Sam's Journal [Awarded Title: The Master of Famous Setup ]

[immy]

Agree with Tomi however I'd add that you could have or should have exited at least 1 add on at the 10.07 bar.

Next could have been at the Green line close. and Fruit exit at Box. that would be better and it allow for future trades to make you money instead of giving it all back.

And like Tomi said, we will never get it 100% correct. Which makes it a lot of fun. Room for improvement alway there.

1. there is a box low that is higher than the previous box low. One point to worry about
2. there is a B trap rejection at this higher low .another point to consider
3. It closed above green. At this point you'd be thinking, hmm i think i'm too late and perhaps should jsut trail the box , may be ti continues to drop.

Well this is m1. If you did not know what was happening, why was it happening, which is mostly the case with us AIMS traders since we don't really look at or have access to volumes or other secrets of the stock world (its an index anyway)... but with a little help from Mother Strucutre ... there are always ways to helps us out , predict , marke or see some levels and make the decision easier.

I MUST say, that had you exited on 10.07 completely that would have been a WRONG decision too. Unless you saw more "reason2close" beyond the chart on m1. (I like the Trade2Hold and Reason2Exit terms from the the Book Playbook by Mark Bellafiore)

IN the chart attached I lay out a little example of the Pre market plan I tend to follow. and you can too.

[immy]

Day/Session - 15/01/2019 - London Open
Symbol/TF - Dax m1
Signal Type/Direction - Fbox first entry, add-on at next aims
Comments and Feeling when taking trade - Nice wave 3 at FO followed by wave4. Around LO nice tight box formed with sleeping gator. Box entry was taken and add-on was added at next box.
Comments After Exit exit - was perfect exit on candle trail. profit was locked.
DS Score - 1

You are not Stage 1-3. You are Trading for making money. You are Stage 5.

Which means, you MUST focus on Profit for the day/trade with each post. Only that way can you have the correct focus. (man it feels good finally being able to say this to a member of AIMS)

[immy]

You really are the master of the Setup / Box Break in the direction of Trend... Lets keep that in our mind.

So while you're trying to catch those Fruits, you know that you already have extensive experience in taking trades like the above two trades. Those are your CORE strength trades. Keep at it.

I'll repeat myself, most people when starting fruit, get so hung with the Fruit signals they forget, that its not the only way to get into the market. Fruit entrie are an extension of trading the Setup.

[immy]

Hey, thank you for agreeing to follow the format agree with @raklian Joel. this is the best and practical format for traders using the m1 time frame.
@everyone if you're trading M1. first of all, find yourself a market to trade for the day or the year. For me, i don't look around for markets that are moving. I know its gonna be most likely dax because that's the one that moves every day. later in the afternoon I can trade the Dow or the S&P if I like.

In forex, I think the spread to range ratios are pretty bad. Forex pairs more around 50-100 pips a day, and spreads or commissions make it hard. Plus currencies usually don't move and suddenly move on news. So from that point of view, forex is also good because you just wait for the CIP events. (news times) and trade around those times when volatility is high. compared to that, the indices move at the OPEN> money making machines.

BAck to sam's journal ..

right nothing much to reply today apart from your bad habits of leaving the screen. If you're trading m1, you gotta stick around. So you went for dinner and missed the short. that was your choice. do you want to play it differently? perhaps you do. You know what to do..

cheers

ps: I agree with the score. Entry was wrong, though exit was correct.

lets use fruit for "reversing" and for entering into next possible impulse wave. At open, its a breakout trade. so we must use the box levels. There is not single formula for the open. You gotta PLAY IT RIGHT... the more you play the better you'll play

[immy]

Day/Session - 17/01/2019 - London Open
Symbol/TF - Dax m1
Trade Summary -
1) Fbox entry. At FO dax opened with down trend. Around LO i was hoping for price to continue in that direction set by FO. However, before it decide to went up quickly it gave nice fbox entry with sleeping gator. grab Fbox entry and set ATM trail.
[Immy:Nicely done.

2) Fbox entry. This was add-on to first entry. Took add-on at level but later iMi highlighted mistake as left level was too far for m1 time frame. it worked and exited on ATM trail.
[Immy:yes we can use historic levels but not like 1hr old levels. just the recent ones to the left in the same wave. though technically even those can be used. I don't.

3) Price pulled back after 1& 2 trade and created saddle point. Attempted long again on fbox as trend was up by this time. Turned in to rent. Happy with exit below AIMS
4) this was add-on to 3rd entry. happy with entry and exit both.
[Immy:yes pretty good long trades. Nothing wrong with , just following the plan. and how we perceived the market. wave 5 up could have happened. did not happen so we exit. NEXT

5) This was error trade as my MT4 chart was squeezed and i missed initial entry but saw another box tried Market Order. Shared my chart and once again mentor imi spotted chart as squeezed that changes dynamics of entry. Immediately closed it as it was error on my side
DS Score - 0

What a great Quote in your signature.

