3-9-09

First trade should never have been taken. You don't enter a trade that has setup with a candle that goes immediately against the position you are wanting to take and then hop in because it later shows momentum. Dumb.

The last trade I got in a little late, not real bad but missed a couple pips there.

Other than that, I think I need to do a video to remind myself what my ABC setups look like. I missed both of the ABC setups today. Silly.

Actual results -4.7 pips out of a total of +13 possible for the morning. I don't feel too bad about this, since this wasn't the easiest day to trade, but really, some very stupid mistakes in there.

Scalping Forex Setup - LL LH

We'll I promised that I would get some video up here, so I've put together a video describing one of my bread and butter setups the LL LH (or for longs HH HL). I know that the sound leads the video just by a few seconds so if things look a little off that is why. Still learning the video thing. Let me know what you think.

3-6-09 Calling it a day

So a couple of things. First, I did really well with taking most all of my signals. Second, I missed the best winning signal of the day (would have been good for +15). Lastly, I didn't keep my cool on the second to last trade and sat through a 22 pip drawdown. Yep, that's $%&! trading right there in a nut shell. I didn't get burned today but that doesn't mean squat. I coulda got out at -6 pips.

Losers average losers.

Overall -1.3 pips. Yeah no biggie, except I surrendered +23 pips to the market by failing to take 2 trades. Stupid, huh?

On the plus side, I am starting to get over my fear of trading. Yep, I'm convinced, I'm a afraid to trade at the moment. Gotta chip away at that. I'm a good person, I deserve to trade. Must keep telling myself that...

3-6-09

So I missed the first trade of the morning. What was I thinking? Trying to see too much into my patterns. If the pattern is there, trade it. It's that simple.

Second trade was actually the dicier of the 2 setups, and I pulled it off very nicely, riding the momentum until we hit nearby support. Need to focus on this type of trading. In and out, like a ninja.

3-5-09 Daily review

I definately had a better idea of my conscious thoughts for the day. I didn't get lost in negative mental feedback loops as much as yesterday. I think my biggest criticism for the day is that I had difficulty resolving conflicting signals, and this is most likely due to an incomplete definition for a few of those signals.

During my trading period there were 7 possible setups. 4 of these setups were invalidated for various reasons, leaving 3 valid setups, of which I took 1. The reason for that is that the other 2 valid setups were in possible conflict with other potential setups. If I had taken these other two setups my results for the day would have been +22 instead of -8 pips.

The first legitimate setup that I missed (I saw it I just didn't know what to do) occured directly after a potential ABC setup. Unfortunately that ABC setup was invalid because the signal candle formed a new resistance below the previous wave of resistance. This confused me into doing nothing on the next trade which was a valid 3LL short. The second legitimate setup that I missed was a valid ABC setup, but now I was confused on the exact entry for my ABC (due to the previous error). This caused me to miss the entry timing (again I saw the setup but didn't know when exactly to get in). And before anyone comments on it, yes I have extensively tested these signals, but this is the first time I am trading them all together (previously I only traded the LL/HH setups).

Some lessons/thoughts for the day:

1) For the ABC setup, the entry candle should preferably break above the previous S/R. If it forms a new S/R below/above the previous, then exit the trade at market.
2) Do not take a second ABC trade the same trend as the first (almost made this mistake)
3) Skipping disproportionate LL trades is good (I knew this already).
4) Skipping trades that are up against a strong well established S/R floor is a good idea (again I knew this)
5) Keeping my head screwed on straight - priceless (yes I am learning this still)

LT

P.S. most of these technical terms probably don't mean much without further explanation. What is an "ABC" setup? I will be covering my setups in a later post.

3-5-09 continued

This was a decent setup of a failed double bottom right at support. Too bad I was too slow to get in on time. Wasn't gonna chase it. I didn't trade the following LL simply because we were losing volume at a major support line.