The Maybe? Trading Journal

[maybe]

Hey all, seeing as I've gotten so much great info from this forum I thought I'd start to contribute back a bit. I just want to state for the record that I am not an expert on anything forex related and taking my advice is not advised. I am however, trading these trades on a real money account.

 

Anyway the 1st trade I'd like to post is this possible bearish break on EURUSD on the 1st of December, 2010. The screenshot kind of says it all. If the price breaks the support by more than a few pips, my pending order kicks in. The reason I think it will be a break is fairly clear with the consolidating triangle following the bearish downtrend and the price bouncing off the middle bollinger band.

 

This said if it broke the upper bollinger band or 50 sma, then I would be willing to trade bullish, but since I don't want to stay up all night watching the price, I'll only make the bearish pending order as I can't predict at what price the 50 sma will be at when/if the price breaks.

 

I'm setting my tp and sl to just above the next and previous resistance levels, roughly a 1:1 risk ratio. Finally a look at m30, h4 and d1 confirms that there is no major support I am trading into, so I'm satisfied with the probability of the trade.

 

I am perfectly aware that this trade will most likely not happen, the price is a major support level on the weekly chart. This is also my concern though, as I'm worried that the price will not fall through enough to hit my tp, but will just trigger my order due to the vagueness of the weekly support. Anyway, I'll leave the trade there for atleast a day until it gets triggered, and we'll see what happens!

 

http://i.imgur.com/H1F6g.gif

 

The indicators are 30,50 and 100 sma, and bollinger bands.

[maybe]

Sso as expected the trade didn't pull through as it never broke the weekly pivot. On the bright side though it was stuck in a range for about 4 hours so I managed to come out with 3 successful trades with small profit by trading within bollinger bands.

 

Ok so todays 1st order is aiming to catch a bearish break on a support at roughly 1.304 on eurusd. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward, it keeps with the trend, it would be a support break, it would be a middle bollinger bands and it's already just broken the 50 sma. I set my tp to the next nearest support to play it safe, and set my sl to just above the previous resistance, which admittedly gives me a poor risk reward ratio.

 

http://i.imgur.com/cZzqZ.gifp

 

The 2nd order is aiming to profit from a bullish break in gpdusd. I'm aiming for a safe and small profit with minimal risk. Not alot of reasons for this trade, it's just a run of the mill sr break. The reason I'm picking this range in particular though is that atm the gpdusd looks unsure about its direction and is bouncing within a range, I believe that if it breaks that range it will shoot one way.

 

Another reason I'm making it long is that it's more likely that one of my 2 trades will be executed, since now I'm trading for and against the dollar.

 

I'm hoping that if the 2nd trade executes, that it doesn't bounce off the bb before it hits the resistance, but we'll see.

 

http://i.imgur.com/uhHCq.gif

[maybe]

Ok good news, the 2nd trade was successful only a few minutes after making it thanks to a major spike in euro, probably could've made alot more pips if I was paying attention but happy with the 100 pip profit.

 

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa397/maybe_nope/Forex%20Screenshots/profitongu.gif

[maybe]

As I mentioned earlier 1 of my 2 trades mentioned earlier was executed today, and thankfully it was a successful one. I'm tempted to now cancel the other pending order, but I think I'll leave it there over the course of the day as it's unlikely it'll be hit unless something big happens, and in that case it should end up being profitable.

 

My new order is longing eurusd if it breaks a major resistance and a minor resitance. I'm being aggressive with my tp this time round, being double my sl, simply because if it rebreaks the resitance, then there's not much hope in it take another leap up. This trade is with the trend, but my main concern is that the order price may not be past the bb break, but I won't know that until morning, and I've no plans on getting up for it ;) Other than that, the trade seems fairly safe (which is the reason for the large tp), and equally unlikely, so with 2 unlikely trades in the mix, it might be a quiet trading day after all.

