Thread: My Manual Trades Blog - Justlooking

Hi Guys,

past week was bad for me. I made bad choices and bad decisions, choose the wrong pairs to play the Londond break out.

London Break out was very good for me before, but it has started to work less good, so better to leave it alone for a while.

I had 4 trades in eurgbp that failed because of this and a very bad gbpusd trade as well.

I use ****uter pro for my trade setups, as it offfers better flexibility in setting stop losses and trailing stops. But because my broker has the habit of requoting once in a while it failed TWICE this week to close an order due to requotes.. and subsequetly the drawdown increased and when I discovered I had to close an GBPUSD with 120 loss!

I had it again yesterday, but then I let it run and in the end I could close with 50 pips loss.

All in all this week was pretty bad, -188 pips. First loosing week after three winning weeks in a row. My first month trading ended with 500 pips profit, which I think is not so bad at all.

stats for this week:

12 Winning trades: +422 pips
17 loosing trades: -610 pips

Worst pair in dollars: EURGBP, -$119 (-145 pips)
Worst pair in Pips: GBPUSD, -179 (-$76.50)
Best Pair in pips and dollars: eurusd, +$44, 179

I have still open trades on eurjpy and GBPUSD that look promissing. Lets hope they will remain going my way next week.

Hi Guys,

Yesterday I have done some analyses and set some traps for trades next week (another feature of ****uter pro is you can set pending orders while the market is closed, doing this directly in metatrader wont work.)

GBPJPY: broke and pull back to 4H 55 ema, set a trap to long at 145.00, TP at 146.50, near the 200 ema. stop loss 50 pips, set another trap to short at the bounce of the 4H 200 ema.

EURGBP, broke and close below daily 55 ema, set trap to short on pull back to this ema at 0.9005

USDCAD, set trap to short on bounce of 1.0650 strong resistance

EURUSD, Set trap to short on pull back to 1.4700 strong resistance (was very strong support before for quite some time) which happens to be almost exactly at the 61.8 Fib of last weeks candle.

Any comments or other sugestions are welcome!

I would like to get more feedback on my trading as I can learn from it and other traders as well.. What I show here are little tricks and habits I have learned from my mentor, he has proven to be very accurate the last few weeks. But there may be other good ideas for setups.

Thanks!

Lots

Hi guys,

A quick note to WARN you!

I just looked at the news schedule for this week, and discovered that there is something important coming from Japan shortly after market open today, so better skip these GBPJPY setups I proposed.. I have deleted all my Yen related pending orders.

Maybe that GBPJPY short from the bounce of the 4H 200 ema remains valid later this week, but for now it is better to delete that one as well as it could spike way up and hit your stop.

Lots

Hi guys,

here the weekends update of my trading adventures.

I had a very decent week with some good trades and a few bummers as well.

The good news is I am up again with 172 pips!

London break out could have been good on tuesday, with some huge moves after london open, but on advise of my mentor I did not take them. All other days the Asian session was way to volatile.

In stead I have tried to run the eurusd downtrend that has set in.. but I missed my entries a few times.. I had set short traps at the 50% pull backs of the previous days, but every time they missed with just a few pips short.. so no pips from this pair.. which is a bummer because there were some nice moves to run. I also had set a trap wednessday on eurgbp.. this one missed with only ONE pip!.. scary huh?

Ok better on eurjpy, gbpusd, usdcad and eurgbp this week, here most of the traps I set did work as planned. Best pair this week: USDCAD, with 50 pips, in only 1 trade.

My mentor told me to be more carefull and set smaller targets for this week near christmass as the markets tend to move in sudden sharp moves up and down. Smaller targets mean that trades are not open very long (sometimes less then an hour) so chances increase the targets is reached before any news event turns a winning trade into a loosing one..(this was the problem of the week before, my first loosing week. Open trades well in profit, trend reverses and whoops it closes at a loss..) I follow his advise and you will see I had more trades, but the end result is about the same as in the other winning weeks.. Looking at the stats, my winning trades is every week about the same, results mainly differ in the ammount of losses.

So next year my focus will be to avoid loosing trades, when in doubt stay out, I tend to be a gambler sometimes and that has to stop.

Another thing is that I want to try run these long trends, like eurusd this week. This is best done from the daily charts, pull back to 50% of previous day, enter and let it run. One thing here is that I should not use trailing stops, to prevent a trade is closed prematurely.

Lets hope the new year will set in some decent trends, so the systems I use start to work a lot better, trading is easier then too.

OK, here the Stats for this week:

18 winners: +$253.33 +407 Pips
7 loosers: -$131.50 -235 Pips

TOTAL: +$121.83 +172 Pips

Not bad, not bad at all considering the jumpy markets which makes it a little hard to trade these days... But keeping a close eye on the news and setting smaller targets has worked brilliantly.

No trading for the next two weeks Because of christmass holidays, January 4th I will probably resume.. Or my mentor must think other ways, I dont know.

So have a wonderfull holiday everybody, I will be back in the new year!

Hi Guys,


I couldn't let it go, so I trade a little the past two days. Also the Lexus EA that I turned on again made some profits.

