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Becoming a day trader (PA, volume profile, footprint etc.)
TLDR: Id like to present my trades based on combination of price action and volume/market profile + later also footprint and price ladder. I am still learning and looking for a good system. I know loads of theory, my predictions are somewhat successful but my account doesnt reflect it. Yet.
Lets begin with confession. This could be a bit boring but maybe someone has similar experience, so lets laugh together
Stage 1
I was interested in trading during a high school, read some book for beginners, tried some metatrader4 demo trades... and as putting together enough money seemed quite impossible at that time I left the idea. It was a mistake because trading is ideal path for me and it is also the biggest challenge of my life right now.
Stage 2
Heard about bitcoin, liked the idea and by that time started considering to buy some mining machine (back in the days it was possible to use miners that looked like small usb keychains )... One day I saw the news that it fell down (probably september 2017) and as I remebered that when it goes down - you buy a dip. So I wanted to buy a dip. Unluckily (luckily?) it wasnt so easy to buy crypto so fast and I thought Ill have plenty of time to buy it anyway... But the bounce was quick and I felt a bit disappointed.
Stage 3
2017 crypto bullrun! I managed to jump on the train, puting almost all of my savings in and riding the wave. Slowly adding more. Fast and easy money, yay. We had this discord group of random people, usually not knowing much about trading... and I was stupid enough to let myself take seriously all the stuff that was said. As a rookie you just do your best but without strong bullshit radar...
Stage 4
Oops... the strong reversal + bulltrap catched me and milions of others unprepared. I became a part of strong HODL community as I loaded more money in it on the way back. I think that my portfolio was around -90% at some point. I searched for some professional (paid) signal / educative group. I found one and as I was busy working I paid for it, telling myself that even when I dont have time for studying, I can learn by passively listening to analysis and edu videos. That worked for some time. This became my sole source of information and I wanted it that way. I traded small account and the results of signals were... not so great. One of the reasons was that by that time it wasnt possible to set target + stoploss for your position. The second was the quality of the signals provided and manipulation with information afterwards.
Stage 5
I started to use a trade management software that let me set profit target and stoploss (progress!). A really capable guy with good system and signals was hired to work for group but after some time left quite angry. I think he saved us a lot of money and opened eyes for many people. As we realized that the group didnt really provide much value we preferred to trade the signals that he and his two friends started to provide - for free. That was around the transition 2019/2020. I started to be profitable, some shitcoins started to grow a bit. I consolidated my portfolio and with that I started making money on signals. Today our small community happily pays those guys quite decent money and we are becoming traders - together.
Stage 6
Around 2019/2020 I started to feel the urge to learn more. With first lockdown in march 2020 I decided that this was it and I started to binge learning. Starting with candles, price action, psychology, money management and whatnot. As we started to trade FX in the group the volume/market profile and footprint charts were introduced to us. That was a path to follow. Because of that I also came here as I was searching for some NT8 plugins They didnt suit my needs but I already became an elite member. It seems that there is a huge community with loads of good information that is yet to be explored.
Stage 7
So here I am. I made all the lost money back and more. It allowed me to invest to some tools and education. Crypto is growing and at the moment most of my portfolio is there. But it is a wild wild west of financial markets. It is time to diversify and learn to trade something else. I have enough information to create my own system and I am trying. Thanks to this journal I hope to document my trades and system development more consistently.
I was always looking for something supercomplicated but that is probably just a beginners mindset. I chose two pairs to follow - primary EURGBP and second AUDUSD. I think they shouldnt correlate much (right?) and Id like to know everything important about them. As I switched to part time job to be able to trade/educate myself at least for two whole days in the week I find it quite possible to keep up with two pairs... for now. I dont mind to look for trades on other pairs - but usually higher timeframes and only when there is time for that.
So the first trade - or prediction as I didnt take the position:
Allright this wasnt the ideal setup but anyway...
Been watching this little gap... I liked the confluence of the daily/yesterdays POCs and had the idea that the price could retest them while dipping into the liquidity provided by that nice swing low. Didnt take this trade and not sure if I would. It worked really well, but 4 days later...
I usually try to play it safe and go for 1:1 ratio, adjusting target to the distance of the stop, that Im placing to some reasonable place This one is placed well behind the other edge of gap and the wick zone where market reacted before.
I bought that nice SP500 dip yesterday, but that was nothing special - right place right time kind of trade...
Then I spotted this opportunity - initiatilly thought it could be a trend day. NT8 profile started with IB breakout and looked nice, tall and thin with some LVAs and value shifting higher.
Now I can see that TW profile also suggests some positions initiated on the very top during an overnight session (both longs and shots), and weak hands (long) being kicked out before european session started. This shake off retested LVA from previous day. First candle of cash hours fired up from IB .
One of my goals in trading is to synchronize better with the market - if my trading would be boxing I would probably punch in an empty space while smashing my head against my opponents hand more often than acceptable )) I will get back to this later now lets see the first trade: I expected this to be quick and market to move faster upwards. It did but failed. I didnt like it, closed with very light profit and wanted to wait lower... impatiently!
So I entered on second pullback with expectation of trend day - hence the aggressive entry. I had mental stop only - candle would need to fill the gap / close below top of IB . Target - the height of previous upward move aka completion of ABCD pattern . Time constraint = next trend move expected very soon.
When I saw more of the responsive type of action I reevaluated the prediction and expected this to be a P shaped type of the day. The shorts initiated on the top during overnight sessions were liquidated on yesterdays high breakou and it took us higher with a gap. Consolidation between the top of the day and a gap area was expected. So I closed this position near the top. It was the second good trade (2 ok, 1 be) in a day so I decided to just observe afterwards. There were more possible trades (green arrows) between expected brackets. It was only 23 pips wide area - when i count spread and not-so-great timing I can be quite satisfied.
