Maple's Trading Journal to Success

[maplegum]

I'm here to fight another day!

After reading through some of the threads the past few days, I have realised part of the problems I was having were to do with poor R:R and trade management. There are millions of combinations for what to decide is your personal ideal Risk Reward. Today I decided to test one option.

It was to place 2 units (0.01 each) and have multiple take profits which I believe helped me a lot today with my FEAR problem. Because normally I am hesitant take profit too early and then it reverses and hits SL or I take it too soon and it carries on by miles.

Another thing I have tested today is going from initially trading on the 5min chart to the 1hr instead. I think this has also helped massively.

Lastly I have practiced "sitting on my hands" figuratively while trading. I have put on an EA to execute TP1 so I have less to decide about and then TP2 is up to me to decide. Also when TP1 is hit I am moving the SL to breakeven.

Today I have made +30 pips which is by far the largest success I have had since starting trading.

I will now continue with these points that have helped and work more on 'holding onto winners' with my 2nd unit as I think this is where I can improve my results the most.

Have a good day all

[maplegum]

2hrs from todays trades

[IgazI]

You don't need to do all of that:

H4 is plenty big enough, and for your small chart you just need to see about 4-8 hours of price action.

The chart is only two things:
1) a "pattern",
<insert some dumbass name here that I created to sell you courses>
a "pattern" is simply not a breakout.
2) a "breakout",
a "breakout" is simply anything that is not a pattern.

There are only patterns and breakout because there can only be patterns and breakouts. . .forever.

"Shapes", collections of patterns that form geometric shapes, are formed when price breaks out and "to something" nearby;
if you can find a pattern on three nearby price areas then you have a tradeable shape.

Shapes are just some mixture of trendlines and/or horizontal lines.

Both pattern and shapes form near and around important support and resistance levels.

little_bird_training.png (102.75 KiB) Viewed 10404 times

simple_Shapes_R_Patterns.png (38.08 KiB) Viewed 10404 times

You need know just a few more things about charts:
- a single candle is a range.
- the expansion of a range, a breakout, is a trend.
- price can only move to new highs and close or move to new highs and reverse.

Obvious? it should be!

What we care most about is how technically strong the close is beyond a range:

The body of a candle is "the direction of profit", whereas the wicks are "the direction of loss".

If you make everything "as simple as possible" then finding trades will come naturally.

H4 will show you the way, minute charts will show you the where and the when.
H4 Palladium:

closes_R_king.png (32.08 KiB) Viewed 10404 times

[kiwiarian]

You don't need to do all of that:

H4 is plenty big enough, and for your small chart you just need to see about 4-8 hours of price action.

The chart is only two things:
1) a "pattern",
<insert some dumbass name here that I created to sell you courses>
a "pattern" is simply not a breakout.
2) a "breakout",
a "breakout" is simply anything that is not a pattern.

There are only patterns and breakout because there can only be patterns and breakouts. . .forever.

"Shapes", collections of patterns that form geometric shapes, are formed when price breaks out and "to something" nearby;
if you can find a pattern on three nearby price areas then you have a tradeable shape.

Shapes are just some mixture of trendlines and/or horizontal lines.

Both pattern and shapes form near and around important support and resistance levels.

little_bird_training.pngsimple_Shapes_R_Patterns.png

You need know just a few more things about charts:
- a single candle is a range.
- the expansion of a range, a breakout, is a trend.
- price can only move to new highs and close or move to new highs and reverse.

Obvious? it should be!

What we care most about is how technically strong the close is beyond a range:

The body of a candle is "the direction of profit", whereas the wicks are "the direction of loss".

If you make everything "as simple as possible" then finding trades will come naturally.

H4 will show you the way, minute charts will show you the where and the when.
H4 Palladium:
closes_R_king.png

With Bodies show the way, wicks show a loss it clicked for me when I saw these examples.
images_cache/i43.tinypic.com__2yum047.gif
Bodies show the way, wicks do not can be 1 or 2 candles.

wicks1.JPG (89.21 KiB) Viewed 10397 times

the dots were his wicks at the time
espip had some examples too
therumpledone/never-lose-again-t1373/page1970
therumpledone/never-lose-again-t1373/page1920

I use the1 min currently, you guys got me thinking about putting the 4hr up

[maplegum]

You don't need to do all of that:

H4 is plenty big enough, and for your small chart you just need to see about 4-8 hours of price action.

The chart is only two things:
1) a "pattern",
<insert some dumbass name here that I created to sell you courses>
a "pattern" is simply not a breakout.
2) a "breakout",
a "breakout" is simply anything that is not a pattern.

There are only patterns and breakout because there can only be patterns and breakouts. . .forever.

"Shapes", collections of patterns that form geometric shapes, are formed when price breaks out and "to something" nearby;
if you can find a pattern on three nearby price areas then you have a tradeable shape.

Shapes are just some mixture of trendlines and/or horizontal lines.

Both pattern and shapes form near and around important support and resistance levels.

little_bird_training.pngsimple_Shapes_R_Patterns.png

You need know just a few more things about charts:
- a single candle is a range.
- the expansion of a range, a breakout, is a trend.
- price can only move to new highs and close or move to new highs and reverse.

Obvious? it should be!

