Cory2679

Well the trade is doing much better than I thought. Maybe I should have just stuck with the initial logic that got me into the trade in the first place, rather than my reaction once I had gotten in it and become fearful. It's turning out to have been a decent entry, but poorly managed trade. Gosh, that's so unlike me. I went back live today with a $1,250 account, with a $25 R (2%)...up from trying $5 last week and up from weeks of SIM before that. Maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know. Either way, I know it's no excuse. I want to trade live because I think it's the best thing for my training...and $5 was practically like SIM psychologically for me I think, plus it's more difficult to precisely size positions with 1,000 unit lots with such a small R value. Ok, I'm not going to post about this trade anymore...I'm putting it behind me and moving on.

Currently short the GBP/USD...somewhat regretting the trade as soon as it filled...the best trade was probably on the EUR/USD, which I missed, and I'm worried that I'm a little late to the party and that I'm shorting into too much of an area of support... NinjaTrader is messed up right now...has a significant gap in recent historical data, which messes the chart up bad...so I'll be posting all MT4 charts until that's fixed...I like Ninja sooo much better... UPDATE: Stop moved down... FINAL UPDATE: I actually decided just to pull this trade for a 0.5R loss since it wasn't really a trade I wanted to be in to begin with. I should have probably just pulled it right away once I realized I'd made a crappy trade. I'm really not sure why I held on to it as long as I did. Probably just hope. :doh: I can't believe I've started the week this way. I never learn anything.

The video was interesting, but like so many videos with an agenda of its kind, it mixes truth with misinformation, disguising itself as wholly truth...the Zeitgeist videos come to mind... This chart, in particular, jumped out at me as a red flag...scary looking right? The current activity is mimicking that of after the 29 crash, right? Since it begins in the 30's, it must be relevant to the crash, right? That's what they implied in the video, more or less... They overlayed the current market action, starting witht the 2008 crash, with some action from the 30's (implying, to me, that the same thing is happening now that happened after the 29 crash)... But a closer look will show that this is a stupid, irrelevant comparison, which appears to me to be intentionally misleading... And then, as I got to the end, it all made sense...they're trying to sell something! Interesting to watch, but use a healthy level of skepticism.

I've never really used fib retracements much, but I will begin doing what you said here. I have used fib extensions in a similiar way for profit targets, but not retracements. As far as daytrading...I would think I'd rather make a real effort to incorporate these ideas more into my daytrading, but not give up daytrading all-together. My feeling has been that I can get more experience faster by daytrading...I guess I just need to make sure that it's quality experience, and not just quantity...which I'm not sure that I've necessarily managed to do well. It seems to me like it could take weeks or even months of swing-trading to equal a relatively short period of daytrading, experience-wise. An example of incorporating these ideas more would be my trade from Monday...you'll see on my trade from Monday that I even posted a 4-hour chart to show the resistance where I was shorting. That was actually a trade much like we were talking about earlier...shorting the retracement to the breakdown point after a (in this case, a much longer-term) 123 short.

Yes I noticed, and I agree...I was later to the party than you, but I wasn't on that evening (I'm currently unable to also trade the first part of Tokyo like I'd like to), so I did the best I could with what I had the next morning. But I did think I had picked a decent point of entry with regard to S/R (see more below)... Price resumed it's downmove at right about the 50% retracement, which coincided with the red line of resistance I've drawn (and had drawn on the original chart I posted). I was keenly aware of that level and considered myself to be shorting at that level...I'd thought price had gotten close enough to count. But, alas, price then later continued upward to test the actual level before it resumed the downmove. So you see, I don't feel I'm trading with no regard for S/R...maybe I'm just treating it wrong. I guess I should have gone short once price actually did test the level...I guess I just didn't see a clear good entry. I've basically restricted myself to medium-to-large 123's, but your advice was good and something I've copied and need to keep in mind...because even on the short I took, I could have done much better had I shorted higher up, closer to the level of resistance, rather than so much lower off the larger "123" I took:

Clearly this isn't what you're looking for, but I thought the trade was ok...maybe not quite as nice as the trade from Monday, but trades as nice as Monday's are a rarity... In hindsight, I can always come up with reasons why I shouldawouldacoulda avoided a losing trade, but to be perfectly honest, I believe that's probably a trade I'd take again (I feel like you're probably always a little disappointed with my responses to questions such as these! )... Price was in a longer-term downtrend, we were into the downward slope in a swing, price had recently come alive, I saw a 123 for a short at resistance, and I took it. Once it became apparent to me that it wasn't going anywhere, I cut it. I guess the primary concern I see is that the 123 wasn't as crisp and clear as it could have been, relative to the price action leading up to it...however, I kind of looked at it like the way price bounced from support (my BE threshold)...it kind of puttered along after stopping at support before it shot up... So I guess I'm basically just lost...so now I ask...what do you think of that trade?

