EUR/JPY Evening Trader

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Today was great. I spent a total of about 3+ hours studying about 15 trade-able moves that occurred between about 7:45 and 11:45. These consisted of very clear, profitable (at very least 10 pips if seemed obvious, most were 15+) and seemingly clear trades to take. I kept these in one of my trading notes journals, and recorded the move time and amount, its relation to the longer term trends and pivot levels, and then a comment on the entry and exit point. After, I recorded what it looked like on the 30 sec, the 1 min, the 5 min, the 10 sec, and the 5 sec (in that order, actually). I elaborated on what the trend did, including how it formed and how it continued, as well as the entry pattern and exit pattern. So many consistencies! Towards the end of my study, I was seeing real-time on the same chart, and correctly forecasting the last two moves I saw that were over ten pips. As of right now, I feel temporarily extremely amount. Based on the differences between my failing strategies and my new approach, it seems as though I just took the next step that most people did not/would not have seen, and in turn I know a ton more about the market than I did when I was screwing around just yesterday.

I will definitely keep this with me. From now on, I will do this at least once a week. I sit there with a journal and piece of paper, and take extensive notes; basically a lecture on the best source available on the market – the market. Including some of the other work I did today, I have about two hours left to get to ten on the week in trading. I have a lot of maintenance to do on my trading rules (including updating, editing, etc.), I would like to make a document on some of the really crucial patterns and ideas I have been getting, and I would like to continue some of my readings (and even pick up one of my trading books again, imagine that.
 
Not a lot really happened today. I spent a lot of time editing my trading rules, and took a few trades during London and Asian session, racking up mainly small losses. The main thing that irritated me was that I was wrong on several moves, but also that when I was right I was faked out (for example, I was expecting a big short around 10:30, but was faked out several times as I was looking for the break back (which I was eventually correct on, but I was faked out with only a two pip gain with what appeared to be price acceleration at the upper channel bound, before going back through).

I see myself making strides, but it is taking me a long time to pull everything together. One big change I made was that my original profit target was five times the current spread. I have raised this to ten times the spread, as it seemed like I was just catching a lot of 3-8 pip moves, and by the time commissions and the exit signal came around I was constantly coming out with either small gains, or when I was wrong, moderate losses, and eventually netting consistently small losses.

As a result, I will predominately looking for bigger moves, and will go back to studying all the setups and PA of the moves I am trying to capture on the Asian session of generally 20+ pips (last study session I looked at a lot of 10+ pips, which is why I think I am getting too many signals in a comparatively dull market).

Unfortunately, my pattern recurs again. I am entering too many trades, and am not being patient enough. Happy to be paper trading.

My next session will be a study session, probably on either Sunday or Monday.
 
I see that I did not write in my reflections for yesterday (Sunday), but I spent my day studying and taking constant looks in on the charts to watch them unfold and try to have a slight prediction to movement. It was another good learning day, and I took good notes.

Today was a study day. I spent approximately 2.25 hours closely analyzing all the moves from 3:15 – 9:03 that were over 20 pips and provided a decently safe entry ( 7 moves in about 6 hours). There were a few moves after 9:00, but I ran out of time between studying and having to get some sleep (8 ams…). I see now that I need to be very selective in my trades but also that many of the intermediate moves are catchable in many of the same circumstances (for example, there were several with decent setups and/or movement that had 15-25 pips, so they were either just short of my study target or had some misleading movement in them. Either way, I learned a great deal, and wrote about 100 words on each move to drill it into my brain.

I remain excited about trading despite all the failures I have had, and look forward to my paper session tomorrow. I would like to add something about my emotions to get it down on paper. I know and understand completely that my failures have come from inexperience, but actually more so from my excitement and impatience. I came into this game with the belief that all my prior mental training and discipline, which I believe brings me ahead of the game, would make this easy. Not only has my impatience come in to destroy my successes, it has also invaded my mind in other aspects of my life (I have always had this impatience, but it is becoming more nagging). However, I have come to the realization that both occurrences are temporary.

My excitement with trading made me want and identify every single minor five minute swing, a clearly impossible feat with 1.5-2.5 pip spreads and an often dull Asian session. However, this is temporary. Once my trading excitement declines with experience and my wisdom overtakes it, I believe my enjoyment with trading will come from the entertainment and likely a bit of smugness that I know what it’s doing a good deal of the time, but I’m always trying to figure it out. I think trading with music will also keep my emotions up when things are not going as well (hopefully…). I have never been so passionate with anything in my life, and I believe I am turning the corner in both my approach to trading and the market, as well as my mindset both in trading and in life. In the coming weeks and months, I hope my actual trading will follow suit. Let’s just see if I continue to feel this way when real money is on the line, but that is far down the line and not worth my thought. Good trading.

