Yellowlion's EURUSD Trading Journal

[yellowlion]

04/12/08 05:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Hope everyone had a splendid weekend.

Watched the Asian session ZigZag to .5485 and start to sell off a little. Took a pre-session nap and woke to find EURUSD had shed 80 pips. The Asian session has been active lately and has been providing good opportunities in this pair.

I had a fair session on Friday picking up 17 pips on three little trades.

Low of the drawdown stretch starting May 1 was 6.57%. Currently off 5.23% for the month.

A very early start to my day in the US this morning and lots of desk clutter including raw journal entries from 04/29 to present has me pulling back a little to review and catch up.

Maybe take a fat pitch or two if one presents itself tonight. For direction, it's quite possible we'll go take a look around .5360.

All The Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

04/13/08 06:15 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Well we did take a look at .5360 as suggested in my last post. 5365 was worth 204 pips for those who took the trade.

I added 16 pips to my account since yesterday's post on 2 little scalp winners.

Tonight it looks like a bull flag completed in Asia and the beginning of a wave 5 is underway. The impulse off.5509 looks enthusiastic enough but price needs to get above .5569 to remain bullish into .5620.

Once again I'm working on finding the top of my desk and looking for little above average opportunities.

All the Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/14/08 05:30 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

EURUSD couldn't muster the energy to break above .5569 as suggested last night. Instead it traded impulsively to .5430 and has since retested and found fair support there.

Direction is difficult to call here .5400 and the .5540 are areas of interest.

Added 18 pips last session on two small trades.

I've added 3.30% to the account since the low of the drawdown on 5/6 by trading only single lots so I'm continuing with the simple strategy of journaling everything, including screenshots, working out of the Douglas book, and looking for fat pitches (some of which I actually swing at).

Currently off 4.30% for the month.

All the Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/15/08 05:45 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Had kind of an off session yesterday. Started the night a little risk adverse taking two tiny wins. Dollar counting recent gains. Next two were losers but nothing terrible.

Got in at .5400 (area of interest in last night's post) but was satisfied with a couple pips above breakeven for the night. One more tiny win netted 3.

Ended +5 for the night.

Recap in the written journal reads as follows:

1)Still hesitating at low risk opportunities and missing out. Every time, the hesitation involves not wanting to give back recent gains. Setups win most times.

2)Dollar counting and taking small wins instead of managing exit strategy. Leaving a lot of pips on the table before strategy would have exited trade.

Innergame focus turns to approaching every trade unencumbered by recent wins or losses. Close trade, finish journal entry, carry innergame success or lesson forward, not pip profit or loss. Count pips after session ends, keep p&l off the screen.

Tired tonight. Just getting home from a meeting. Not fit for focused trading. Gonna take the night off, watch "The Seven-Ups" on AMC, and fall asleep.

All The Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/16/08 05:30 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

And Happy Friday.

Got a good night's sleep last night. Woke for a short day at work to find EURUSD looking for a base off .5418. Took a long into the base at 30 but ran out of time and had to git. Not comfortable setting a stop and leaving this morning. Closed +3.

Just took another 10 off .5477 here a couple minutes ago. This could go test .5530 or thereabouts.

All The Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/19/08 05:15 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Hope everyone had a splendid weekend.

+52 pips for last week. Seeing things a little differently after the drawdown.

I'm sticking with a simplified session looking only for fat pitches, working on strategy execution - not dollar counting, and working on approaching each trade in the "now moment" - unaffected by the outcome of any previous trades.

I expect to offer more detail in this journal in the future but for now I'm sticking to what's working, and that means just a session open entry for now.

Could be support around .5550 with decent resistance around .5650

All The Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/20/08 05:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Truncated session last night. Got some sleep instead.

Took +9 yesterday at 15:19 GMT off .5491. Fear based exit.

Took +1 this morning at 04:35 GMT off .5510. Hourly trendline test here. Exit strategy got me out. Very quiet trade then 06:00 desks took it to 34. No bad.

.5450 / .5630

All the Best,
Yellowlion

 

[yellowlion]

05/21/08 05:15 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Faded the rally into the Zew report last session for +21 pips. Session ended for me after trade was closed but I hung around to watch that rebound off .5563. Wow.

Firing on a few more cylinders lately; netting +31 for the week so far.