What we care most about is how technically strong the close is beyond a range:

The body of a candle is "the direction of profit", whereas the wicks are "the direction of loss".

If you make everything "as simple as possible" then finding trades will come naturally.

H4 will show you the way, minute charts will show you the where and the when.
H4 Palladium:
closes_R_king.png

thanks for this information. Not seen this pattern before. I will read over the message a few times and see if it makes sense to me. I appreciate you taking time to try and help

[maplegum]

You don't need to do all of that:

H4 is plenty big enough, and for your small chart you just need to see about 4-8 hours of price action.

The chart is only two things:
1) a "pattern",
<insert some dumbass name here that I created to sell you courses>
a "pattern" is simply not a breakout.
2) a "breakout",
a "breakout" is simply anything that is not a pattern.

There are only patterns and breakout because there can only be patterns and breakouts. . .forever.

"Shapes", collections of patterns that form geometric shapes, are formed when price breaks out and "to something" nearby;
if you can find a pattern on three nearby price areas then you have a tradeable shape.

Shapes are just some mixture of trendlines and/or horizontal lines.

Both pattern and shapes form near and around important support and resistance levels.

little_bird_training.pngsimple_Shapes_R_Patterns.png

You need know just a few more things about charts:
- a single candle is a range.
- the expansion of a range, a breakout, is a trend.
- price can only move to new highs and close or move to new highs and reverse.

Obvious? it should be!

What we care most about is how technically strong the close is beyond a range:

The body of a candle is "the direction of profit", whereas the wicks are "the direction of loss".

If you make everything "as simple as possible" then finding trades will come naturally.

H4 will show you the way, minute charts will show you the where and the when.
H4 Palladium:
closes_R_king.png

With Bodies show the way, wicks show a loss it clicked for me when I saw these examples.
images_cache/i43.tinypic.com__2yum047.gif
Bodies show the way, wicks do not can be 1 or 2 candles.
wicks1.JPG
the dots were his wicks at the time
espip had some examples too
therumpledone/never-lose-again-t1373/page1970
therumpledone/never-lose-again-t1373/page1920

I use the1 min currently, you guys got me thinking about putting the 4hr up

Can anyone explain this a bit further "Bodies show the way, wicks do not" please?
Initially I thought it meant for example if a candle has a large upper wick then next candle don't trade long (visa versa for short). And if a candle has a large long body then next candle trade long ?

Not sure that is right though after looking through the charts for some examples

The chart you've attached also says "irrelevant" pointing to some wicks, do you know why this is?

[IgazI]

Can anyone explain this a bit further "Bodies show the way, wicks do not" please?
Initially I thought it meant for example if a candle has a large upper wick then next candle don't trade long (visa versa for short). And if a candle has a large long body then next candle trade long ?

Not sure that is right though after looking through the charts for some examples

The chart you've attached also says "irrelevant" pointing to some wicks, do you know why this is?

The "ideas" thread will only confuse you, ignore that.

The direction of the market is dictated by closing prices:

That is all that "bodies show the way" means.

You will typically need to see three things for any kind of a real up-trend. . .
1) a higher low
2) a close above a high price (could even be the same candle as the higher low)
3) prices to continue to trade above said high.

You would also like to see a close over the high of the candle that closed over the high, and for prices to stay above that level.

outside_box.png (18.33 KiB) Viewed 9362 times

[IgazI]

thanks for this information. Not seen this pattern before. I will read over the message a few times and see if it makes sense to me. I appreciate you taking time to try and help

We don't read books, we write them

[maplegum]

Thanks for the replies and explanations.
Hope everyone is having a relaxed time off for the Xmas break.
I am taking the time to read, learn and assess my trading plan for the next year.

I came across this idea about why most traders lose:
"
C.V.: I saw a detailed study of approximately 100 traders. The information was supplied by their brokers. Only 5% of the traders were profitable. The principal reason for losses was that traders closed out their winning trades early and let their losses run. This is of course the reverse of the old maxim “cut your losses and let your profits run.” Apart from this most traders have very little knowledge of money management.
"

From this I am looking at implementing trailing stops to 1/2 of my trade or more to allow me do the inverse that most traders do.

Hoping 2024 is a profitable year for you all and hoping it's my first profitable year.

[maplegum]

Been knocking my head against wood for the past few weeks. 1 day making pips, next day losing those and more. Some improvements and some areas same issues. Realising more and more this is the long game and I'm in this til the end. Some days will want to give up and others will be like a dream.

I'm thinking of cutting my trading down to 1 per day maybe even weekly. Well lots of ideas on the table but undecided as need to test things out on demo for a couple of weeks first.

Had a lot of time on the charts looking trying to SEE as TRO says.
Getting price action in my head: either price is breaking out of previous candle or it is reversing.
Thinking about ways to improve my psychology, how to hold on to winners.

Think I am finally understanding the money management spreadsheet that TRO attached in one thread. Can see how RR and win rate are inversely related. The question is do I want:
1. a high win rate and low RR
2. a low win rate and high RR
3. somewhere in between

Reflecting on what can I cope with "mentally"

I like the look of option 2 but in reality find it hard getting loss after loss. Seem to also spend more time on charts this way as needing to re-enter more often.

I am leaning towards option 1 now.