I took one trade on Thursday and three trades on Friday. Thursday's trade was a win. Friday was two losses and a win. After seven trades this week I finished -0.85%. Not as bad as the week before but still not good enough.

Thursday;

EU Buy

Friday in order;

EU Sell 1

First attempt at selling. Got in a bit early.

EU Sell 2

Once price bounced from where I was stopped it came back down and produced another sell signal which too me to the target.

EU Sell 3

Tried to sell again but was stopped out. Price fell again to a low of 1.1324 but there was no signal to get in this time.

I've plans to do some study next week.

I want to print out and look at every trade i've taken this year with this strategy and analyse the pros and cons to see if I can find a common thread through them all. The rights and the wrongs.

As well as this i'm planning on looking at a slightly higher time frame. A 5x3 15min P&F chart comes to mind. As can be seen from Friday's charts, I was ultimately right but my stops are too tight. I want to see if a higher time frame affords wider stops whilst still being able to hit targets.

Enjoy the weekend,

Cheers,

Liam

I didn't take any trades on Monday as I was travelling back from the UK and had work at 4pm.

I took two trades on Tuesday, a win and a loss and a further trade today (Wednesday) which was also a loss.

Tuesday.

EU Trades

The winning trade was a buy, shown on the left of the P&F chart. It was a continuation of the up move after the high volume that printed on the 15min chart. Price fell back to the high of this zone, broke through the high and then printed a sell signal at a break of the up channel. I took this sell and it didn't last very long at all. Worth noting that it was the upper half of a zone which has already proved strong. So perhaps needed to wait for it to at least break the 50% of this area.

Wednesday.

EU Sell

Bar 2 is a high volume upthrust into the high of yesterday's volume zone. Also the highest volume for the day (at the time). I took this as weak and took the next sell signal. Below the MA and in line with the trend. But again it wasn't to be. I'm presuming as it's a similar area to yesterday's attempted short that bar 1 is in fact still very strong. This was later proved with a widespread high volume up move on US news at 13:30.

I also wanted to add that NU finally reached the target that I first mentioned in this post. Unfortunately I made very little from this.

NU Target

5 trades, so I'll get right to it. 2 short term trades on Thursday - a loss and a win. 2 short term trades today - 2 losses. Then there's the long term Kiwi trade which closed today for a small profit of 20 pips after NFP. All in all, the end of a week i'd rather forget about. Kept it simple the last couple of days and completely missed the mark on three of the trades.

Thursday trades

EURUSD Buy

The high volume in the red circles on the 15min chart sent this chart down. It just so happened that there was a buy at the high. I made the mistake of thinking that the high volume wasn't weak and went with the trend and MA. I was wrong.

EURUSD Sell

The one successful trade. After it fell from the high I took the next signal that came along after an upthrust into the high of the green zone.

Friday trades

EURUSD Buy

Tried a buy today once price had broken into the orange zone and bounced off the low with a P&F pole. Didn't last very long before pushing back down.

EURUSD Sell

The buy failed so once the stars aligned for a short signal, I took that. This also failed. Stopped with the noise just before NFP. Perhaps I should've closed before this news but I was never in a good position to take some money off the table.

Kiwi Short

Kiwi 1HR Short

It found support where I mentioned in a previous post that it might. I pulled the stop down before NFP announcement which was hit soon after. Bagged about 20 pips but it wasn't worth much as my original stop was 90pips.

-4.82% for the week. Ouch.

I'm now down for the year.

Really need to turn this around and i'm not sure how to approach it.

I'm over the in the UK this weekend for my Dad's birthday. So we'll have some beers, have a chat and try figure out the next approach.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Cheers,

Liam

First things first, I didn't take any of my usual scalping set ups today. There was a nice move down this morning as it reacted to the low of Friday's zone but there was no P&F set up on the way down. A couple of set ups showed up near the low of the move. At this stage I figured it was too close to the trend channel to take an entry. But they all would've come good.

EURUSD Sells

I mentioned I was going to start looking at some higher time frame Point and Figure charts which I started doing today. There was a few charts that caught my eye.

I've taken a short on GBPUSD and have a sell order placed on NZD/USD. Both based on10x3 1HR charts.

GBPUSD Analysis

Most of it is annotated on the chart. There was a double top at the high and as it touched off the trend channel. Price fell hard from this high and it broke the lower channel. I took the triple bottom signal that printed this morning. Targeting the lower orange rectangle as this is the count from the high. This could be a good place to take profits as there is an old resistance line which could turn into support around this level.

