Maple's Trading Journal to Success

[maplegum]

Decided to start my own trading journal. I've tried for months to stick to rules on my own to no avail so I'm hoping the accountability that posting my trades each day on here will help snap me into gear!

My worst mistakes I need to overcome are:
- Moving Stop Losses once set (= blown accounts and MM out of window)
- Changing strategy after a string of losses on 1
- Overtrading (sometimes 9+ hrs per day and ALWAYS results in losing day)
- Cutting winners early (due to FEAR and stress felt even trading 0.01 lots)


Anyway, thanks TRO for all your videos and posts, I have probably spent 100's of hours over the last year going through your content and it is much appreciated.

[maplegum]

After reading a lot of procharged's trading journal I am going to subject myself to TROs rules he set which are:

1 pair, 1 Timeframe (USDJPY, 5min)
Horizontal lines at psychological levels 10's
2 trades per hour MAX

My added rules are:
Stop Loss 10 pips (worst case scenario) and ideally Stop out at 5pips
Take Profit 3-5 pips (want to master holding winning trades longer if possible)
3 hours trading MAX per day

[maplegum]

I will trade 0.01 lots every day this week with the above rules and the attached clean chart.
Starting account balance £92.67. Let's go!



I used to keep multiple other charts in tabs to look over but this only encouraged me to take "random" trades on other pairs so I have just painfully closed all other tabs in MT4!

[maplegum]

1st hour of trading. Took 3 trades total as first trade was a loss... (maybe this is already bending rules :/)
commissions are savaging my pips but looking into better broker with lower comms although need to set up crypto to fund it..

Net = +1pip
Acc = £92.71

[maplegum]

Next 2 hours of trading:
Acc = £92.80

After trade at 1600 can see price took off but I am glad I have ended today in positive pips even if only minuscule.

I do wonder how others managing to pull out 40+ pips per day etc but have to start somewhere!


Tricky cause technically I'm done trading for today but I want to carry on to try and make a 'decent' amount of pips

[maplegum]

Carried on trading and back down to £92.60. Done for the day. Part of me wants to keep trading to get some 'practice' in but the other part thinks its not gone well so better to reset tomorrow.
Feel like I'm fighting the market instead of going with it !!!

[Yirbu]

Decided to start my own trading journal. I've tried for months to stick to rules on my own to no avail so I'm hoping the accountability that posting my trades each day on here will help snap me into gear!
.

Welcome, Maple!
Nice to see you here and looking forward to read your journal.

[maplegum]

Good morning!
So last night after yesterday's shambles, I reviewed the trades I took and also the realities of what I was trying to do.
Aiming for 10pips per day with TP 3-5 and SL 5 in 3hrs max was meaning if I only took 3 trades I would have to win all 3 to achieve >10pips.


See below with assumption of TP = 3pips.
3 wins = 9 pips
2 wins and 1 loss = 1 pip
1 win and 2 losses = -8 pips
3 losses = -15 pips

and this is before taking into account the commissions!

I looked at the pair USDJPY and for the hours I trade its often in a range of about 20-25pips. So why was I only grabbing 3 or 5? FEAR!

I think its more reasonable to ask for more like 10pips and have a wider Stop loss too. so 1:1 and in 3 trades its more likely I could hit 10 net.
See below:
3 wins = 30 pips
2 wins and 1 loss = 10 pips
1 win and 2 losses = -10 pips
3 losses = -30 pips

at least this way I have a chance of hitting my goal.

I have also decided to only take trades in line with H1 AND D1 ! I wasn't keen before to let any trades go but now I can see after some backtesting that this filter is going to make me trade less and have better probability of being in a winner.

This morning has gone well, I've hit my 10 (well 9 as price was stalling) and I am actually for the first time in months - done for the day!!!
I'm going to trade more but only on demo. I realised this was my other mistake... making profit then giving it all back via 'testing' ideas and 'training'. I can trade live when I have more confidence in these other ideas.

[maplegum]

so Acc = £93.02
up by £0.42 after commissions of £0.05

[IgazI]

Good morning!
So last night after yesterday's shambles, I reviewed the trades I took and also the realities of what I was trying to do.
Aiming for 10pips per day with TP 3-5 and SL 5 in 3hrs max was meaning if I only took 3 trades I would have to win all 3 to achieve >10pips.


See below with assumption of TP = 3pips.
3 wins = 9 pips
2 wins and 1 loss = 1 pip
1 win and 2 losses = -8 pips
3 losses = -15 pips

and this is before taking into account the commissions!

I looked at the pair USDJPY and for the hours I trade its often in a range of about 20-25pips. So why was I only grabbing 3 or 5? FEAR!

I think its more reasonable to ask for more like 10pips and have a wider Stop loss too. so 1:1 and in 3 trades its more likely I could hit 10 net.
See below:
3 wins = 30 pips
2 wins and 1 loss = 10 pips
1 win and 2 losses = -10 pips
3 losses = -30 pips

at least this way I have a chance of hitting my goal.

I have also decided to only take trades in line with H1 AND D1 ! I wasn't keen before to let any trades go but now I can see after some backtesting that this filter is going to make me trade less and have better probability of being in a winner.

This morning has gone well, I've hit my 10 (well 9 as price was stalling) and I am actually for the first time in months - done for the day!!!
I'm going to trade more but only on demo. I realised this was my other mistake... making profit then giving it all back via 'testing' ideas and 'training'. I can trade live when I have more confidence in these other ideas.

I would suggest that you have an account that can handle 5 units:
- trade 1 unit, 5 pips = +/- 1 pip
- trade 2 units, 5 pips = +/- 2 pips,
- trade 3 units, 5 pips = +/- 3 pips,
etc.
- calculate your gains and losses based on your max. (5 units) position size.
- don't trade 3+ units without a cushion of profit.

"Pips" don't matter, the only thing that matters is the money.

In order to make money, you only need to do two things:
1) minimize losses (1/5, 2/5)
2) maximize reward (3/5, 4/5, 1)

A stop loss should be your secondary method of controlling the size of your loss.