Chris' Trading Journal

C

CHRISTO9HER

Active member
Messages
123
Likes
27
Hi guys :clap::clap:

Let me introduce myself. I am a 22 year old from :cool:essex:cool: who has just finished at uni. I just graduated from Warwick Uni in economics in which I got a solid first.:smart:

Most of my friends are now off to investment banks. (n) I however, want to be a trader. Not one of these wannabe traders who executes client orders all day at IB's, but a real trader, a prop trader. And I want to trade for myself, not someone else :-0:-0

I have spent the last 6 months, (when not studying for exams), learning everything that I can about trading. I have spent countless hours backtesting systems and studying the markets.

I have also been helped a great deal by some of the great posters on this site, with particular thanks going out to grant, MRgecko, GJ, RCexile and countless others. I hope that you will continue to support me :) I now feel that I am in a good position to be able to be a profitable trader, although dont expect it to happen right away. :p

I am going to be trading GBPUSD and only GBPUSD. The trades will be intra-day, with an absolute upper limit of 4 trades in a day. I will be risking around 1-2% of the account per trade.

The trading account is going to be £1000. Before you shout at me for being undercapitalised, I have a whole lot more in reserve that will be joining it if I can show some consistent results.

September is the decision date for me. I have a place at LSE next year and will have to decide whether to take it or not. That is around 2 months away. If I can convince myself that I can make it as a trader, I will scrap the course at LSE (tuition fees are 22k) :mad: and trade for myself.

Success, for me, will be turnign the £1000 into around £1500 in the two months. :whistling This is a return of around 1% per day.

If I can show myself that I can return an average of close to 1% per day then I can be confidant of making enough to earn a good living if I whack my savings into the account.

I am going to post at the end of each trading day, I will post the trades that I entered, why I entered them, PnL for the day, etc etc.

This will not start until probably wednesday as I have to sort some stuff before I begin.

What I am looking to get out of this is a bit of guidance from those who have been through the same process. I have approached learning about trading in the same way as any other academic work, and have amassed a lot of knowledge. However, I know that whilst that will be useful, I will need to draw on the experience of others to guide me through.

So please, if you have anything useful to contribute at any stage, then please speak up and rest assured that unlike certain other people on this site, I will carefully consider any advice given. :LOL::LOL:

Cheers guys

Chris
 
Masquerade said:
What size stop will you be using and why set a limit of trades in a day?
Click to expand...

The stop is dependant on the trade, (support and resistance levels etc). I am aiming for it to be around 20-30 pips for most trades. On the time frame that I am working to (5min bars), I find that anything less than 20 pips can get stopped out by noise too easily. There will probably be trades in which I use a smaller stop but only rarely (eg, trying to pick a bottom after a double or triple top. I am really trying to capture the major moves of the day, but I have no fixed targets, just pretty well defined exit criteria.

The set limit of trades per day is really just to discipline myself. In demo-trading I have overtraded and have found that limiting myself to only a few trades per day makes me only take the higher probability trades.
 
So your daily target is 1% per day compounding???

So you'l make £10 day 1, £10.10p day 2, 10.20 day 3.... And so on??
 
Chris,
I wish you well in your venture. I hope things work out well, but even if you'll be successful within your deadline, it's won't be much "history" to go on, so can I urge you to discuss postponing your LSE course rather than abandoning it altogether ? just so you have something to fall back on. who knows, you might even make enough to consider using trading to fund your mainstream education.

but why go there anyway, they're all commie b8stards opposed to free enterprise, capitalism and by definition market trading ....?

am happy to help if you have any questions etc, although i generally trade the currency futures rather than the spot forex .......
May I ask why you chose Cable in particular ?

r_e
 
Hi Chris just wanna say good luck to you in what you are doing

how did the first 3 days go ??? (we/thurs/fri) as you stated you commenced on wed.

cheers mate
 
Hi guys, thanks for all the replies. I am going to try to reply to everyone who posts here, so here goes

Originally Posted by Spanish
So your daily target is 1% per day compounding???

So you'l make £10 day 1, £10.10p day 2, 10.20 day 3.... And so on??
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats right. I am aiming for 1% a day, not as a strict rule and not stopping when I get there, just as a mental banchmark. £10 is not a lot but this is on a trial basis. If I do Ok before september, there is a lot more in reserve and 1% a day would be enough to live on. I know its not much compared to your massive winning days, but I also couldn't blow more than about 8% of my account in a day as an absolute max, which will probably make me sleep better than you at night!!

