Hello everyone. I've noticed a lot of us here are quite secretive about how we trade, especially when we comment on a fellow trader's post. We're quick to tell them what they're doing isn't the "right way" and they should go to babypips or YouTube. There's plenty of strategies we say but never really tell them what is working for us. There's a few others that are open to share their experience and thought processes when considering a valid trade. I have been quite open myself. But I'm always met with the same "well I see what you did is quite solid but what lead you to deem this trade valid for you? "
The answer is quite simple, I have a few things that I consider which are easy rules to follow. I realized that the simpler you make it, the easier it is for you to trade and move on with your day.
I highlight a few "valid" zones and go about my day. I've got an app that alerts me when price enters the zone on my watchlist. This is because I don't just rely on forex trading money, I doubt it would be wise to unless you're trading a 80% win rate strategy. Sometimes opportunities are there and we exploit them accordingly but sometimes we are either distracted by life issues and decide to not go into the markets stressed out or opportunities just aren't there or they are but your golden rules aren't quite met.
My rules are pretty simple, one of the prime golden rules is, "the risk is supposed to be very minimal to the reward I want to yield from that specific trade". i.e I can risk -50 pips for a +150 and more pips gain. My usual target starts at 1:2 but my most satisfying trade would be a 1:3 and above. This way I can lose 6/10 trades and still be profitable.
I make sure to keep my charts clean and simple so to understand what price does without the interference of indicators all over my charts. Not to say if you use indicators for confluence is a complete no-no. Each trader has their own style and I would be a narcissistic asshole if I assumed my way is superior than anybody else's.
NB: I'm doing this for anybody who has a vague or no idea of supply and demand. Everything here has made me profitable or at least break even but doesn't guarantee the same for you. This is just a scratch on the surface so do all you can for due diligence when it comes to understanding this topic with more depth and clear comprehension.
Supply and Demand valid zones properties; what to me makes me think "oh this zone has the potential to make me money, let me put it on my watchlist"? Mind when I say watchlist, not trade it. These are different in this sense.
👉With any zone, you're supposed to watch how price enters the zone, if there's a strong push in the opposite direction or whatever price action you're observing...only then does the zone becomes valid. YOU TRADE THE REACTION, NOT THE EXPECTATION Some setups just fail and that's okay because you didn't gamble. ✍
!!!IMPORTANT SUBJECT TO LEARN BEFORE YOU START SUPPLY AND DEMAND!!!
FTR. Failure to Return.(Please read on these if you haven't. They are extremely important in SnD). Mostly occur after an impulse move from a turning point. See attached examples: RBR(rally base rally)/DBD(drop base drop). They comprise of an initial move to a certain direction, a single candle in the opposite direction and followed by 2 or more strong candles in the initial direction. The opposite candle is your FTR(This is your zone) The first time price comes back(FTB) to a zone with an FTR has high possibilities to be a strong zone.
How to identify high quality zones according to my approach:

1. Engulfing zones; This is a personal favorite. For less errors I identify the best opportunities using the daily and 4H chart.

On the example given, I chose the GBPNZD trade idea I shared here a month ago I believe. A double bottom is easily identified, with the final push well defined Bullish Engulfing candle. To further solidify it are the strong wicks to show strong rejection and failure to close lower than the left shoulder. How we draw our zone is highlight the whole candle just before the Engulfing Candle. That's your zone. After drawing it, you also pay attention to the price that is right where the engulfing starts. You then set a price alert on your preferred app because usually price won't get there immediately. This is the second most important part of trading, PATIENCE. If you can be disciplined enough to not leave a limit order, or place a market order just because you trust your analysis...you've won half the battle because we're not market predictors, we're students. And we trade the reaction.
On the given example, price had already reached the zone of interest. Price action observed was, there was a rejection that drove it out of the zone, this is the reaction we want. Soon as price returns(retests)...this is your time to fill or kill moment, going to a 4H or 1H to make minimum risk trades. (See GBPNZD Example 1&2)

1. Liquidity Run; This approach looks very similar to the Engulfing zones. The difference is, price makes a few rejections on a higher timeframe level(Resistance or support). This gives the novice trader an idea that we've established a strong support or resistance, leading to them either selling or buying given the opportunity. Price then breaks that level trapping the support and resistance trader. At this point, breakout traders have stop orders below or above these levels to anticipate a breakout at major levels with stops just below the levels. Now that the market has enough traders trapped, it goes for the stop losses above or below support and resistance levels after taking them out, price comes back into the level to take out breakout traders' stop losses. This is where it has gathered enough liquidity to move it's desired direction.

