hi fxjake, like your style. you have large stop... on the other side you get out usually on a small retracement. How do you decide to give trade room all the way to stop or to get out early? my method: I like using my emotions that I learned to observe, to play opposite direction to what they are screaming for, with very small stop and it works great. Except, it feels like work.
Great, thanks Jake. I am just getting into Forex and have been amazed by your results in this thread.
Thanks Pachoo. It took years to get consistent results, and much of that, I believe is simply managing yourself. Maybe I see it that way because I am (or "was") a psychologist, but it seems to me that understanding your weaknesses and working on them is the key to getting on track to profitability.
This is a great question, Austrijec. The details are key to profitability, as I see it. It's funny, I think that entries really aren't that critical, but the exits sure are.... and I am not alone in that thinking. A great example of this is the recent trade I took on the 4hr NZDUSD chart (attached). [I know I didn't post this one on this forum, I forgot.....it happened rather quickly.] I thought that price would bounce off of the "major" s/r zone (black line) and approach the minor s/r zone (purple shaded area), but the question remained, would price then retreat back down, or would it go higher? At this point the trade was a "free trade" and a few pips were locked in, but I had made the decision that it looked like the minor support/resistance area (purple) would not hold, and that price would come down and knock me out at breakeven, so I exited. Will you always get it right? Nope. But I have found that psychologically, it is easier to have two targets - an easy-to-achieve target that is close, one of the nearest minor support/resistance zones and a more aggressive target. Once the first target is met the remaining lots will me moved to breakeven (or + a few pips) and then I see if I can get more out of these. Sometimes when it is clear that a reversal is coming - it is ok to just jump out straight away. I have been thinking about this a lot and I think that there are ways to "develop" your intuition. Cognitive psychologists would call this "expertise" - but it is sort of the same thing, as I see it. I have a lot of other thoughts on this, but I think I will use them to write an article on this issue, thanks for the inspiration austrijec.
Just entered a long on the USDCAD stop at 1.0809 will watch the 1.1100 level as that is the first minor s/r zone, but I think this could be a good one.
May have double bottomed here, this could end up going up for a few days now, who knows...... this is why I stick the stop under the nearest low, in case of a double bottom.
This went over 20 pips rather quickly in the expected direction (down), and then it reversed rather quickly so I exited at 1.0685 for a -13 pip loss. This is going up, like the USDCAD is going up tonight, I think.
Moderator, note that this person likely intends to turn this "journal" into a paid service... ----> http://www.FXJAKE.com/