BRM's Manual Trading Journal and Adventures

[Big River Man]

Week 3

Start of Trading Week 3


6 trades this week. Got off to a poor start and was down 1.25% straight off the bat. Dissapointing. One of the 2 losing trades again just touched my SL before flying up into my initial TP. Was close to the SL prior to a news event and it just popped down in the seconds before good US data (was long the USDCAD).

Frustrating but I was not going to move my stop. I guess this is where the rules hamstring a trader, but it didn’t matter it was time to move onto the next trade setups instead. Something to think on though. Could just as easily have worked in my favour as well. Though likely would of taken a profit if it was close that close to news

Again this week I hit about 1% overall profit and decided to cut the trades and be happy for the week as the market was quite edgy….

I made 4.62% this month so far (with a 1.42% drawdown) which is close to twice my 2.63% target and I have decided to take next week off due to thin liquidity, sort out some personal things and as a reward. I will actually be taking off the last week in August every year. And 1 or 2 weeks in and around Christmas also. Anyway December 7th is my cut off to see whether I can be profitable as a trader so I am focused on even having the privilege to be able to make that decision.


Results.
W3Mono.png
W3Solo.png

So far…….
W3Gain.png
W3Growth.png

Best trade of the week.
GC long - Asian trade idea again.
W3BT.png

Worst trade of the week.
A terrible USDCHF trade that went directly towards SL and didn’t look back. This is why the SL not being moved is imperative. As risk was hitting the markets strongly by the end of the week. Not too sure that I could of avoided this trade though. No way to know beforehand.
W3WT.png

Biggest Mistake of the week.
Will have to think of a strategy if SL or TP is close just prior to news, as quite likely to get whipped on most occasions or even to have SL missed (or TP) as it blows right through.

Biggest Success of the week.
Sticking to my guns again. Had a lot of personal stress this week but trading wasn’t affected. Good sign.

[ace]

BRM good initiative! it will help you to keep your trading plan if it's public -> works like public commitment.
I see that you have a few years on forex now. I am active on forex since december 2014 when i found Forexsignals...
Right now i tried to trade on my signal account (i am running viper, smart trader, beta, goldstar....) but unfrotunately when i added to my account my trades it messed up a little bit I opened separate account for my trade only and still looking for a way of trading for me that could give a few green pips from time to time.

I admire Viper, goldstart, Smart trader for their consistency in their trading plan. Right now my trades are more RANDOM, like I feel the market will go, or when other trades affect me... Like Viper -> he sees EU much lower, so 2 week ago I opened a few additional massive shorts and than we saw EU at 1.17 when i shorted at 1.11.. i almost blow my account, fortunately I hedged in last moment... that was a lesson for me to not mess with profesional signals provider and my own trades till I have a TRADING PLAN and STRATEGY that has positive return. I opened last week another real account with XM -> they gave me a free depo, so on this acc i gonna trade and found my trading style.

one more time - All the best, and many green pips!

btw: can you share your trading plan, or entry/exit rules?

[Big River Man]

BRM good initiative! it will help you to keep your trading plan if it's public -> works like public commitment.
I see that you have a few years on forex now. I am active on forex since december 2014 when i found Forexsignals...
Right now i tried to trade on my signal account (i am running viper, smart trader, beta, goldstar....) but unfrotunately when i added to my account my trades it messed up a little bit I opened separate account for my trade only and still looking for a way of trading for me that could give a few green pips from time to time.

I admire Viper, goldstart, Smart trader for their consistency in their trading plan. Right now my trades are more RANDOM, like I feel the market will go, or when other trades affect me... Like Viper -> he sees EU much lower, so 2 week ago I opened a few additional massive shorts and than we saw EU at 1.17 when i shorted at 1.11.. i almost blow my account, fortunately I hedged in last moment... that was a lesson for me to not mess with profesional signals provider and my own trades till I have a TRADING PLAN and STRATEGY that has positive return. I opened last week another real account with XM -> they gave me a free depo, so on this acc i gonna trade and found my trading style.

one more time - All the best, and many green pips!

btw: can you share your trading plan, or entry/exit rules?

Hmmmmm it sounds like you indeed have some problems there, but if you were to read your own message through objectively you could probably realize exactly what your doing wrong. You pretty much summed it up yourself. I have done the same as you in the past for sure. IF you trade on your signal account then you MUST take into account the extra margin that you will use and reduce the risk on the signals accordingly. If you have Viper, Gold, Smart and Beta on a single account plus your own trading then you have essentially 5 signals on that account. But your trading sounds quite poor due to it being RANDOM!!! So maybe it's best to NOT trade on the signal account at all. I wouldn't recommend putting Viper more than 1x risk if you are running all those other signals on the same account.