UPDATE: When I went to bed last night, I was in positive territory on the trade and just moved my stop to break-even, and that's what I ended up taking. Had I not, I would have taken a full loss. However, if my profit target had been just a little more conservative, I could have taken profit had I not gotten to break-even. I pushed it a little too much.

lol You caught me! I had decided this week I would be allowing some leeway for stop-management, but with a real effort to hold back on the micro-management. That trade, after some lively movement beforehand, went nowhere...it hovered and hovered around my entry, and I thought it was reasonable to bring the stop tighter rather than risking a 1R loss. Had I not moved my stop and let it run, it would have eventually taken me out for a full 1R loss, rather than the -0.3R I took...but yes I know this is just one example...

Currently short the EU...

Currently short the EJ... UPDATE: Stop moved down... FINAL UPDATE: Moved stop down again slightly and was taken out.

It looks like profit target 2 would have filled now...I should have used THAT for my sole profit target!

UPDATE 2: Stop moved down...I've decided to use profit target 1 as my sole profit target for this trade...I'll have to think a little more about my strategy moving forward with situations where I have only one lot/proft target, or even where I have 3 lots but 2 profit targets...do I take 2 lots off at PT1 or PT2? My strategy here may take some time to evolve... FINAL UPDATE: Filled for profit.

Currently short the EUR/JPY... My risk is actually about 1.03R on this trade...to keep it at or below 1R would mean not being able to take a position...so rather than passing, I simply sold one micro lot and risked 1.03R. I've decided that's what I'll do in this type of situation. UPDATE: Stop at break-even. I just realized that I drew 2 profit targets, yet I am only short one lot! I have to think about what to do here...this hasn't been an issue until now with my $5R...

I decided to take a little break from posting this past week leading up to going live again August 1st. I'll be back here full-swing on Monday. I'm going live again Monday with a $1,000 FXCM micro account, with an R-multiple fixed at $5 (0.5% of $1,000)...at this point I'm not going to bother compounding/adjusting for an increase or decrease in account size. I'll be waking up and getting on my computer at 5:30am Eastern Time and trading through the afternoon (I'm currently unable to also trade the first part of Tokyo like I'd like to). See you all Monday!

I have my eye on something a little longer-term than usual...I have to leave to go out of town in about a half hour so I won't be around, but I'm looking at something like this...let's see what happens... It seems like I've been having some slow days lately...

UPDATE: Loser. There was obviously plenty of opportunity to cut this loss down to size, but it didn't quite touch my break-even point so I held on to it in accordance with the current let all trades run exercise. It still really stings to take a 1R loss, though...even on sim!

Currently long the GBP/USD (PT3 not shown)...

Could have been a decent long off of support...support that I had already acknowledged and drawn...I was just so focused on letting the trades run so I didn't reverse, but I think I may allow an exception to letting all the trades run...if there's a legitimate stop-and-reverse, I'll allow myself to do that. That's far from micromanaging a stop, anyhow.

Maybe I should have simply respected potential support and avoided the trade. As long as I did take it, this would have been a good candidate for aggresive stop management (because I was basically trading against the immediate trend, into what could be potential support nearby)...either to where my dashed red line is drawn or even to break-even once price made a marginally lower low after retracing to just above the entry...

Currently short the EU...aware and a little weary of the potential areas of support indicated by my steel-blue lines, but still feel it worth a shot...

Well, in the end, it turned out to be an all right trade, although it would have been better on the EU. I was so quick to write it off as a mistake when it looked like it was going against me, but it turns out the logic worked out. It's just hard at this point to distinguish between mistakes and trades worth taking that are losers. If I have a losing trade, I can always come up with a reason why I shouldn't have been in it, with the benefit of hindsight. Even though the trade worked out, I still think my hypothetical stop-move was reasonable. I would have taken a small loss on it and had a re-entry opportunity at Tokyo if I was trading then. The trade came within a few ticks of stopping me out for a full 1R loss...any stop move would have taken me out...and the lesson here is not to never, ever move my stop from now on so I don't miss ones like this...because when I'm trading well, I regularly cut losses down to <0.5R...sometimes close to break-even...if I took a full 1R loss on every losing trade, it wouldn't be pretty. But I guess that's what we're putting to the test with the current stop-management exercise!

FINAL UPDATE: First half profit, second half break-even. 14 more minutes and I would have been in that trade 24 hours! Take-aways coming soon...

Thanks so much!!!

What happened to the picture viewer window that would pop up when you click on an attached image and allow you to click through all the attached images in a post? I'm not sure about how anyone else feels, but I liked that. Although, one thing that I didn't like about it was that some ads (Oanda) would stay in front of the picture viewer and would block the picture. Also, what happened to the multi-quote button? Thanks, Cory

I posted a little prematurely...I neglected to wait for the loss chime before I made my post...it was a couple ticks from my stop and I wrote it off as a loss. It actually just barely missed it and I'm still in it...I'm heading out for the day but will be keeping an eye on it in case I have to move my stop to break-even. Otherwise, per the current rules, the trade will run without any active management...