Trading with Price and price only

[SAINT]

Hi Split/Jacinto

As you mentioned, price is price across the board.

I've day traded Bonds, FX and Equities and price action is the most important factor. Especially as a starting point.

Each different market obviously needs a different focus or approach (news etc).
However in trading Equities, I found stocks similar in movement to a Eur/Gbp or Eur/Usd, while some of the more pricey/thin volume stocks will move more like a Gbp/Jpy (the beast ).

Hi Jacinto,

Pardon me, but I've just started to read your thread. Very interesting. I didn't before because I thought it was not my instrument. It doesn't matter, the arguments and the problems are just the same. Anyway, I'm reading it from now on!

I only use price, too. It makes sense to post the ones that got away and ask why.

Split

 

[black bear]

Newby comment,

Hi,

Sorry to but in on thread with my limited experience, just wanted to thank all you regulars for posts and threads and advice contained with in them.

Iv found I can loose my money in a far more constructive and organised manner

Just jokin, keep up the good work, price alone certainly clears out the mind to the job in hand and cuts out the distractions.

 

[jacinto]

thanks for your comments Saint , Develbis:

anyway, back to the journal.

total breach of rules. lack of discipline and focus and opinionated thinking. nothing else to say. i still dont learn my lesson.

i will sleep over the idea of enforcing a "1 a no-trade-day" to force myself to think about the consequences of breaching rules. .......

the week is now uphill to earn the minimum wage. will have to make +170 in the next 4 days......

 

[jacinto]

confidence

total breach of rules. lack of discipline and focus and opinionated thinking. nothing else to say. i still dont learn my lesson.

i will sleep over the idea of enforcing a "1 a no-trade-day" to force myself to think about the consequences of breaching rules. .......

the week is now uphill to earn the minimum wage. will have to make +170 in the next 4 days......

well, i enforced the "no-trade rule" and did use the time for thinking.

thought of many things. i really dont want to write an essay. there are many books about it and i doubt i will add anything of value.

i still want to leave a thought for myself:

confidence: this is a driver of human behaviour. activities that depend on purely rational decision-making actions such as trading must eliminate confidence as a driver, otherwise it can easily derive in irrational decisions.

and by the way, i did look at my charts. very tempting, but nothing for me. just couldnt break today's rule. i wish i did the same with my smoking

 

[Atilla]

well, i enforced the "no-trade rule" and did use the time for thinking.

thought of many things. i really dont want to write an essay. there are many books about it and i doubt i will add anything of value.

i still want to leave a thought for myself:

confidence: this is a driver of human behaviour. activities that depend on purely rational decision-making actions such as trading must eliminate confidence as a driver, otherwise it can easily derive in irrational decisions.

and by the way, i did look at my charts. very tempting, but nothing for me. just couldnt break today's rule. i wish i did the same with my smoking

Hi Jacinto,

I would like to share your comissirations as my paper trade loss me +50 points or so. More importantly, I thought EURJPY would go up and come down instead it's kinda gone down and come back up again.

I think it's going to bounce back down from the long term support line imo. And so here is another paper trade.

Short EURJPY @ 157.97. SL @ 158.50. Target 156 looks good.

fwiw I can't see the Fed reducing rates by a full 50points. More like 25 if they do.

Good trading.

 

[jacinto]

i promise never to trade GBPJPY again.

took a long, as euryen and audyen broke out and didnt give me a decent entry as i went to take my kid to school. instead took gbpjpy on a breakout and pullback.

result -25. not particularly encouraging. failed trade. no breach of rules. so im ok with that.

just a bit upset by my choice of pair. guess i should have paid more attention to cable and other sterling crosses to understand the relative "sterling weakness" across the board.

now move on to the next trade and certainly not this pair.