Originally Posted by rathcoole_exile
Chris,
I wish you well in your venture. I hope things work out well, but even if you'll be successful within your deadline, it's won't be much "history" to go on, so can I urge you to discuss postponing your LSE course rather than abandoning it altogether ? just so you have something to fall back on. who knows, you might even make enough to consider using trading to fund your mainstream education.

but why go there anyway, they're all commie b8stards opposed to free enterprise, capitalism and by definition market trading ....?

am happy to help if you have any questions etc, although i generally trade the currency futures rather than the spot forex .......
May I ask why you chose Cable in particular ?

r_e
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply rc. The thing with the LSE course is that it costs 22k, and thats just the tuition fees. Not sure if its worth it.

And you might be right about the LSE, after all I am so fed up of hearing about the efficient markets hypothesis from lecturers at warwick, not sure I could take any more.

I chose cable after studying all of the majors and decided it was the best if I had to pick one. It has most volvatility and I also like the hours in which it experiences the vol. It always seems to have a quiet tokyo session and then suddenly kick off at about 6 or 7 am UK time, which is when I get up. It seems to get really quiet about mid-afternoon Uk time, which is a nice time to finish up. Some people say that technical analysis is more suited to EURUSD, but who knows??

Cheers for the support.

and Chris, we don't need another pricc like spanish on here, drop the smileys eh ?
Click to expand...

Lol, aint that the truth. I'll try :)

Originally Posted by Mikeyfx
Hi Chris just wanna say good luck to you in what you are doing

how did the first 3 days go ??? (we/thurs/fri) as you stated you commenced on wed.

cheers mate
Click to expand...

Hi Mikey,

thanks for the good luck message and PM. I actually only started yesterday. My next post which is coming right up is about yesterdays trading. Going to try to get a screen shot or two in there to illustrate.

And I am 63 pips up this morning on the rally before the news announcements!!

Keep in touch and let me know how you are getting on. Which pair(s) are you starting off on?
 
Two days in

Hi guys

I started my full time trading yesterday morning.

Firstly, does anyone know how to attach (embed) screenshots of charts on here? Do I have to host them somewhere else so that I can link to them via the url?

Anyway, in the two days I have taken four trades. Three of them have been winners and one loser.

I should probably tell a little about how I am trading. Basically I am from the old school of technical analysis; S&R levels, trendlines and a brief look at moving averages to determine the strength of trends. I believe that S&R levels are the single most important part of technical analysis; and my trading revolves around them. I wait to see what happens when price approaches an important level; if it goes through it I may take a position in it going further. If it tests it and fails to break through it then I may be looking to take a position in it moving back away from the level. I also look at moving averages and like to see them crossed the right way for any trade.

I also believe in good money management; I am risking around 1% of my account on each trade, although this may increase gradually to around 2% as I develop more of a track record.

I have my room set up quite well for trading. I have 2 laptops and a 32" flat screen tv. In the morning when I wake up at 6am I use the TV as a monitor and get my 5min chart up on it. That means that I can lay in bed and watch what the market is doing. Sweet.

The trades that I have done so far have all had good reasons behind them. Yesterday morning I bought an upwards breakout of the range of the tokyo session at around 8:50 am. This turned out to be the exact top of the rally, so I got stopped out for a loss of 32 pips!!


I then bought at the bottom of the subsequent decline at around 10:05am and cashed in for 14 pips. The reason for this trade was that it was clear that cable was experiencing some pretty strong support at that level, as was shown by the long lower shadows on 4 or 5 consequtive candles.

The third and final trade of yesterday was to buy into the rally at around 1:38pm. This was well into the rally, the maX had already happened, but I was waiting for the rate to break through the resistance level that had been formed the previous day and that morning. As soon as this had happened, I went long.

This is where my inexperience came in. It went in my favour for a little while and about 20 pips. I was manually trailing my stops and wanted to move them to somewhere near breakeven. However, since I had entered just above the resistance level, my breakeven level was also just above it. But resistance often becomes support, and this case was no different. I moved my stop to breakeven + 1 (just above the resistance level and new support level). Resistance became support and so I got stopped out. The market then rallied for 75pips, which I missed out on.

I learned a good lesson yesterday; put your stops in places that make sense for the trade, not places that make your trading record look nice by making it a winning trade. I made one pip on the trade instead of 70 because I was thinking that I wanted it to be a winning trade and so was too aggressive and stupid with my stop movement. Lesson learned.
 
Today was better.

In the UK we had news coming out at 9:30, which I wanted to be flat for (as you can see I dont have much interest in fundamental analysis). I am not going to try to compete with IB's on my research into inflation levels etc.