The same issues are usually present in one form or another:

1) Not approaching every trade in the "now moment opportunity flow" unencumbered by past trades.
2) Dollar counting.
3) Not wanting to let go of a losing trade (marrying my ideas, fear of being wrong).
4)Not following exit strategy (dollar counting issue).

These issues are my focus for every session. I have no real problem finding opportunities, it's the proper execution of strategy that I find the most difficult.

How many times have I seen 1.5666 in the past 5 weeks? Seems like some kind of median level.

That quote was from 04/25. And here we are again as of 04:53 GMT.

Daily

 

[yellowlion]

05/22/08 05:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Faded the IFO reaction last session 1 lot at .5734 for +10. The only trade of the night and the only pre-determined entry I had. Saw a few other setups that worked but keeping powder dry for higher probability entries right now. Also keeping my eyes open for new recurring edge patterns and opportunities.

At one minute till the IFO release I considered a buy stop at .5460. Had my finger on the trigger but impulse trades are better left untaken whether they win in hindsight or not. 'Would have netted a few pips though. Wow again.

No change in strategy. Currently +41 for the week.

 

[gio9]

Can you show a pic of your charts with entries and exits daily? That would help us a lot. Thanks!

 

[yellowlion]

05/23/08 05:30 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All and Happy Friday,

A pleasant Memorial Day weekend to all in the US.

Can you show a pic of your charts with entries and exits daily? That would help us a lot. Thanks!

Hi Gio. I used to post my trades with charts here in real time but I found the work involved in taking the screenshots, writing the commentary, and posting to the board took too much focus off my trading. Since I've stopped doing that, my trading has improved. I do still take screenshots during each trade, and I keep a pad to journal the technical, mental, and emotional details of each and every trade.

Because of my busy schedule, I have a stack of what I call raw journal entries on my desk 72 trades from 04/28 to present. I have been working intensively out of "Trading In The Zone" while I'm trading the session, writing out passages and pages which helps me to digest the information better so I've let the journal back up as I must prioritize.

Like I mentioned, it's been working so I'm reluctant to change anything with my session right now. I will also mention that my trading has taken on a whole new character and since the last drawdown period that ended 05/07, I've begun meeting daily and weekly goals I set at the beginning of the year.

I will be posting my journal entries on my website for every past day here directly as some time will be freeing up in the near future. I do this because I believe a thorough review of my past trades is best done by re-living them in detail and it's a neat way to keep my work. You can view the journal up to 04/28 here. This is not a website promotion, but merely a way for anyone interested to view my journal.


Ok. Last session's activity was best left alone. There were no real boundaries defined throughout the morning. The initial attempt to get EURUSD higher was obviously met with heavy resistance all the way up to .5813. I was going to get short at .5824 but there wasn't enough strength to get it there. The idea was the blowoff day in oil. The subsequent decline was not well formed and nothing really presented itself. I took a 2 lots long at enough support for a play and closed one at 0 and the other -1. Slept well, off from the day job today so I got long early afternoon in the US for a quick +9 before errands.

+48 for the week and +142 since 05/07 with 47 entries.
Drawdown from 05/01 - 05/06 was -240 so still down -98 for the month.

 

[yellowlion]

05/27/08 06:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Hope everyone had a splendid weekend.

Just took +14 off the one hour moving average to .5803. Pretty strong here, continues to push higher into 5815.

No change in strategy this week. Working out of the Douglas book, trading small and looking for above average opportunities. Last Friday I took a final long in the US afternoon that was only worth +2. Ended the week +50.

I'm planning to offer more about these trades and to include screenshots in the near future for anyone interested. You can always hit me on Yahoo! IM if you care to chat about anything trading or to share ideas. My handle is Yellowlion.

Here's that last trade and the subsequent action.

1 Minute

 

[yellowlion]

05/28/08 05:30 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Two other trades and the one at the open last night netted 26 pips for the session. I've been trading well, but certainly not to my full potential. More encouraged than critical at this point. Things could always be better or worse. Objectivity in my approach is crucial to my success. Showing good progress lately.

I have a few days off from Starbucks this week and am hoping to get a decent chunk of my raw journal entries consolidated on the website. Gonna trade the session here directly and start that work tomorrow.

Also have a spreadsheet project going that may be helpful to this board but like everything else, that is a work in progress.

Trading itself gets the priority with focus on the mental, emotional, and psychological part of the job. Finding opportunities is not difficult for me, executing and managing the trades that exploit them is the hard part.