All in all I made 87 pips in just two days. Most I profitted from the uptrend on USDJPY, two trades with a total of 47 pips. 29 pips on one trade in eurusd, Lexus made 11 pips.

But tomorrow is filled with important news on gbp and usd. With the low liquidity this could cause huge spikes.. to avoid I have to give all my profits back, I have turned off the Lexus EA, and I will not trade manually.

So this time I will really stop, and resume January 4th :-)

Have a nice Christmass everybody! and all the best for 2010

Hi guys!

My mentor told me to be very carefull the first week after the holidays because it was likely to be volatile..AND IT WAS!! but I found out in a quite distrubing way.

Because I was warned I decided to use the EA forexlexus PROMR ONLY because this one had shown a very good record of small but consisten winning trades since Oktober 6, with only one or two very small losses... So I thought to be safe, right?

Well I found out monday that the risk I took with this EA was not 10%, but in fact 80%!! (see my post about Forex Lexus) and my account was at a huge drawdown already when I opend my platform.

Just minutes later, the first of two trades was closed at 142 pips lossm the second closed during the night at 200 pips loss.

Because my account was at such a huge drawdown, I could not trade anymore on monday.. When the first trade closed I was able to open another trade..but I admit I was a little in panic, so that one was not good at all and also closed with a rather big loss of 43 pips.

In the end I lost $362, where I started with $442 end of 2009. All I gained in November and december.. gone in just ONE stupid EA trade!.. See my other post about lexus EA for more details, i will continue to use Lexus, because it has great potential and some adjustments have been made so this cannot happen again.

Ok back to manual trading.. I was left with $80 by the end of monday, so I considered my account busted.. butr after spending tuesday night making music and thinking it all over I decided to making it a sport to win all losses back with manual trading only.. and I started carefully on wednesday with a good 1-2-3 trade on GBPUSD and won 66 pips back.. OK.. tried a similar trade with USDJPY but failed, 25 pips lost..The day after I won 30 pips on USDJPY using the london break out strategy, and another 23 pips with EURGBP.

Friday I did not trade because of NFP news.

So I had 5 manual trades, 3 won, 2 lost, gain in total was 51 Pips, or $32

I am SURE next week will be A LOT better!!

Hi guys,

Still choppy markets, no clear trends can be discovered yet, so it was not 'a lot better' as I expected last week.

It was up and down, started the week with one or 2 small but profittable trades, but lost it all again on tuesday.. back at $80 again at wednessday! .. I had some luck on USDJPY London Break out trade, but the best trade of the week was a 1-2-3 trade I set on EURCAD.. Break down and pull back to the 4H 55EMA, exit the trade at 95 pip profit.. added 40 pips extra with USDJPY and GBPUSD on friday bringing my account back to about where I started on Sunday 10 January.. In pips I had 23 Pips profit this week, but in dollars only $2.48, because I lost quite a bit in EURGBP, which is $1.65 per 0.1 lot.

My mentor said last week the markets are weird, as it still doesn't have a clue where to go. All pairs are moving within ranges, bouncing up and down, or hardly moving at all.. It is like the traders are sitting on their hands waiting for something big to happen.. My mentor thinks we will see some break out moves soon, and these can be huge..

Like there is a flag forming on eurusd daily chart the last two-three weeks, when it breaks out of the flag range, potential is there for 900-1000 pips, as that is the size of the flag pole (the strong downward trend during december).. Other pairs like GBPJPY are bumping against 200EMA or 55EMA on the daily.. it is just waiting for these pairs to break.. but when! nobody knows.

Ok, the stats for this week:

6 profittable trades, 219 pips, $121,65
7 losing trades, -196 pips, -$119,17

TOTAL: +23 pips, $2,48

Best trade: EURCAD, 95 Pips, $46,31
Worst trade: EURUSD, -50 pips, -$25,00

Best Pair: EURCAD, 95 Pips, $46,31
Worst pair: EURUSD, -75 Pips, -$37,50

Lets hope things are getting back to normal so we can start riding some trends here.. I really expect things to pick up next week as both Malai(Lexus owner/developper) and my mentor do expect the same.

Hi guys,

Sorry I have been away for a while..I was kinda sick and tired of me losing all the time.

My account has been busted again two weeks ago, so I had to refund it again. And right after that refund I made some mistakes so I did allmost lose it all immediately after that!!...

So I had to sit back and see what happened... I made some very stupid decisions on gbpjpy in the last week of January, it made me lose more then 200 pips in one set of trades... So my account was back to less then $150.. very hard to earn it all back, right?

Well YES, but when catching a big move, all can be saved in one days sometimes.

But OK, with listening to my mentor and setting small targets I was on my way back since the start of this week. That there are some trends setting in does help as well.

HA! but then thursday came.. I had a day of from my regular day job, so I could spend this time trading!

I allready had some good trades with eurjpy in the morning, I made 10 winning trades in a row with between 10 and 50 pips profit.. At the end of the morning I made 148 pips allready. And then it happened in the afternoon, I was in a sell mood all day so one of my open sell trades on eurjpy took off!! It went down very quickly when I was watching the charts, so I removed my Take Profit target of 100 pips, and in stead I added a trailing stop of 10 pips. This trailing stop held for 177 pips!