 

[jacinto]

last trade of the day is short euryen 159.56 entered just now.

stop is relatively tight. euryen is at resistance, and it is basically make or break. so, we shall see.

the setup is short the high of the range.

edit: range is a 3 week range

 

[jacinto]

last trade of the day is short euryen 159.56 entered just now.

stop is relatively tight. euryen is at resistance, and it is basically make or break. so, we shall see.

the setup is short the high of the range.

edit: range is a 3 week range

well, this ended up as a BE trade. chart attached. during the trade i thought it was a bit of wishful thinking, but how many times have i seen that type of bar develop at resistance, only to bring a fall, so there was only one way to find out.

at first, price did go in my favour, i brought my stop to BE as soon as i thought it was relatively safe. i had to pick my kid from school 10 mins after i moved my stop and went to run so errands, so didnt see the chart until i came back. i didnt get in anymore since i had the kid with me. got stopped out. nothing earned nothing lost there.

i am particularly annoyed with myself with the morning trade given where price is now (only about 240 pips from my entry). there really isnt much to say. either i entered too early, miscallculated the end of pullback (i.e. misread support), or used too narrow a stop (didnt fancy having a 35 pip stop, which would have been safe). dunno which.

next one. i am, however pondering whether i should simply take the day off tomorrow or not, and forget about trading. clear my mind.

there is something bothering me with my trading style. it is something i want to write about during the weekend, but need to put A and B together first.

 

[Atilla]

i promise never to trade GBPJPY again.

took a long, as euryen and audyen broke out and didnt give me a decent entry as i went to take my kid to school. instead took gbpjpy on a breakout and pullback.

result -25. not particularly encouraging. failed trade. no breach of rules. so im ok with that.

just a bit upset by my choice of pair. guess i should have paid more attention to cable and other sterling crosses to understand the relative "sterling weakness" across the board.

now move on to the next trade and certainly not this pair.

I think there is a lot to be said about understanding the tools of ones trade. My two paper trades on the EURJPY just goes to show a loss of -100 pips. I think trading Cable or EURUSD is easier to read for me then EURJPY. Irrespectives of the technicals knowing the mechanics of the instrument help imho.

Not one to give up easily, I'm now wondering if my first long call was the right one and was a little off with the timing and the big drop due is likely to be the rejection of 160?

My third paper trade is another short @ 159.73. SL @ 160.23

I'm now pencilling in a prolonged recession and wind up of carry trades and further drops in the dollar. Hence, can only expect the YEN to strengthen.

 

[jacinto]

dont feel so bad anymore ...all the bu99ers that stuck to their entry on gbpyen and thought ...nice, +250 pips, lets move the stop to BE, are chuffed

i wonder why i dont like to trade the evenings,


nice short atilla

edit: thats me using words like "chuffed"...guess ive been goin to a chuffy pub lately

 

[jacinto]

well,

have been a bit sidelined this week. have scalped here and there, not much to report really. the only relevant trade was today for +90.

have been thinking about my trading, and think i tried to make a move towards 4 hour charts and failed. i think i have failed because i do read the 4 hr charts, trade off them, but go back thinking in terms of intra day. well. guess i will have to focus on one or the other.

 

[hornblower]

well,

have been a bit sidelined this week. have scalped here and there, not much to report really. the only relevant trade was today for +90.

have been thinking about my trading, and think i tried to make a move towards 4 hour charts and failed. i think i have failed because i do read the 4 hr charts, trade off them, but go back thinking in terms of intra day. well. guess i will have to focus on one or the other.

these price pattens, this week, do not suit my style of trading ,
had the odd trade , 5 pts 10 pts win,
something is waiting to unwind ,oscar says something big is going to happen , and I feel he may be right
(gold and oil at very high prices , dollar at an all time low )

I would rather sit on the side lines and wait ,
than try to trade a lose money

 

[black bear]

today has been a terrible day for me, and the worst part, is that it is all my fault. It is the first day i can trade full time in a couple of months. think i have left on the table something like +150 pips.

so, all in all a day in which no matter how sharp i am with price reading, if im not emotionally and psychologically focused i will make mistakes. I actually got lucky i didnt take losses.

Seems i still cant overcome the fear of loss. so there you go, a bad day, and i am particularly embarrased with myself.

Have enjoyed reading all content, Charts very good but most of all enjoy the job decsription. Up till reading this thought it was just me on my own who had to leave screen just when a set up was beginning to take shape.

