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YM day trading with price action - My Journey


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YM day trading with price action - My Journey

  #101 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

number of trades: 9

trades which were familiar setups: 30%
The familiar setups I took were descending triangle, trend pullback and channel.

entries which had good signal bars: less than 50%

orders which were entered correctly: 88%

orders which were timely: more than 50%

trades which had RR >= 1: less than 50%

trades which were managed well: more than 50%

number of wins: 11%
average win: 5
average loss: -5
net pips: -35.1

April was a bad month. There was no improvement over March and I made even more mistakes. The primary problem is that i was not disciplined enough to stay on the sidelines and took the plunge on unfamiliar setups or setups which did not have prior context backing them up. The signal bars of my trades were mostly poor and the RR for most trades was still less than 1.

For May, I aim to stay disciplined and be conservative. The setups I take, if any, have to be familiar. There are 3 positions to take in the market. First and safest is staying on the sidelines. The other 2 are buy and sell. I will also watch the RR of each trade and aim towards making RR = 1 first. Got to do better.

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  #102 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
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Maybe it's more produktive to tackle one issue at a time - I'd at least suggest trying. I probably wasted 6-12 month in learning curve by trying to get it all right at the same time. Usually ended up FAILING it all at the same time at some point in time ....

Thinking of a rough order I'd probably go for:

1. Risk Management
a) never more than x% / y$ per trade
b) never add to a loosing position
c) (never re-enter or reverse immediately) might be okay in later stages though
d) never lose more than x% on any single day

2. Overtrading
a) Don't trade more than x trades / day
b) don't take "random" trades
c) journal every trade and have a systematic follow-through

3) Trade Management
a) never enter a trade with initial RR of < 1:1,2
b) never widen stops
c) never randomly tighten stops
d) NEVER take profits early (can and will mess up a complete working, profitable and correctly followed system if not dealt with as it changes your expectancy with in an unpredictable, not fixable way)

As for your concrete issues you might want to:

1. Make a list of familiar setups and a note how they would be traded. First tackle one month of ONLY taking those setups by always having that list with you when trading - later you might not need it but would still want to keep it as routine/rational backup.

After that is COMPLETELY dealt with:

2. Challenge to never take a trade with RR of lower than 1:1 (I'd even go for a higher number but that's up to you)
Come up with some sort of routine for that which you rigorously follow before entering an order

3. When 2) is fine for a month, tackle the rest of your list maybe in the order of

a) signal bars
b) timely entry
c) good trade management (should be least as there is no value on learning how to manage a bad trade in a good fashion)


Just my opinion on dealing with things, hopefully you can find anything useful along these lines

Good luck with your journey!

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  #103 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139


Thanks to Scalpingtrader's good advice, I decided to focus on just trading familiar setups. Once i am consistently disciplined enough to just focus on taking familiar setups, I will then move on to tackle another point.

Was the setup familiar? Yes

Price had a bull spike followed by a bull channel. Then there was a bear break of the channel. Price fell and formed a TTR below the ema. There was a failed bear breakout but no bear follow through. Price continued in a sideways move with lower highs below the ema while a small double bottom formed. With lower highs and a similar low, this could be a descending triangle. I looked for a bear breakout.


Order: sell market order
RR: 1
Result: 2 pips
I manually exited because there was no clear bear follow through following the initial breakout. Lunch hour had started and the sideways move could continue for a while longer. It was also past midnight and was time to sleep.

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  #104 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

Was the setup familiar? Somewhat

Price was in an uptrend and had a bull channel overshoot. A reversal followed which turned into a bear spike. The spike broke the bull trend line, ema and prior lows. A bear micro channel followed. Price then move sideways a bit and had a first breakout from the bear channel top. A first breakout from a micro channel is likely to fail and price could fall back. The next bar could also be a L2 bar. I looked for a short.

Order: sell market order
RR: 1
Result: -9 pips
I manually exited because price moved sideways instead of falling back into the micro channel. Besides, a small ascending triangle was forming below the ema. Even though the earlier downward momentum was strong and price remained below the ema, there was also no follow through. Price drifted aimlessly instead. I manually exited when price made a breakout from the small ascending triangle.

Turned out that price did not hit the stop. In fact, it turned down a few bars later and managed to hit the target.

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  #105 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

Was the setup familiar? Yes

Price was in a bear channel. There were 2 prior lows formed. Price had a 2 legged upmove to the channel top and broke a bit above it before starting to fall. A L2 bear bar had also formed. With price at the top of the bear channel and falling after a 2 legged pullback, I looked for a short.

