My Sniper Forex Journal

[Vaco]

Morning guys,

Hope everyone had a nice weekend

USDJPY got stopped out which is probably a good thing as it will stick in my head and prevent me making any more God trades (for a while anyway)

MY positions in all other trades have been halved now as the sniper trend bars are no longer both the same colour.

Rest of it will run until stop hits.

When I get some time I'll set up a spreadsheet showing the profit from exiting when the trend bars change colour and exiting at the stop. Once i've got a large enough sample size (at least 100 trades i'll make a decision on which exit yields the most pips and what the average is, then i will look at tweaking exit strategy IF required.

 

[Vaco]

Forums playing up this morning first it told me it was a dbl post so i deleted, then it wasnt there so i retyped then it was there again

 

[Vaco]

Everything has been stopped out apart from USDCAD which is still going. Getting out at the first sign of weakness proved more profitable on this occasion.

 

[Vaco]

entered long here with the stop just under the sniper stop.

 

[Vaco]

Done the sums now

After 5 completed trades, thats both parts closed out. I have 3 winners 1 loser and the one I scratched for 7 pips

I'll call exiting when the trend line changes colour exit A from now on and the stop exit, exit B

exit a 434 pips
exit B 318 pips

Ave 125 pips per winning trade.

losing trade 138 pips (the daft trade when i switched to the daily)

so R:R is 1:0.9
and winning % is 60%
20% break even
20% losers
Trade 6 is the usdchf which i have not closed the second half on yet so that will help as well.

Statistically 5 trades means nothing but this is how I will report the results going forward so I thought I'd get the ball rolling.

 

[Vaco]

short entered on GBPUSD

 

[forexsniper]

short entered on GBPUSD

Me too! But it ain't looking good so far!

I've found the gbpusd just in a chop zone for the past 2 weeks. quite frustrating.

 

[Vaco]

Me too! But it ain't looking good so far!

I've found the gbpusd just in a chop zone for the past 2 weeks. quite frustrating.

Hi Sunny thanks for dropping by.

Out of curiosity are you applying your own rules for entry after the signal because under the original rules you should not be in this trade, sniper trend has remained blue.

Let us know what criteria you are using for entering/exiting trades.

 

[forexsniper]

Hi Sunny thanks for dropping by.

Out of curiosity are you applying your own rules for entry after the signal because under the original rules you should not be in this trade, sniper trend has remained blue.

Let us know what criteria you are using for entering/exiting trades.

Hi Elefteros,

On my charts (4H), I got the all clear to go short (see attached pic).

My entries are Gary's original rules. Same with my exits, but I like your idea of selling half when you get one sign of an opposite colour. I've had some winners, but gave up about half the potential gain as the sniper indicators are lagging indicators.

I think if we just stick to it, we'll end up winning. I'm viewing this just as a bad period which is inevitable in any trading. Its been like this for about the past 2 weeks now. The 1H charts would've faired better in this case as it would've got us in and out of the trade more quickly.

 

[Vaco]

MY bad sunny I missed that, its there on my chart too

Where did you put your stop?

 

[Vaco]

long usd/chf

 

[Vaco]

long usd/chf

Out very quickly for a loss of 32 pips.

 

[Vaco]

long gbpchf

 

[Vaco]

stopped out on EURUSD, USDSGD and GBPUSD for 43, 39 and 169 respectively.

Lesson to be learned.
Must only take the low risk trades GBPUSD is the only one that really hurt. Due to the no of pips lost and what it does to my R:R

 

[forexsniper]

stopped out on EURUSD, USDSGD and GBPUSD for 43, 39 and 169 respectively.

Lesson to be learned.
Must only take the low risk trades GBPUSD is the only one that really hurt. Due to the no of pips lost and what it does to my R:R

At the onset of the signal, how would you evaluate whether its a low risk trade or not?

I still think if you take all the trades for GBPUSD, you'll end up profitable at the end of the month. When it trends, it trends really well on 4H.

I'm still evaluating, but thats my assessment based on the last 2 months of data. I'm only looking at GBPUSD at the moment.

 

[Vaco]

Sunny,

By low risk I mean a trade with a stop less then 100 pips away, ideally less then 50. However the stop must be set based below recent lows/highs or sniper stops,

thats why I try to take entries on the pullback to the sniper stop.

The GBPUSD trade was entered because a short signal triggered followed by an inside bar which broke to the downside. I should have killed the trade when price moved back up to the inside bar signalling that it was a false move.

 

[tau]

Hi Elefteros, although fractals seem to give a good entry when a retrace occurs it is proving difficult to wait for this to happen when the price just runs away! Although I do agree with you that patiently waiting for a retrace would be a very good entry.
I've been trying a few things over the past week with sniper to try to filter the signals as, like you, I have found some of the recent entry confirmations have continued to move against the signal. I thought that they might be worth mentioning here as we all seem to have picked up on one of the weaknesses of the system which is related to trending pairs vs non-trending pairs. It appears to give great signals for the former but as a lagging indicator gets caught out by the latter. What I've trying to do is to be as certain as possible that when sniper gives an affirmative signal that this is moving with a trend, rather than in an erratic chop.
So, I am currently trading using sniper plus three other indicators: Awesome oscillator (as Wildpips has previously mentioned), Accelerator oscillator and EMA 60. Using the two oscillators to filter the sniper signals, I am currently only considering taking trades when Awesome Oscillator histogram is above/below the zero line depending on the sniper signal (eg. above zero if buy signal), is the same colour as sniper signal (blue if buy) and rising/falling respectively (rising for buy). And when the Accelerator Oscillator is the same colour as sniper and also moving in the same direction as the signal. This means that I am only taking trades when sniper lines all turn the same colour and produce the arrow, the two sniper trend lines are the same colour and the AO and AO are also the same colour and moving in the direction of the signal with the Awesome Oscillator positive or negative depending on buy/sell. Futhermore, I am only taking the sell signal if price is below 60EMA and vice versa for buys.

