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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:49 pm
by withnail
The purpose of my trading log is to keep me focused, to learn and to share. Any comments / advice are appreciated. I want to keep to this style of trading after trying different methods I have the most success with this so I am not interested in going in a completely different direction. I want to perfect this S and D stuff, I can't work out riddles either just so you know :)
Todays trade.

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I am sticking to these little setups for the time being. Working off small timeframe charts. German Dax and SP500 only (Dax in this case). I am looking to take the retracements to supply/demand in a trend.
Pretrade check list.
1. Big Picture. In this case not shorting into higher timeframe demand. Well to be honest I skipped this step. Looking back now I see the SP500 was near a demand level at the time of my trade.

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and the Dax itself was in a gap.

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This is the reason for this log is to make myself stick to the rules. With this in mind I should have not taken this trade.
2. Risk/Reward. 2:1 Marked up on chart. From the distance price travelled from supply zone on first move and the depth of the supply zone 2:1 looked doable. (Stop is top of supply plus the spread so 1.5 higer up than marked.
3. Freshness of supply zone. Only taking first pullback so check.
4. Move back toward supply. Largish momo candle into supply. As Sam says the quicker they arrive (with no mess) the quicker they will leave. Basically i checked no new demand zone has formed close to the supply zone during the retracement. Check.
5. Trend is in place. MA down and all momo to downside was quickly eating any upwards momo. Check.
Lessons learnt today. Follow all 5 checks.
Also worth noting that there also looked to be a supply zone above the one I took. Levels on levels Sam says they are good. :)
Cheers, Withnail.

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:16 pm
by withnail
Todays trade SP500 of a 1 minute chart.

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1. Big Picture - Decided to use Bredin's Supply & Demand Indicator to help me judge this. I look at the 15min and 1 Hour charts. Both on way down so ok to short. Check. (Trying not to over complicate this).

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2. Risk/Reward. 3:1. I modified the levels in the Fibo tool to help with this. The original move got down to the 3:1 level so this is the target for this trade. Check.
3. Freshness of supply zone. First pullback only. Check.
4. Move back toward supply. Momentum into supply. No hovering or mess. Nice V shape from and back to the Supply zone. Check.
5. Trend is in place. Something I struggle with as it can look different in different time frames. From the Big Picture check indy showed down and MA on 1h and 1min down this is good enough for me. Check.

Job for tomorrow is to work out what lot sizes I need to give me 1% risk based on the size of the stop. I just guess this now. I also notice I like to add more power(extra lots) to get a buzz but don't account for the amount I could loose, it's time to put a stop to that. No trading tomorrow taking a trading detox day to test the old willpower. Yes I'm a trading addict.
Cheers, Withnail.

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:44 pm
by withnail
Today's trade sp500 2 min chart. In long @1251.50 out @1255.25.
Normally I am better at spotting supply than demand but this one worked out ok.

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Usual 5 checks.
1. Big Picture. I have 15m, 1h, Day, Week and Month tabs already open for SP500 with the IISupDem indi already on I just tab through them. For this long setup I want to be away from supply on all timeframes. Check.
2. Risk/Reward. 3:1. Looks ok but I was watching PA between the 2:1 3:1 zone considering to close manually. TP triggered and as I type price is at 4:1. Check.
3. Freshness of supply zone. First pullback. Check.
4. Move back toward supply no supply zones builtup. Check.
5. Trend is in place - Part of the visual check I do for check 1. Trend clearly up. Check.

Maybe boring to read the same 5 points every time but I am trying to stamp into my brain that every box needs to be ticked.

Cheers,
Withnail

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 3:35 pm
by withnail
Todays trade off 1m chart German Dax.

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1. Big Picture - All higher frames checked. Price has just exited 1 hour supply level so perfect place to go short. Check.
2. Risk/Reward. 5:1 Marked up on chart. From the distance price travelled from supply zone on first move and the depth of the supply zone 5:1 looked doable. Check.
3. Freshness of supply zone. Only taking first pullback so check.
4. Move back toward supply. Not the cleanest I have seen. But considering position of 1 hour supply I though it was good enough.
5. Trend is in place. Price making lower highs lower lows - trend down. Check.
Good weekend, Withnail.

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 11:09 pm
by withnail
People say you learn the best from mistakes so I thought I would spend sometime looking at failed supply and demand levels and look for clues as to why. Up until now I have only studied levels that have worked well. I started today picking the first good clear level I found on a 2m sp500 chart. Level looked clear and with good potential.

