Mickey's Journal

[immy]

Yes, or trail bars. trailing bars on current time frame is roughly equal to trailing boxes on 5x lower time frame, as long as the current time frame bars have not broken the highs (in down trend) or lows (in up trend). You can test this concept on your chart. When price is too far from green, Fruit exit comes in handy.

cheers

ps: welcome back

[kiravon]

Trailing bars is by far my favourite strategy but
best suited to momentum and you need to be present
but great for 1M and 5M TFs

I like it because more often than not you do actually
get out at the right time - what more can we ask for!

Today's trade still behaving impeccably in my abscence

we're over half way now +120pips up

yes its a little sad when we have to give most or all of
it back but it's still encouraging! for example, suppose
before it reversed it went +190 pips in out favour

what did the market teach us? that it is not always
against us, sometimes it gives us opportunity to
take out hundreds of pips if we just get just a little
more in tune with it. That is extremely encouraging!

btw its very humbling to disclose that if I make
1,000 pips this week I will not be retiring, I will only
have made 5 PLN on my Micro Polish account.

Thats about a quid and will buy me two pints of
piwo, and that means a lot to us here in Poland

1.JPG

[kooky]

You should be writing inspirational books mate,reading your posts somehow gives me hope and
just makes me feel good. Thankyou. kooky

[kiravon]

Thanks Marcus

Yes without that feelgood factor we have very little
hope of success.

Think how far we have all come, from absolute
beginners - which we are not now

To the extent that we have made progress
we can continue to make progress. Its stating
the obvious I know.....

but we have made progress which is the greatest
proof that the process will continue

progress never suddenly hits an insurmountable brick wall

An example, some years ago I was looking
over the forums and I found a thread
- the 20 pip a day system or something

It seemed extremely reliable, the author's
daily updates were extremely encouraging!
modest but regular daily gains every day
for months

Unfortunately I couldn't get involved because
I couldn't understand a word of the system rules
or the terminology

something about donchian channels - what were they?

Having revisited it not so long ago I was amazed at how very
easy it now was to understand

We are not always aware of the progress we
have made

I am always quite upfront about my total lack of
ability to speak any Polish despite living in Poland for three
years. Very, very few British ever make much headway
with it. I know Brits who have been here ten years and
when they first arrived they learnt hello, thank you, goodbye

but now ten years later they have perfected their three word
vocabularly but little else! Polish is in the top ten hardest
languages to learn!

Recently someone phoned me from Polish ebay, I had just bought
an electric guitar from him and it was a real beauty! He was
checking to confirm my current shipping address. as he had two
addresses for me. Without hesitation I told him to disregard my
banking address and confirmed my actual delivery address

but the whole conversation was in fluent Polish

I wasn't going to lose that guitar!

I still can't believe I had my very first Polish conversation
on the phone, it was a bit basic but I now see the progress I have
made won't stop there!

The greatest success I have made in recent months
isn't the hundreds of pips I have made this week

but rather my changed attitude to big wins

my last big trade had a +220 pip target order and a Break
even Stop

So did I win 220 pips or break even?

Until quite recently I would have been checking
continuously! sound familiar?

But I haven't checked even though its a live account
because I really don't care. I know I either broke
even or won 220 pips. Neither eventuality is of very much
concern to me

Let us suppose I made +1,000 pips this week
over two nice wins and no losers. I now realize
this really isn't a big deal unless I'm doing
this consistently ( I wish! )

Let us also suppose Michael made +900 pips
over the last two months trading every day with
50% losers!

By contrast a record like that is gold dust!

So I am only excited by consistency, not
isolated wins

The ramifications of consistent profits in
Forex trading are staggering!

Of course when you are trading regularly
you need to know your balance to calculate
your next position size, but I don't need
to know that at the moment

But I have made a very definite shift in
my awareness, I have no certainty
that I am definitely going to win the
next trade

but I have extreme confidence that
I will come out ahead over T20 trades

so I am no longer plagued by self doubt,
always wondering if I will ever make it
as a trader, thats how it always was
for years, but thats shifted recently

along with a simultaneous shift.....

For years I would look at a chart
and if I didn't like what I saw I would
just keep looking....

eventually I would make a decision that
price would more likely go one way more
than the other

Then it hit me like a bolt out of the blue
after a reread of Mark Douglas

that is precisely what newbies and losers
tend to do, they get overly tense over every
imaginary setup - with the result that they
are not seeing reality at all.

I am now finally done with that!

Now when I look at a chart if I don't initially
like what I see, I don't:-

a) keep looking until I finally convince myself
there might be a setup in there somewhere that
might just go my way

b) check my six monitors for all 40 currenncies
over 6 timeframes giving me 240 possibilities
of a setup somewhere

No, now if I don't instantly like what I see on EU
I just switch off and walk away. I only have two
monitors now but I only need one.

