Dave from Sydney's Journal [Awarded Title: the Box-Trader]

[Tomi]

Haaaaappy bday Dave!! (party)

[Dave]

Thanks Tomi.... now pc off time.
Edit: Not principle C )

[Tomi]

Have a nice dinner with your lovely principal C )

Edit: just figured out that it's principle (rofl) mmm.....how many times I have said principal C (rofl) Now I will always say it like that!

[Dave]

Hey everyone,

Having missed the last few days due to work I had the chance to go back and review my exits on a lot of my trades. I focussed on losers (as lately there's been a few and they've been too big) and where the optimal point of exit should have been. So I had to take into account those trades that would have been small losers but got a little bigger, but also those that would have been small losers but reversed and ended up as a winner. Anyway, in short, I've found:

1) Most winning trades do not re-enter the AIMS box from which they originally broke out of;
2) Those that do re-enter the box and then go back in the correct direction and end up as a winner do not cover the greater losses that are incurred by allowing the losers to fully stop me out (and of course there's always the chance for a new entry on the new break);
3) If all trades are treated with a SL immediately above/below the trigger candle, then once there has been a single retest of this level (and if the SL survives), the SL is moved to be 2 pips inside the AIMS box from which the trade broke and was entered, and can then trail AIMS levels/5 consecutive candles or another exit method, then the average loss is reduced to approx. 5 pips;
4) Possibly most importantly, 5 pips can be handled mentally as small rent;
5) So now it's time to do it! I don't have a huge data set so I'll have to keep an eye on it from here but I'll report on progress.

Dave

[Bettina]

Hi Dave,

that's exactly what I found out. In practice those small stops do work quite nicely on EU. ( Grant has always known that )
EJ seems to be different, but I'm still watching. Looking forward to further results on this !
Have a nice start again !
Bettina

[Dave]

Yeah you're right Bettina, it is a "start again". I seem to have had a few of those lately! But it's always important to learn and adapt and in doing so (hopefully) improve!

I just went back in my trading records and looked at what I was doing around Aug/Sep/Oct last year when I had some great success, and it was 2 clear things:
- losers were small. As soon as market went against me I was out.
- winners were added to aggressively, even if there wasn't a fresh fractal, as soon as the market went for me and then showed even one candle of consolidation I was looking to add above the break on a stop order or after a BDC on a market order. And if it then turned against me I was out almost immediately, not letting a winner become a loser.

I don't know why I ever stopped doing this because it was working! I've just gotta stop writing s*^+ and take action! (rofl)

On the bright side I managed to arrange a transfer at work so the impending monstrous commute has been nullified. Yesssss. So chart time will be at an all time high soon, although I will regularly miss FO & LO during the UK summer months.

Dave

[immy]

Y
- winners were added to aggressively, even if there wasn't a fresh fractal, as soon as the market went for me and then showed even one candle of consolidation I was looking to add above the break on a stop order or after a BDC on a market order. And if it then turned against me I was out almost immediately, not letting a winner become a loser.

Dave

Adding on is the King of Profits.!

[Dave]

Friday 15 Feb

Log (UK time):

- Start 0700
- Pause 0850 – take the girlfriend for a walk and icecream, it is Friday night after all!

1. Did you perform your pre-trading routine?

Yes, and included watching one of my trade videos recorded from Simple Forex Tester. Whenever there’s a ripping trade I note down the time and then replay it and trade it and record it in SFT, repeat the good! Plan is to watch one before a trading session to focus the mind.

2. Did you trade today? If yes, detail your entries including reasons for entry and exit and trade results.

Pictures tell the story:

Reason for exit: Trigger candle SL.

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.01.31 PM.jpg

Reason for exit: Wanted to hold this so much, but consecutive red candles and then a BDC meant I trailed and got stopped out trailing. Went on to give plenty. (pic not entirely accurate, different feed to my live broker).

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.12.04 PM.jpg

Reason for exit: Spike showed almost 10 pips which is where I move SL to BE, so watched the platform and wasn’t going to let it give me <5 pips, showed <5 so I closed. Especially as this was more of an add-on type entry and wasn’t from a sleeping alli I was protecting the position. Went on to give plenty. Is this a correct principle C entry?