Edit: After reading this real fast, it seems I did not clarify too much on why I expect my impatience to decline in the situation to which I am currently concerned with trading and life. I believe, as has happened in the past, that I am slightly nervous or excited (or both) when I am thrown into new problems or tasks (not really situations) in which I do not have enough experience to understand and control the situation fully. I learn this over time, and eventually settle in and dominate it (after my personally slow and irritating learning process). College girls is the other problem, go figure, but I have made great strides in this field as well ;-)
 
I am trying to catch the more pronounced swings over time frames from very roughly 5-40 minutes during sessions of less liquidity (I can't trade London, so I usually trade Asian). My studies were all well after London movement dried up, and the moves I studied did add up to several hundred pips (I think 300 or so). I didn't get around to some of the spikes before midnight. My trading sessions are often only 2.5 hours in length, so I am looking for the quick accelerating swings originating on the 1-min and continuing with strong PA on the 1-min, not usually the longer intraday moves.

I will have a month for winter break and several for summer when I plan on trading full time and catching some London hours (I traded from 10-130 eastern over summer)

I will be trading Asian for several hours today (likely 7-11 pm or some variation), which will likely be my only actual trading session for the week.
 
During Trading

Session begins at 7:35. Unfortunately I was eating with friends later than I had hoped, and I missed the giant move. However, as I am writing this, I am catching the reversal. This represents a good step of not emotionally entering the trend and trying to catch part of the big swing. However, I was a bit late on my entry because I was apprehensive.

My first four trades occurred over about a 20-minute period. Although they came out to be -1, +1.6, +8, and +0.5, I believe this is a bit too greedy for 3 pip spreads, and I am recognizing what I believe to be a consolidation pattern. Again, good with the bad – a bit of excited trading overcome by some patience. I have a move up and a move down that I think could be potent, but I am allowing ample time for them to develop.

Post Trading

Today started out well, but ended up losing and extremely stressful. I traded for 3.5 hours, which has completely drained me in the past. I had 18 trades (just over 5 per hour) ending at -1, +1.60, +8, +0.5, -4, -5, -7, +5.5, +2.5, -8.5, -8, +10, -5, +3.5, -5.5, -2, and 0 combining for a 21.4 pip loss. On the bright side, spreads were 2.5-3 pips all day, and my commission expenses actually added up to 50.5 pips (which I just added up now and is extremely too high), which would also means that I took 29 gross pips out of the market today.

Now going over some of my mid-trading critiques: I was a bit apprehensive of a few of my entry and exit points that were against the trend, which all but one ended up being correct. I did take one trade that was against my strategy, allowed some of my losses to grow very high, and sometimes didn’t believe my exits. For an example of the exits, I would be in on part of a long move, see an exit point, exit (one time even reverse), and then watch the market continue the trend in a final blowout as it steamed 5 pips past my exit point. This happened two times, both of which I entered again, and the market finished its reversal cycle, and I lost miserably. However, on my main note, I remained downright confused for much of the session. I knew in general what I was looking for – a pullback to a several hour intraday line before a short at one point, for example – but there was one minor pullback, a two fakeouts, and then a little squeezed rally before the final fall. I caught the main move, but lost overall. Immediately afterward, I caught the correction for a nice little profit, but then got chopped up as I entered new shorts which I expected to fall back to the bottom channel bound, which they never did. Many of my trades ended up being fakeouts of this short both before the trend broke and afterward for continuation – inevitably ending in losses.

As for improvements: I need to have confidence in the exits and entries I am finding in my studies and be committed to them, I need to develop the heart for volatility as well as the capacity and experience to understand what is going on with the market, and developing a better consciousness with what I’m doing. For example, I was watching the 10 second chart accelerate and used it as an entry after 3 bars. It was just plain dumb. I have plenty more to say about my trading, but as I have described I am just completely drained – this is the longest I have traded before at losses, and surprisingly I actually entered far less trades and performed about the same in the end as in the beginning and middle (even though my last trade I kept open while there was only snail movement around longer-term top channel and decided to leave for 15 minutes).

This session puts me at nine hours trading for the week, so I am done with the actual market for the week. I have a market observation document to make, which will be a collection of all the observations and study results I have jotted in random places around pads of paper, study journal, and notes journal. I will spend any remaining time doing that or reading elitetrader threads I believe.

Edit: Apparently, my trading rules are open but unread. That just made a stressful day into a bitterly regretful day. Fantastic.
 
