Immy's Corner [The Setup The Hunt - T20's and more]

[Tomi]

Do Not Predict - Do not be smart. Be dumb stupid and simple. And Trade What See not What You Think.

Keep trading the Setup. Keep searching for your Edge i.e. THE SETUP "Objectively". Objectively means, free of fear, free of anxiety, free of euphoria., Available for the NOW Moment. And have fun. Don't try to make pips or make money. Just trade. Don't RUN for a marathon, DANCE!

I think I did just that today! And closed the charts just when the winners came! Oh well, other duties comes and there's not much one can do...

[wiseambitions]

Agree with Darren

me too

would love to see how he makes such good luck

[immy]

Agree with Darren

me too

would love to see how he makes such good luck

Sorry guys, I thought I had already uploaded. Here is one I created for Publicity! haha (I like to attract people haha) And this is certainly one I will print and laminate and hang in front of me for my Creative Side to chew upon day in and day out. More Setups for me. More Campaigns for me. Attract them all. thank you thank you thank you.

[immy]

I learned from your journal that you just have to take the setups, no matter what. There's no point of waiting for perfect setup as there's no such. Sure some look better than others but winner trades start just from the setup. I try to keep this simple rule in mind. Today's rents were unfortunate, but if one doesn't take setups, there's no point of "trading" either. Monday again a normal day!

One note that I had a small profitable trade on EJ today, but it was an accident and not a setup. I closed it immediately even though it was going to my favor. I don't want accidental non-setup dirty money :ymsick: Learning learning learning...

Another note about the rents is that in order to take all the setups, you have to let the winners run. Otherwise +5 pips winners doesn't make any sense. This is something that I have understood only lately really well.

You have an excellent journal Immy and I'm amazed how many trades you actually take during the day. That's where I understood that trading is really taking the setups as they come and not waiting for perfect ones. I tried it today, but unfortunately the result was a disaster

Its a great observation. There will be many who tell you how to filter setups. there is no way but to define a set of criteria that actually works, understand it and apply it. It all depends on the strength of your "belief System". if you believe that taking setups will eventually put you in the positive in the long run , you will not hesitate to take all setups knowing that its a probability game.

A Setup is nothing but an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another. "

The setups that form in the direction of higher time frames however have higher probability of success. So we have already incorporated that "belief" or fact, if one can produce logical and complete evidence, (hard to find), that

"Higher probability setups are breakout in the direction of Higher Time frames".

WE know that following our setup will lead to over all success. WE must also believe that trading results are not calculated by taking a few trades or a days result. We need to take 100 trades into account. then sift through them, and see if all 100 were actually setups, or at least appeared to us at that moment as setups. those that were "errors" need not be counted out but they have another important role. So we then find out how many rents and average pipaages of it and how many winners out of the total and what is the average winner pippage. I can assure you from my trading results that this system has 50% success rate. And so in order to remain profitable, your winners MUST be at least 1.5 times as compare to your average losers.

The role of error trades is that it tells you how susceptible are you to errors. Everyone makes errors, some even go in our favor... woohoo like in your case today. ha-ha. But we must keep an eye on it and see what are the reasons for the errors and how often they occur. We can use a percentage wise number and allow e.g. 5% error trades and count them as your losing trades. Again error trades are no problem because as long as they remain within the average losing trade levels its ok.

So its NOT the losers that destroy your account. its the Winners that you either do not take, miss or cut short that are the culprits. I'm sure it must have happend to you that you see the market fly away in front of you and you are dazzled and then you find out it was a setup. You then cannot figure out how you missed it. Its because of our belief system and how our mind filters information based on our beliefs that we hold either consciously or subconsciously. That's why we FOCUS on CREATING Profits and ignore the losing trades.

In the end it all comes to Mind again. We let our losers become bigger because we don't understand how to control ourselves an we cut our winners short because of the same emotional and mental issues. As long as you experience FEAR, Anxiety, Anger and Frustration your mind will block information that lead to profitability (joy, knowledge, happiness, positive expectation) . Our minds will not remain "Objective" if we are fearful and become protective. If we are fearful it filters or blocks information that may lead you to take a setup or remain in a trade since it perceives (believes) that being in a trade is actually being exposed to RISK and Danger. So you don't see that the setup was there. You don't see that there is more to come and there is noexit signal.

On the flip side if you are too reckless and over confident your mind will "filter" ignore or block the information in the environment, the market i.e. our chart that help you to remain on the safe side. It may block information i.e. an exit signal.

So a Neutral, Joyful and relaxed mind is MUST for success. I suggest everyone to give the Setup ebook a fair reading. Understand the VERY SIMPLE Setup and then start working on their minds and start a life long journey of "knowing yourself". Your beliefs are yours, your mind is yours and only you know how to deal with it. The Secrete to Successful trading is not a system. It is Your MIND!

