I was looking back over my year of trying to learn to trade, and by the end of the year I have not reached my goal, but I feel a long way ahead of where I was this time last year. I could thank almost everyone on the forums for the great information that I read daily, but I will give special thanks to DbPhoenix for the help, and a lot of his own time in live chatrooms, that he gave to me and many others on the forum, from the start of the year onwards. The main thing that I learnt from him was to look at the bigger picture and see the context in which things are happening. Prepping before the day starts is second nature to me now, and I wouldn't trade at all if I came into the day blind. The biggest change recently has been to gather as much detail on the trades as I can into a spreadsheet. Reviewing the data has allowed me to find exits that are more conservtive, and which allow me to trade in a calmer manner. I have a lot more work still to do on the data gathering and analysis, but thats what Christmas is for. The chart attached for Monday shows basically where I am at the moment. I have a plan which has one simple retracement entry on the 1 min chart that I can catch in real time, combined with exits for stoploss and profit that have a positive result in testing, and do not paralyse me with fear of major losses. I still have tons more to do, and I am still not performing to the plan 100%, but it's progress, and if I can keep going I should get there next year. Merry Christmas everyone, and enjoy the holidays. Chart Notes: 1. While I took the entry as required, I moved my target out which is against my rules. This was a greed move, because I was hoping for a fast move to the overnight high. I was breaking the rules on the first trade of the day. I exited when I realised I was trading on hope, not my testing results. For the rest of the trades I took my losses correctly, although I probably entered too close to the overnight high on 3. and 5. . By that stage I could see that the bars were very sluggish today, and although I marked in retracements at 6. and 7. I didn't take either. No more trades till after the holidays. Time to catch up on my reading and analysis.
Thursday 15th Jan 2015 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I haven't posted anything for a while, so I decided to post my opinion on this mornings action. I was back on page 4 of the journals, so I will have to make more effort to post regularly. Chart Notes: A. Okay, so today a few minutes after the open we had a rejection of the previous swing high. Now I have seen these rejections on my chart many times and they often lead to a move in the opposite direction. I'm no hero, so I did not enter here, but I noted that there was a possible move down on weakness. Believing and acting on the price action at these points is the money trade, and is one of my ambitions for the future. B. So we fell on downwards and while there were a few previous swing lows from the previous days action to watch for, we continued to make a series of lower highs and lows all the way to the previous day's low around 4100. Of the retracements on the way down, the only one that met my stop limits was the one at B, so I put my contract on this knowing that, while we had travelled far we still had 16 points to the low. I exited a few points above the low. C. Once we hit the lows we had a quick rejection, followed by a line break and a higher low. This is classic SLA stuff, so I entered, but exited soon enough when we came back to the entry. D. A nicer entry for me was here with a small stop loss, and I was able to manage it to the line break for a change. That change in behaviour is down to some work that I have been doing in before trading on reviewing the trades that work best. Hopefully I can keep it up and see the benefits. E. The turnaround comes at the overnight 50% point, and an unmarked morning low before the open. The price then moved into a downward channel, which means that the whole morning was basically spent trending. There was no mean chop to fool us, and no turning points in the middle of nowhere. Overall a good day. I can manage these type of days fairly well now. I just wish that they would come more often.
Friday 16th Jan 2015 :- Market Preview -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yesterday and today we have a break below the previous swing lows which go back to the middle of December. On the 10 Min chart attached, we are currently back at the top of the overnight range, which is conveniently at that swing low point. Support becomes resistance maybe? We'll see at the open. The potential hurdles are easy to see if we go above because they are more recent areas of interest. However if we break below the overnight lows, it is harder to tell which areas may affect the price movement. I have calculated a weekly channel low at around 3950, we may see how good my channel drawing is if the price falls that direction.
Wednesday 04th Feb 2015 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today I decided to try my best to be good, and wait for the correct trades that jumped out at me. I wasn't 100% successful, but it was a start. I waited a long while through the morning ups and downs, like a sleeping Zen master, and then made a trade off a failed breakout of the overnight low. I was anticipating a move to the top, but couldn't hold on. My trade management could not handle it, and at the moment I might be better off sticking to smaller targeted trades that I can manage.
Monday 09th Feb 2015 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm still not 100% comfortable or consistent with what I am doing, but I will march on, and try to read and observe and learn everyday. I need to draw my levels correctly before the open. Most of them are good, but sometimes they vary from what others draw. Drawing the ranges correctly is the first stage of understanding where the extremes are, and where the lowest risk trades should be. Today I saw a few channels, which I marked on the chart. Given that I cannot trade channels and ranges well, I really should just wait until price leaves the channels before trading. This is not always easy when I think that I have a signal for an entry based on other criteria. Anyway, I eventually got a trade outside the channel that I could practice managing to a target. Overall the day was okay, no overtrading and no panic exits.
Tuesday 16th December 2014 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today we spent the morning within the range of the hinge that was created from around 6am until the open. We tended to revolve up and down around the mean, with no breakout. On a day like this with no direction, I cannot trade the range well enough, so I stay out. I did make a few trades eventually, but didn't get far. I found it relatively easy to stay out today, but not so easy once I was in a trade.
Wednesday 11th Feb 2015 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most of my entries worked today, but the points were not taken, and the exits ended up too near to the entries. There is more to trade management than just holding on. I had an idea that if we got above the highs that we could go on to test further highs. Just couldn't see a way to stay in the trades.
Thursday 12th Feb 2015 :- 1 Min Chart Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I made a few good trades today, and all of them failed. I hadn't actually noticed the level around 30. I only marked it in after an hour or so after the open so maybe some of the trades would not have been taken. But overall the day went nowhere, and just stayed between previous levels. One more day tomorrow, and then I'll review what I need to change next week.