 

[dcharania]

Hey Yellowlion - this is fantastic stuff .. appreciate you sharing your trading log with us.
A couple of questions - do you trade at a bank/HF and if so is it mm/prop ..... if not do you trade your own money? Would like to get some advice from you .. i have been trading the EURUSD pair for about 2 months and have had nothing but significant losses. Was wondering what types os disciplnary rules you have and what tools/resaearch you use ....... also trading strategy.

Thanks
D

 

[yellowlion]

05/29/08 05:45 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

+ 17 for last night's session. Train keeps rollin' and I'm riding 'till it stops. Plan is to trade small and look for higher than average opportunities until the end of the week or the first down session.

After that I'm taking a week off and re-defining my goals and strategy going forward. Goals that were defined at the beginning of the year are being met so it's time for new ones to be defined.

I will also be reviewing and posting the journal during that time.

dcharania, I've responded to your post with a private message.

 

[yellowlion]

05/30/08 06:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All and Happy Friday,

+18 during London morning, +20 in the US afternoon for +38 pips yesterday.

Just took +5 off 5537. Could go lower. Move off .5485 to .5540 is a classic double ZigZag.

Yup, there it goes.

 

[yellowlion]

06/03/08 08:45 GMT May summary

Hi All,

Taking a week off from trading to go over May's trades and to define new goals and strategies going forward.

Here's a summary of my month. Had that drawdown the first week. Made a commitment to trade singles through the rest of the month. Outcome was -2 pips for May.

No trading but screens are lit just to keep in touch. Working at my desk through the week. More as things develop if anyone's even interested.

May 1 - 7 Drawdown

May 7 - 30 Post-Drawdown

May 1 - 30 Full Month

 

[yellowlion]

06/11/2008 05:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Just wanted to touch base here this morning to keep this thread alive.

I've been writing code for the past 3 days to integrate my trading platform with Excel. Working on expanding my dashboard application which really simplifies the whole process of finding "areas of interest" where I can apply my trading methods. Just really puts it all on one screen in a neat little package. Eventually, I would like to abandon all third party software completely and just trade with Excel and a clean data feed.

Anyway I'm planning to make this thread a little more robust and am working on a strategy to provide some value for the readers here, and at the same time, have the process add value to my daily trading session.

I've entered 4 trades so far this week: 3 for 4 and a total of +35 pips.

I'm also working on trading strategies going forward into the second half of 2008 to help maximize these trades. Planning to get a little bigger here so I can use some of the initial gains to maximize my profit potential as the trade progresses. More later.

 

[yellowlion]

06/13/08 05:30 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All and Happy Friday 13th,

Making good progress defining my goals and strategies for the second half. Will be ready to return to full operations on Monday.

Leaving Starbucks. Just not working on any level for me anymore. So I'm on the prowl for alternative funding while I continue to develop into a full time trader. A day job is still a possibility going forward but I'm confident it will not be much longer.

Added +15 to the coffers last session for a total of six trades + 50 for the week into today's session.

An 8 hour chart paints a pretty little picture at the trendline test but the swing into it does not look complete to me. I believe .5284 is doomed before .5864 is - as long as I don't marry that I should be ok.

I'm a little hesitant with the heads meeting in Osaka starting today because news out of that is unscheduled and falls on selective ears first. Getting caught on the wrong side can be costly. So I'm treading lightly.

Have a good weekend.

 

[yellowlion]

06/16/2008 06:00 GMT Session Open

Good Morning All,

Hope everyone had a splendid weekend.

Busting my butt trying to get all this code written and everything integrated. MetaTrader is essentially c++ which is not my strongest language and documentation is marginal more often than not. When it's done it will add value to the newsletter and to my postings here so It's a worthwhile project. I was hoping to have everything up and running today but my calendar is more realistic and has a deadline of all bugs worked out by next Monday's open.

So hacking away here and getting into trades if things look favorable.

Difficult session on Friday. Two trades, lots of work, +7 actual pips. Because these were multiple lot trades, cash pips was +36. I calculate actual pips as the amount of pips from entry to exit. Cash pips is calculated as 1 standard lot. So if it's a 2 lot trade and the trade nets 10 pips, I calculate 10 actual pips and 20 cash pips.

So for last week: 8 trades +57 actual pips +86 cash pips.

Loosely, lets say 1.5200 before 1.5600.