Mickey's Journal

[wiseambitions]

If you put the 6 and 50 on this chart you might see how I entered m1 short. I let myself get stopped out a couple mins before NYO. Perhaps the bottom of that aims box, was well supported as it level quite closely with the bottom of m30

PS the EMA crossover arrows are not part of US, I borrowed them from Rebellion.

And an update= this afternoon has not moved much on the Dax. I get the feeling that vacation time in the northern hemisphere has much to do with it

[wiseambitions]

2016-08-15_1429_dax_monday.png

[kiravon]

Terrible morning! three rents so far

[kiravon]

Much better today! A very nice trade on EU, one BE and a further PO
placed

Actually this is worth talking about as I have been meddling a bit with
the original AIMS system

Aren't you supposed to stick rigidly to the rules?

Yes, you must. but you can change the rules. whatever rules you
decide you must stick to them. it means you don't just trade
on impulse willy nilly

But the screenshot below I truly believe represents 'The Holy Grail'

But the Holy Grail is not a system - no such system exists

But the Holy Grail does exist in its various component forms

Today was a very good example of this

Today was a Holy Grail day

Today I was a Holy Grail trader with a Holy Grail mindset

Today the EU has been forming a beautiful Holy Grail trend!

Today the Forex Power currency indicator proved to be a Holy Grail indicator
maintaining EU at score of 9 and US at score of 0.57 - and was accurately reflected
on the chart. ( But it would not always be that definite )

In short if you have a perfect never ending trend and you have the right mind set
it almost doesn't matter what system you follow

conversely if your mind and market are chaotic and you are foolish enough to
trade you will definitely lose

So the trade below synopsis:-

1. Break out of AIMS pure and simple. or you could say price crosses Ultra Signal
and EMA 6 - I wish I had been up for that before Frankfurt Open

2. Price crossed under 6 EMA and recrossed up through it - also break of AIMS

3. Price crossed under 6 EMA and recrossed up through it - no need to wait for
break of AIMS

4. Yours Truly is out of bed and enters where price again recrosses up
through 6 EMA - no need to wait for break of AIMS

5. I re entered when price again crossed up through 6 EMA no need
to wait for break of AIMS. I set Stop at just 6 pips and moved up to BE under the
EMA and was stopped for BE ( that happened after screenshot )

6. Placed PO above AIMS and subsequently moved stop to 6 pips, placed below 6 EMA

Is this the Holy Grail? Yes, but it doesn't happen everyday and we will probably still
trade when the markets are wild and erratic in which case it really doesn't matter
about break of AIMS or what EMA crosses what other EMA - you are going to lose
anyway

Only three things really matter in trading
1. Patience
2. Patience
3. More patience

and none of the above is even slightly original. 98% are just mighty slow learners
but in the end you either give up trading or simply can't afford to be impatient anymore

eu 17th.JPG

[kiravon]

A fantastic day!
One day a week like today is all I need if I can
just sit on my hands the other four days

I have been reviewing my losing trades yesterday
- what an eyeopener!

I believe I said I followed all the rules
- nothing could be further from the truth!

I wasn't in a good frame of mind having overdone
a bit over the weekend

The word that comes to mind is 'scattered'

In retrospect it's almost unbelievable

I have an AIMS based M5 system utilising 6EMA
and substituting Ultra Signal for Purple but
it is as described in the previous recent posts.

I had a perfect set up that would have been a very good winner
but on the H4 I saw divergence and a missed pivot
so I placed a PO.

BUT THERE WAS NO ENTRY SIGNAL WHATSOEVER!

so it lost and I was suckered into missing a good win in
the other direction on the M5 system.

I need to stick to just one system and timeframe per broker
and that starts today!

I've put my accounts on myfxbook which is a waste of time
all the while I'm clowning around like this

btw if you're tempted to use myfxbook be prepared for
some brutal reality about your results!

I've always claimed I trebled my account in three months
with AIMS and I wasn't trying to impress or deceive

but if I had been using myfxbook a very different picture
would have emerged. I truly did have some very good wins
but from what I have seen of my recent claims of my results
versus what myfxbook reveals are two very different things!

Did I say I've made 50% profit recently?

True I've done very well but myfxbook forgets nothing!

I started with 20,000 and took it up to 30,000

50% increase

Not exactly!

I actually lost a few thousand so apparently I deposited a further 5,000
demo money which I forgot about

so in total 25,000 deposited and the 30,000 then went down to 28,000

so the recent illusion of 50% increase since the start of the account until now
is only 12%!!

rose coloured spectacles

but on a brighter note here is Tuesday's trades

trend friend.JPG

That was a great trend but looking at GU which I didn't trade
is very interesting - a poor trend with almost 43% drawdown!