The given example on the NZDJPY shows a strong level established twice. With the Bearish Engulfing movement, price leaves a supply zone...that's where we come in. We go to smaller timeframes for a well defined entry with our stops above the recent High targeting the next demand zone.
The second screenshot illustrates how high the reward of this approach is as well. Due diligence is required for this kind of approach because it's not uncommon but usually easily misinterpreted, which is why it's important it's on higher timeframes.
You can back test and establish your own rules on this but the RSI in this case was used for confluence. It showed a strong divergence which made it an even easier trade to take.
...and last but definitely not least,

1. Double Bottom/Top. (I've used double bottoms on examples because these are the only trades I shared here so we'll talk about double bottoms. Same but opposite rules apply on double tops).

The first most important rule here is when you look to your left, price should have made a Low, High and a Lower Low. This way, the last leg(shoulder) should be lower than the first. Some call this "Hidden Zones". When drawing the zones, the top border of the zone is supposed to be on the tip of the Low and covering the Lower Low. **The top border is usually the entry point.
On the first given example I shared this week, NZDCAD. After identifying the structure, you start to look for zones that could further verify the structure for confluence. Since this was identified on the 4H, when you zoom out to the daily chart...there's a very well defined demand zone (RBR). By now you should know how strong these kind of zones are especially if found on higher timeframes. That will now be your kill zone. You'll draw another zone within the bigger zone, if price doesn't close below it...you've got a trade. You'll put your stop losses outside the initial zone to avoid wicks(liquidity runs/stop hunts)
On the second image you'll see how price closed within the zone and rallied upwards towards your targets.
The second example is CHFJPY; although looking lower, there isn't a rally base rally that further solidifies our bias...price still respected the zone. Sometimes we just aren't going to get perfect setups but it is up to us to make calculated risks. In this case, risk is very minimal considering the potential profit.
The third example (EURNZD) was featured because sometimes you just can't always get perfect price action within your desired zone. Which is why it's important to wait for price to close before actually taking a trade. Even if you entered prematurely and were taken out of the trade, the rules are still respected hence a re entry would still yield you more than what you would have lost although revenge trading is wrong.
I hope you guys learnt something new and understand the thought process that leads to deciding which setups to trade from prepared supply and demand trade ideas. It's important to do your own research and back testing that matches your own trading style. I'm more of a swing trader hence I find my zones using the Daily and 4H chart. Keeping it simple and trading the reaction to your watched zone is the most important part about trading any strategy.
Important Note: The trade ideas on this post are trades shared on this sub ever since my being active only because I don't want to share ideas that I may have carefully picked to make my trading approach a blind pick from the millions on the internet. All these were shared here.
Here's a link to the trade ideas analyzed for this post specifically
Questions are welcome on the comments section. Thank you for reading till here.

Over the weekend my trading strategy changed drastically. At first I decided to let indicators completely rule my trading strategy; however, I quickly ran into issues with that ideology. My trading turned into gambling, and could easily be replicated by a simple program. To combat this issue I pushed back-testing indicators from the prior weekend to after I solidify my technical, sentimental, and fundamental analysis. I started learning Naked Forex, order flow analysis, and price action analysis over the weekend, and have started practicing them during the weekday. Although my win percentage is fairly low, I found that my analysis is getting stronger with each trade I take.
My first trade was on the 30 min EUUSD chart. I saw that the market was entering an ascending triangle and started to expect a bullish breakout. I looked at the market sentiment on fxdaily, and saw that most of the market was bearish. I assumed that the bearish presence in the market were the retail traders, and assumed that the market would move in the opposite direction of their expectations. I used order flow analysis to find the momentum and projection of the market, and ended up placing a buy stop in order to catch the market on the expected breakout. One thing I did not factor was multiple time frame analysis. I did not see that the market had entered a channel, and that I placed a trade when it had hit the resistance level. The price reached my buy stop, but proceeded to drop until it hit my stop loss.
