Welcome to my trading journal ... I'll have more about my methods & madness over the next few days but as the euro has just opened for trading I wanted to post my homework right away

Although, I live & work in the Mountain Time Zone all of my trading is set up for Central Time Zone and all references to times will be in CDT / CST.

Euro FX (trade date: August 13, 2012)

High Volume Brackets
(lo-volume bracket high price / hi-volume price / lo-volume bracket low price)
Primary:
12307 / 12298 / 12289
Closing Bracket:
12305 / 12298 / 12290
Last Trade (of August 10 session): 12297 (not settlement price)

Secondary Brackets:
+ 12322 (also high of previous session) / 12319 / 12314
+ 12272 / 12268 / 1263
+ 12555 / 12254 / 12253
- Session Low: 12245

From FT71 (Euro templates for IRT):
-VPOC: 12297 (from prior new york session)
+ VPOVC above at 12425 (August 8) & below12223 (August 3rd)
+ long term composite hi volume node: 12286

News (high importance):
JPYGDP numbers at approx. 18:50

Other Notes:
- trading in a broad range with pivot high 12450 (August 8) & pivot low12051 (July 24)
- value has been trending lower 8 of last 10 session periods`since VPOC High of 12425
- ny period of last session made lower lo than london period and established POC higher than same

Congrats on creating your trading journal.

Mike

I believe “accountability though visibility” works for me and by publishing my homework and trades that this will help me to be a more deliberate and consistent trader.

I have developed my own software front end which I believe allows me to quickly and effectively identify high volume brackets in a way that differs (slightly) from current volume profile tools. I don’t believe that my methodology is all that earth shattering; there are many paths that you can take to get to the same levels and in any event it’s not the software but the trader that really matters.

Beyond journaling my homework and trades which is the focus of this specific journal I hope to contribute to nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) in areas like Market/Volume Profile; Steidlmayer’s new thinking (which seems to have evolved from ‘volume strips’ to ‘putting time back into the market’); volume delta, the DOM and related ideas. I certainly have benefited over the last few months from being a member of this forum and have learned a lot from both the contributions made directly by the other members as well as from additional resources that they have pointed towards.

Earlier this year MFBreakout started on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) a trading journal: “ day trading crude without indicators”. It has become one of my favourite market reads. I am modelling my own journal on his and I thank him for the inspiration and information he has provided.

I hope to be posting charts here as well but I am still determining the easiest and cleanest way to do so; in the meantime I will be posting my homework in raw number form. I did not want to wait to start this journal, so please bear with me, hope to have the bulk of my homework up in a more appealing way sometime before the month is out.

My plan will be to post daily homework as soon as it is completed. I still have a day job but hope to have my homework up on this journal about 90 minutes after the Globex currency session begins. I will also post elements of my trading plan in bits & bytes over the coming days.

Thanks for tuning in.

posting homework for trade date: tuesday august 14

hi volume brackets from: 13/8/12
closing other brackets
12343 12364 12349 12327 12300
12339 12359 12339 12320 12295
12335 12354 12329 12314 12289
last trade: 12335 hi: 12379 lo: 12265

FT71 (euro templates from IRT)
VPOC (last period) 12348
other VPOC 12425 8/7/12 12223 8/3/12
l/t hi-vol comp 12286

news
no hi importance news in asia session (my original post misses lots of news after midnight ... oops)
from europe: France GDP (0:30); Germany GDP (1:00 AM)
also UK CPI, Eurozone GDP, IP & US PPI (but I will be done for night by then)

other notes
- continuing trade in broad range 12450 - 12051 (daily chart)
- 3 day lower trend of value reversed to upside
… london & ny period POC succesive higher
5 day trade on higher end of l/t macro comp hi volume price

short euro from 12349 1 tick above hi-volume bracket hi-price (defined by a low volume price within bracket centred on 12339 ... had placed MIT limit order at 12350 and got fill at 12349.

covered euro short at 12350 for -1 tick ... my thinking was that at the top of my hi-volume bracket that there should have been a quick retrace back into the bracket ... instead price went on to make new high at 12352 and volume continued to build at 12350 +/- 1 tick for over 30 minutes ... although I fully expect that price will spend some amount of time below 12350 before the asian session is out, I will look for new entry point.

homework for: 15/8/12

hi volume brackets from: 14/8/12
closing other brackets
12332 12390 12363 12327 12300
12329 12385 12357 12320 12295
12321 12383 12355 12314 12289
secondary hi-vol: 12373
last trade: 12324 hi: 12390 lo: 12320

from: 13/08/2012
other brackets
12327 12300
12320 12295
12314 12289
secondary hi-vol: 12379
lo: 12265

FT71 (euro templates from IRT)
vpoc 08/07/2012 12425
vpoc (8/14/12 - LRH) 12385
VPOC (last period) 12333
*** vpoc 08/03/2012 12223 tagged

l/t hi-vol comp 12286

news
- prior session was busy news day with expectations re stronger economy being exceeded
- UK employment (3:30); US CPI, Industrial Production, Oil Inventories
- Assumption Day holiday on the continent - could be quiet european (LRH) session

other notes
- trading in upper half of broad range 12450 - 12051 (daily chart)
- no follow through to reversal of POC trend, range bound

... I was just about to make a nothing post about how quiet it had become in e6, even for this time of night which is typically very slow ... only a 16 tick range for the entire session, half that range over the last 3 hours just over 9K in volume ... it has perked up to the tune of 3 more ticks in the last few minutes, testing the high volume price @ 12333 (from yesterday's session) whose bracket high I make out to be 12340 ... another hi-vol price below (from aug 12 session) @ 12320 BUT I am going to get some sleep and rejoin the market early tomorrow morning.

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your experience with this journal!

tpbyyc 

Steidlmayer’s new thinking (which seems to have evolved from ‘volume strips’ to ‘putting time back into the market’)

Do you have any reference to this "new thinking"?
I was aware of the "volume strips" ( CME video, CME video, nexusfi.com (formerly [AUTOLINK]BMT[/AUTOLINK]) thread) which are not very far from the concept of VPOC shift.
But I know nothing about his new theory.

Thanks!

Nicolas