Volatility picked up at around 7am. I was lying in bed watching it happen on my flat screen tv. :cool: Cable was at a high of a few days and I had a feeling I would be going long at some point. The market began to rally and at 8:35am, I went long. The market went into a crazy rally, with me cheering it on from my bed. I was loving it, hardly a down tick to be seen, which is good for the soul.

However, after around 60 pips of profit, I began to get the jitters. There was one bar that had just gone up over 30 pips and it just looked to me like it had gone too far to stay there. So I got out with a profit of 63 pips. I then watched as the market continued to rally for another 30-40 pips before the news announcement.

I think that I learned another lesson today. I exited the trade for no reason other than getting the fear of losing the profit that I had made. When looking at the chart now, I exited in the middle of the rally. I have spoken to someone today about trends in the run up to news announcements. He told me that these trends can be some of the best, and that more often than not they continue right up to the news announcement. So in general you should try to stay in the trade until just before the announcement.

Do people agree with this? Any comments?

Anyway, after that trade, I was up 63 pips and 2.1% on the account (for the day). I decided that after such a major move, the market was unlikely to experience much else during the day and so I called it a day early, about half ten. I guess this is a debatable issue, do you stop early for the day if you are pleased with the profit and don't expect much else to happen for the day?

I seem to be learning a new lesson each day. Despite the errors I have discussed, I am up by 46 pips, which I am pretty chuffed with.

If anyone has any comments or questions, please post and I will reply tomorrow. I am off to the pub for some beers now.

Cheers guys

Chris
 
CHRISTO9HER said:
Hi guys

I started my full time trading yesterday morning.

Firstly, does anyone know how to attach (embed) screenshots of charts on here? Do I have to host them somewhere else so that I can link to them via the url?

Anyway, in the two days I have taken four trades. Three of them have been winners and one loser.

I should probably tell a little about how I am trading. Basically I am from the old school of technical analysis; S&R levels, trendlines and a brief look at moving averages to determine the strength of trends. I believe that S&R levels are the single most important part of technical analysis; and my trading revolves around them. I wait to see what happens when price approaches an important level; if it goes through it I may take a position in it going further. If it tests it and fails to break through it then I may be looking to take a position in it moving back away from the level. I also look at moving averages and like to see them crossed the right way for any trade.

I also believe in good money management; I am risking around 1% of my account on each trade, although this may increase gradually to around 2% as I develop more of a track record.

I have my room set up quite well for trading. I have 2 laptops and a 32" flat screen tv. In the morning when I wake up at 6am I use the TV as a monitor and get my 5min chart up on it. That means that I can lay in bed and watch what the market is doing. Sweet.

The trades that I have done so far have all had good reasons behind them. Yesterday morning I bought an upwards breakout of the range of the tokyo session at around 8:50 am. This turned out to be the exact top of the rally, so I got stopped out for a loss of 32 pips!!


I then bought at the bottom of the subsequent decline at around 10:05am and cashed in for 14 pips. The reason for this trade was that it was clear that cable was experiencing some pretty strong support at that level, as was shown by the long lower shadows on 4 or 5 consequtive candles.

The third and final trade of yesterday was to buy into the rally at around 1:38pm. This was well into the rally, the maX had already happened, but I was waiting for the rate to break through the resistance level that had been formed the previous day and that morning. As soon as this had happened, I went long.

This is where my inexperience came in. It went in my favour for a little while and about 20 pips. I was manually trailing my stops and wanted to move them to somewhere near breakeven. However, since I had entered just above the resistance level, my breakeven level was also just above it. But resistance often becomes support, and this case was no different. I moved my stop to breakeven + 1 (just above the resistance level and new support level). Resistance became support and so I got stopped out. The market then rallied for 75pips, which I missed out on.

I learned a good lesson yesterday; put your stops in places that make sense for the trade, not places that make your trading record look nice by making it a winning trade. I made one pip on the trade instead of 70 because I was thinking that I wanted it to be a winning trade and so was too aggressive and stupid with my stop movement. Lesson learned.
Click to expand...


hi chris well done on your opening day/s trading so by my calculations you should be about 35/40 pips up? (inc. your trade this morning)
not bad at all especially as your first few trades :)
i know of a system extremely simalar to yours except with diff take profit targets and money management, i have traded it and it can be a very good way of trading. (out of interst what settings do you use on the moving averages)
if your interested in any of details that could could poss. help you in your way of trading so if your intersted let me know.
i trade mainly all the major pairs especially jpy major pairs (made 100 pips on gbpjpy today)
so any way all the best for tomorrow and keep up the reports :)
 