As I went back to analyze my technical analysis, I found that I misread the order flow. I also realized that there were many parts of technical analysis that I didn't factor in, such as multiple time frame analysis, major support/resistance levels, and Fibonacci levels. I also decided to take more precaution when looking at the market sentiment, and try back-testing that data before basing another trade off of it.
Although this trade was a loser, I still learned a great deal from it, and feel like I benefited more than my previous trades. The chart analysis was tough to begin, but progressively got easier as I looked for more and more trades. For the time being I decided to stick with the EUUSD, and exclusively look for repeating market behavior and reactions in order to strengthen my market sense and improve my technical analysis before I start back-testing and using indicators. I also have started to pay more attention to candlestick patterns and their link to trend behavior.
Overall I believe that improving my technical analysis is a step in the right direction for my trading journey. I finally feel like i'm trading with my own mind rather than being overly reliant on the indicators on my chart.

Howdy all, I work professionally for a proprietary trading fund, and have worked for quite a few in my time, hope I can offer some insights on trading etc you guys might have.
Bonus for you guys
Here are the columns in my trading journal and various explanations where appropriate:
Trade Number – Simply is this the first trade of the year? The 10th?, The 50th? I count a trade
that you opened and closed just one trade number. For example if you buy EUUSD today and
sell it 50 pips later in the day and close out the trade, then that is just one trade for recording
purposes. I do not create a second trade number to describe the exit. Both the entry and exit are
under the same trade number.
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Ticket Number – This is ticket number / order ID number that your broker gives you for the trade
on your platform.
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Day of the Week – This would be simply the day of the week the trade was initiated
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Financial Instrument / Currency Pair – Whatever Financial Instrument or currency pair you are
trading. If you are trading EUUSD, put EUUSD. If you are trading the EuroFX futures
contract, then put in Euro FX. If you are trading the emini S&P, then put in Emini S&P 500. If
you are trading a stock, put in the ticker symbol. Etc.
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Buy/Sell or Long/Short – Did you buy or sell to open the new trade? If you bought something to
open the trade, then write in either BUY or LONG. If you sold(shorted) something to open a
trade, then write in SOLD, or SHORT. This is a personal preference. Some people like to put in
their journals as BUY/SELL. Other people like to write in Long/Short. My preference is for
writing in long/short, since that is the more professional way to say it. I like to use the lingo
where possible.
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Order Type – Market or Limit – When you entered the trade was it a market order or limit order?
Some people can enter a trade using a combination of market and limit orders. If you enter a
trade for $1 million half of which was market order and the other half was limit order, then you
can write in $500,000 Market, $500,000 Limit as a bullet points.
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Position Size / Units / Contracts / Shares – How big was the total trade you entered? If you
bought 1 standard lot of a currency pair, then write in $100,000 or 1 standard lot. If you bought 5
gold futures contracts, then write in 5 contracts. If you bought 1,000 shares of stock, then write
in 1,000 shares. Etc.
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Entry Price – The entry price you received entering your opening position. If you entered at
multiple prices, then you can either write in all the different fills you got, or specify the average
price received.
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Entry Date – Date that you entered the position. For example January 23, 2012. Or you can
write in 1/23/12
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Entry Time – Time that you opened the position. If it is multiple positions, then you can specify
each time for each various fill, or you can specify the time range. For example if you got
$100,000 worth of EUUSD filled at 3:00 AM EST, and another $100,000 filled at 3:05 and
another $100,000 filled at 3:25, then you can write all those in, or you can specify a range of 3:00
– 3:30 AM EST.
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Entry Spread Cost (in pips) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
pips. If you executed a market order, how many pips did you pay in spread.
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Entry Spread Cost (in dollars) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
dollars. If you executed a market order, how many dollars did you pay in spread.
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Stop Loss Size – How big is your stop loss size? If you are trading a currency pair, then you
write in the pips. If you are trading the S&P futures contract, then write in the number of points.
If you are trading a stock, then write in how many cents or dollars your stop is away from your
entry price.
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% Risk – If you were to get stopped out of the trade, how much % loss of your equity is that?