I have noticed you are quite hard on yourself (because I do it) reading your journal I dont think you have any reason to be. I find if I post it note every trade good and bad bits live upon entry it stops me beating myself up about anything and its possibly, well for me anyway constructive :|

I quoted the above bits of your entry because you said -
"It is the first day i can trade full time in a couple of months." Expectation this must have happened to me more times than I care to recall, everytime you think you might be able to do something you really enjoy it goes b.....dy pear shaped LIFE

Keep up the good work and be lucky.

Connection issues, dont no your circumstances but I got a laptop and begged next door for their router key :cheesy:

 

[jacinto]

havent traded eurusd for some time. also, have been using line charts lately to get setups. yesterday had one on cable that unfortunately got a breakeven trade, but setup gave many pips had i reentered.

this is today's trade with the double setup.....lines and candles for +78 pips

edit: musical chair setup

 

[jacinto]

musical chair setup for chump

im sure you know the drill.....the indicators to the experts/indicators folder, the template to template folder

if you have any doubt just PM

 

[PKFFW]

Hey Jacinto,

What is the musical chairs zip? I like that box around the bars thingy you have, is that what it is?

Cheers,
PKFFW

 

[jacinto]

Hey Jacinto,

What is the musical chairs zip? I like that box around the bars thingy you have, is that what it is?

Cheers,
PKFFW

that would be giving away my edge now wouldnt it?

the answer is yes, i sent you a pm.

 

[jacinto]

today was one of those days where the mind is somewhere else.

i was incredibly detached, focused, reading price.....yet something was wrong. i really wasnt focused, and confused my intuition with my opinion. as a consequence i ended up passing on trading today. my first experience happened with euryen early morning. it was similar to this CADJPY setup shown below.

im happy on the one hand because my intuition gets me into profitable trades basically from the word go. also happy because, although mistakingly in this case, i didnt trade an opinion (or what i thought was an opinion). unhappy because i need to differentiate intuition from opinion. in hindsight, it is easy to do so, yet in the heat of the moment, it happened. there was something today, and as much as i dont want to use as an excuse, i think it has something to do with it. last night, i didnt sleep well. i think it has affected me today, and think it is behind my lack of decision making. in the end, a positive day, even without the pips in the bank because it taught me what i mentioned above.

setup is CADJPY 60 min charts using closes only, entry is 15 min charts using candles. trade not taken. target met. missed 78 pips

im posting this setup for my records, and also for those interested in this way of intra day trading

 

[PKFFW]

Hi Jacinto,

Thanks for the box indicator.

I'm learning alot from your charts. Trying to get a handle on this price action thing myself.

Do you have any specific set-ups you look for or just a combination of chart patterns, trendlines and S+R and then let your intuition take over?

Cheers,
PKFFW

 

[jacinto]

Hi Jacinto,

Thanks for the box indicator.

I'm learning alot from your charts. Trying to get a handle on this price action thing myself.

Do you have any specific set-ups you look for or just a combination of chart patterns, trendlines and S+R and then let your intuition take over?

Cheers,
PKFFW

Hi PKFFW,

well, thank you. i didnt know somebody could learn from me . regarding the setup question, well, it is as you say, a combination of what you mention and a top down view (time frame wise) of what price is doing.

It is really answered with a couple of questions:

where is price?
how did it get there?
what is it doing?
how can you profit from it?

the answers can be very simple, but it is not easy to answer them. have a look at what i did today. it kind of answers the questions rather quickly.

Today i was looking at EURJPY. Decided not to trade. the setup did not tick all my boxes. the charts are rather self explanatory. yes, my potential entry would have been profitable with no risk of loss. actually no loss, but had i taken the trade (knowing me) i would have moved the stop to breakeven when at +30, and ended up with a breakeven trade.

there is 1 particular conflicting signal (the bearish engulfing on the 60 min bar) that makes me stand aside, and expect a range. i just walked away.

so, all in all, zero profits, but happy with my judgement.

oh, and again, i am using closing prices to derive support-resistance and trend bias. it is a nice little tool if one can combine it with candles ad bars ....kind of expands the toolbox.