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.35.34 PM.jpg

3. Were your entries in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yep, happy with entries.

4. Was your trade management in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yep, closed when I had to on the loser and trailed when I had to on the DAX. EURJPY was a bit annoying but I closed for a reason.

5. Were your exits in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

As above. In addition, on the EURJPY close, if +10 is where I move to BE, then I should have mentally had a <1 SL and closed only if it showed <1, not at <5.

6. Was your money management in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yes. Position sizes calculated in line with account balance and desired risk %.

7. If you had a losing trade were you patient in waiting for the next setup? NEVER SEEK REVENGE.

Don’t feel like I pushed the entries, they just showed themselves.

8. If you had a winning trade were you patient in waiting for the next setup? NEVER GET CARRIED AWAY.

After the walk, well that was it.

9. Other points for discussion and general feeling of days trading (include results summary).

Tough to balance working during the day and then trading during the night and keeping a happy relationship, but c’est la vie!

Results summary:

1. -4.7
2. +7.5
3. +4.7

[immy]

Friday 15 Feb

Log (UK time):

- Start 0700
- Pause 0850 – take the girlfriend for a walk and icecream, it is Friday night after all!

1. Did you perform your pre-trading routine?

Yes, and included watching one of my trade videos recorded from Simple Forex Tester. Whenever there’s a ripping trade I note down the time and then replay it and trade it and record it in SFT, repeat the good! Plan is to watch one before a trading session to focus the mind.

2. Did you trade today? If yes, detail your entries including reasons for entry and exit and trade results.

Pictures tell the story:

Reason for exit: Trigger candle SL.

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.01.31 PM.jpg

Reason for exit: Wanted to hold this so much, but consecutive red candles and then a BDC meant I trailed and got stopped out trailing. Went on to give plenty. (pic not entirely accurate, different feed to my live broker).

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.12.04 PM.jpg

Reason for exit: Spike showed almost 10 pips which is where I move SL to BE, so watched the platform and wasn’t going to let it give me <5 pips, showed <5 so I closed. Especially as this was more of an add-on type entry and wasn’t from a sleeping alli I was protecting the position. Went on to give plenty. Is this a correct principle C entry?

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 7.35.34 PM.jpg

3. Were your entries in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yep, happy with entries.

4. Was your trade management in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yep, closed when I had to on the loser and trailed when I had to on the DAX. EURJPY was a bit annoying but I closed for a reason.

5. Were your exits in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

As above. In addition, on the EURJPY close, if +10 is where I move to BE, then I should have mentally had a <1 SL and closed only if it showed <1, not at <5.

6. Was your money management in line with your trading plan? Discuss.

Yes. Position sizes calculated in line with account balance and desired risk %.

7. If you had a losing trade were you patient in waiting for the next setup? NEVER SEEK REVENGE.

Don’t feel like I pushed the entries, they just showed themselves.

8. If you had a winning trade were you patient in waiting for the next setup? NEVER GET CARRIED AWAY.

After the walk, well that was it.

9. Other points for discussion and general feeling of days trading (include results summary).

Tough to balance working during the day and then trading during the night and keeping a happy relationship, but c’est la vie!

Results summary:

1. -4.7
2. +7.5
3. +4.7

Well Done! BUT PLEASE constitute a strategy of LETTING IT RUN! these small wins are great but very hard to keep. But Well done. and the answer to your EJ chart was given before I even read your question. In the disucssion.

[Dave]

Hi everyone,

After a nice 5 day trip to Tasmania and work seriously breaking my balls I finally got some chart time. Just a quick journal update, took three trades today..... I show the 34 template for the last one because I did flick to that chart and liked the setup so it was behind my decision to enter. Really tried to let 'em run (except the first one) and it worked out well. Also had a chance to close out the second entry a bit earlier, but if I'd closed on green line on the third trade it would have been a single entry for about 7 pips, and the size of the 3rd wave on market open on the DAX really made me want to hold it long.

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 8.01.17 PM.jpg

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 8.27.37 PM.jpg

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 9.28.45 PM.jpg

So that's it till Thursday, work back on my case again! Cya

Dave