Hello fellow newbie. I thought of a few comments to share with you that might help.
I applaud you on your sincere desire to learn and make progress and to be aware of your learning process as you are doing in your journal.
theres a number of things one can respond to . your awareness of mistakes and efforts to improve are all good. youve begun the journey to learning how to trade forex.
I think what youre describing in your journal is EXACTLY what every new student/new trader goes through.....and so in one sense, is the reason why youre not getting many replies to your journal. For most folks,its like an old story of "been there /done that" and I cant bother to read all the posts of this fellow ,sincere as he may be.

So I might try to redirect your focus just a little here about using the ET forum.....to get the most value out of it.... I wouldnt write all this journal here like this. (I did this exact same journal process on paper at my desk,for myself,as a learning process) but not to put it all on the ET. What I would use the ET for is to try and find the experts who know how to trade, read their posts,gain as much as you can from their knowledge, ask them a few questions ,some will help you ,some wont. and then just post your best wisdom,best points of interest when you connect with people's threads.
I think you'll get better support for your learning process that way.

for example, I tried to skim through all your posts here,it was impossible to read everything,its just too much.even my reply here is taking too much time .
But there are a number of meaningful things you said and deserve some comment, but theyre getting lost in all the learning processing of your journal.
for example, in one post, you said youve been studying about 8 months (me too) and for about 10 hours a week....ok, I can tell you ....10 hours a week is not a lot of study time. I have been studying intensely 10 hours ....a Day !!....every minute, watching every 1 minute candle,every hour...sometimes 16 hours a day. for the last 10 months. Ive gotten so good at my trading skills now,after all this study, that I am now....hold on to your seat..... breaking even .
and so far, one of the best bits of advise Ive read from the experts,was that mastering trading forex will take a long long time of hard study. years. and Ive now come to see they are right. the next best advise they said is DONT begin trading real money for at least a year or so. and I agree. I wish I waited longer. I lost several hundred dollars because I went live too soon.
Patience and very hard study efforts can pay off but do not rush into trading real money .

All your mistakes are classic rookie mistakes we all have made. All your insights are the same we all arrive at.
Youre on the way.
but like I say, I think you'll get more from this ET forum by devoting different efforts to how you post.

another example by what I mean....I would (and still do) spend hours examining charts, studying hard, analyzing everything,etc....and after a few days or a few weeks ,I come up with my brilliant insight. that took me weeks to figure out.
Then one day, I stumbled on someone else's post ,where they answered a question about the 50 % fib level....and there it was, my insight that took me 2 weeks to discover....I could have found it in one minute by reading an experts post. thats how experts can help us newbies.
I dont know if you search and read the posts by expert traders here, but I think thats the best way to use the forum for learning fast as possible...along with ones own journal.
I wish you good study and success.
heres the last great thing someone said to me the other day that really helped me.
my problem has been placing my stop loss too tight,Ive become risk averse, so Ive fallen into the habit of setting my stop at 4 pips and trying to time the exact perfect entry. I complained that I was loathe to set a 10 pip stop....and this fellow said..... he sets his stops at 20 pips !! as a standard. and 10 pips is nothing.
It set me on a better understanding. something sank in better to hear it from another person. its like it woke me up.
kind regards to you,T
 
Tom,

Thank you very much for your response. However, I believe you have mistaken my goals on ET, which are in fact very different than yours.

I stated in my first post that my goal is to keep myself writing in my journal. The simple knowledge that I have my own online dedicated web page/s for this is enough a commitment for me to continue it, and evaluate my successes and failures. If someone wishes to have a conversation here, I'm all for it, but it's not the reason why I am on ET.

Also, 10 hours per week is only a recent development -- I was doing 30 during the Spring semester and 40 over the summer, and 10 only in the last 5 weeks or so of college.

I do scan the ET forums for ideas as well. I am about 200 pages through Intraday FX player, and have nearly all the chart links bookmarked.

My stop is purely mental and based on PA. If I am doubtful of the market I will place a stop at the next significant level, although this is rare. I firmly believe that there should be no constraints on trading until the market gives a signal.

A few last ideas -- I am generally not looking for outside help. I do my own work. However, I look for ideas that I may not think of, so I do my share of scanning. Based on your comments about seeing what experts are saying, I believe you are the same way, Tom. For your generosity and input, I would like to offer you another idea -- youtube -- I learn to do pen tricks there, how to shave there, why not trading?

There's a bunch of junk, actually a lot of junk, but much better than reading what people think all the time I think.

One example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNpV7CAYy0c&feature=related -- He has some very interesting ideas.
 
Quote from Compulsive:

Ideas are only as good as the action that follows it....if any
More...

Exactly. That's why I collect all I can and spend a lot of time filtering out the junk. I researched every one of about 250 indicators. I use two, if you count pivot points, although I haven't done fibs yet (on my to do list). The other is RSI, which I only have until I am able to interpret it from PA, then it's gone. I am experimenting to see which MAs hold value, however.
 
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