This is where you input your risk per trade expressed in % terms if you use such a position sizing
method. If you risked 0.50% of your account on the trade, then put in 0.50%
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Risk in dollars – If you were to get stopped out of the trade, how much loss in dollars is that. For
example if you have a $100,000 account and you risked 1% on a trade, then write in $1,000
dollars
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Potential Reward: Risk Ratio – This is a column that I only sometimes fill in. You write in what
the potential reward risk ratio of the trade is. If you are trading using a 100 pip stop and you
expect that the market can reasonably move 300 pips, then you can write in 3:1. Of course this is
an interesting column because you can look at it after the trade is finished and see how close you
were or how far removed from reality your initial projections were.
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Potential Win Rate – This is another column that I only sometimes fill in. You write in what you
believe the potential win rate of this trade is. If you were to place this trade 10 times in a row,
how many times do you think you would win? I write it in as percentage terms. If you believe
the trade has a 50% chance to win, then write in 50%.
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Type of Inefficiency – This is where you write in what type of inefficiency you are looking to
capture. I use the word inefficiency here. I believe it is important to think of trading setups as
inefficiencies. If you think in terms of inefficiencies, then you will think in terms of the market
being mispriced, then you will think about the reasons why the market is mispriced and why such
market expectations for example are out of alignment with reality. In this category I could write
in different types of trades such as fading the stops, different types of news trades, expecting
stops to get tripped, betting on sentiment intensifying, betting on sentiment reversing, etc. I do
not write in all the reasons why I took the trade in this column. I do that in another column. This
column is just to broadly define what type of inefficiency you are looking to capture.
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Chart Time Frame – I do not use this since all my order flow based trades have nothing to do
with what chart time frame I look at. However, if you are a chartist or price action trader, then
you may want to include what chart time frame you found whatever pattern you were looking at.
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Exit Price – When you exit your trade, you enter the price you received here.
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Exit Date – The date you exited your trade.
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Exit Time – The time you exited your trade.
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Trade Duration – In hours, minutes, days or weeks. If the trade lasts less than an hour, I will
usually write in the duration in minutes. Anything in between 1 and 48 hours, I write in the hours
amount. Anything past that and I write it as days or weeks as appropriate, etc.
Pips the trade went against you before turning into a winner – If you have a trade that suffered a
draw down, but did not stop you out and eventually was a winner, then you write it how many
pips the trade went against you before it turned into a profitable trade. The reason you have this
column is to compare it to your stop loss size and see any patterns that emerge. If you notice that
a lot of your winning trades suffer a big draw down and get near your stop loss points but turn out
to be a profitable trade, then you can further refine your entry strategy to get in a better price.
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Slippage on the Exit – If you get stopped out for a loss, then you write in how many pips you
suffered as slippage, if any. For example if you are long EUUSD at 1.2500 and have your stop
loss at 1.2400 and the market drops and you get filled at 1.2398, then you would write in -2 pips
slippage. In other words you lost 2 pips as slippage. This is important for a few different
reasons. Firstly, you want to see if the places you put your stop at suffer from slippage. If they
do, perhaps you can get better stop loss placement, or use it as useful information to find new
inefficiencies. Secondly, you want to see how much slippage your broker is giving you. If you
are trading the same system with different brokers, then you can record the slippage from each
one and see which has the lowest slippage so you can choose them.
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Profit/Loss -You write in the profit and/or loss in pips, cents, points, etc as appropriate. If you
bought EUUSD at 1.2500 and sell it at 1.2550, you made 50 pips, so write in +50 pips. If you
bought a stock at $50 and you sell it at $60, then write in +$10. If you buy the S&P futures at
1,250 and sell them at 1,275, then write in +25 points. If you buy the GBP/USD at 1.5000 and
you sell it at 1.4900, then write in -100 pips. Etc. I color code the box background to green for
profit and red for loss.
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Profit/Loss In Dollars – You write the profit and/or loss in dollars (or euros, or jpy, etc whatever
currency your account is denominated in). If you are long $100,000 of EUUSD at 1.2500 and
sell it at 1.2600, then write in +$1,000. If you are short $100,000 GBP/USD at 1.5900 and it
rises to 1.6000 and you cover, then write in -$1,000. I color code the box background to green
for profit and red for loss.
