss measured from the local high (candle with the largish wick) was 41 pips, this would have been my target too. On the 15 minute charts I cap these SL:PT's at 25 pips, so had to pass.

So stuck to the plan today.

Other things covered today were watching Fat Tails' Session Indicators webinar (available on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), just pop it in the search function). Excellent stuff. One of my rules is not to take trades where the profit target is past some level of average daily volatility. I have been using a combination of daily ATR and Floor Pivots, but have found I'm missing some good trades filtered by the Floor Pivots. Pivots are calculated only using the previous day so narrow or wide range days have little in the way of predictive value for the following day. I will be putting some thought into this this week.

Training tonight: will run through a few more days of market replay to practice position sizing / order placement on my virtual machine. I'm finding that watching my normal workspace at higher speeds can help identify patterns that are not evident in real time when I am trading. I'm hoping for a perception shift that may find another part of 'The Jigsaw' soon.

Reading / Psych work: Continue reading & noting up Enhancing Trader Performance by Bret Steenberger (I think that's the spelling?).

I'm using a bit of shorthand regarding my method (very much a work in progress) so if anyone starts to follow the thread please question me any time. I'm here to learn and be challenged.

Until tomorrow.

know thyself
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  #5 (permalink)
 
mokodo's Avatar
 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 525
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Another quiet day for me today. No valid signals but some interesting price action to soak up. I've attached a chart to show a couple of set-ups on the GBPJPY

4am BST during the Asian session there was a break up. (through the red line marked 2). The yellow block in the 3rd panel shows that the ADX on the next timeframe up (30 min) was <12.5 and it's at that point I track for a break of the channel bounded by a Swing level (10 period), or other clearly defined pattern. I was sleeping so missed this one. Would have taken it as price also accepted support of the slope (intersection line marked 1). May have (just) made the measured move target of 40 pips which is tucked just under the high from yesterday.

The second set-up (which I had a very twitchy finger about - so nearly took it which would have been bad bad bad) is shown in the expanding wedge with the red zig-zag lines. I figured that the dominant trend was likely to be up as price was finding it easier to go up than down. This zigzag move down shows price fighting it's was down like it's swimming against the tide. Although it's not part of my rule set I like to see this sort of price action (3 dips and a pop) prior to an MACD dot entry signal. In this case the entry (if the signal was valid) would have been the square dots above the candle with the blue dot underneath at the end of the wedge.

I could not take the trade long as MACD shows no classic/hidden divergence on this timeseries or the 5 minute indicating that the downmove was weakening - and the measured move target from the local low goes over the daily high. When I took this screen shot price looks like it may be having another crack at it on a leg up.

US Holidays tomorrow, I only trade a few hours Thursdays (other work) and NFP's looming large on Friday. A fragmented week likely and I am obviously keen to get some trades on the board for July.

Patience Patience Patience...

Until tomorrow

know thyself
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  #6 (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






Good and bad today if that's possible.

I thought that we might get some movement today after the big move last Friday had had a chance to settle down - even with the US holidays.

Four charts today. The first two show the trade I took and the second two show the one I missed (taking the kids to school). In hindsight I think I was trying to make up for missing the GBPUSD trade by taking the second.

The trade I took was on NZDUSD. The 6o minute chart show the pair in a grinding up-channel covering the last 3 days. I've found it not uncommon for this or the Aussie to chug uphill for somewhile. I had a breakout signal on my TE indicator (yellow/magenta band in the second panel). This shows me that ADX on the 60 minute timeseries in <12.5 and I start tracking for a breakout. On the 15 minute chart you can see the sloping support. Initially I set a stop sell order 2 pips under the channel (also the daily low). And this was my trade as per my rules. Price accepted this support and was pushed along the channel. I then set a stop buy order (OCO with the original) 2 pips + spread above the local high. My thinking here was breakout either way (and I track it for 20 candles - 5 hours). The buy stop was filled on an upswing, which I had anticipated may break up to the top of the channel and as price had accepted the channel support I thought this was a sound plan. Price rotated back down and tested support again which held and then rotated back up. After 10 candles I took a loss of 9 pips as it was late with very llittle momentum in the market. Against a Risk of 27 pips this is a -0.33R loss.

The GBPUSD trade is what I wanted to happen to the trade I took. It's the same sort of set-up (just that price before the break is working into a triangle). The red lines marked 1,2,3 are the entry, stop and profit target I would have set. As you can see it travelled all the way down to the S3 level and I would have taken profits at S2 for a 1:1 R:R

Anyways, I did not feel 100% confident about the trade I did take and reflecetd that by only putting on 0.125% risk. I'm happy with the patience I did show to let the trade sit in the red for nearly 3 hours, whilst I let price rotated back up (rules are to let these trades have 10 bars). And I got out with a marginal loss.

Continued reading the Steenberger book and clocked up another days worth of market replay trades.