Order: sell market order
RR: slightly more than 1
Result: 11 pips

Picking up lessons from the prior trades where interference cut short winners, i left the trade alone and let it do its thing.

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  #106 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

Was the setup familiar? Somewhat

Price was in an uptrend, formed a double top and had a bull trend line break. There was a test of the extreme high which resulted in a lower double top and price started to fall with lower lows and highs. At the new low, price started to pullback. There was a bear outside bar which was a Low 1 bar, followed by a bull inside bar. Another bear bar followed which was a Low 2 bar. I looked for a short because it could be a start of a bear trend.

Order: sell market order
RR: less than 1
Result: 0 pips
I scraped the trade because there was no follow through in either direction for the rest of the session.

On review, I did not interpret the context of this setup well. The bull trend was not large and by the time I entered on the L2 bar, price was near to the start of the bull trend and prior support levels. Overall, price looked more like a trading range and the bull trend could just be a bull leg in the range.

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  #107 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
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mrBean888 View Post
Was the setup familiar? Somewhat

Price was in an uptrend, formed a double top and had a bull trend line break. There was a test of the extreme high which resulted in a lower double top and price started to fall with lower lows and highs. At the new low, price started to pullback. There was a bear outside bar which was a Low 1 bar, followed by a bull inside bar. Another bear bar followed which was a Low 2 bar. I looked for a short because it could be a start of a bear trend.

Order: sell market order
RR: less than 1
Result: 0 pips
I scraped the trade because there was no follow through in either direction for the rest of the session.

On review, I did not interpret the context of this setup well. The bull trend was not large and by the time I entered on the L2 bar, price was near to the start of the bull trend and prior support levels. Overall, price looked more like a trading range and the bull trend could just be a bull leg in the range.

Why not entering after the bear-pinbar which retested the uptrend line?

ps: do you have a list now, which actually proofs what a familiar setup is? Seriously, write them down. It's so much easier to learn by having proof of failure. If you haven't yet, I suggest taking only 3 signals and noting them. Choose your favorites. And stick to them - only them - for a couple of weeks. Until you don't think about the actual signal anymore but only about their context. Like driving a car you know

Habit is probably the most powerful tool we have in trading.

pps: keep at it & good luck!

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  #108 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

Was the setup familiar? Yes

Price had a 2 legged strong bear spike down. It formed a double bottom below the ema. A bull spike formed and went above the ema. A micro bull channel followed. As the micro channel formed, there was a bear breakout but it became a bull reversal bar instead. First breaks of micro channels likely fail so I looked for a buy in the direction of the channel.

Order: buy market order
RR: less than 1
Result: 3 pips

This was a scalp trade with small reward and risk. Price moved quickly upwards and hit the target on the entry bar. The target was placed at the micro channel high and the stop was placed at the bull reversal bar low.

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  #109 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139

This was a bad day. I was greedy, wanted an earlier entry with more potential profits and ended up with losses. If i had followed my entry rules or be conservative, my order would not be hit or i may not have placed any order.

Was the setup familiar? Yes

Price had lower highs and similar lows. It was a descending triangle. With the zoomed out view showing that price had an earlier big down swing, there could be another downside move.

Order: sell market orders
RR: first trade was more than 1. second trade was less than 1
Result: -16 pips total

I paid the price for being greedy and undisciplined. Earlier on, i originally placed the entry at 1 pip below the low of the triangle. However, i thought that since price would be going down anyway, i raised the entry to the middle of the range. Price hit the entry, went down to the support level and went back up. There was no bear break out.

The original entry was not hit. Besides, there was a support level near to the triangle low. Even if there was a bear breakout, price may not go very far. I need to obey my entry rules and give respect to potential obstacles.

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  #110 (permalink)
 
mrBean888's Avatar
 mrBean888 
Singapore
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: CMC Markets, Phillips Capital
Trading: Forex, Stocks
Posts: 176 since Mar 2012
Thanks Given: 220
Thanks Received: 139


Was the setup familiar? Yes. It was a new bull pullback after a double bottom

Was the context supportive? Yes
After price had a 2 legged sell spike, price formed a double bottom below the ema. A higher high was followed by a higher low. A second higher high followed. This could be the beginning of a new bull move. Price had a pullback towards the ema. There was a bull reversal and outside bar just above the ema. I looked for a buy.

Order: Stop buy order
RR: Less than 1
Result: 5 pips

Price quickly went up after the entry and hit the target a short while later on the entry bar.

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