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Profit/Loss as % of your account – Write in the profit and/or loss as % of your account. If a trade
made you 2% of your account, then write in +2%. If a trade lost 0.50%, then write in -0.50%. I
color code the box background to green for profit and red for loss.
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Reward:Risk Ratio or R multiple: If the trade is a profit, then write in how many times your risk
did it pay off. If you risked 0.50% and you made 1.00%, then write in +2R or 2:1 or 2.0. If you
risked 0.50% and a trade only makes 0.10%, then write in +0.20R or 0.2:1 or 0.2. If a trade went
for a loss that is equal to or less than what you risked, then I do not write in anything. If the loss
is greater than the amount you risked, then I do write it in this column. For example lets say you
risk 0.50% on a stock, but overnight the market gaps and you lose 1.50% on a trade, then I would
write it in as a -3R.
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What Type of trading loss if the trade lost money? – This is where I describe in very general
terms a trade if it lost money. For example, if I lost money on a trade and the reason was because
I was buying in a market that was making fresh lows, but after I bought the market kept on going
lower, then I would write in: “trying to pick a bottom.” If I tried shorting into a rising uptrend
and I take a loss, then I describe it as “trying to pick a top.” If I am buying in an uptrend and buy
on a retracement, but the market makes a deeper retracement or trend change, then I write in
“tried to buy a ret.” And so on and so forth. In very general terms I describe it. The various
ways I use are:
• Trying to pick a bottom
• Trying to pick a top
• Shorting a bottom
• Buying a top
• Shorting a ret and failed
• Wrongly predicted news
• Bought a ret and failed
• Fade a resistance level
• Buy a support level
• Tried to buy a breakout higher
• Tried to short a breakout lower
I find this category very interesting and important because when performing trade journal
analysis, you can notice trends when you have winners or losing trades. For example if I notice a
string of losing trades and I notice that all of them occur in the same market, and all of them have
as a reason: “tried to pick a bottom”, then I know I was dumb for trying to pick a bottom five
times in a row. I was fighting the macro order flow and it was dumb. Or if I notice a string of
losers and see that I tried to buy a breakout and it failed five times in a row, but notice that the
market continued to go higher after I was stopped out, then I realize that I was correct in the
move, but I just applied the wrong entry strategy. I should have bought a retracement, instead of
trying to buy a fresh breakout.
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That Day’s Weaknesses (If any) – This is where I write in if there were any weaknesses or
distractions on the day I placed the trade. For example if you are dead tired and place a trade,
then write in that you were very tired. Or if you place a trade when there were five people
coming and out of your trading office or room in your house, then write that in. If you placed the
trade when the fire alarm was going off then write that in. Or if you place a trade without having
done your daily habits, then write that in. Etc. Whatever you believe was a possible weakness
that threw you off your game.
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That Day’s Strengths (If any) – Here you can write in what strengths you had during the day you
placed your trade. If you had complete peace and quiet, write that in. If you completed all your
daily habits, then write that in. Etc. Whatever you believe was a possible strength during the
day.
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How many Open Positions Total (including the one you just placed) – How many open trades do
you have after placing this one? If you have zero open trades and you just placed one, then the
total number of open positions would be one, so write in “1.” If you have on three open trades,
and you are placing a new current one, then the total number of open positions would be four, so
write in “4.” The reason you have this column in your trading journal is so that you can notice
trends in winning and losing streaks. Do a lot of your losing streaks happen when you have on a
lot of open positions at the same time? Do you have a winning streak when the number of open
positions is kept low? Or can you handle a lot of open positions at the same time?
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Exit Spread Cost (in pips) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in pips.
If you executed a market order, how many pips did you pay in spread.
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Exit Spread Cost (in dollars) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
dollars. If you executed a market order, how many dollars did you pay in spread.
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Total Spread Cost (in pips) – You write in the total spread cost of the entry and exit in pips.
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Total Spread Cost (in dollars) – You write in the total spread cost of the entry and exit in dollars.
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Commission Cost – Here you write in the total commission cost that you incurred for getting in
and out of the trade. If you have a forex broker that is commission free and only gets
compensated through the spread, then you do not need this column.
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Starting Balance – The starting account balance that you had prior to the placing of the trade
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Interest/swap – If you hold forex currency pairs past the rollover, then you either get interest or
need to pay out interest depending on the rollover rates. Or if you bought a stock and got a
dividend then write that in. Or if you shorted a stock and you had to pay a dividend, then write
that in.