[Darren]

Immy - How far above/below the aims boxes do you usually place pending orders with EJ - is it different to EU?

[immy]

Immy - How far above/below the aims boxes do you usually place pending orders with EJ - is it different to EU?

Thats simple 1 pip plus spread any time frame

[Darren]

Immy - How far above/below the aims boxes do you usually place pending orders with EJ - is it different to EU?

Thats simple 1 pip plus spread any time frame

Thanks Immy.

[flpip7]

excellent re-enforcement, I've had a bad couple of days as well and was wondering what the problem was? Like you said above, after a few losing trades the mind becomes cautious and you miss the good trades and fail to see the good set ups until after it has taken off.

[immy]

thanks Guys! happy Saturday to all of you!

I was just sitting thinking, visualizing and multiplying my account in my mind. And within seconds it was in the multi millions region. That's the speed of mind. And they say that what you "think it, you bring about" but the speed and accuracy depends on the degree of the strength of your belief.

If you think about trading, its a rather simple straight forward game of probabilities and you literally have to do nothing new each day. You do the same thing over and over but our mind complicates it so much for us. In fact, think about this. Should I be saying we complicate it or should I say, our mind make it complicated. Which one am I? is the question. But anyway, its a simple game. A trader often switch into prediction mode. We start thinking, "i know where the market is going". This statement cannot be further from the truth. Because the market has infinite possibilities and its free to do whatever. Anything can happen in the market. Even the market does not know where its heading (well if its conscious, I don't know about that).

And the truth is "you do not need to know whats going to happen next in order to make money". We know our setup. We know that our setup has all the fundamental stuff ingrained in it. Our Setup is complete. Ask any professional trader, not just Forex any trading, about a trading system. What are the essential components of a trading system an they will say.

1. Pick a Market that moves.
Well we already know what market. Its Forex and within that we trade the major pairs. but specifically EU/EJ
2. Define a Setup (An Edge)
We have defined our edge pretty nicely. but to make it simple its just 3 rules.
3. Define Entry Criteria/rules/technique
Our Edge is our setup and our setup defines entry criteria for us.
4. Stop Loss Exit
Our Setup also tells us, even before entering the market (best practice any pro would agree with this is to define your risk before entries. Best traders find their exit before they enter a trade)
5. Decide a Time Frame and STICK to it.
We know our time frames.
6. Taking Profits. (The most important, and everyone agrees the most difficult and one can hardly get it right.)
We have agreed on a certain criteria or a combination of it. The simplest being dot to dot.

So we have covered all that. But I'm afraid that accounts for only 5% of trading. I hate to say that but its true. The rest is in YOU. You, your mind and you. Me , my mind and me.

If you want to find out if you're on the right track try looking at your trading plan. First off, chances are you don't have one written down and printed lying inf front of you on your desk. But if you do you're ahead the game. Good. Now see what kind of goals do you have. Chances are you have pips per day/ week/ month or dollar per day/week/month in there. Now there is nothing wrong with that but if you're learning how to trade than those are the wrong goals to seek.

The correct Goal/Objective is to Seek Consistency. When you shift your focus to Consistency, you'll shift your focus from the money and pips and the money and pips will become a by product of consistency.

You will focus on things such as,
Goal 1. Remain Disciplined throughout the day.
2. "objectively" Identify the setups and trade them accordingly. (Objectivity means your mind is free of fear and all the stuff related to fear. In other words your mind is not filtering information due to the fear and anxiety and thus you can see the setup objectively.
3. Remain focused yet relaxed.

These are the kind goals that I think all beginners like almost all of us or experienced traders, should and must have. Now they may seem like regular tasks that I trade is required to accomplish. And one can argue that we cannot call them goals. But think about this. Were you able to achieve these tasks on a consistent basis? 'd like you to have a look at the first page of this thread. I have a couple of pictures there. I have them printed and laminated and put in front of me. I never start my trading without reading these statements. (and of course my list of affirmations) The first one is

1. Five Fundamental Truths of trading. This shapes your belief system that helps with consistency and helps you form and maintain a "probabilistic mind set" which is essential for traders.
2. "I am a consistent Winner". " I am a consistently successful trader". This belief need to go down to the subconscious level. It has to go deep down so that you associate with it and connect with it so deep that you become one with this statement and you live your life from this belief. This belief is sub-divided into 7 sub-beliefs so that we can understand this. Thanks to Mark Douglas and his great book "Trading in the Zone". If you're a trader and you've not read this book, unless you're one of the few lucky ones, you probably have a total opposite thought process in relation to trading. The thought and logic process applied to things in general life does not apply when it comes to trading. This is a MUST Read book.

Saturday service shall resume after refreshments. Hallelujah!

[immy]

Btw: as long as EJ is acting like this, I'll be trading EJ Only on M1 and I'll trade EU on M5 in the direction of H1. (DA Concept)
cheers