David's journal

[azadar]

3 campaigns today, result +4%, DS 100% (3/3)

The highlight of the day was figuring out whats been missing lately. I stopped using SAR and it hurt my profitability. When trading fruits, I will now put a second PO in opposite direction in case fruit trade fails.

Also, I have decided to reduce my daily SL to 5% because its easier mentally to come back from a smaller loss than a big one. Just like in a trade, we want asymmetric results, small risk big reward. So I now have a 5% daily SL but no daily TP.

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[azadar]

New personal record today since I started trading 1% risk per trade. Closed the day at +14%, DS 90% (9/10). As I mentioned yesterday, with the help of Immy and the other aimsters on skype group I reintroduced SAR into my trading. SAR was a big part of the success I had today. Thanks Immy and skype group

Markets were trending today and it felt easy to make money.

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[azadar]

Took the day off friday so heres my journal entry for monday.

Frustrating day as the signals were either not there or trades were stopped out early due to pullbacks. Closed the day at +0.5%, DS 100% (7/7).

The trend was clearly up today so took mostly long positions. The only short campaign ended up as a looser which is not a big surprise. SAR covered that loss and then some.

Really happy about my exit on the last trade and how I decided to stop trading after it. Market was in a small range for the rest of the day.

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[immy]

well traded

[azadar]

Frustrating day for me as I failed to capture any strong move. Closed the day at -6.5% (wanted to stop at -5% but SAR triggered so I let it run), DS 100% (6/6).

I traded well so once I got past the initial frustration of markets making big moves the very next bar after I hit my daily SL I had a great day because I know if I trade like this I will win in the long run.

Its my first time hitting my reduced daily SL and it feels good because 6.5% is nothing. One decent campaign and its all paid for and then some. Tomorrow I will focus on 100% DS score and perfect execution. My account will grow as a byproduct of my discipline and good trading.

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[azadar]

Another bad day, this one -8.5%, DS 4/4. Slippage was big today at 37 pts. Thats 2% of my account lost in slippage. Price going up and down without any direction thats pretty much guaranteed rents if trades are taken.

Im not sure what to do about this. I know I should not be trading when market is in a small range but how do you avoid trading ranges and still catch setup 1? Maybe I should only try 2 campaigns like so: one campaign in initial direction. If it fails and goes the other way I SAR. If the SAR fails too then I take a break and come back later.

What do you guys think about this? how do you avoid trading ranges yet still catch the next big wave?

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[zlabis]

Hi David,
that's severe rent. I can't give advice because I'm struggeling with same issue as well, as I'm not able to judge charts as tradeable or not. My approach is:
1. I only trade DAX M1
2. I defined an appropriate daily SL and, if it gets hit, I quit trading immediately
3. if I feel emotions crawling up (= mental barrier ©Tomi), I quit trading immediately
4. I only trade main opening LO (recently FO and occasionally NYO or NEO)
5. I don't care about news by trading DAX
6. I only trade DAX M1

It worked very well from Sept 2014 to May 2015. June 2015 was not so successful yet because breakouts at LO and during LO-sessions were not so clear and smooth anymore.

But I can't do anything about getting caught in a sideways- or small-range market because we can never know when the breakout is happening.

Just my 5 cents ;-)

Cheers,
Michael

[wiseambitions]

Slippage of 37pts. I wonder what you mean by that.
Slippage for me is the difference, if any, between price at which I order a trade to open, or stop me out, and the price I get.

37 is quite a lot, and if were a result of my definition it is because of sudden price movements, or trading huge lots (eg 100 pounds a pip) on one broker who is trading against us, or just a bad broker or an illiquid market. I get it all the time, but live with it in the hope that unfavourable slippage is cancelled out by favourable closes, (eg at times when I manually close a trade when it is still moving like mercury in my direction).

There's a difference between brokers, I know Immy "recommends" GKFX for SB and they seem as good as any, but some brokers I use seem to slow down, and cause me more slippage once I'm doing well on their platforms. And that's another story.

As to knowing whether or not it's going to be a flat day with ranging, I think the first thing I do is look at the news schedules and see whether there is economic information, FMOC, Eurogroup meetings etc as all of this is what sets off the chaos. The market can do ANYTHING at ANY TIME and one useful technique for me is two POs either side of a narrow aims box, using a couple pips the other side of Alligator teeth as the SL. Immy has recently said he thinks M1 is for trading around FO/LO and the first couple of hours, (let me suggest 0700 to 1000) and NYO (1430 for a couple hours maybe), otherwise look at m5 for all day trading. If you are suffering unacceptable whip I'd say that is great advice.

[azadar]

Yes we have the same definition of slippage. What I did was sum the slippage of my trades for the day and it added up to 37 pts. One spike caused 8.5 slippage per trade to 2 SL and 1 PO so that was a big factor for the high number.

I will stick with NEO for now as LO is a bit too much for me to handle right now. Already sleep deprived because of my 2 year old son and 4 month old daughter so waking up in the middle of the night to trade is not really an option right now.

Funny thing is today at the same time I got whiplashed yesterday, there was a nice 100 pts move. But no matter, I will just stick to NEO so that I can maintain the same routine every day.

Thanks for the feedback guys

[azadar]

I am disappointed with the way I traded today. Made many mistakes and instead of making more than 10% I closed the day at +1% DS 2/6.

I learned important lessons today and I wont repeat those mistakes again. One good thing I did today was take a break after my failed SAR campaign (tried to go short and it failed so I SAR long and it failed again). Took a break and came back later to catch a 4% move so im really happy about this part. I think its a good strategy to keep me from paying too many rents when market is in a range.

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