Good luck with it thanks for the well wishes.

My plan is simply this.

Trade WITH the trend but not BLINDLY.
for example this week (first week of September) I was looking for long EUR and JPY but only really against something weak like AUD and not against USD.

I have entry rules that are based of what I deem as support and resistance levels (or you could even say supply and demand levels - I don't care about the terminology used) and fibonacci levels. I have 1 or 2 other confirming factors that i take into account. However, mostly this is about proper money management and the exit rules can be quite fluid in nature.

Hope that helps. But ace please if you trade make sure its not random. It doesn't work. I unknowingly tried it for years.....nothing but pain.

[ace]

indeed, i have/had a problem but I realize what I have done wrong and I have plan to make it stright.

make two accounts - one is for signal only, second for my own trade to find my trading strategy...
i have still some DD, so i need to make it clear. Right now i want to trade it. If i won't make it i next 2 months i will accept the loss.
and i have goal to make my trades regular not random.

let see what the results will be in next 4-5 months be end of 2015.

cheers,
Ace

[Big River Man]

End of month report

Trading Week 4

Well, well, well Black Monday. How happy I was to not be involved;
- 1 because I no longer trade on Mondays (open trades)
- 2 because I didn't like the feel of the markets previous week so decided to take the week off.
- 3 because I already made a lot more than I wanted for the month.

Instead I spent the time wiping my laptop and setting it up to become a second desktop computer. Essentially a mirror image so that I can be mobile with my trading and do my weekly analysis anywhere. Was a great time to really refocus on my day job.

As a side note NZD pairs have become pretty messy and may be unable to trade as a single 1M candle completely ****s up some of my analysis. Likely will be affected for some weeks. Will see how things pan out but will be cautious on Kiwi pairs for now and only trade what I deem to be a superb set up.

END OF MONTH

I made 4.62% this month (with a maximum 1.42% equity drawdown)

big_river_man.jpg

[Big River Man]

Week 5

Week 5


Only 3 trades this week. 100% hit rate. Now if I took the full amount of pips or actual TP levels then I would of had a nice easy 3%.
But but but BUT. I decided to close down EUR trades and prior to Draghi speaking. Was happy to take those pips as the markets are always choppy with him...plus by closing out I was already 1% up for the week. No point taking any risks. The events ended up with a FULL TP hitting on both those trades, plus 2 other cancelled trades hitting full TP and my 3rd trade hitting full TP. So all in all my planned trades made 5% but I only booked 1.2% due to the early closure of all 3 winning trade and the cancellation of the other 2. Pity. But still I can only take this as a positive. With Draghi on Thursday and NFP on Friday I was more than happy to be able to sit on the sidelines with 2x my weekly goal already achieved.

Been doing a lot of fitness work these past weeks. The new trading plan since August and the focus has been taken into other aspects of my life too. Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy %.

I now have 4 greens weeks in a row with 5.7% made with only a 1.4% drawdown, this is pretty exciting for me. But I also in a sick kind of way am looking forward to my next drawdown because i want to see how I handle it. I’ll AVOID IT as much as possible don’t get me wrong I’m not masochistic. But I am realistic. And when the drawdown comes I want to fight this bugger like I did in my practice weeks. We will see. Anyway I am touching lots of wood. Hmm that sounds bad…...


Results.
W5Mono.png
W5Solo.png

So far…….
W5Gain.png
W5Growth.png

Best trade of the week.
AU short. This entry actually was good as an extry 3x this week. Just missed TP the first time, so when it got close the 2nd time prior to Mario Draghi speaking I was happy to take most of the pips. Had placed another trade slightly higher with a bigger range but it just missed entry. No problem.
W5BT.png

Worst trade of the week.
NJ short. This wasn’t a bad trade per se but I did cut the trade at 20% of TP level only and as you can see it has since gone on to hit my full TP. A better play here would of just been to move my SL to BE.
W5WT.png

Biggest Mistake of the week.
Well, really none. but is easy to look back on it and see what could've been. Quite easily 5% up for the week with 5 trades and monthly goals would be been hit already. Probably would of taken next week off.
HOWEVER, I am being as risk averse as possible. As mentioned earlier I want to trade this account the same as if it was a $2k account or a $100k. That means if I've made my weekly goal already and Draghi will speak or potentially the most important NFP for years comes along, then I step the **** aside.

