Developing or rather refining my trading method; will document some live trades here as well as general thought process.
I have been trading, mostly on demo accounts, for two years; after the first year I was able to double my account balance every few weeks so decided to go live. Of course with that kind of attitude/expectation, by now I have blown out two accounts for a net loss of $2700; now I'm on the third time's a charm program and making steady gains on a $1000 deposit. If things continue to go well I will slowly add more funds to this account but currently I am focusing on consistency and on not being stupid, impatient, greedy, aggressive or hasty.
I am not going to go into all the details of my method, first because I don't know if anyone is even interested, second because it is still being fleshed out as I gain more experience. I hope that by posting here, it will help me be more thorough in defining my method, and maybe other people can benefit too in some way.
I am trading primarily the Daily charts, looking to the Weekly for context and using the 4H, 1H and 15M for timing entries and exits.
I use custom indicators because I enjoy creating them not because they give me an "edge". I do prefer to trade using a few indicators because it gives me more confidence in my decisions, less room to second guess or make dumb calls. I see them as training wheels, or crutches, not the special sauce. I went through the phase of trying every indicator under the sun and always came back to Stoch, RSI, LWMA and Linear Regression lines. In addition I use "the chart" including S&R levels, channels, candlestick formations and trend lines to get a feel for what is going on at any given moment in time. However I don't usually draw these things onto the chart, they are just seen visually and mentally taken into account.
I entered a trade earlier today, short on the pound (attaching a chart). Judging from how this pair has been moving the past few months, I expect to hold this trade for 2-5 days. I will be ad-libbing the exit as this is one area I don't have down pat quite yet. I am working on holding trades for longer than I normally would (days instead of hours).
My complete method has three components including an intra-day and a scalping strategy, however for the moment I am stepping back to the daily timeframe and refining my long term strategy, as the shorter term ones really depend on the strength of the long term strategy for their success (since I only trade in one direction at any given time). And in general, if you take trades on the 15M chart without having a crystal clear view of what is happening on the daily, you will have mixed success and eventually get eaten by the market. At least this has been my experience.
So basically I will be checking in with my trades a few times per day as I have time, mostly to move my stop loss and or TP levels. I may post here from time to time especially if anyone expresses interest.
This one looked like a good setup so I entered short @1.5 -- although if I followed my rules more strictly I would have ended up with a slightly better position at around 1.5025.
SL: 1.52
TP: 1.45
These will be tightened as the trade progresses. The weekly is showing a slight up-trend, but we are near the top of the channel so the trade has some room to move.
I have been trading, mostly on demo accounts, for two years; after the first year I was able to double my account balance every few weeks so decided to go live. Of course with that kind of attitude/expectation, by now I have blown out two accounts for a net loss of $2700; now I'm on the third time's a charm program and making steady gains on a $1000 deposit. If things continue to go well I will slowly add more funds to this account but currently I am focusing on consistency and on not being stupid, impatient, greedy, aggressive or hasty.
I am not going to go into all the details of my method, first because I don't know if anyone is even interested, second because it is still being fleshed out as I gain more experience. I hope that by posting here, it will help me be more thorough in defining my method, and maybe other people can benefit too in some way.
I am trading primarily the Daily charts, looking to the Weekly for context and using the 4H, 1H and 15M for timing entries and exits.
I use custom indicators because I enjoy creating them not because they give me an "edge". I do prefer to trade using a few indicators because it gives me more confidence in my decisions, less room to second guess or make dumb calls. I see them as training wheels, or crutches, not the special sauce. I went through the phase of trying every indicator under the sun and always came back to Stoch, RSI, LWMA and Linear Regression lines. In addition I use "the chart" including S&R levels, channels, candlestick formations and trend lines to get a feel for what is going on at any given moment in time. However I don't usually draw these things onto the chart, they are just seen visually and mentally taken into account.
I entered a trade earlier today, short on the pound (attaching a chart). Judging from how this pair has been moving the past few months, I expect to hold this trade for 2-5 days. I will be ad-libbing the exit as this is one area I don't have down pat quite yet. I am working on holding trades for longer than I normally would (days instead of hours).
My complete method has three components including an intra-day and a scalping strategy, however for the moment I am stepping back to the daily timeframe and refining my long term strategy, as the shorter term ones really depend on the strength of the long term strategy for their success (since I only trade in one direction at any given time). And in general, if you take trades on the 15M chart without having a crystal clear view of what is happening on the daily, you will have mixed success and eventually get eaten by the market. At least this has been my experience.
So basically I will be checking in with my trades a few times per day as I have time, mostly to move my stop loss and or TP levels. I may post here from time to time especially if anyone expresses interest.
This one looked like a good setup so I entered short @1.5 -- although if I followed my rules more strictly I would have ended up with a slightly better position at around 1.5025.
SL: 1.52
TP: 1.45
These will be tightened as the trade progresses. The weekly is showing a slight up-trend, but we are near the top of the channel so the trade has some room to move.