NZDUSD Analysis

So far i've only set an order for this trade. My sell stop is at 0.7500 and i'm targeting the orange rectangle at 0.7320. R:R for this trade is around 1:3. There seems to be a lot of resistance at 0.7740 as price has attempted this area on four occasions across that red line. There's potential support at 0.7430 and 0.7400 but we'll have to see what happens when and if we get there. Third potential support is a touch of the lower trend channel.

Does anyone have any forex charts they'd like me to point and figurise? I'm not looking to make calls and show off but to step outside of my comfort zone, welcome the challenge of a new chart and hopefully learn something along the way.

Cheers,

Liam

Until the last week of the month it had been a pretty up and down month. I was down 0.28% at the start of the last week. I unfortunately finished down 3.98%. I spoke about most of the trades in the last update. I took one further entry on Wednesday last week and didn't trade for Thursday and Friday as I was busy with other things.

The entry for Wednesday is below.

EURUSD Buy

Bit annoyed with this one as I had the direction right but got in a little early before it finally pushed up. The entry can be seen in the green rectangle as usual. I've also highlighted the initial stop position and where I subsequently moved my stop. Lost 0.7% on this trade as a result of moving my stop. It would've been a full stop otherwise.

A third of the year is gone now and I can't help but feel that this has put the yearly target a bit out of reach. I'm still going to give it my absolute all to get there but we'll have to see how it goes.

May is going to consist of stamping out the inconsistencies. Stop the self sabotage and stick to the plan. April could've looked a whole lot better if i'd done this. I want to come to the end of May completely happy with my trading and feeling like i've achieved what I set out to.

Have a good weekend everyone,

Cheers,

Liam

For those of you that are still reading this blog, you'll see I have a new template. I must admit i'm quite fond of this one and it's probably my favourite one yet. I even went so far as to create myself a small P&F logo to put in the header!

Anywho, setting up this new template served as a nice distraction to the crappy start I had to this week.

Two trades on Monday, a break even (sigh..) and a loss. Three trades on Tuesday, two losses and another break even (more sighing..)

All in all, as of this morning - Wednesday 29th April i'm down 3.31% for the month. Doh.

Here's a few charts.

Monday;

EURUSD Sell 1

This one was just a bit unlucky, it went straight down and hit 1:1 before reversing and taking me out at BE. One column down, one column up.

EURUSD Sell 2

This one bounced around a lot, nearly stopped me out once, pushed down and made a new low (the low for the day) before turning and stopping me out on a push upwards.

Tuesday;

EU Sells

Both sells and losses are marked on this chart. The first one was with the trend and below the MA. It went a decent amount of pips before turning. My stop was obviously a bit wide. I should've gone with an 11 or 12 pip stop. Looking at it now, i'm not sure why I didn't.

I was stopped by the long column and drive up between the two signals. When price reacted down I thought it had just been wiping out some stops to continue the down move. So I entered short at the next descending triple signal. This one wasn't to be either and this pretty much marked the low for the day as well. I'm basically going short in a higher time frame up move.

So for the third trade of the day I decided to get in long when the opportunity arose.

EURUSD Buy

Once again, some self sabotage crept in. My initial target would've been hit but I decided to let the trade run as I felt it had more upside to come. I wasn't wrong. It went a lot higher, but not before stopping me at break even. So basically again, I'm acknowledging the fact I didn't stick to my strategy. I need to keep thinking little and often. I'm very much my own worst enemy at the moment.

I'm taking the rest of the week to see if I can figure out another longer term strategy to complement my scalping strategy. I keep trying to hold trades longer and it's coming back to bite me. If I can work something out on a higher time frame or something with wider stops I think this may be beneficial and aid me in sticking to my scalping strategy a little more rigidly.

As well as all of this, i'm going to start posting some higher time frame analysis P&F charts. I feel I want to dive a bit deeper into this and see if I can get anywhere.

I really feel like i'm close.

The only thing that's holding me back is me.

Cheers,

Liam

4 trades this week. BE on Monday, loss on Tuesday, win on Thursday and a loss on Friday. Finished the week -0.94%. Yet another BE, from this point forward i'm just going to target a little over 1:1 for my trades and see if this improves. I've had around 13 or 14 break even trades since the start of this account in September. That's quite a lot of money left on the table.

Monday 20th - EU Sell

Went down nicely from the entry signal but just stopped me at BE on a revisit to this area.

Tuesday 21st - EU Sell

I turned 27 on Tuesday, the smart money didn't feel like giving me a birthday present! Not a great trade in retrospect. Shorted into a 50% area and it turned from this point.

Stayed with my girlfriend on Tuesday and didn't take any trades on Wednesday. The clutch decided to go on my car though. So that was nice...