Biggest Success of the week.
Sticking to my guns again. Being risk averse. 4 green weeks in a row.

[Big River Man]

Okay I have finally caught up and moved my notes online to this thread. So may be more active from hence on in.

Hopefully if anything someone can find some music that they like in the process even if the rest of it is boring to read.

[Big River Man]

A bit of analysis a paralysis this week. Risk ON through the markets. Was looking to sell the yen pairs. Pulled a few orders yesterday. Was a good idea as I would be close to some stops. However now the entries for short CJ, AJ, and NJ look even more juicy. Very close to entering the CJ short actually. We will see.

Currently short NU and AU. London open seems to be hitting the ComDolls nicely. However, there has been quite a move during last few sessions.

This last couple of weeks has got me thinking again to reduce the risk per trade to 0.25% rather than 0.50%. Last few weeks I have pulled trades because I didn't want to much exposure to JPY or AUD. It highlights the risks if I am short 4 yen pairs simultaneously and there is a large move them BAM 2% down. For the moment I am cherry picking 1 or 2. But it's quite possible the "basket" approach would be more profitable and I diversify my positions......

Well for now still finding my feet....just musing I guess.

I also feel that we may have a bit more ranging movements prior to Fed rate coming up. I plan to go into that day with no set orders or open orders. Hopefully....

Happy trading all.

[Big River Man]

Week 6 - 1.59% gained

Week 6


2 trades only this week. Had 8 trade set ups I liked. Unfortunately 6 of them hit full TP. 1 only got about halfway there before I closed it. And 1 hit SL. Anyway I ended up cancelling 6 orders so only 2 trades went live. I am still struggling with the idea of not taking on multiple trades for risk reasons. But the problem is that I am missing some beautiful trades. For now it’s OK but if I am in a good zone then I want to be making money when I’m on. So a 6% gain for the week from my planned trades didn’t eventuate. For now still just trying to pick what i consider to the best.

I will run with my current take on of risk for now as why change what i am doing, nothing wrong with being cautious. But I may start another account (maybe even on demo as i have my funds tied up in signals and on this manual account of mine) which takes ALL my trades but risks 0.2% or 0.25% per trade. Just to see the comparison. I might take trades that I rate a C- rather than the A+ trades, however I have had A+ trades hit SL multiple times already in my practice weeks.

I decided to close down an AU short prior to a real plethora of AUD and China news on Thursday and closed out for 0.6% rather than wait for the full 1%. Was a great idea as the trade would of gone on to hit my SL which I had moved to BE.

Still training. Run over 20km’s this week. So body and mind are feeling strong.


Results.
W6Mono.png
W6Solo.png

So far…….
W6Gain.png
W6Growth.png

Best trade of the week.
AU short. Closed this little bugger as my spidey sense told me to. Was a great decision. Not the most profitable trade but was the best managed.
W6BT.png


Worst trade of the week.
None.

Biggest Mistake of the week.
Again not sticking with my original trades placed on account or placed in my trade journal (little book at home on my desk).

Biggest Success of the week.
Making weekly goal again and making monthly goal of 2.65% already (remember 2.65% is going to make me 40% per year the ultimate goal!)



Man I LOVE these guys!

[Big River Man]

Well have been waiting for this week for a few months now.
I have decided NOT to trade and USD pairs this week. There are some good set ups however I am thinking that we may have some "silly" moves pre FOMC but essentially more or less be range bound until then so i don't want to be a) stopped out unnecessarily or b) stuck in a trade pre-news and get spiked out of a winning trade.

That leaves the yen pairs or the crosses. But yet again we have some important JPY news and press conferences this week where my bias would be for a long trade from a market surprise POV, yet looking at the charts I am mostly looking for shorting opportunities, and with the correlation between stock markets and risk ON OFF I actually don't really want to be involved in the JPY pairs either. If I see something that I have strong conviction on maybe I will take it.

So for now mostly looking to go long EUR against a mix or currencies and short NZD against a basket of currencies.

Also I am seriously considering taking the week off as I have already reached my monthly goal. Might be best top avoid and pre FOMC fake outs.

To be continued....

Good luck to all those trading this week!

My personal preference? Well for a USD rate hike of course so that we can make some money on short EU Viper trades!