So far, this has managed to filter a fair few of the trades that I would have jumped into had I been taking only sniper signals. The signals have worked most effectively so far when entry arrow, both trend indicators and both oscillators are in agreement. It is only in its infancy and I will let you know if it looks viable in due course. I am also trying to take into account the distance between the three bars changing colour and the confirmation of the trend lines -too much of a delay and the signal becomes redundant? And is it helpful to only take 4H signals on pairs which have been trending nicely for the past few weeks rather than the recently erratic pairs?

I just though this might stimulate some debate on how sniper could be refined but is in no way to detract from this journal which is providing an excellent example to us all. It will be great to see the sums based on the system alone in a few weeks.
Tau.

 

[Vaco]

Didn't get time to post yesterday but i traded several pairs on pullbacks to the sniper stop that got stopped out.

New rule Once price moves back to the sniper stop place order below/above previous candle.

This way if it tears through the stop were not in a trade and reduce no of losers.

2 charts below one showing how it looks when it goes well the other showing me getting stopped out and how the new rule would have prevented the trade.

 

[Vaco]

Tao,

I presume your doing all of that on the 1 hour timeframe as I believe doing it on the 4h would mean getting in very late.

Do keep us up to date as to how your adjustments are working out over the next few weeks.

I would not do this myself as all the indicators would make me dizzy.

I still strongly believe that the planning of stops and exits are what make a system profitable, plan where the stop would go then place entry as close to the stop as you think price is likely to go without hitting it. Yes there will always be trades where price does not retrace and you miss a trade that would have made some pips but capital preservation comes first. let the market come to you dont chase!

I'm not happy with how many pips I gave back last week so i'm working on improving my trailing stop. On current trades I've placed just above/below sniper stop on the 1h instead of the 4h. This will lock in more pips on the smaller moves but may mean I miss out on the loger term trend. Still I can always reenter at a better price!

 

[forexsniper]

Hi Elefteros, although fractals seem to give a good entry when a retrace occurs it is proving difficult to wait for this to happen when the price just runs away! Although I do agree with you that patiently waiting for a retrace would be a very good entry.
I've been trying a few things over the past week with sniper to try to filter the signals as, like you, I have found some of the recent entry confirmations have continued to move against the signal. I thought that they might be worth mentioning here as we all seem to have picked up on one of the weaknesses of the system which is related to trending pairs vs non-trending pairs. It appears to give great signals for the former but as a lagging indicator gets caught out by the latter. What I've trying to do is to be as certain as possible that when sniper gives an affirmative signal that this is moving with a trend, rather than in an erratic chop.
So, I am currently trading using sniper plus three other indicators: Awesome oscillator (as Wildpips has previously mentioned), Accelerator oscillator and EMA 60. Using the two oscillators to filter the sniper signals, I am currently only considering taking trades when Awesome Oscillator histogram is above/below the zero line depending on the sniper signal (eg. above zero if buy signal), is the same colour as sniper signal (blue if buy) and rising/falling respectively (rising for buy). And when the Accelerator Oscillator is the same colour as sniper and also moving in the same direction as the signal. This means that I am only taking trades when sniper lines all turn the same colour and produce the arrow, the two sniper trend lines are the same colour and the AO and AO are also the same colour and moving in the direction of the signal with the Awesome Oscillator positive or negative depending on buy/sell. Futhermore, I am only taking the sell signal if price is below 60EMA and vice versa for buys.

So far, this has managed to filter a fair few of the trades that I would have jumped into had I been taking only sniper signals. The signals have worked most effectively so far when entry arrow, both trend indicators and both oscillators are in agreement. It is only in its infancy and I will let you know if it looks viable in due course. I am also trying to take into account the distance between the three bars changing colour and the confirmation of the trend lines -too much of a delay and the signal becomes redundant? And is it helpful to only take 4H signals on pairs which have been trending nicely for the past few weeks rather than the recently erratic pairs?

I just though this might stimulate some debate on how sniper could be refined but is in no way to detract from this journal which is providing an excellent example to us all. It will be great to see the sums based on the system alone in a few weeks.
Tau.

Tau - like the thinking & thanks for investigating & sharing.

My only concerns are that after adding these indicators to the 4H, and looking at April data, the indicators (esp AO) would've also kept you out of some nice trending trades.

Another indicator which I'm looking at the moment is the ADX indicators. Looking at the 4H charts and only entering the trade if:

1) Sniper confirms.

- AND -

2) ADX indicator shows the direction has just switched to the same direction; if the ADX has already shown the trend to be established for a while (eg more than 2 - 3 bars), I skip the trade. Doesn't always get me out of trouble but seems to be able to avoid some of the chop.

I'm also still of the belief that to be truly successful, it needs to be kept simple. And that taking losing trades is part of it. Simply using the Sniper indicators over the past 4 months, if you take every trade (winners and losers), and followed the system without interfering with it, you'd have made some good money.