 

The graph should tell it all, and I've included my prediction for the price, which I now realise may be slightly exaggerated, aswell as exaggerated time (the spikes would happen early rather than later). Also, the purple line probably won't happen, it's just what I want to happen ;)

 

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa397/maybe_nope/Forex%20Screenshots/buy_stop_1_2_dec_2010.gif

[maybe]

Ok so yesterdays trade did not go to plan with a strong loss, thankfully I kept the sl low when making the trade. The reason the trade stopped out was due to a massive sudden bearish spike that recouped within an hour. I assume this was caused by some news announcement, but it's over now so I'll just move on. Here's a shot of the price atm.

 

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa397/maybe_nope/resultofloss.gif

 

Atm I'm not going to make any concrete orders, but I plan on trading actively tomorrow if I get up (london opens in 3 and a half hours and I need some sleep). The reason I'm not setting up pending orders is due to the nfp which comes out tomorrow. However if the nfp does come out with little movement or movement supporting the dollar, I will go bullish on the dollar until it reaches it's channel range, roughly at around 1.3271. At that point I imagine I will short heavily within the major sr levels. My concern is that price geometry is never this straightforward, and I'm very much expecting something unexpected to happen.

 

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa397/maybe_nope/buyeurusdmediumtermplusnfp.gif

 

And lastly a trade that everyone is spotting at the moment, a strong bearish trade on audusd, or a break outside of it's channel. Once again I'm waiting for the news to come out before making any decisions, but if I wasn't I would make a sell trade with a sl just outside of the channel, and another buy order just outside the channel if it did break. Seems kinda of like a win win situation, but if the markets don't move as much as expected, then it could just be 2 nagging sls in your account.

 

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa397/maybe_nope/audusdbreakoutofrange.gif

 

[maybe]

Good news from last friday, went through with 2 trades which were both successful. The 1st trade was shorting against the audusd break, closing with a small tp of 10 pips. The close was close though, as the aud then break out of it's when the nfp came out. Speaking of nfp, my other trade was simply trading long on eurusd when the nfp came out negative for the dollar. Locked in a tidy 40 pips with minimal effort and minimal risk. However I ended up manually closing the trade early at 40 pips due to fear of an engulfing pattern, and it did indeed end up hitting my original tp of 70 pips. Sometimes it's difficult to stick to your plan and risk turning a profit into a break even.

 

Anyway don't have much time, so quickly for todays trade I will be trading the extremely obvious and popular bearish move on the eurusd. I have a sell limit set to sell eu when it hits it's resistance at 1.3464, with an sl of ~50 pips and a tp of ~150 pips, a risk reward ratio I am not used to. I'm not sure if my tp is too ambitious however, so I'll keep an eye on the news to see if anything might upset any profits.

 

There is of course also the chance that the 1.3464 price won't be hit and the order won't be triggered, with eu just going straight down. I'm willing to take this risk as otherwise my sl would need to be 3 times larger to cope with the price fluctuating, whereas now I can keep it safe just above the resistance.

 

http://i.imgur.com/x5UhQ.gif

Edited December 6, 2010 by maybe?

[syk1kz]

Nice journal, keeping an eye on this one, are you using the SMA's as the trend direction or are they support and resistance? From what i see on your charts you are not using them as a cross over system which raises my level of interest somewhat.

Keep up the good work!

[maybe]

Nice journal, keeping an eye on this one, are you using the SMA's as the trend direction or are they support and resistance? From what i see on your charts you are not using them as a cross over system which raises my level of interest somewhat.

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks syk1kz, ya I find the smas tend to link with the sr levels to give a good indicator of the strength of the level, I trade mostly based on price action, and crossing mas are too laggy.

 

I've been reading your posts on bennys topic for a while now, so I'll be keeping an eye on your new journal too ;)

 

As for me I won't be updating the journal for a while as I'm currently coding a bot and indi to recognise penants and flags and trade their breaks. This is proving difficult enough as they are very visual patterns, but I think I've worked through the blunt of the code.

 

Also while coding this bot I accidentally created a strategy that trades reversals on the m1 timeframe! At the moment it has a profit factor of exactly 1 on a couple of hundred trades in a 3 month backtest, but with a max of only 2 consecutive losses, and the way the bot is designed, I think that integrating a martingale money management system should solve this problem and return an enormous amount of profit. I'll keep in touch.