[Big River Man]

Week 7

Week 7 - 0.4% loss


Was sick and off work for most of the week. As mentioned earlier in my intermittent post I was thinking to have the week off or at least not trade the USD pairs.

Actually saved a lot of time not analyzing these pairs so made for a bit of an easier week analysis-wise. That’s pretty much where the term easy for the week ended though. I had what I would consider and B+ or A trade go straight into SL (only for it to then turn around and hit TP). Frustrating, yet thought process still OK so not bad.

That was an EC trade, and then again even though I was VERY cautious of yen pairs I saw a really good set up shorting one. That didn’t pan out either, however I cut the trade early to reduce loss, which is the first loss I have cut prior to SL. It was a good decision.
But most importantly I only traded half risk this week. The idea being that if 1 of those great set up hit TP then I’d hit my monthly target. Anyway didn’t work. The week was hard to trade unless you're in and out for 5 pips which I’m not. So I move on.

Happy to have booked a loss if I’m brutally honest, After 6 greens weeks in a row it was “nice” to see some red. Loss minimised. Very keen to take some good opportunities next week. Will be back at the gym and hopefully markets can digest this FOMC fizzer.


Results.
W7Gain.png
W7Growth.png

So far…….
W7Mono.png
W7Solo.png


Best trade of the week.
Unfortunately…...I got nothing!

Worst trade of the week.
I don’t believe I had a bad trade this week. I took my 2 best set ups on half risk and cut 1 of them early. Stop losses are part and parcel of the trading strategy.

Biggest Mistake of the week.
In hindsight I could of taken the week off as I intimated at the beginning of the week.

Biggest Success of the week.
Reducing risk when it was decided that I liked a set up.


FOMC get outta my WAY!

[FX Magician]

Keep going Big river, I like reading your updates

[Big River Man]

Week 8

Week 8 - 1.41% gain

So this week was a lesson in flexibility. Thankfully I passed. I have been looking for long GBP set ups. Specifically against AUD and NZD. I managed to time a long perfectly, getting out before the Pound dive bombed. If I am too rigid with my system then I can take losses that are so close to the TP….which becomes annoying. it also works the other way around, but my philosophy is that i should never let a 150 in profit trade close for -100. Never. Also as you all well know, sentiment changes if your set ups are on hourly or 4H charts, so we need to be mindful of this and not just follow RULES blindly. Or...you know...whatever, you could just follow rules too if you want, but I am more fluid than that. Not a bad thing or a good thing, but it is my thing.

Again double my target for week. To be honest slightly pissed off with myself for closing my AJ short waaaaaaaaaay to early. I only closed as my overall profit was above targets. But that AJ short would taken me to +2% for the week. I need to book these full TP’s more often.
For now as it is I am happy with my trading. This could easily be traded on 1:20 margin account also. By that I mean that it is frigging SAFE!! And yes, I know I could still lose money for the year….but the way I am trading I am not losing any sleep over it. Not adding to trades. Not increasing risk. Not fighting the market.



Results.
W8Solo.png

So far…….
W8Gain.png
W8Growth.png

Best trade of the week.
GBPNZD long. Pretty simple trade here. Just bought off support that has been tested previously many times, looking for a bounce in a longer trend. Got it nicely and closed out about 80% into profit target. Was a nice executive decision as GBP has just dived bombed since.
W8BT.png

Worst trade of the week.
I cut what I thought was a fantastic trade too early.
W8WT.png

Biggest Mistake of the week.
Cutting a great trade too early. Need to hit these better R:R trades to offset the losses when they come.

Biggest Success of the week.
Bouncing back from last week's losses.

This is a FRIGGIN good song. Listen to it. I get in the zone when I listen to this for some reason.

[Big River Man]

Last day of the quarter so won't be trading today, the chance of getting whipped out of a trade is too high, which may mean that i won't bother trading this week.

I have set some orders to sell a few GBP and AUD pairs on charts just to see how they would do rather than to curve fit it afterwards.

3.87% for the month so far (target is 2.65%) so may just call it quits for month or trade reduced size on Thursday seen as we have NFP the following day. Either way will only trade if I get an A level signal.

Hope everyone had a profitable month.

[Big River Man]

Week 9

Week 9 - No Trading

Just decided to take the week off. I had some friends in town as it was holiday season over here. So took the time to go to BBQ's, party's and to visit friend's new babies.

Profit targets met and markets a bit screwy recently so don't won't to book some losses with end of quarter trading.

More opportunity to be provided by October.