Thursday 23rd - EU Sell

Nice early trade on Thursday morning as it broke the low of an early volume spike.

Friday 24th - EU Buy

Got up about 10mins after another early signal on Friday morning. Entered this long as I thought it was continuing the move. Perhaps chasing the trade I missed in the morning.

-0.28% for the month so far. Only 4 trading days left for this month so hoping to turn it around and at least finish in profit for the month. No chance i'll hit the monthly target so that's my aim for now. Finish in profit.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Cheers,

Liam

Getting back into the swing of blogging didn't exactly happen.

I took one trade each day last week. The results were as follows. W, L, L, L, W. Wins on Monday and Friday bookending a crap middle. I finished the week slightly down with -0.4%

EURUSD - Monday 13th

Lucky not to get hit at BE at point 3 but it eventually came down and hit the target.

EURUSD - Tuesday 14th

I really thought this was a good one. I'd take this entry every time. It just didn't work out on this occasion.

EURUSD - Wednesday 15th

I think I was chasing this a bit, there was no signal for a pretty decent push down in the morning so when the direction changed I tried to get in long and it back fired.

EURUSD - Thursday 16th

Tried a 15min short, couldn't have been more wrong. It turned and went 200+ pips from this point to the high on Friday. Back to the 3min charts Liam.

EURUSD - Friday 17th

Got greedy and got lucky on this one. Got greedy in trying to let it run longer then got lucky as it just missed closing out at BE. When it got back to the target area I closed it as I should've done the first time around.

Several lessons all revolving around the same things as usual.

Greed.
Chasing it.
Not sticking fully to the exit plan.

Stuff that I HAVE to stamp out. For my own sanity if nothing else.

I'll get back into the swing of blogging next week, I swear!

Whilst March finished on Tuesday the 31st I then had the rest of that week to trade. I only took one more trade for the week which came on the Wednesday. This trade also finished as a loss. Thursday was flat and I didn't trade Friday as it was a bank holiday and I was flying over to the UK. Last week finished as -2.06%

I was still in the UK until late on Tuesday (7th). Monday this week was also a public holiday so the charts were quiet. I was keeping an eye on the charts on Tuesday but after an early move in the morning it went sideways for a lot of the day.

I grabbed a short on Wednesday (8th) that finished with +1.47%. Yesterday (9th) was also profitable, one trade in morning which finished as a loss and one in the evening that covered the loss and brought me to 0.62% for the day. 

EU Sell - Wednesday (Win)

EU Sell 1 - Thursday (Loss)

EU Sell 2 - Thursday (Win)

Today I took two trades, both of which closed at BE. I'm disappointed with these as it's a lot of money left on the table and would've made the week look even better.

EU Sell 1 - Friday (BE)

EU Sell 2 - Friday (BE)

That's around 12 or 13 BE trades since the start of the year. 12 or 13 trades that were up 1% or had got to 1:1 minimum. I need to find a way to get some money from these. Even if it means just aiming for 1:1 on all my entries. I'm pretty much only scalping after all. All in all, I'm up 2.12% for this week which is my weekly target achieved and then some.

On to next week! 

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,

Liam

This is probably the longest i've gone without an entry this year. I flew over to the UK at the end of last week to spend Easter with family. I hope everyone had a good Easter break!

So where are we as of this evening?

The sell I posted about in the last entry was the last trade I took in March, Tuesday 31st was flat. 

So I finished March with a 2.62% gain. Whilst a profit is great, i've mixed feelings about it as the last couple of weeks were tough and ate into the 5.42% that I did have at one stage. Main thing to take from the month is to have a bit more focus and concentrate on the rule set that I have in place.

The overall gain for Q1 was 8.52%. Overall gain from the low on the 9th January was 14.7%.

As Google are soon to discontinue their chart api i've recently made the switch to a website called Highcharts which provides free charts so long as they're for personal use like this. Here are some simple charts for Q1. As well as this, i've updated all the charts in the Results tab above.

Percentage charts can be seen at the Myfxbook link on the left.

Started this week off with a loss, which finally put paid to any chance of hitting my monthly target. Today's loss was -1.04% leaving me at +2.62% for the month. If I get in a win tomorrow, that'd be great. But I won't be chasing it.

On to today's chart.

EURUSD

On the left of the chart is the highest volume from Friday, marked as 1. Price dropped from the low of this zone this morning. I was looking for an entry here but unfortunately there wasn't a signal to get in. This drop gave me another volume zone at 2. Price failed to break the high of this zone so I took it as weak. Once a signal formed near the low (at the purple 0% from a previous zone) I decided to take it. It didn't go my way and has idled sideways since. Drifting down a small bit but not really showing any conviction.