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Level gave small downwards reaction and then price paused for a while before the buyers won out and the level failed (price eventually got lot higher than the level). Thinking of trade managment here there is plenty of time to get out of this trade at breakeven and not taking the full stoploss. I often thought about having a rule - if price does not get good reaction within x minutes try to get out at breakeven. Will observe this in future trades and consider adding it to trading plan.

1 Hour chart. Levels from 2m chart marked as blued dashed lines

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Observations
1. Price is range bound already for some time. When I look at that I remember Sam saying to take trades further out on the edge of the supply demand curve. Need to look into that more. Also hard to pick the correct bias (long or short) and that seems to be the key to this stuff. Supply will work much better than demand under certain conditions and vice versa.
2. Supply turned into demand and back to supply etc in this area in the past as shown by the circles, the last circle indicates the entry on the 2m. 5min chart below shows this better. Does this mean this level is not fresh? Again need to observe this in the future.

5 min chart

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3. Trade was against the hourly candle (bullish) I read this in one of dragons post something I intend to pay attention to on future trades.
4. What happened after the level broke?. Well that pause in what was a previous supply area turned out to be demand it is clear to see in picture.

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Interesting right.
Nothing clear from this yet but will continue to make observations things should get clearer. Any thoughts or observations on failed levels would be nice to hear. Cheers, Withnail.

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 3:18 pm
by withnail
Todays trade off 1 min German Dax chart 4:1 risk to reward.

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1. Big Picture - All higher frames checked. Price is in 1 hour supply level (from IISupDem Indi green box) so perfect place to go short . Check.
2. Risk/Reward. 4:1 Marked up on chart. On the first move down from the supply zone the 5:1 line got wicked 3 times so to be on safe side 4:1 is my target. Check. (note what I am really checking here is if setup has sufficient potential and for me that is 2:1 or more).
3. Freshness of supply zone. Only taking first pullback so check.
4. Move back toward supply. No demand zone built up close to the supply level. (Basically nothing obvious that could interfere with getting the 4:1 target). Check.
5. Trend is in place. I have decided to scrap this one I feel check 1 does the job well enough.
Cheers withnail.

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:20 pm
by withnail
Just looking at the charts today no trading. I found this interesting post about starting with weekly Supply and Demand levels. Moving to lower time frames to refine the entry down to 20 pips. And trading from weekly demand to weekly supply to gain around the magnitude of 1400 pips.

I thought I would try it on the eurusd. Finding the levels myself and seeing how I would refine the entries on lower time frames. I haven't posted the charts of refined entries from lower time frames. The stops I show are just what was required.

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Definite food for thought.

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:49 pm
by withnail
3 trades today. I added EURUSD to my list of things to trade today. Lot sizes are not so flexible on my usual suspects the DAX and SP500 even the smallest lot size they have a little to much 'power' for my account size. I noticed that often on the indicies I get out of the trade to early then price moves much further in the direction of my trade. I get scared to let them run as there is to much power. So with EURUSD I can take multiple positions with small lot size and then hopefully lock in some profit and use some lots to lets the winners run out. I did not take multiple positions as it is new to me so just taking a single .10 lot for know until i get a felling for it. 1 DAX 2 EURUSD:-

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As usual being very strict to follow the rules considering the odd enhancers:-
1. Big Picture. Don't short in to higher timeframe demand. Don't go long into higher timeframe supply.
2. Risk/Reward - 2:1 minimum.
3. Freshness of supply zone. Only taking first pullback.
4. Move back toward supply. No demand zone created on pullback to supply and vice versa.

To make things easier for me I use the modified fibo tool to assess risk reward and to show prices at take profit levels. I have been also using easyorder script by Sangmane (google) to make order entry and modification of take profits simple. I often make mistakes with typing in numbers especially as my broker is 5 digits. With this script you simply move lines to alter sl, tp and entry price. I recommend it.

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:57 pm
by withnail
Was looking at the AUDUSD after looking in Tygers log. After what I posted about high time frame supply and demand on the EURUSD and potential, it had got me thinking. I noticed this setup on AUDUSD and it has just come into the higher time frame Demand I was looking at.

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Lets see how this roles out.
Cheers Withnail

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:50 pm
by withnail
Following on from last post how the AUSUSD looks today. Levels are taken off the small demand area in the 2nd chart in the previous post (white lines).

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Cheers, Withnail.