Kyle's Journal Mk2

[immy]

The question is why are you committing the Cardinal Sin of Trading, Trading on Multiple Time frames? One should chose "a" time frame to trade "a" strategy on "a" market. wink wink

[Kyle]

Mixed bag today for the start of March. In saying that, the bit to work on is my own understanding and trade selection, and not the method at all. I identified four trades today and three were taken. Unfortunately, all were rents, but that is how it goes.

At LO, we had a sleeping Gator and breakout. This should have been taken as a long, but I was looking for fruits and neglected the other half of the trading method (taking the classic setups as well). Soon after, a fruit popped up, but was too slow to take that one - in the end a bit fortunate but the idea is to trade the plan and not feel lucky that I didn't take a trade.
Then we had another Breakout entry that I didn't take (but should have) and that would have made good profit for us. The fruit after that was valid except for the fact that the A0 was increasing in momentum still and not near a peak.
Finally, I took my first trade at 1. on the chart. It looked like we had hit a peak on A0 but not long after triggering, it resumed the up move and stopped me out (-10 pips - -0.54%). No problem. Next.
Next fruit after that (long trade 2) had the fruit removed after refreshing?? but I should not have taken it as a fruit anyway, but the classic was valid. The fruit was to trade towards the gator and this one traded away from it. Anyway, this retracted soon after activating and closed it out at -6 pips (-0.2%).
The next three fruit longs and first fruit short all did not break through for an entry, but one did at trade 3. This pulled down in my direction for a while, but ended up closing on the other side of green after gator opened to downside, so I closed it for a small 2.2 pip (-0.11%) rent.

In all a renty and disappointing day. The disappointment was not in the rents, I am quite prepared for them to happen as a part of the bigger picture, but the disappointing part was the fact that I had not consolidated classic breakouts in my trading, so was not really trading the method in its entirety. Trade 3 was also when the market was moving sideways a bit and momentum/volatility was slowing down, so a trade possibly should not have been an option.

All in learning and will be a better trader on Wednesday when I am next active on the charts.

Today - -18.2 pips (-0.85%)

2015-03-02_LO_m1.png

[Tomi]

Hey fellow, simulating is something that had helped me for hesitating problem if setup should be taken or not. At least worked for me. You happened to trade W4 today, but that's something that is easy to claim in hindsight. Just keep taking setups as they come and try to trade during the time when markets move - like London open usually. However, sometime dax moves like a maniac whole day and seems that it never stops. Market is your friend, but sometimes a bit boring friend, like in wave 4's. Keep on rocking chap.

[Kyle]

Wow, I have not been a good boy and not been updating my journal. I'll fix that from today. A new month and after being int he skype room most days, I am going to start this month a better trader and record everything.
I will also update my trading plan and put it up here for my record. Now, before I start todays results from LO, I'll write down March performance overall.
35 trades, 19 of those were filled, and 9 of those profitable, for strike rate of 47%. The 47% netted 43.5 pips, which shows that there were not many trades that took off when was in them. February was 38% and 134 pips profit as a comparison. One proviso with this, it was absolute trades and not "campaigns" as such. that is changing this month where a trade recorded will be a campaign, so could be up to 3 trades on it. results will reflect my success much more accurately.
attached is a chart of my performance to date and am confident that it will be upwards and onwards from here.

2015-03_Results.png

[Kyle]

Now, to todays trade so far. I took a DAX m1 fruit just prior to LO as it was a nice setup. There were also two Add-ons put in and initially, it looked like it was going to be a very profitable trade, however, it decided to reverse somewhat and I closed the trade out on the close above the green line. Hindsight is a great thing, and it would have turned into a very profitable trade, but no need to worry about that as I closed it out as per the trade plan.

2015-04-02_Trade_1-1.png

As far as discipline score goes, I believe it was a correct trade to take. Many others in the skype group closed out after moving SL to a pip above AIMS level, which I did not do. That is part of the trade plan and I didn't follow that part properly. As such, I lost a few pips and the DS sits at 0 for the first trade.