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Ending Balance – The ending balance of your account after the trade is closed after taking into
account trade P&L, commission cost, and interest/swap.
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Reasons for taking the trade – Here is where you go into much more detail about why you placed
the trade. Write out your thinking. Instead of writing a paragraph or two describing my thinking
behind the trade, I condense the reasons down into bullet points. It can be anywhere from 1-10
bullet points.
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What I Learned – No matter if the trade is a win or loss, write down what you believed you
learned. Again, instead of writing out a paragraph or two, I condense it down into bullet points. it
can be anywhere from 1-10 bullet points. I do this during the day the trade closed as a profit or
loss.
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What I learned after Long Term reflection, several days, weeks, or months – This is the very
interesting column. This is important because after you have a winning or losing trade, you will
not always know the true reasons why it happened. You have your immediate theories and
reasons which you include in the previous column. However, there are times when after several
days, weeks, or months, you find the true reason and proper market belief about why your trade
succeeded or failed. It can take a few days or weeks or months to reach that “aha” moment. I am
not saying that I am thinking about trades I placed ten months ago. I try to forget about them and
focus on the present moment. However, there will be trades where you have these nagging
questions about they failed or succeeded and you will only discover those reasons several days,
weeks, or months later. When you discover the reasons, you write them in this column.

So here it is, three more days and October begins, which marks one year of trading for me. I figured I would contribute to the forum and share some of my experience, a little about me, and what I've learned so far. Whoever wants to listen, that's great. This might get long so buckle up..
Three years ago, I was visiting Toronto. I don't get out much, but my roommate at the time travels there occasionally. He asked everyone at our place if we wanted to come along for a weekend. My roommate has an uncle that lives there and we didn't have to worry about a hotel because his uncle owns a small house that's unlived in which we could stay at. I was the only one to go with. Anyways, we walk around the city, seeing the sights and whatnot.
My friend says to me "where next?"
"I don't know, you're the tour guide"
"We can go check out Bay Street"
"what's 'Bay Street?'"
"It's like the Canadian Wall street! If you haven't seen it you gotta see it!"
Walking along Bay, I admire all the nice buildings and architecture, everything seems larger than life to me. I love things like that. The huge granite facades with intricate designs and towering pillars to make you think, How the fuck did they make that? My attention pivots to a man walking on the sidewalk opposite us. His gait stood out among everyone, he walked with such a purpose.. He laughed into the cell phone to his ear. In the elbow-shoving city environment, he moved with a stride that exuded a power which not only commanded respect, but assumed it. I bet HE can get a text back, hell he's probably got girls waiting on him. This dude was dressed to kill, a navy suit that you could just tell from across the street was way out of my budget, it was a nice fucking suit. I want that. His life, across the street, seemed a world a way from my own. I've worn a suit maybe twice in my life. For my first communion, it was too big for me, I was eleven or whatever so who gives a shit, right? I'm positive I looked ridiculous. The other time? I can't remember.
I want that. I want the suit. I want the wealth, the independence. I want the respect and power, and I don't give a shit what anyone thinks about it.
Cue self doubt.
Well, He's probably some rich banker's son. That's a world you're born into. I don't know shit about it. \sigh* keep walking..*
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A year later, I'm visiting my parents at their house, they live an hour away from my place. My dad is back from Tennessee, his engineering job was laying people off and he got canned... Or he saw the end was near and just left... I don't know, hard to pay attention to the guy honestly because he kind of just drones on and on. ("Wait, so your mom lives in Michigan, but your dad moved to Tennessee... for a job?" Yea man, I don't fucking know, not going to touch on that one.) The whole project was a shit show that was doomed to never get done, the way he tells it. And he's obviously jaded from multiple similar experiences at other life-sucking engineer jobs. My mom is a retired nurse practitioner who no longer works because of her illness. I ask him what he's doing for work now and he tells me he trades stocks from home. I didn't even know you could do that. I didn't know "trading" was a thing. I thought you just invest and hope for the best.
"Oh that's cool, how much money do you need to do that?"
"Ehh, most say you need at least $25,000 as a minimum"
"Oh... guess I can't do that..."
