bakedbeans' learning journal

[kiwiarian]

One for Kiwiarian if he passes by: is your avatar the “good night kiwi” that played at the end of TV transmission in NZ from a few years *cough* decades *cough* ago…? I kept wondering what it was and finally zoomed in a bit and thought “hey wow!”

LOL, yes it was the old goodnight kiwi before 24 hour TV came in
Probably around the time of paper trading

[bb01100100]

I've been watching the Profitable Loser videos on YouTube recently; I like the simplicity of his approach.. he basically has patterns & breakouts in mind.. using a Line In the Sand as a target (18:00 ET for daily, or Sunday 17:00 for weekly). He uses fibs, but more as a standardised ruler than anything fib-o-magic, IMO.

Obviously easier said than done, but it's more supporting information for keeping it simple and executing, executing, executing.

In other news.. I'm making progress in terms of sitting on my hands.. there is something about trading the 3 hour charts that makes it much easier to sit tight on the 1min trades as well. At the moment I'm long ES as it slowly slowly grinds higher, wondering whether we'll have a go at running some stops at the highs set about 5 hours ago...
I'm 3 points in profit, so time to move my stop to BE and let it run..

(update: that worked out ok, 6 pts on 1x MES and 4 pts on 1x MES.. now to do that more consistently..).

[bb01100100]

Took a single short on ES this morning my time (later US afternoon) and was happy to hold out for 6.5 points.. and then watched it drop another 20 points. Better my 6.5 points than trying to buy the low 5 times...

[LeahChapman]

Took a single short on ES this morning my time (later US afternoon) and was happy to hold out for 6.5 points.. and then watched it drop another 20 points. Better my 6.5 points than trying to buy the low 5 times...

Nice deals on ES! Sometimes, achieving solid gains is the way to go, especially considering the unpredictable movements of the market.

[bb01100100]

Took a couple of scalps in the US afternoon - needed to stay patient with a short where I got in too early, but we got a nice pullback and I netted 2 pts. I ought to have "reset" my thinking on that and worked the range instead - less risk.

I also had the 50% mark of the prior hour in mind while I traded and took a quick 2pt scalp on that as well. Just keeping it small and simple for the time being.

[bb01100100]

No trading yesterday; but today I took an interesting trade on 6J; I thought the yen looked weak, so wanted to sell the top of the range and exit towards the bottom - just a simple higher timeframe movement, with about 1-1.5:rr.

Got short at the top of the range with a limit entry; then added when price moved below the low of the prior red candle, but aha, price tested the highs again and so I needed to sit on my hands as the day progressed from Asia through to the UK open.
I added again as price breached a nice strong green candle.

2023-08-29-6J.png (135.47 KiB) Viewed 1044 times

What made the trade interesting was that:

• It was awkward, but ultimately profitable. My stops were above the prior swing high, so out of the way.
• My approach of entering on retrace (first trade) was much better than entering on candle breach with a stop entry - both of which had significant, long retraces afterwards.
• I could have exited flat / for a loss, etc, but my exit criteria were never hit, so I didn't.
• My target was modest and 2/3 of it was hit as Asia wound down
• My remaining target wasn't hit and we were half way through the UK morning, so I thought best to close off since I could no longer manage it actively. Avoiding getting greedy. Price is now making new lows, but there will be other trades.

Bulenox eval account pnl: 0.16%, target 6%. This is a reset after making a mess of my previous attempt.

On my small Oanda live account I'm short EUR/JPY after seeing that congest at the highs.. It doesn't look very good at the moment, since the trend looks very much intact. My thinking is that we pull back before new highs are made. I'll either be quickly stopped out or I'll make 1.5-2R.

I just noticed an MA on that EUR/JPY chart, which can be ignored - it's just a default indicator on the MT4 template I used.

2023-08-29-EJ.png (110.94 KiB) Viewed 1044 times

[bb01100100]

I'm also still thinking a lot about the Profitable Loser chap on youtube.. I can't execute the intraday stuff, but his "return to the open" weekly trades interest me a lot.

I find it interesting that my algo traded eerily similarly, also on a weekly timeframe: move away from the open, turn around in a fairly specific way, enter and trade through the open and hold until a time/stats based exit was hit.

Food for thought.

[bb01100100]

Another good outcome for 6J overnight for me. After the push up (past weekly open.. yellow box) I thought a retrace back to prior range might happen, so I placed a limit buy at the top of the range (sadly in the picture it looks like I'm buying the 38% fib - I'm not.. I just wanted to know where half way was). My stop was a little below the other side of that range (blue line).

2023-08-31-6J.jpg (169.45 KiB) Viewed 994 times

I didn't get filled during my day, which made it uncomfortable but I thought my risk and rationale was reasonable.
RR for that trade was 1:2.4.. exiting where I thought some stops would be triggered. Trade duration looks like about 8 hours.

I had a second entry, a buy stop long which was triggered based on a 3 hour candle being breached. The idea was to take half off and have a runner if price ran up.

2023-08-31-6J-trade2.jpg (153.76 KiB) Viewed 994 times

This exited half the position at the same target as trade #1 and should have reduced my stop loss quantity but I hadn't checked the 'scale out' option on this window in Sierra Chart so instead I stopped out with 2x lots instead of one, going short 1x lot instead. I exited that at 5am when I woke up - fortunate to catch it without it getting messy.

Trade #1 65 ticks, Trade #2 about 3 ticks.

Bulenox account eval account: 0.45% today, 0.618% total, target 6%. Slowly slowly.

[bb01100100]

I also took a couple of scalps on ES during the late US afternoon.. 3 wins, 1 scratch and 1 loss.. netted about 2.25 points on my two lot trades.

2023-08-31-ES.jpg (106.95 KiB) Viewed 984 times

I was taking my time and watching a fair bit.. once I saw the fight going on at 4521 - 4524 I stayed out of it.. both sides looked like they could drive price either way.

That push up at 5:46 on the chart was fairly fast, but once it stalled after (perhaps?) taking out some recent stops I wondered whether it was a precursor to another push down.. which happened quickly, making a swing low at 5:54 on the chart. I didn't feel confident in getting involved again, so sat out.

I have no illusions that I would have made money if I'd kept trading, so I'm calling that a win for my psyche. Made some ticks, learned some stuff, kept my money.

At the moment the 6J charts look clearer to me on the higher timeframe, which is why I'm placing trades there.. if I see something clean on ES I'll do the same, although ES is often quite dead during the Asian session.

[IgazI]

Most of the money is made by sitting on your hands;

you get into a trade, and it's working, and you stare at it holding your breath like you're hovering over a house of cards.

"nobody move! nobody touch anything!"

If fate smiles upon you, you'll buy twice as many contracts the second time around.

I don't want to be a "trader", I just want the money =)