Kyle's Journal Mk2

[Kyle]

OK, looks like no trades tonight. Missed a good DAX opportunity earlier but was out with my son.
0.56% rent this week, based on only two trades, one BE (1 pip spread rent) and another rent of 0.48% on a less than perfect setup.

Although no actual winning trades, i had identified quite a few and an quite encouraged for next week and beyond. At the moment, I am a bit torn as to whether I will do LO for 2hrs and NYO of 3.5hrs or check the charts all the way through. Since i am ONLY looking at DAX, I am also considering the m5 charts as well as the m1's.

Upwards and onwards next week

[Kyle]

Another week has closed and only got some trades today. Missed the wonderful DAX trades on Tuesday, but that's fine. Family life is important and the trades will be there again so long as I watch the charts dilligently.

Anyway, I took three opportunities today, all on the DAX m1, all as S1 setups with m1 Alli sleeping and m5 awake (the "classic" trade from Immy's manual). I am only trading these as I want them to become absolute second nature to me.

I don't think I have mentioned it before, but my little tick list expands on Immy's three rules and is as follows.
m1 Gator Sleeping, m5 Awake
Dot candle inside AIMS
Trade away from Gator
A0 Close to 0
Fresh Cross of A0
S/L Close enough (less than 15 pips)
Entry is after all confirmed as Yes.

Here is the first trade. It may have been a bit quiet, an hour before NY Equities opened, but I thought it ticked all the boxes and took the trade.

2014-06-20 de30m1 entry 2231.png

Not much to say on the next two I think. Passed the criteria, but cancelled before order was taken.

2014-06-20 de30m1 entry 2258.png

and

2014-06-20 de30m1 entry 2318.png

Closed the day out with the 0.23% rent, but am fine with that. I'll get some successful ones next week

[Kyle]

First trade today. Missed LO with work, but thems the breaks.

This trade, seemed to fit the criteria, only one from the traditional set of rules was 30 candles away from last A0 crossing. The rest seemed fine. Sleeping Gator, Dot candle inside AIMS, Trade away from AIMS Gator, A0 Close to Zero, Fresh Cross of A0 0- 30 Candles...., S/L Close enough (8.6 Pips), so with that in mind, I took the PO. It hit to the pip and went backwards from there. The first time I have had the S/L hit, but that will happen from time to time. This is not an exact science and we apply the rules to increase the probability of a successful trade - but never guaranteed.

2014-06-23 de30m1 entry 2300.png

Comment from Immy to add from the forum to aid in learning.

"dax moved 20 odd pips up so a pullback was on the table. on m1"

End result for this one - 0.86% rent

[Kyle]

One trade so far today on DAX. Just over 20 minutes before NY Equities open.

The trade itself looked a real good setup. All the conditions were met.
Gator Sleeping
Dot Candle Inside AIMS
Trading away from AIMS Gator
A0 Close to 0
Only 5 Candles since last cross of A0
S/L 9.79 Pips

2014-06-24 de30m1 entry 2307.png

Alas, the trade did not work out. I am OK with that as it met the conditions prior and it simply did not work this time around. If a person were to worry about that, they should not be trading. No stress, just Next

In hindsight, the only thing I could take from it possibly was that after the entry was triggered, it seemed to not want to continue the breakout and dithered a bit below the m5 high for a while. If it didn't want to move, maybe I could have closed out on one of the two fruits that appeared.

Not going to waste too much time on it though, look for the next one and not backwards (unless there are lessons to be learned).

0.24% rent on 1% risk. With that in mind, it shows you do not lose the full risk when a rent occurs (although mine yesterday was very close to it). If I were to continue with today with the % rent overall, any more than 25% strike rate would generate profits. Now look at what would happen with a closer to 50% SR and a few going past 2:1 Reward : Risk. I may have lost the last few, but quite optimistic about the future with it

[Kyle]

Got home from work today and within 5 minutes, a setup occurred on the DAX m1.
Fitted all the rules nicely,
Gator Sleeping
Dot Candle inside AIMS
Trade Away from AIMS Gator
A0 Close to Zero
A0 Cross 2 candles prior
S/L 7.6 Pips away
All up = Entry

2014-06-26 de30m1 entry 1756.png

I applied Grant's style of trade management, which I will continue to do. That being to move SL to BE+1 after 10 pips profit, then by trailing AIMS levels or trailing candles after about 5 in a row in the same direction - and pulling further away from the Alligator, to prevent the loss of hard earned profits.