Six months later, I get a call and it's my dad. We talk a little about whatever. Off topic, he starts asking if I'm happy doing what I'm doing (I was a painter, commercial and residential) I tell him yes but it's kind of a pain in the ass and I don't see it as a long term thing. Then he gets around to asking if I'd like to come work with him. He basically pitches it to me. I'm not one to be sold on something, I'm always skeptical. So I ask all the questions that any rational person would ask and he just swats them away with reassuring phrases. He was real confident about it. But basically he says for this to work, I have to quit my job and move back home so he can teach me how to trade and be by my side so I don't do anything stupid. "My Name , you can make so much money." I say that I can't raise the $25,000 because I'm not far above just living paycheck to paycheck. "I can help you out with that." Wow, okay, well... let me think about it.
My "maybe" very soon turned into a "definitely." So over the next six months, I continue to work my day job painting, and I try to save up what I could for the transition (it wasn't a whole lot, I sucked at saving. I was great at spending though!). My dad gives me a book on day trading (which I will mention later) and I teach myself what I can about the stock market using Investopedia. Also in the meantime, my dad sends me encouraging emails. He tells me to think of an annual income I would like to make as a trader, and used "more than $100,000 but less than a million" as a guideline. He tells me about stocks that he traded that day or just ones that moved and describes the basic price action and the prices to buy and sell at. Basically saying "if you bought X amount of shares here and sold it at X price here, you could make a quick 500 bucks!" I then use a trading sim to trade those symbols and try to emulate what he says. Piece of cake. ;)
Wow, that's way more than what I make in a day.
He tells me not to tell anyone about my trading because most people just think it's gambling. "Don't tell your Mom either." He says most people who try this fail because they don't know how to stop out and take a loss. He talks about how every day he was in a popular chatroom, some noob would say something like, "Hey guys, I bought at X price (high of day or thereabout), my account is down 80% .. uhh I'm waiting for it to come back to my entry price.. what do I do??"
Well shit, I'm not that fucking dumb. If that's all it takes to make it is to buy low, sell high, and always respect a stop then I'll be fantastic.
By the end of September, I was very determined. I had been looking forward everyday to quitting my painting job because while it used to be something I loved, it was just sucking the life out of me at this point. Especially working commercial, you just get worked like a dog. I wasn't living up to my potential with that job and I felt awful for it every minute of every day. I knew that I needed a job where I could use my brain instead of slaving my body to fulfill someone else's dream. "Someone's gotta put gas in the boss's boat" That's a line my buddy once said that he probably doesn't know sticks with me to this day.
It ain't me.
So now it was October 2018, and I'm back living with Mom n' Pops. I was so determined that on my last day of work I gave away all of my painting tools to my buddy like, "here, I don't need this shit." Moving out of my rental was easy because I don't own much, 'can't take it with ya.' Excited for the future I now spend my days bundled up in winter wear in the cold air of our hoarder-like basement with a space heater at my feet. My laptop connected to a TV monitor, I'm looking at stocks next to my dad and his screens in his cluttered corner. Our Trading Dungeon. I don't trade any money, (I wasn't aware of any real-time sim programs) I just watch and learn from my dad. Now you've got to keep in mind, and look at a chart of the S&P, this is right at the beginning of Oct '18, I came in right at the market top. Right at the start of the shit-show. For the next three or four weeks, I watch my dad pretty much scratch on every trade, taking small loss after small loss, and cursing under his breath at the screen.
Click.
"dammit."
Click.
"shit."
Click. Click.
"you fuck."
Click.
This gets really fucking annoying as time goes on, for weeks, and I get this attitude like ugh, just let me do it. I'll make us some fucking money. So I convince him to let me start trading live. I didn't know anything about brokers so I set up an account using his broker, which was Fidelity. It was a pain and I had to jump through a lot of hoops to be able to day trade with this broker. I actually had to make a joint account with my dad as I couldn't get approved for margin because my credit score is shit (never owned a credit card) and my net worth, not much. Anyways, they straight up discourage day trading and I get all kinds of warning messages with big red letters that made me shit myself like oooaaahhh what the fuck did I do now. Did I forget to close a position?? Did I fat finger an order? Am I now in debt for thousands of dollars to Fidelity?? They're going to come after me like they came after Madoff. Even after you are approved for PDT you still get these warning messages in your account. Some would say if I didn't comply with "whatever rule" they'd even suspend my account for 60 days. It was ridiculous, hard to describe because it doesn't make sense, and it took the support guy on the phone a good 20 minutes to explain it to me. Basically I got the answer "yea it's all good, you did nothing wrong. As long as you have the cash in your account to cover whatever the trade balance was" So I just kept getting these warnings that I had to ignore everyday. I hate Fidelity.
