I spent most of last night watching Mike’s recording of this past weekend. Wow, some great stuff. Thank you, Mike for doing that.
The video got me thinking about how I place my stops and profit targets. I am going to spend some time reevaluating this. I believe a change is on the horizon.

Trade 1
The GBPUSD had been in an uptrend all morning. Around 5:30 it put in a L/W, but was starting to look like it was range bound. The range was about 20 pips. I was attempting to take a scalp out of the range. I broke one rule of not entering at the top or bottom of the range, instead I enter on a market order which had slippage 2 pips below the candle (strange) there was some good support 20 pips below. The following bar had a rapid swing down to support, but it didn’t break support. I left my stop alone. The next bar was an inside, low close bar, and no big deal. The next bar pushed right to support and stopped. I knew it was time to get out. However, I didn’t exit on a market; I moved my stop to +4. I should have closed with a market order.

Grade D

While I was watching the GBPUSD, I missed a great trade on the EURUSD. I was switching between each market charts, so I did see it developing. However, the support from yesterday was about 10 pips away. The smart move would have been to trade 2 cars with the first target right above support and a runner. Around 5:30 there was a break of a long term trend, then sideways, and then at 6:30 it started down. There was a nice weak PB and then off to the races.


Today’s Total: +6
Week’s Total: -24

Today I planned on working on my initial stop placement, trailing stop and profit targets.

Trade 1
The EURUSD had been sideways in the most of the night and then at 5:00 AM MST it dropped off a cliff. I was thinking about taking a reversal at 6:05 1.4139, but the move down was so strong I decided against it. Around 6:30 we broke below support from 3/21 and resistance from 3/18. Again, I was thinking long, but the overall trend was down. After the really weak P/B I placed my order 2 pips below the close of the bar at 7:10. I got filled and quickly moved my targets. The first target was 2 ticks above the S/L. The 2nd target I had at 1.4904, support from a couple of days ago. I quickly realized that the nice round number of 1.4100 might be mental support for some, so I moved my stop to 2 pips above that.

I quickly hit my first target. Once we made it 10 pips past the S/L I moved my stop for the second target to there. After a small P/B, I missed my target by 3 pips. I got very defensive and move my stop, to within 10 pips, good call. There was a nice P/B and I would have given back a lot of pips.

Grade A

I had a late day to the office, so I was looking at shorting again at 8:25 1.4132. I thought this was just going to be a nice P/B and then back down. I was right and wrong. It pulled back further then I had thought, then went down. All in all I am happy with the day. I need to keep working on stop placement and profit targets.


Today’s Total: 27
Week’s Total: +3

Good day and bad day.

I have been working stop placement and profit targets. Instead of having fixed targets and stops I am using P/A to tell me where to put them.

Trade 1
After a failure to continue lower, I thought we might go sideways or up. I had place limit order long above the breakout candle and got filled 1 bar later. My first profit target hit was right below some support; we had no problem getting there. After my 1st target was hit, then candle closed sort of bullish so I tightened my stop up. The next candle was a doji, then a bear, so I thought this might be the end. I closed out on a market order. Silly me, I would have hit my 2nd target, but I am not complaining. Experience will help me learn where to place my stops.


Today’s Total: 12
Week’s Total: +15

Trip with the boys this weekend. I will not be trading tomorrow and most likely Monday, too. I am off to Phoenix for some golf, baseball, hockey and heavy drinking.

Cheers!

After a long weekend. I had to catch up on things for my day job, so I didn't have a chance to trade today or yesterday. I will be back at it tomorrow morning.

Finally back in the saddle after some much need time off. I have to admit, I was excited and very nervous about trading. I know I shouldn’t have been nervous, but it had been 4 days since I looked at charts and 5 days since my last trade.


Trade 1
From the London open the GBPUSD had been trending down on the 5 Minute chart. After I missed the P/B at 6:30, I wasn’t going to let the next P/B get past me. There was a shallow P/B leading up to the US open. I put my limit order in after a nice close down. The next bar was an inside bar down, so I left my limit order in place. I was filled on the next bar, with 2 pips slippage. The following bar closed down so I felt good about the trade.