In other words if you just followed the trend on the M5 you
would have reversed 54 pips at one point

and surely have been stopped out

It was a very weak trend with a lot of ranging in the middle.
it was 129 pips in total length and I have tried to estimate
exactly what should have happened if I had traded it all day.

My simple rule - just keep trading the retracements ie when
price crosses under and then up through 6 EMA with Stop
under 6 EMA

if I had been up in time for LO I would have caught the
move and trailed momentum bars on M1 for 72 pips

just one trade ended just a little over BE, - most were only around
10 pips profit

a nice winner at trade 6 for 42 pips entry after cross of 6 EMA and
exit at cross back over of 6 EMA

Looking at the NY news spike if I had traded it in my usual news
trading way I would have waited for the spike to retrace to enter,
switched to M1 and trailed bars. probably make under 10 pips.

but in total 140 pips should have been available if I had been at my computer
for the entire duration

That would not have been desireable

but the point of the exercise isn't to backfit but to try to emulate exactly what
I would have done

You may have noticed a very small losing trade between trades 4 and 5. it wouldn't
have made much difference to overall results

It was ignored because at that point the Donchian Channel bands were descending
which as a filter would mean no trade.

I'm looking at an awful trend that doesn't inspire and thinking I surely could have
taken 20 pips out of that somehow.

It started too steep then ranged then steep again

Ideally we want something symmetrical with even retracements, no big drawdowns

synopsis.JPG

[wiseambitions]

If there were prizes for the most informative posts of the week you'd win them all!

Agree what you say about frame of mind.


-----------

Going back to the basics, Aims or not, how does a person succeed in this lark?

1) Recognise and act as flawlessly as possible when the entry setup is validated

2) Know when a trade is going the wrong way and get out before a little loss becomes a big loss

3) Let the winning trades run up, but know when the momentum has run out of energy, then take a worthy profit before it evaporates

The system has to have an edge. There needs to be a bias of winning pips over losing pips of course
And the system has to have good money management. A topic of its own.

-------

With the 6 EMA. Consider a 2nd line, shifted perhaps 3 bars to the right. The crossover points are interesting moments and might signal something

Or if you want to defer to Bill W, add another green line to gator (perhaps dotted), on the setting 5 smoothed MA, NOT shifted. The same crossover points are interesting. In fact I have come across another system, but I can't say it's fantastic because yet again there was little follow-through of the designer, to watch for the turnover points of two identical MAs one shifted and the other not.

------
I still consider what we are talking about here is far from un-aims, and the observations are very good.

[kiravon]

Interesting Ray!

Having wasted a few hours of my life since before
FO this morning micro analyzing just about everything
that could be analysed on the GU I came to an extremely
scientific conclusion to simply walk away from anything that
has even a hint of being rangebound.

By contrast and as simplistic as you can get I then spent around
30 seconds checking Forex Power website which had Gold down
-23.5 and USD up +3.5 - it was the greatest disparity of currency
strength of all instruments.

Then I looked at Oanda Market Sentiment and 75% are long on Gold.

So one way or the other the focus seemed to be on Gold, - didn't you
mention Gold yesterday?

Of the two charts - AUDUSD and Gold, Gold was the most convincing, not
the best trend I've ever seen but a 45 degree descent and a convincing W5 on M15 -
a far cry from Cable

I'm not suggesting for a moment this is going to be a winner and
certainly currency strength and market sentiment are no basis
for entering a trade but they often can tell you at a glance
that either nothing much is happening, or conversely that something
might be happening to an instrument

I inserted the Smoothed 5 MA, yes it is interesting, sometimes it
wraps around Green like spaghetti but it actually seems
to usually correspond to break of AIMS. Not sure if it actually
adds anything to or reinforces break of AIMS.

One of the simplest filters I was reminded of when checking that
old Donchian Channel strategy was that if you are following a trend
All three DC bands must be moving in the direction of the trend ie
if trend is down and you have a signal to sell but one of the DC bands
has moved up - don't trade!

It does reduce the number of trading opportunities but definitely
can keep you out of a lot of losing trades.

For just about the first time ever I can actually see a Wave 5 on
M15 Gold chart, numbered on the actual chart and on the Histogram

[kiravon]

No matter what goal, almost every successful person followed these 7 steps:


1. Finding the purpose that genuinely inspires them to achieve the goal.

2. Acquiring skills and knowledge they need to set themselves up for success.

3. Establishing great habits that will help them make progress every day.

4. Becoming gritty by staying focused and consistent on one goal.

5. Handling setbacks by not getting discouraged and learning from failures.

6. Conquering previous limits by pushing their comfort zone.

7. Persevering to the finish and seeing their purpose fulfilled.


Most people struggle because they don't go through these steps in the right order.