Will have to see where this goes tomorrow.

Cheers,

Liam

I wrote Thursdays update late Friday morning and never got around to writing the entry for Friday. So here we go.

I took two further trades on Friday, one loss and one win. The loss came first so the win only really served to cover that and make a small profit of 0.4% for the day. I finished the week -1.63% which ends a run of five straight winning weeks. I'm happy to have made back some of the losses from Tuesday and Wednesday but it could have and should have been a whole lot more. At the very least, breaking even for the week. I'm a bit disappointed with myself and have to refocus for next week. There are still two days left in the month in which it's still possible to hit my monthly target. I'm still up 3.7% overall which i'm happy with, considering the last two weeks.

Anyway, screens of the two trades on Friday.

EURUSD Sell

I figured the volume on zone 1 hadn't proved any strength and decided to take a short at the break of the 50%. Unfortunately it didn't go well at all. It took me into the trade and reversed straight away.

EURUSD Buy

After I was stopped and price had reversed through the down channel a buy signal printed which ticked all the boxes so I entered long. This trade went well and was at BE before the US news announcement at 12:30. I decided to let it run and it thankfully went my way and went up to the target.

I was berating myself for being greedy on Thursday and I had a bit of an internal fight as to whether I should let this one run or not. I eventually decided to close it at the usual profit target which proved to be a good idea as I would've been stopped at BE. Price did eventually push through the high of this new volume zone (right edge of the 15min, not marked) in the evening but there was no signal to get in unfortunately.

A week i'd rather forget about to be honest.

More focus next week.

Have a good weekend everyone,

Cheers,

Liam

Yesterday (Thursday) and today have been really up and down.

I took three trades on Thursday. A win, a break even and a loss.

The win was a good one, bringing in +3.59%. I then lost 1.12% with the final trade of the day.

Despite finishing the day with a gain of 2.43% I was still incredibly disappointed with that outcome and the day as a whole.

I have got to start getting a better handle of my emotions and self sabotage that seems to have really crept in recently. Otherwise the work i've put in and good start to the year will quickly unravel.

EURUSD Buys

The first entry is annotated on the P&F chart above. Price reacted nice and quickly to this signal and I was at BE in a relatively short amount of time. I had already deviated from my usual target taking and set a target of the high of the CPI zone (marked target 1). Two reasons, 1. I'd had a crap start to the week and 2. I felt that if it pushed through the orange and green 100% that it had an unobstructed ride up to the high. Which was exactly the case. If this idea had failed I would've been at BE and no harm done.

Seeing as I was already at BE on the first trade and had no risk, I decided to take the second entry that arose. This, unfortunately, is where I got greedy. Instead of using my usual target (marked at the high) I decided to extend way beyond the CPI high as I thought it would push through. I should've paid more attention to the high volume that came in and the initial reaction. Unfortunately this second trade ended up closing at BE. If i'd set the target at the high it would've covered my losses and brought me into profit for the week. Which would've been a huge win.

EURUSD Sell

To rub further salt in the wounds, I decided to take a sell later in the day. I took the above screenshot just after I was stopped. It pushed up a little further before reversing and pushing down in the evening. Frustrating to be stopped out by a few pips only to have it push down. To use a well known phrase, this past two weeks, I seem to be a day late and a dollar short. There, but not quite there.

Friday hasn't started much better, with another loss this morning. I'll put that in a separate post to sum up the week at the end of the day.

Cheers,

Liam

Where do I start?

Oh yeah.

This week has been shite.

I didn't take any trades on Monday, took two on Tuesday and took two today. All of which have turned out to be losses. Some rookie mistakes, some that I thought were good and last but not least, let's not forget the rule breakers. Sigh.

My head just hasn't been in it I guess. In the process, i've managed to wipe out the vast majority of my profit for the month. Now, there are a four trading days left in the month of March. Thursday 26th and Friday 27th of this week as well as Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st next week. I plan to get my head down and make my monthly figures that bit more respectable.

For now, i'll post the charts for the trades I took. More for memory sake than anything else.

Tuesday - EURUSD Buy 1

Buy 1 - I'd probably take this trade again. Price reacted to the volume that came in at 2 but then proceeded to bounce off the high of 1. I took an entry as it broke through the 50%. It unfortunately just missed 1:1, which would have brought me to BE. That's just the way it goes.

Tuesday - EURUSD Buy 2

Buy 2 - Similar entry as buy 1 but I took it not long before the CPI announcement. Dumbass. 

Don't trade before news!

