Two Hundred Pirates

[Hotch]

It's been 18 months since my last journal, time for another one I think.

There are a few reasons I want to do a journal again.

I am quite content with my results at the moment, however advice is always appreciated. What I am not happy with is how much I trade, I traded 3 days in August, now there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not holding my positions or anything, I'm just that lazy. So firstly I hope this journal will get me into a routine of trading & posting up results.

Secondly I want to see how well I go when I determine my profit targets for trades as I enter them. I don't think it's the best way to trade, but I want to try it out, for one thing it's a lot less stressful, and I think it might actually improve bottom line. I also like that it forces me to have an opinion on what will happen above "up/down/sideways" and primitively trail along swing lows which is what I currently do.

Plan 1.0

This is going to be on a separate account to my main trading.

I'm going to trade 12 pairs:

Majors: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF
Commodities: AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CAD
Crosses: EUR/CHF, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/CHF, GBP/JPY

Why? No real reason, I think people put far too much thought into a lot of aspects of trading which in the end, are pretty inconsequential, what to trade is one of them.

All trades will be entered with a target and a stop. I won't promise to post trades live, I really don't see the point, but if I'm about I might.

Most of my trades are intraday, I normally look at weekly down to hourly charts, and stalk any entries onto a 5 min chart. There is no reason why my targets can't be really far off though I guess.

Target-200 Arrr! (or R - hence the title)

"Arrr!" being the amount of risk on the trade. So if you risk £200 to gain £600, you've got +3Arrr!, every loss is ofcourse -1Arrr!. argh! will change as I'll be doing a fixed percentage, but they all count the same. Should take me some time to hit 200, I would be very pleased with 100 (trading) days, anything under would be exceptional. I expect a year+ though.

On the note of trading every day...I'm away for a couple of days starting...tomorrow. Might get a trade or two on in the morning, but will probably get nothing done on Wednesday, good start eh? (Sure, I could of put off posting for a couple of days, but last time I did that I got some crazy bug which they've alerted INFECTION CONTROL or some crazy body about, hooray!).

Thoughts? Questions?

I shall leave you all to muse on my triumphant return, might get a post on tomorrow.

Hotch

xxx

 

[Waterfield]

It'd be nice to see what you look for in entries and exits. Hope you have a treasure map ho ho ho, (and a bottle of rum).

 

[JahDave]

Alright Hotch, I am interested in seeing where this goes, so post it up. I'll be interested in seeing your thoughts here.

Good Trading,
Jah Dave

 

[elitejets]

Huzzah

 

[JahDave]

Huzzah

I already know how to fish well, but I am always interested in learning how to fish better..........LOL

JahDave

 

[Hotch]

Bounce Trade

Tried to get in this trade, but got my ticket screwed up and it had gone by the time I sorted it (don't trade GBP/CHF much).

In my head I call this a bounce trade. It's really just calling tops and bottoms, fibs, round numbers, previous highs etc, they can all be good, you've got to know which ones to pick though. This was a double bottom.

It's good to note these are generally scalping trades. This one I would probably expect it to hit 50 pips, normally I would re-evaluate at that point. It's high R:R though (10:1 on this one), and the success rate is better than you'd think.

 

[DionysusToast]

Hotch - on that bounce, do you already have a resting order at the prior bottom ?

If not - at what point would you actually get in ?

 

[Hotch]

I tried to get in at the beginning of the bar. There have been times I would of tried to get the previous low a few bars back, but of late trying not to be a prick for a pip.

 

[Hotch]

Guys, I'm really sorry for not getting this going. Lots of stuff seems to be happening, even applied for a job. This is sort of on hold for now (also discovered I hate having to decide targets and not re evaluate).

Anyway, I hope my most recent EA will entertain you a little bit.

Trade 1:

short eur/nzd @ 1.73693, stop @ 1.74334

Trade 2:

long nzd/jpy @ 61.6, stop @ 61.449

 

[Hotch]

Well, that didn't seem to work now did it. I know you can't judge something on a few hours, but down 180 pips in hours is probably out by a few std devs. For now I'm changing the setting (there's only one). (reference: from 60-480)
Might come back to this setting though, see how we go now (this was the original setting).

 

[Hotch]

whoops, I realised I made a very stupid mistake last night. Explains a lot.

 

[Hotch]

My "proper" trade of the day.

I never seem to be able to get into more than one trade a day, don't know why.

pretty obvious trade if you look at the hourly & daily.

given that the spread is 2.5, a stop of 4.2 is ok.

Waiting for at least .8350.

 

[Hotch]

Once again, today's trade, hopefully get another as it's early.

USD/CAD pin & trend.

Original stop was 15 points (min on IG), plus the spread (because of how it's priced), obviously having it 10 pips less at the top of the pin would of been wanted if possible.

Actually entered at 7:55, none of this waiting for the hour to close like a chump, get a better price this way (lol).

Yes, I have a lot of accounts and trade at them randomly, this is what I've been saying about discipline.

The EA is working a lot better now I fixed the stupid mistake, obviously doesn't make money as fast as it losses it, but I'll post a statement at the end of the week or something.

Oh, the JPMorgan trade is something else I'm trying (spread of 37 points is no fun at all).

Hotch

xxx

P.S. Two charts in two days?!? What madness is this!!!

 

[Hotch]

stopped out at +4 or something, was afk. Looks like we'll have another trade at least, who knows, maybe another chart :O

 

[Hotch]

BUGGER! missed nzd/usd

EDIT: screw it, it's only 2 points off, long on NZD/USD @ .7269 (want .7267) 1 pip stop (plus spread)

 

[Hotch]

That last trade was a bad trade, this is what happens when you don't do your analysis. I have only gone long nzd/usd of late, and I had just looked at AUD/USD and saw it was in uptrend and assumed NZD/USD was similar.

Probably also has something to do with me being stopped out of USD/CAD, which of course is still looking good. So do your analysis and stick to your screen!

Now I see it's actually been range bound and my trade now looks awesome, never the less, because I am even more retarded, I'm sticking in for now and not taking a quick profit, so probably going to take a slightly slower loss.

 

[Hotch]

Out for 4.7 pips, started getting out at 6, geez actually been trading awfully today so far. Just going to get away before I short nzd/usd.

 

[Hotch]

Shall leave you with a chart though (oh look, we actually are in an hourly uptrend, who'd a thunked it?).

(ignore the long order, it's for 1k lots, and I was using it just to tell me trends so I don't have to check...yeah...that worked)

Really off this time... ARGH

 

[Hotch]

Oh FFS, I got out and there hasn't been a down bar yet, what a prat.

 

[Hotch]

Had a short on u/j, got out after 5 min pin, just gone long e/j off triple bottom.

It appears I've been wrong with direction all day, but am managing to make a bit for now.

stopped out.