Some start at step #3 and try to establish great habits before they know the purpose behind those habits.

Some try to leap from step #2 to step #6 and try to conquer their limits without building a solid foundation of growth and development. So when they fail, they fail hard.

Some don't realize that steps like handling setbacks are inevitable. So even if they follow every step up to that point, they get discouraged when they meet with failure or rejection.

Each step requires different strategies, mindsets, and demands on your willpower.

[kiravon]

Well with my two new accounts set up on Myfxbook I was off
to a good start - in a strange kind of way

My trading was clean cut and impeccably neat on the lower time
frame account. I had one BE and seven very small and completely
controlled rents. no winners

I once made 234 pips on the M5 trading AIMS so these minor rents
are just something to do to pass the time

but on my second computer I had already placed my POs for my
H4 divergence system

All three trades are already well in profit!

That's why this is the only system I will trade with a real account.

I'm testing but I suspect it doesn't work very well on under H4.

So acting in my own best interest that is surely where I should
be concentrating on. I am.

But I would like to catch the momentum moves on the M5 just
like the old days. If I have any trading skill at all its trailing
momentum when I see it. I remember how stressed I used to be.

I even remember Immy talking about unconscious incompentence
which well described my early trading endeavours. and whilst I
wouldn't describe myself as an unconsciously competent trader
in every respect, I probably am with regard to trailing momentum -
I definitely have a feel for it.

So acting in my own best interests that is also something I want
to concentrate on. I'm really not frightened of a few rents, they'll
all be recouped anyway.

but after eight trades and no winner on M5 my interest did
start to gravitate to M15.

I wasn't trading but I was observing profitably.

I noticed what price was doing with regard to 200 EMA

You can see in the screenshot that AUDCHF was in a nice downtrend
but then cut up through the 200 EMA. No surprise it met serious
resistance at MR2. It couldn't get past it although it did edge up just
a little.

but note in the window below the bearish divergence

Everything indicating that price didn't really like it up t here.

and sure enough it recrossed back down through 200 EMA.

It was about then I seemed to remember Grant always had the 200 MA
on his charts - and it was starting to make sense

If price breaches it but then turns around back again it is highly likely it will
continue in the direction of the 200 MA trend

So where to enter?

I would say first close after AIMS but in this case no AIMS was formed.

But we have to notice a very key level here - The 200 EMA level was also
the exact TZ1 level, prior AIMS level, and also the lower Donchian Channel
level.

So if price breaks through all that it is serious about going south underneath
the 200 MA downtrend.

The best solution seemed to be to enter at close of candle after break of AIMS
on the M5 timeframe. Swithching between TFs should be second nature.

This is represented by the big white dots on the second screenshot, - this is
where that level occurs on the M15 chart.

At the time of writing we would be about 40 pips in profit which is ok
for M15 but it is likely to stay under the 200 MA now for quite some time -
no guarantee of course but had I noticed it earlier I think it would have
been quite a compelling set up. In any enent I've just entered on the break
of AIMS as I believe the trend will continue

so thanks to Grant for his little bit of insight - a trader who wants nothing on
his charts apart from the absolute essentials only includes the 200 MA

Probably for a very good reason!

Grants Legacy.JPG

Grants Legacy 2.JPG

[kiravon]

Yesterday's trade based on the 200 EMA is 65 pips in profit so far

Today we have the USDJPY - its 200 EMA is in strong downtrend from M15 to D1

so looking to enter on the M5

On M15 we have bearish divergence and a triangle forming.

The triangle is only relevant if we have a break to the downside and corresponds to
Purple on the AIMS M5 insert

The 200 EMA on M15 is same level as Purple on M5!

Hence this is why Michael Zlabis considered 'Purple is King!'

The lower triangle on M15 corresponds to break of AIMS on the M5 which you see inserted in the
screenshot below

Its not about direction its about not getting stopped

If you can call trades like this correctly most of the time there is a school of thought
that argues against stops

This means trading extremely small lot sizes so that it doesn't matter if price deviates
by hundreds of pips you still don't risk more than a couple of % of your account

Not ideal but how often are we stopped only to see the trade finally go exactly where
we thought it would

I have just placed sell PO on the M5 under AIMS - no stop loss

btw - yesterdays trade was brilliant - you could see so clearly where it was going
in relation to the 200 EMA

but still I managed to get stopped out before the subsequent predicted move to
the downside

200 usdjpy.JPG

jpy break of triangle.JPG