Billy's Trading Odyssey (carnegieent) - My Trading Journal

[carnegieent]

Hello Guys,

I have decided to start a journal to try and keep myself on the straight and narrow and help with my focus.

I am also publishing my trades via MyFXBook and you can follow this at the following address:

http://www.myfxbook.com/members/carnegi ... ey/1345473

Essentially I will be trading Dax30, using mainly SEEDS, both M1 seeds directly and also looking for S1 opportunities when a SEED pops up on the M5 chart, the monarch pattern will also be high on my priority list. There might be the odd PC Cherry trade as well but it will not form the focus of my efforts.

I will be risking a maximum of 1% on each trade.

As a general rule i will be trying to take entries off SEEDS with a 10 pip or less range - this way i only need a maximum of a 50 pip move to achieve 4:1 RR

I will be using FTM (Fractal Trade Manager) to manage all my entries.

For the most part the visibility of the MyFXBook account will allow everyone to see my daily trades as fannying about with images would not be one of my strong points

As for this journal i would envisage doing a weekly roundup of my musings and excuses, i will do it daily if i can be bothered but I is very busy wading my way through all of Immy's daily posts on Skype which takes up a large chunk of your day )

Anyway, here's to making some pips (hopefully)

Thanks
Billy (carnegieent)

[immy]

Hi Billy

Good job. You're on my watch-list. Journal keeping is the Holy Grail!

All the best

[carnegieent]

First week over, let the excuses commence )

I managed to enter 5 trades only this week (trading time has been limited, from next week i will be committing 3 hours from the london open.

Anyway from 5 trades, 3 were 1% losers, 1 break even and the other was a 3% winner (a star seed using Grants rules). So the upshot is i finish pretty much break even for the first week (0.03% down to be exact) but the truth is i have been a bit of a major 'FUD' - the 3 losers and 1 break even trade did not meet any of my entry criteria, i had missed entries before these and my trigger finger was itching for some action.....lesson learned although i am sure it won't be the first time i learn that lesson.

To make things even worse, one of the trade was not even for DAX, it was for CAC :wtf: , i happened to have opened it and forgot about it and was not paying enough attention.

I need to spend more time on my focus for sure.

Anyways next week, we start afresh and try to right the wrongs from this week when hopefully i can start posting some images of my trade entries.

Later Peepul - Have a nice weekend
Billy

[immy]

Hi Billy

The most important thing you did here is that you wrote it down in your journal. Some might say this is a public journal but I disagree. We are a little community of like minded traders and not as such public as its not open to all but only the members of the AIMS Group. Working in groups is what keeps the planet ticking. It is the structure of the universe that things attract to each other provided they have the same vibrations/frequencies.

So, the point I wanted to make is that the very step of recording your activity takes you miles ahead of your previous self. Note that we all want to be consistently successful traders and that is a future projection of ourselves. WE must act as if we are already successful think act and behave in those ways. That is the way the successful people achieve their success they assume the feeling of how they want to be in the future.

I highly recommend applying T20 Principle and analyse at the end of each day and bactch of 20 traders. There are many advantages e.g. if you record your journal and you've completed a batch and or half of it you might know instantly that you have traded too much. All we want to do is get 2-3 three great quality setups.

Have a daily Stop Loss limit of max 3% (that is 3 rents and you're out) That's what we call the baseball 3 strikes and out rule. You finish the day there and then and come back tomorrow. However sometimes check if you can keep discipline and stay for the rest of the "allotted" trading time only observing and not trading. One other way of doing this is to have a demo account. If you strike out you can then have 3 strikes on your demo account. If that strikes out you then lose your RIGHT to trade. If you make one mistake in the 3. Go and do something else. IF all 3 were mistakes you will not trade the next session or the next day.

Making these above rules and more like those will keep us structures and organised. We will remain disciplined and become good at it.

all the best.

May the Pips be with you!

[carnegieent]

Month 1 (september) over and done, riddled with failures to follow rules, still burdened by past bad habits in so far as i always seem to want to add just one more indicator to make things better (which never works), but finally a light bulb moment (i think).

In truth i kept adding additional indies because i was really failing to see the structure and patterns but finally i think i see them (for cherry and seed trades anyway) - the whole Push Pull Push concept now seems to be dawning on me and i enter October with fresh confidence.

Summary for September as follows (Net 3.5% Loss):

[carnegieent]

An example of a trade taken is as follows: i reckon i know why it failed but feel free to fill in any blanks:

1. Impulse move
2. Seed on wrong side of gator
3. Additional Indies causing confusion
4. ?

[immy]

Hi Billy


You're right, additional indicators will not help with anything. We have created a pattern with our indicators that we are trying to teach others to recognise. If you add other indicators the pattern is distorted and perhaps you will never see the market as we see it. Think about it. Indicators are nothing. They are there to depict patterns. Does your indicator have a repetitive pattern that you can use to your advantage? Can an extra moving average give you an edge? or further improve your edge?

We believe we have an edge and that edge is 1. A Pattern 2. Rules for the pattern.

I urge you record and post each and every trade in this journal only then we will help you! but if you are part of Skype group you can always check your performance there as well by asking questions and engaging!

[carnegieent]

October 5th 2015 - Trade 1 (1.8:1):

Cherry Trade, from what i see the entry followed all the rules but my exit was a bit premature as it was above the MicroTZ1:

05-10-2015-01.png

TRADE 2 (Breakeven):

Seed trade, followed all the correct rules for entry but i totally messed up the exit and ended up at break even, even though the trade did reach 2:1.

05-10-2015-02.png

[immy]

Perfect setups and 2:1 is a good way to trade. Just stick to 2;1 you won't regret it .

[carnegieent]

6th October 2015:

Learning Trade 1:
I didn't take this trade as it didn't follow my current rules (failed on no new lower peak / divergence rule) but as Immy explained the PC pattern has the effect of resetting the divergence rule so using that the Seed would have met all other rules so could and probably should be taken in future.

06-10-2015-xx.png