Until tomorrow.

know thyself
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  #7 (permalink)
 
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 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
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Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
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1 Trade, A Loser

First chart is the 60 minute which shows price rejecting resistance and breaking right and up through the channel. The second chart is my entry chart, the 15 minute timeseries. The red lines 1,2,3 are my stop, entry and profit target.

This trade definately fell in the category of 'Oh no it's in my rule set so I have to take it - but it feels all wrong!'. The red arrow points to the signal which is an ADX reading of <12 on the 30 minute timeseries, so at this point I am tracking for a break of a swing 10 channel or other distinct S:R pattern for the next 20 bars. Entry was 3 pips over the daily high - also rejecting resistance in the bull channel. So it looked like a breakout would perhaps get started on that first leg. It didn't and rolled over. I had raised my SL 3 pips shy of the local low (5 bars into the trade), when in hindsight (oh how clear it is!), the stop would have been better placed under the bull channel support to allow this long more time to get traction.

I took a 0.27R loss using 0.25% risk.

The trade felt wrong to me perhaps because it was late in the day (my cut off is 16:00BST and this trade was initiated at 15:30). And the pair and virtually everything else is locked in down trends, and I am not confident with counter trend trades. Price action has also been choppy.

I also spent part of the weekend reviewing all my trades of the last year and know that this set-up has been more reliable as a short. I assumed that market bias may be slanting the performance figures, but it may be that the longs 'walk up the stairs' and I have not reflected that dynamic with how I manage the trade once entered? They may just need more time to get going. More analysis tonight.

Starting to feel anxious about my performance in the last month or so. I have cut my risk down and taken a few days out to review and reflect, but I have posted 9 losers in a row since 20th June. And although total losses are small, an average of 0.3R a time, I am starting to doubt the set-ups and my ability to manage them. I have already started another round of code tweaking /backtesting to try to shed some light on it.

Until tomorrow

know thyself
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  #8 (permalink)
 
mokodo's Avatar
 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
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2 trades today, a profit target and a scratch.

First chart shows the last week or so on the EURJPY pair. Clear downward channel and has slipped into a lower channel on Friday. The second chart is my entry on the 15 min timeseries. Price has made a daily low earlier (09:00 BST) and retraced it to about 70% of the high from the Asian session. Stop, entry, target shown by the red lines 1,2,3. This was a pretty good set-up for me and it made its profit target of 20 pips in 3 bars:
  • This may be an ABC shaping up for a thrust down
  • There was strong divergence on the 5 minute MACD histogram vs the second local peak, just above my entry
  • Price had accepted the sloping overhead resistance from yesterday's high
  • My stop & target from the entry (square dots to local high+2 pips+spread was only 20 pips; there were no notable levels to be breached to get there - the morning low had already dealt with those.

The third graph shows an near identical set-up an hour later on USDJP. This time it stalled out after 5 bars and I took a breakeven.

So good news that I stopped the losing run. I have turned down risk to a mere 0.125% of my trading account so these trades are much more about getting back in the groove than about the money.

Funny how the doubt can creep in after a losing streak! There is nothing 'wrong' with my method as it stands, indeed my review and backtesting yesterday evening restored my confidence that it is a good base from which to trade from. And losing streaks are anticipated, they are just hard to deal with mentally.

So had a chat with myself about the negativity which had crept in. And I reviewed the last few months trades in detail. Yes I had 9 losers in a row, but some of those were scratch trades and 7 of them are 'boxed up' in last months figures (June) and I came in at breakeven for the month. The other two are from July and I overturned those with todays winner.

So not the end of the world! In fact with a dose of objectivity I can see I have traded (and behaved) resiliently.

Other stuff. Nearly finished reading/note taking the Steenberger book (sure that's not the surname!) 'Enhacing Trader Performance' and have started the new Al Brooks price action book on range trading. I have a breakout set-up and a with trend set-up (these two today are examples of the later) but nothing for ranges, so have started the work on putting something together.

Until tomorrow.

know thyself
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  #9 (permalink)
 
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 mokodo 
Bridgwater, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: MB Trading
Trading: Forex
Posts: 385 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 525
Thanks Received: 348

No valid signals from either of my strategies today.

Until tomorrow

know thyself
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  #10 (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





Potential break out set-up on USDCHF 09:00BST. First chart shows the hourly chart for the last few days. This is marching north so I am looking for longs. The coloured background on panel 3 has gone yellow telling me that ADX has fallen below 12 on the 30 minute timeseries. So I am now tracking for a break of a Swing10 (either long or short, but my hunch is long given the trend). Red lines numbered 1,2,3 are my stop entry and target.

Get my entry and price breaks to 8 or so pips and rotates. I hold for 10 candles as per my rules and exit at a breakeven. The break was brewing and popped on the next rotation.

I'm glad to have got the analysis right, just off on the timing on this instance. I seemed to be getting a good run at keeping the losers small so I'm grateful for that.

Other business took me away from my screens after 10:30.

Until tomorrow.

know thyself
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Last Updated on November 18, 2013


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