Your profit target should be dollar amounts now. Gradually we will work on it. What is the dollar amount you could lose if all 3 entries, hit SL. well that would be 1.5% right? but no, its Chaos Trading. you'll never know exactly. but it will hardly ever be 1.5%. Because you take fixed lot position and its not possible all 3 entries lose -75 pips. (becasue you risk .5% at 25 pips)

So if that is your risk, then your profit targets for the day should be around 500 dollars. I know its not that much but its good enough for an hr of work.

what do you think

[immy]

Day/Session - 19/01/2019 - London Open
Symbol/TF - Dax m1
Trade Summary -
1) At London open, nice long breakout which wouldn't have worked due to strong pc at 10.12. Price continued long after that. after nice little wave 4 it pulled back and created wave 4. basically i took trade no.1 to get in to wave 5.
2) This was add-on to previous trad on box break

Exit was on green closed. can be questionable exit on 11.29. if i would have stayed in and trail AIMS would have still stopped out at 11.31 PC. overall trend was long but bumpy with few pc which can knocked out any trade.

DS Score - 1

I think if you want to get better at trading m1 and really squeezing big money out of it you will have to make the effort of recording your feelings and assessments more in detail. I do understand we have chat during trades but post trading a detailed journal is something you'll benefit from. Then later have a re-read of the the 5 posts.

A few more details would do. e.g. don't need to wasted time on rewriting the date and pair name etc. its DAX M1, you know it already. Just write it in the Post Subject. but anyway, not bad trades.

Was it possible that you could have stayed in the trade a bit longer.?

[immy]

Pretty good trades today... GU was a smashing one. Thanks for the callout in the chatroom. I took it too.

luckily for me, I was keen on taking the LO box break. that was my profitable trade on dax for the day. the other one, was exactly like yours, only mine was a bit earlier exit. If we continue to take setups like these, you know when it drops another 50 points we make 150 points. it covers a week worth of work

cheers - Don't stop journaling... NEVER

[immy]

Sam

That was a great session. I went on to have a great day today. The funny thing is I did not even realise how great the day was. I was in the zone. just trading ,doing my routine chores, traded dax for 2 hrs, had a session in private with @jasmien by that time it was late for gym , went anyway, which pushed everything forward, shower had to wait.. As planned, started looking at Draghis Speech. and every time he said something market reacted. I was not listening to what he was saying or predicting etc. I just knew there is a CATALYST in the market at play. and that's all I need. Just not the gaps and spikes please. ONly one gap happened. That took my trailing profit stops. please about it. Then, came the NEO session, trade with Joel. again this time, I was short he was not. we then split and I let him focus on his trades. He's new to the M1 game, needs to focus harder.

I'm loving the details of your Journal and Joel's Journal. I patiently wait for the time when I'll be reading the journals.

Lets continue to be better traders. We cannot ever accept mediocrity. We must constantly be striving to get better. Every day I must anwer the question, am I better than yesterday?

[immy]

Trade Summary - 2/2

After first 2 trade and monitoring dax movement in first hour and half i knew dax is not trading. i was waiting patiently and then 11.40 breakout brought my attention to chart again. it was 30 pips wave 3 on m1 and i was waiting for price to pullback near purple and produce nice AA. I got AA on 12.43 bar. it didn't go up in previous trend direction and rented again.

Exit - exit was below box.

I think its pretty standard trades you took today apart from the Short. which was just an entry based on , what can I say, not a very good premise. But you had a thought process and that's what matters. You were trying to catch a breakout , in what you thought at that time, was a down trend. not bad. Always learning and getting better. Market was surely waiting for Draghi. As expected, as soon as his statement was out, the market really started to move. I caught the DOW like so.

2019-01-28_14-15-47.png

It was stress free and easy trade. I knew CLEARLY market was moving. It had already moved based on "something" i don't know what. but it was moving. I had already missed one lovely short down, but there was still a lot of juice left. I saw H1 was breaking below box and that gave me more confidence. Added on to it , ferociously.

I had initially taken the RIGHT step. i exited the add ons and left the first entry on. To let it run. Later I identified some S level and exited. That was a mistake. I could have let it run all the way till the close for another 150 points. I must put this in practice.

[immy]

Trade Summary - 1/2

Today was the first trading day of February. January was an average month for me with 7.5% gain (yes avg because at one stage i was up 9.5%). Reset my risk back to Tier 3 now. FO didn't show clear trend. LO spiked up and quickly reverse and spiked down. I didn't take any setup due to no clear trend. after price broke down and pullback i tried to take this entry below 10.25 bar in hope of catching trend and it will resume but it didn't. It went up and stopped me out which proved price was still range which changed my mindset and block it to see further picture. Later there was nice little breakout on 10.44 about 36 pips which would have been good campaign.

What will i do different in future ?
Don't try to predict the move or market direction as with dax volatility it can go any direction so instead of giving up early keep hunting for best setups as any move can become nice breakout. Lesson learnt.

This is a very good post. And great point of learning. This question of "What will I do Different in Future? is a Powerful question. Really helps with pinpointing the mistakes and automatically a goal for future is established.