Last edited:
You missed out on a hell of a short. Not every day will be a winning day - so you've got to max out the winners to average out the losing days. I think you should have stuck with trading for the rest of the day. If you're scared of losing profit then move your stop to protect it - or reduce your position size (although i'm not a fan of that)

But you'll learn new things - I know I do as i'm pretty green and today was a hell of a learning experience :)
 
"I think that I learned another lesson today. I exited the trade for no reason other than getting the fear of losing the profit that I had made. When looking at the chart now, I exited in the middle of the rally. I have spoken to someone today about trends in the run up to news announcements. He told me that these trends can be some of the best, and that more often than not they continue right up to the news announcement. So in general you should try to stay in the trade until just before the announcement.

Do people agree with this? Any comments?"


DOLLAR WEAKNESS


i dont know about that mate but think you will find that the rally was more to do with dollar weakness than the gbp news but i may be wrong.
wd on the trade tho.
 
Chris,
I think a fundamental flaw in your overall plan is having the flat screen TV on your bedroom wall. Statistical studies have proven that a ceiling-mounted monitor is a much more effective trading set-up.
paricularly useful for when your missus is going thru that tiresome rigmarole of trying to ride your bones while you're trying to concentrate on the markets ....
 
I hope everything goes well for your new adventure Chris. You have roughly the same goals as me by the way so I hope you keep the thread up. It will be good to see someone around my age with a sensible approach to trading on here that has a more than even chance still trading this time next year...
I find if you try to imagine where other traders would have their stops and include a bit of padding for noise and spread you wont get taken out of your trades so easily. I think that the strength of the rally yesterday was due to the weakness of the dollar, so even though you took profits early which incidently I did too, I wouldnt worry about it too much as it was a pretty unusual day. I agree with Mikey that you may have 'left' early as yesterday was a great day for trading...but you made a handsome profit.

One more thing, I find GU more technically responive to S/R levels than EU.

See you around,

Sini.
 
Last edited:
rathcoole_exile said:
Chris,
I think a fundamental flaw in your overall plan is having the flat screen TV on your bedroom wall. Statistical studies have proven that a ceiling-mounted monitor is a much more effective trading set-up.
paricularly useful for when your missus is going thru that tiresome rigmarole of trying to ride your bones while you're trying to concentrate on the markets ....
Click to expand...

Maybe if I had it on the ceiling I wouldn't be 4 pips down for the day!! (although I am up on ££, which is probably more important than pips).

You're right though, it would be good to be able to watch the market whilst shagging. Although if you were slamming the bed into the wall too hard it might knock it off the ceiling onto your heads....better make sure she goes on top.

I am currently working on getting a wireless mouse/keyboard, which means that I will never actually have to leave my bed, except to turn on the computer in the morning.

I think that this must be the one of only 2 professions that I could do without getting out of bed!!
 
sinimini said:
I hope everything goes well for your new adventure Chris. You have roughly the same goals as me by the way so I hope you keep the thread up. It will be good to see someone around my age with a sensible approach to trading on here that has a more than even chance still trading this time next year...
I find if you try to imagine where other traders would have their stops and include a bit of padding for noise and spread you wont get taken out of your trades so easily. I think that the strength of the rally yesterday was due to the weakness of the dollar, so even though you took profits early which incidently I did too, I wouldnt worry about it too much as it was a pretty unusual day. I agree with Mikey that you may have 'left' early as yesterday was a great day for trading...but you made a handsome profit.

One more thing, I find GU more technically responive to S/R levels than EU.

See you around,

Sini.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your good wishes

Its interesting that you should say that about S/R levels with the two pairs, that is what I have also found and its good to hear it from someone else. Are you exclusively trading GBPUSD?

Yeah, I might have left a bit early yesterday, as there was clearly some potential for profit in the afternoon. I was just chuffed with my first big-pip trade since going full time.

Anyway, cheers for the message and keep in touch
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
Trading journals
Replies
1
Views
1K
Gurubhai
G
G
G's Trading Journal
Replies
7
Views
2K
gw8070
G
Nowler
  • Poll
Nowler's Trading Journal
8 9 10
Replies
182
Views
45K
Nowler
Nowler
megamuel
Megamuel's Money Making Journal
4 5 6
Replies
106
Views
20K
Adamus
Adamus
K
Chris Kobewka and his eBook
Replies
8
Views
9K
pegasus95s33
P
Top