The next bar closed up, but it was a weak bull bar. About that time I realized an uptrend on my 30 minute chart. I was close to the TL and decided this was not going to be going down anytime soon. So I exited with a market order.

I am really upset with myself for not giving the large timeframe more respect. However, I am happy that once I realized I was wrong I exited. As Mike says, “Push the damn button” Which, by the way I have on a posted note, stuck to one of my monitors. So instead of taking a 11 pip (22 total) lose, I only took a 6 pip (12 pip total) lose.

This week and next week I am really focusing on exiting trades when they don’t go my way or another way of saying it “Capital Preservation”

Grade: C+


Today’s Total: -12
Week’s Total: -12

With unemployment clains coming out at 6:30 MST, I slept in a little bit because I don’t trade around news.

Trade 1
The start of London open the GBPUSD had been trending down. I waited for news to clear before even thinkning abuot doing anything. I have been working on my entries while reviewing charts and thoughth I had a good DT, PB in the works. I put a limit order to go short right at where I thought there would be a DT. I got filled and then promtly stopped out.

There was room to move down on the big chart and thought the PB was weak, but I was wrong. I missread the market, so I need to spend more time with old charts.

Grade: C-
-5

Trade 2
I was slow to change my opionon on the direciton the market should have been going. After my stop out there was a weak bull bar, then followed by a string bull bar, I was still looking for shorts. After a nice large bull bar, I thought there was enough room to the last pivot for a scalpe. I went long with a limit order and then we went into a trading range for 20 minutes. Looking back at this I knew it was going up, but I broke a rule about staying in a sideways trade longer then 15 minutes.

It finally went up with a nice bull bar, got 3 pips from my target. Then it died. With no follow through, I had to move my stop. I honestly don’t know why I moved my stop to where it was. I think this was poor planning no my part. I ended up with a +5 stop out.

Grade: F+


Today’s Total: 0
Week’s Total: -12

Oh the start of a new month, so nice to get a fresh start. I had some computer issues and had to restart and this caused a minor glitch in the day, more about that in the trade review.

Trade 1
The market had been side ways in the most of the night. Unemployment numbers came out at 6:30, so I wasn’t going to take a trade until after the news. A couple of nice strong bear bars, then a very weak P/B which formed a textbook triangle. I placed my limit order to go short 1 pip below the down bull bar, right before breaking the triangle. Limit order was filled, only problem I was in sim mode. After the restart I forgot to change to real money. So I witched over to real money and took a quick look at how much room to support, I had 11 pips to the S/L and 45 pips to long term support. I took a market order entry and got big time slipage (look at the chart)

The other problem was I set to 1 car not the normal 2 cars. Stupid brain. I moved my target to the last S/L and had my target hit shortly after that.

Grade: D

I am going to add to my morning pretrade check list: “Check to make sure you are on the right account” Don’t ask me why this wasn’t on the checklist already, it should have been.
Today’s total: +8
Week’s Total: -4
I will do my weekly and monthly review tomorrow. Time to go watch some baseball.

I have some family visiting and did not trade today and most likely will not be trading until Wednesday of this week.

Cheers!

I was all fired up to trade today. I spent a bit of time last night studying charts. PA is getting easier to see...not close to a master, but just seeing where trapped traders are and logical S/R is starting to become easier.

So I went to fire up my trading machine today, pushed the on button and nothing. I tride a couple of things and nothing. After about 45 minutes of trying to get it to work, I threw up my hands in frustration and left for the office. I am guessing there is an issue with the power supply. The machine is about 3 months old, I am going to drop it off at the store tomorrow and see what they come up with.

The first PC I ever purchased and well it sucks. I should have held out longer to buy a new Mac Book Pro to replace my current one.

I'm going to install ninjatrader on my wife's windows laptop this weekend, so I have a back up, just incase.

I am guessing that I will not be trading the rest of the week. Oh well, the markets will always be there.

Cheers everyone.

Bad luck with the PC. What a bummer.

I was really interested to read your journal, you're doing pretty much exactly what I want to do - it looks like you're a few months ahead of me. I like the currencies you like and I like the Price Action stuff you're using, althought I haven't even got my copy of Al Brooks' book yet, it's still on the way from Amazon.

I'm subscribed. Good luck getting the trading machine going again.