After my positive start to the week I didn't actually do a great deal more. Monday moved a lot more than usual, presenting a nice long opportunity in the evening, but I had already started my shift at my other job so wasn't at the charts at the time. Tuesday didn't present much and I headed up to my girlfriends in the evening, where I stayed until Thursday evening. I was checking in on the charts using my phone and Teamviewer but didn't take any trades. Thursday had a nice short opportunity that i'd like to think I would have taken had I been in front of the charts. I was around yesterday but didn't take anything. A long opportunity in the morning that I made a conscious decision not to take. But it would have come good.


Anyway, wasn't around much this week hence the lack of updates as well. Looking forward to getting back into it next week with my new found confidence. I'll keep working on the techniques I went through with my Dad and building to where I want to be.


Have a good weekend all,


Cheers,


Liam

Had an excellent weekend and a lot of time to think about what i'm doing. It was my birthday on Saturday so of course a lot of time was spent thinking about the future, where i'll be this time next year and again in 3 or 5 years time. It was great to spend some time with my girlfriend, family and friends I hadn't seen in a long time. They all made the day.

In the evening we went to see an Irish singer songwriter called Declan O'Rourke. He has written one of my all time favourite songs so I was really looking forward to the gig, if not just to hear that song. (Sarah) As it turns out, the whole gig was amazing, a really small intimate setting in one of the local churches. It was my first time seeing him live and he completely blew me away. It has been a few years now since i've played any gigs but this really made me want to pick up my guitar again. One song in particular spoke to me, one I hadn't heard before but have now listened to a lot since the gig - "Be Brave and Believe". Despite it's intended audience probably being outside of the trading community I couldn't help but relate a lot of the lyrics back to myself and my trading. I've found my mantra.

I also sat down and had another session with my Dad, addressing issues I have whilst in a trade and using techniques to get myself into the right frame of mind to approach each trading day. I'm feeling a lot better since this with confidence and a readiness to tackle each day.

Be Brave and Believe.

Frustrated, infuriated and dejected, just some of the words that came to mind throughout today. It's just as well I took some time to gather my thoughts because If i'd attempted to write this earlier it probably wouldn't have ended too well.

Took a long on EUR today, it came within 1 pip of hitting my first target before reversing and stopping me out. I could've closed the first half and forgotten about that 1 pip but for all intent and purposes I thought I was seeing further strength and it would only be a matter of time before hitting my target. Turns out I should've closed or at least brought up my stop as there was good reason for it to stop where it did. 

Not paying attention to the bigger picture unfortunately.

First we have the 15min chart, A, B and C are all very similar volumes from yesterday, all in similar price areas. Yes, i know there are a lot of lines but It makes sense to me at least! The volume that came in at D this morning and the pin bar to follow had me thinking strength. We pushed up a little and I took an entry on the 5min chart.

EUR/USD 15min

This is the one occasion I allow myself to take a long from the low of a fibbed bar, when we've formed a base below and I have a suitable area to place a stop. We printed a No Supply bar into the low and I entered on the high, it was an easy move up before that little upthrust that just missed my target. I left the charts not long after this and left it at that for the day. There was an opportunity to short not long after this, as shown by the ND i've marked. Into the low of D from the 15min chart.

EUR/USD 5min

I need to do a hell of a lot more work on controlling my emotions, i'm far too emotional for this game at the moment and it's really having an effect on me - my health and my trading. I'm getting far too stressed out over what is essentially small details in a very large picture. I really need to address these so I think I may be taking a break for a while. Read up on a few things and get my head in the right place. I'm losing concentration quite easily and it's costing me. Even sitting here now and talking about it i'm not relaxed.

I might post for the rest of the week, i might not.

EU moved fairly well today, respecting fib areas and such but I didn't find any entries today so there's nothing much else for me to say about it. So i'm just going to post a quick follow on from that Oil set up on Monday. 

The below chart shows a high volume zone appearing on the 4hr chart at the lows, the high of this area was then respected with further high volume on the 1hr chart.

Oil 1hr and 4hr

I've been looking at PNF again over the past few days, i'm thinking about incorporating it for higher time frame analysis and entries. I took a vertical count and target from the area that corresponds to the 1hr bounce - where I have "104.60" written on the chart. We then get a triple breakout a little further up which is a lovely entry to ride up to the 104.60 target. That was the best entry in PNF terms. For the VSA entry the best place to get in and hold was probably Monday's set up.

Oil 1hr PNF

A quick update from yesterday. I saw the massive drive down on Oil as well as the 15min high volume pin that followed, both of these bars got me interested but I unfortunately ran out of time and had to go to job no.2. An entry occurred a few bars later and before I got around to getting my charts up at work. Oh well, nice entry all the same. 

Oil 15min