Starting fresh with the T20's today
Batch 1, trade 1 - +7, -11.8, -15.8 Pips (-20.6)
-0.48% Rent/Investment

[immy]

Wow, I have not been a good boy and not been updating my journal. I'll fix that from today. A new month and after being int he skype room most days, I am going to start this month a better trader and record everything.
I will also update my trading plan and put it up here for my record. Now, before I start todays results from LO, I'll write down March performance overall.
35 trades, 19 of those were filled, and 9 of those profitable, for strike rate of 47%. The 47% netted 43.5 pips, which shows that there were not many trades that took off when was in them. February was 38% and 134 pips profit as a comparison. One proviso with this, it was absolute trades and not "campaigns" as such. that is changing this month where a trade recorded will be a campaign, so could be up to 3 trades on it. results will reflect my success much more accurately.
attached is a chart of my performance to date and am confident that it will be upwards and onwards from here.

2015-03_Results.png

What a turn around in the year 2015. You are on the right track now. From overall loss for the year 2014 to already up 5% in 2015 and its only april. well done.

You must have changed something to turn this around. stick to that! Happy Easter... (everytime I think about Easter, the Easter bunny with the Aussie accent talks to me, Hugh Jackman, Rise of the Guardians)

[youtube]_TLhexRRUMg[/youtube]

the aussies they look tough, but they are all like this Easter bunny! He cares...

[Kyle]

OK, NEO done and not much for me. I had a pending order in for a short earlier on, but I cancelled it due to the market becoming a bit choppy. It would have cancelled naturally anyway, but sneaky peter had better ideas and read the charts correctly. He put in a long PO and took a nice Add On for a great day's trading for him. two really good ones in a row (wd)

Here is NEO Chart with where I thought it was choppy and Peter's subsequent trade

2015-04-02_NEO.png

So that's the close of the week. A bit disappointing, but that is in me and not from lack of opportunities. This could have been a great week for trading if I had been more on the ball. That is all good though, as I intend to learn from inactions and mistakes. A nice long weekend now and back to trading on Tuesday.

Looking forward to it already

[Kyle]

Oh, one last thing. I have rehashed my trading plan in between the LO and NEO sessions. Shared with the guys in the Skype room, and now sharing here.

2015 Trading Plan.png

[Kyle]

Back after Easter. Hope everyone is nice and refreshed. School term break here and have my son here for the first week, so may not be in London Sessions. I'll look when I can, but it comes in right on 5pm and I am doing his tea and getting him ready for bed (cuddle time, reading etc). Anyway, I fully intend to be in on the NEO sessions now that daylight saving is in the past (lost it on Sunday) which gives me NEO at 1130pm, which is doable for me. Hopefully next week, I'll be in on both sessions.

Today, I took an entry right at NEO and the subsequent Add-In, but the chart had other ideas and kicked me out by one pip, before taking off in the desired direction. Saying that in hindsight though, if I was still in it, the next exit would have been pretty much BE anyway. Got to be in it to succeed.

Saying that though, analysing it after the fact, I have found that the angle created by the fruit candle was a bit premature. It was two candles creating that angle, so I needed to wait at least one more candle before taking a valid setup. the break of AIMS Add-On was valid, but the initial fruit entry was not in the end. As such, the DS for the trade is 0. Happy for any constructive critique at any time.

Not the best start with the DS, a 0 out of 2 so far, but I expect that to rise for the better from here still. Don't care about a trade losing money, but I do have to build that DS up.

Here is the chart

2015-04-07_Trade_1-2.png

[Kyle]

Hi fxsam,
Thanks for that. It is definitely something to possibly consider, but my belief was that fruit entries are supposed to be based on the m1 TF only, irrespective of m5, but I do see what you mean. I had the same scenario just now with a trade that would not have been taken if I considered the m5 TF, but traded it as per the Trade Plan and became a fully loaded rent. Will post the chart of that one pretty soon. Sad it rented out, but if it went in the right direction, it would have rained pips for me. It is a lower strike rate, but high return on investment as such. A few rents in a row, but they will be worth the investment when I take the one that wants what I want B-)