This may seem in some ways to contradict a
good point Michael made in this thread, about
setting aside focused time for trading

but it isn't so very different

I don't have a cavalier attitude to trading, I
am simply not getting stressed out trying to force
a round peg to fit into a square hole

When I come back later and find a round peg
seeming to be approaching a round hole, I then wait for
the setup, and when everything is in place I hit the button.

But I no longer have any need or compulsion to trade,
I wait for the market to present the next opportunity.

and I now never trade just because there is a 'valid' setup

{ In the past this was sometimes a problem in the
skype room, different guys calling different trades
and I would so often jump in without really even knowing
who was calling the trade, just going along with the crowd

( the value of skype room is the priceless education more
than a signal service although there are good signals if you
follow the right guys in a non erratic market ) }

So for me now I'm not looking for setups, I have to
first have a very good feeling about the chart

then I wait for the setup to enter.

Thats the one overriding lesson I Iearnt from the famous horse
racing tipster Colin Davey ' Never go looking for bets, let the bets
come looking for you!'

As in trading also, I truly believe we have reached a milestone
in our trading career when we really no longer need our trading
'fix' - when we can simply walk away until we see a chart that
is as simple as it is compelling - these are the ocassions
when the market is presenting opportunities to us.

But for my posts to 'give hope' seems to suggest a backdrop
of pessimism? or hopelessness even? Trading is anything but
hopeless

If this is a pre existing attitude of mind, yes, it will certainly
be transmitted onto the charts with resulting seemingly
'hopeless' results

As many have found, when we look at the charts we are
simply seeing our state of mind reflected back at us.

Which is why so many top traders don't start the day
reviewing some trading manual, but rather start the
day with a work out down the gym

get better chemicals in the brain! clear the mind,
enhance the mood!

( I'm sure that can be expressed more scientifically )

But with just a minor mental adjustment to our attitude we can
drastically turn everything around!

When we think that over 95% of traders lose we could
conclude we have no chance!

but success and failure both leave clues

That 95%+ all do the same things!

The 2% - 5% of consistent winners all do much the same things

We have proof of that on this very site.

So we need do little more than model success and truly
believe that the positive image we hold in our mind of our trading
success will manifest itself in our external reality.

[azadar]

Great post as always Mickey.

I also used to keep looking and even trade when I shouldnt be trading. One trick that really helped me is to look for the pattern first. If the pattern appears I will then wait for a trade signal.

[kiravon]

Summer Recess Trades

C1 +170 pips DS 10
C2 +45 pips DS 10
C3 +221 pips DS 10

Not much today for me, a possibility on EU 4H but
that's not my normal TF

sep 2.JPG

[kiravon]

A +65 pip chance with -17 pip risk almost 1:4 RR
and usually the risk can be reduced if trade
goes our way.

Think about this kind of RR

If I am so terrible that I am losing 80% of the
time! ( and I really hope I'm not! )

The worst that can happen is that I will break
even!

So how can I win in trading?

Simply by avoiding losing

PS

No, this isn't a postscript

PS refers to Patience and Selectivity

and this is very, very hard to master for most
of us, - and almost impossible for some

nevertheless it is key

if we simply wait patiently for a nice pattern to
form and don't settle for anything less, then
strictly obey the rules when the setup appears
we absolutely will not have 80% losers!

and if we further exercise self control and only
select the trades with a very positive RR, ideally
over 1:2 we will do very nicely over T20 trades.

But this is all very theoretical and everything
centers on the one very small word with massive
implications for our destinies -

' if '

sep 4.JPG

[kiravon]

C1 +170 pips DS 10
C2 +45 pips DS 10
C3 +221 pips DS 10
C4 -6 pips DS 10

I was interested in a trade that looked good for
+71 pips but with a -107 risk and far more if
stop is actually above AIMS box!

Actually even if it was a +107 chance with only
-71 risk that would be too much of a liability

Patience and discipline are key

The trades are out there, just need to keep
my powder dry

post nfp.JPG

[kiravon]

Well I'm very curious about 'Cherries' as they seem to be
the secret of the skype room only

but I've noticed when you cross purple near a break
of AIMS you make between +700 to 800 pips on H4 TF

If this isn't 'Cherry' I will have to patent the system
and call it something else like, staying within the fruit
theme, maybe 'Purple Pineapple' and if the system isn't
original I can still use the name for a neo sixties
psychadelic rock band

I'm assuming 'Cherry' refers to the cherry on the cake?

I don't want the indicator necessarily but I would like
to know if 'my' system has already been devised

am I even close?

[immy]

Hint: The answer is in Fractal Geometry!

A Seed on CTF = Setup 1 on 5X LTF
A Setup 1 = Seed on 5XHTF

A PC on CTF = A P5 on 5XHTF [ABC zig zag on 5XHTF (with Apple) ]
A P5 on CTF = A PC on 5XHTF

An Apple on CTF = A Cherry on 5XHTF
A Cherry on CTF = An apple on 5XHTF

Hint and Question: the best apples are ones that are hanging off purple! the Best cherries are the one that should hang off ????