Unfortunately in the trade today, I got stopped out on BE+1, so 0 pips overall (with 1 pip spread), and then it went on its merry way to a 15 pip profit if exiting on opposite dot. That initially is disappointing. I'd be lying if I didn't say that, but I took the trade on solid entry criteria, traded with solid trade management and it was a BE this time. It might have puled right back to S/L if I broke my TM rules.

Happy to stick to my rules and the trades will come. In the end, who cares about the odd rent and few BE's if you also come up with some excellent profitable entries

[Kyle]

Along with this Trade Journal, which is fantastic to look back on trades and get advise from other experienced traders, I also use a spreadsheet for my trades as they happen. It also has a section for news on the day so it is in front of your face all the time.
I have just finished polishing it up a bit more, with some automation in it to make it look simpler again and am happy to share it with anyone who might see it as useful.

There is a spot for date (obviously) and also as mentioned, a spot to fill out news events. I put in Medium and high impact news from Forex Factory.

When you get a Buy/Sell Dot Alert, specifically for this, an S1 Alert, I run through 6 extremely quick checks before validating a trade - none of these checks involve EW analysis, so you can choose to include that or not.

After seeing the alert, type in the pair/TF/Time and then answer the simple questions with a Yes or No answer. The only question different is S/L Close enough - It asks for the Actual pips required for Stoploss. This is the AIMS Level plus two pips plus spread - most of the time on DAX, that is simply AIMS plus 3 pips.

Type these answers in and it will automatically colour red or green. Red cancels the trade, green allows the next step. After all 6 questions are answered correctly, the Entry column will either go green and say Yes, or go Red and say NO. That is the final decision as per the Flowchart.

AIMS Trade Journal.xlsx

If you place in your initial balance on the sheet, it will tell you the $ amount for a 1% risk trade if required, and after you put in your profit or loss $$$$, the trade % rent or profit will automatically calculate as well as an update on the days profit in $ and %, as well as updating your current balance and risk ($) on next trade if using 1%.

I hope it becomes useful for some of you. I am sure it will keep me from straying from the AIMS methodology, as well as having effective trade management in front of my eyes all the time.

Immy's rules makes for stress free trading, but if you need the structure there as you learn, this could be an extremely effective tool

Enjoy

[Michal]

Thx for that Kyle i think is usefull and can be tweaked a bit for personal preferences if someone wish.Great work ! :-bd

[Kyle]

Just one trade today. I did miss one well into London Session that Immy and a few others took in the trading room (If you don't go in there, why not. It's free and you learn so much). The one Immy took gained a bit over 1% on 1% risk, so a nice one for the day.

The trade I took though, was just before NY session opened, and volatility had died down, which is one issue I hadn't looked in to. Remember, we are breakout traders, and for a good solid breakout, we need volatility.

Anyway, as per the rules etc
Gator was sleeping
Dot Candle was inside AIMS
Trade was away from Gator
A0 was close to 0
Fresh Cross of zero - well, this was 45 candles away, so in reality I shouldn't have taken the trade as the limit is about 24 from memory (got to re-read the book)
S/L well inside 15 pips, being 8.7

So, if I took the last A0 crossing as OK, the trade was a goer. Below is the chart.

2014-06-27 de30m1 entry 2151.png

Now, this started OK, but ended up hitting the sell dot and I closed out straight away for a 0.27% rent.

Discussing in the trade room, it was identified that the longer distance from the last time A0 was crossed indicated a lack of volatility and should definitely be much closer to be valid. I think in future I will reduce that to about 20 candles. Immy also mentioned that the trading range since the last A0 cross was about 7 pips, so the "density" within the market at the time was low. Something to consider from next week.

Lastly, here is a shot of my Excel Journal for the day. The $$$ amounts whited out as they effectively are irelevant, but %'s are there.

2014-06-28_Trade_Journal.png

Stick to the plan. Everything will fall in to place with consistent application of Trade Rules AND Trade Management.

[Nikita]

What an excellent trading report!
Can you share with your template?:)

[Kyle]

Just one trade today. Another rent, but Que Sera Sera.
All the conditions were met, and I don't really see that big an issue with it. I think it is just one that was setup right but didn't come through, which is to be expected at times.

Gator Sleeping - Yes
Dot Candle inside AIMS - Yes
Trade Away from Gator - Yes
A0 Close to 0 - Yes
Candles since last A0 Cross - 2
SL Close enough - Yes (7.6)

2014-07-01 de30m1 entry 2217.png

And the day's result

2014-07-01_Trade_Journal.png

As always, any constructive criticism is welcome B-)