I'm very pleased to say that I managed to turn the week around during the last two days. Made back everything I lost and even came out with a small profit of 0.15% for the week. Considering on Tuesday evening I was down 3.75% i'm pretty happy with this outcome.

Two trades, a short yesterday which gained 2.33% and a long today which gained 1.69%.

On to the charts.

EURUSD

This was a quick smash and grab yesterday morning whilst it was a bit whippy. Shorted at the green signal as usual but I let it run a bit longer instead of closing out at the usual target. Glad I did as I bagged a good few pips and took a nice chunk out of the losses from Monday and Tuesday. I only need one good trade today to break even for the week.

EURUSD

Thursday's trade and subsequent move down formed the red zone at 1. The initial reaction was strength as it moved up and out of the zone before being capped by the FOMC zone high (green line at 1.07365.

I've marked bar 2 as it was the highest volume this morning when I took the trade. I took the first green signal as my entry. I considered this entry as a break out of the high of the red zone. It took a while to unfold but eventually got there after finding a bit of support just above the 50% of the blue zone. The second circled signal is also a viable trade but I was already in at this stage.

Happy to come out on top of a testing week.

Now i'm going for a beer!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Cheers,

Liam

What a crap start to the week. I'm writing this post just before FOMC on Wednesday evening. I didn't take any trades today and yesterday the luck of the Irish certainly wasn't with me. (I'm sorry, I had to.)

I took two trades yesterday, both of which were full stops. -2.09% total.

On to trade 1.

EURUSD

I don't really have a lot to say about this trade. When I was entering it, I felt it was a good position. Friday's high volume zone is at 1 and there's the high volume which printed at bar 2. Price reacted downwards to bar 2 and broke out of the low of bar 1 on a triple bottom sell (circled in green). I took this as my entry as I felt the trend had changed. I'd probably take this again but it just didn't work out. It was a pretty choppy day.

Trade 2 on the other hand is a trade I definitely shouldn't have taken. I spoke about this type of trade in Monday's post.

Made a bit of a mess of it today. Two trades, both of which were losses, totalling -1.70% for the day. This is the worst day i've had since the 26th January. Anyway, i'm not going to get bogged down in those details.

On to the trades and charts.

EURUSD

1. Highest volume from Friday.

2. Highest volume this morning and the starting point for both trades.

The first position I took was a buy. Zone 2 had printed this morning but there hadn't been a great deal of follow through therefore the weakness hadn't really been proven in my eyes. Price was being supported by the 50% of zone 1. Price was above this 50% and it's in my strategy to only take shorts below a 50% (remember this point). So I took the next long signal that arose as I felt it was strong. The first green signal on the P&F chart was a nice area to get in long. It was in the lower half of an up channel (green channel) and it was above the MA.

I'm slow getting the closing entries up this week, sorry! Took a trade on Thursday which ended as a loss and then took a winning trade on Friday. My total for the week was a gain of 2.44%.

Thursday's trade was a buy. Looking back on it now, it wasn't a very good trade as I traded right into the low of a previous high volume zone. I got stopped just before news and it then spiked up to where my target was before closing back on the low. It proceeded to fall a few hundred pips from this point over the remainder of Thursday and Friday.

EURUSD

1. Previous high volume zone from Wednesday

2. Starting point for the trade.

Entry on the P&F chart on the right.

3. Higher volume from the news announcement.

Another sell on EU today. It made up for yesterday's loss and brought me back above my weekly target. 1.63% gain bringing the weekly total to 1.95%

EURUSD

This entry pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day but I hit my target quite early on in the move and that was that for me. I must admit there was an element of "but I could've made so much more" creeping in as I watched it plummet further and further down but after a conversation with my Dad I was soon put in my place! Little and often!

As it moved away from the high volume zone quite quickly there were no other entries from this area. I put a zone on a lower volume bar later in the day and it reacted to some areas here. I just decided to watch as i'd had a good morning.

Cheers,

Liam

Tuesday's have been pretty good to me so far this year with the following sequence since the first Tuesday in January. L W W BE W W W W W L. That final L represents today.

Two sell trades, one loss and one BE+1. Truth be told, I was a little lucky to get BE on the second trade. With this in mind I had the general direction for the day correct. It dropped quite a bit after 3pm.

Anyway, on to the charts.

EURUSD

1. High volume zone that printed at 9:00 - 9:15am this morning.

The P&F entry is highlighted in green on the right hand chart.

This trade never gained any traction and taking into account the 1.4 pip slippage on the entry (grrrr!) it was never in any profit. All this did was add more to the loss when it stopped on a push up. It bounced off the high and started to push through the low again so I decided to try another short.