In the end I made 279 pips last tuesday, so I allmost earned it all back, that I lost the week before..

BUT all COULD have been much better.. One of my fellow students has made 762 pips past week, by setting traps on eurusd, gbpusd and eurjpy ON SUNDAY! Just by playing fibonacci pullbacks. I also had a trap on Gbpusd, but set it too sharp again, and failed to fire with just TWO PIPS short!! So the idea was good, but bad exe.cution.

With eurjpy I was fearing pullbacks, so I took profits too early.. Fear and greed.. I know...

But now my account has grown a little I can use the tactic of splitting a trade in two again. So One half of the trade will grab a small target of 20-30 pips, then move the stop on the second to break even, giving it a chance to grab bigger moves.. move stops along the way manually to lock in some profits.

Another thing I aim for is trading of the 4H and daily charts, and even the weekly charts. Because then I can just check the charts now and then during the day, and releave me from the stress involved in watching the hourly and even the 15M and 5M.

Another thing I will do is concentrating on less currency pairs.
eurusd
eurgbp
gbpusd and
eurjpy

I also traded the CAD pairs, but I just cant get a feeling with these, everytime I think its gonna do something I get bitten in the but.. so I will leave this pairs alone.

OK,

Above pairs have all broken some HUGE levels of support last week, so it is ecpected they will continue moving down in the long term, short term there may be some pull backs, and these can also be hundreds of pips, so catching a counter trend move can be profittable as well. Long term I will set short traps on 50% fib of the weekly on eurjpy, gbpusd and eurusd. Eurgbp is moving sideways so I have no clue where it will go and leave alone till it has made a decision.

Short term I will try to catch some london open break outs, which could head for these 50% fib pull backs :)

I expect the eurjpy (thus usdjpy) will move down further, because the fundamental news out of japan was really bad, and the stock market has had a rally down as well, that could continue for a while, and this will drag the currency with it.

Well, that is about it, See you all later this week!

Hi guys!

Wow! past week has been the best of my short manual trading forex life! +367 pips!

The tactic of splitting a trade in two halves has worked out brilliantly, The number of trades increased dramatically because of this and the profit as well!

Let me start with the stats:

31 winning trades
18 losing trades
7 break even trades

Pips won: 922
Pips lost -555

Total in pips: +367
In Dollars: +$187,48

Account gain: +63.78% (!)

The 7 break even trades are part of the 31 winning trades, because now you can see every two trades as one pair, one trade split in two. So in fact I had (7+31)/2 = 19 winning trade setups and 18/2 = 9 loosing trade setups, where every setup consists of 2 trades, most of the time openened at the same level (not allways as you can see with some eurjpy trades)

With the break even trades means the first half has reached first target of 30 pips, but the second halve pulled back to break even before I had a chance to close with a profit (I can not be at my computer all the time).

But I had a ball with eurjpy again, +224 pips on this one, and contrary as I said last sunday, I did trade the CAD again.. and with success! +81 pips... But I traded ONLY because it was highly recommended by my forex mentor (forexmentorpro.com.. check it out!!)

What I like about the past week is that I did manage to limit the ammount of losing trades and successfully avoided bad setups. Last friday I had no losses at all, but 3 winning setups on the usdcad and usdjpy.

Most trades were simple bounces of areas of support/resistance, like 90.30 on USDJPY yesterday and a few traps I set on sunday on eurjpy and GBPUSD

Next week I will be carefull, because I do not intend to give it all back again as i have done in the past. This means taking care of my risk not to exceed 10%, not opening new trades when others still possible to hit stoploss.. Only add more trades when others have reached first target. Trade CAD ONLY when my mentor recommends. Set first targets short, like 30 pips.

Ok, lets see if I can continue this line up next week!

Lots

Hi Guys!


Last week has been bad!

I picked the wrong pairs to trade and traps I had set sunday did fire on usdjpy and eurjpy, but moved the wrong way and hit both my stop loss.

Thursday I had a little profit running the gbpusd drop, but I tried a bounce trade first early in the morning, from the trendline that had held for many days before, but failed. It broke this trendline down and hit my stop..but as said I made up by running the drop down.

BUt friday I had a very bad day.. After the bad retail news on GB, I did see a sudden drop in gbpusd of 40 pips down, so I thought YES, there it goes again, so placed a short order, sure as I was that it should go down..Failed again! It went up after ranging sideways for a few hours. When I saw it reacted on the 15M 55ema, I thought that was the trigger to go down definitely.. this was the pullback all hot shots were waiting for...Not.. failed and hit my stop..In the end I placed a buy and that was the last trade and closed an hour before markeyt close with a meager 7 pips profit..

So I lost quite a bit this week, the stats speak for tthemselves I think, lets hope next week is better:

11 winning trades
19 losing trades
2 break even trades

Pips won: 309
Pips lost: -591

Total in pips: -282
In Dollars: -$147,13

Account loss: -30.65%

Have a nice weekend