My fist day trading, I made a few so-so trades and then I got impatient. I saw YECO breaking out and I chased, soon realized I chased, so I got out. -$500. Shit, I have to make that back, I don't want my dad to see this. Got back in. Shit. -$400. So my first day trading, I lost $900. My dumbass was using market orders so that sure didn't help. I reeled the risk back and traded more proper position size for a while, but the commissions for a round trip are $10, so taking six trades per day, I'm losing $60 at a minimum on top of my losing trades. Quickly I realized I didn't know what the hell I was doing. What about my dad? Does HE know? One day, in the trading dungeon, I was frustrated with the experience I'd been having and just feeling lost overall. I asked him.
"So, are you consistently profitable?"
"mmm... I do alright."
"Yea but like, are you consistently profitable over time?"
.........................
"I do alright."
Silence.
"Do you know any consistently profitable traders?"
"Well the one who wrote that book I gave you, Tina Turner.. umm and there's Ross Cameron"
......................
"So you don't know any consistently profitable traders, personally.. People who are not trying to sell you something?"
"no."
...................
Holy fucking shit, what did this idiot get me into. He can't even say it to my face and admit it.
This entire life decision, quitting my job, leaving my rental, moving from my city to back home, giving shit away, it all relied on that. I was supposed to be an apprentice to a consistently profitable day trader who trades for a living. It was so assumed, that I never even thought to ask! Why would you tell your son to quit his job for something that you yourself cannot do? Is this all a scam? Did my dad get sold a DREAM? Did I buy into some kind of ponzi scheme? How many of those winning trades he showed me did he actually take? Are there ANY consistently profitable DAY TRADERS who TRADE FOR A LIVING? Why do 90% fail? Is it because the other 10% are scamming the rest in some way? Completely lost, I just had no clue what was what. If I was going to succeed at this, if it was even possible to succeed at this, it was entirely up to me. I had to figure it out. I still remember the feeling like an overwhelming, crushing weight on me as it all sunk in. This is going to be a big deal.. I'm not the type to give up though. In that moment, I said to myself,
I'm going to fucking win at this. I don't know if this is possible, but I'm going to find out. I cannot say with certainty that I will succeed, but no matter what, I will not give up. I'm going to give all of myself to this. I will find the truth.
It was a deep moment for me. I don't like getting on my soapbox, but when I said those things, I meant it. I really, really meant it. I still do, and I still will.
Now it might seem like I'm being hard on my dad. He has done a lot for me and I am very grateful for that. We're sarcastic as hell to each other, I love the bastard. Hell, I wouldn't have the opportunity to trade at all if not for him. But maybe you can also understand how overwhelmed I felt at that time. Not on purpose, of course he means well. But I am not a trusting person at all and I was willing to put trust into him after all the convincing and was very disappointed when I witnessed the reality of the situation. I would have structured this transition to trading differently, you don't just quit your job and start trading. Nobody was there to tell me that! I was told quite the opposite. I'm glad it happened anyway, so fuck it. I heard Kevin O'Leary once say,
"If I knew in the beginning how difficult starting a business was, I don't know that I ever would've started."
This applies very much to my experience.
So what did I do? Well like everyone I read and read and Googled and Youtube'd my ass off. I sure as hell didn't pay for a course because I didn't have the money and I'm like 99% sure I would be disappointed by whatever they were teaching as pretty much everything can be found online or in books for cheap or free. Also I discovered Thinkorswim and I used that to sim trade in real-time for three months. This is way the hell different than going on a sim at 5x speed and just clicking a few buy and sell buttons. Lol, useless. When you sim trade in real-time you're forced to have a routine, and you're forced to experience missing trades with no chance to rewind or skip the boring parts. That's a step up because you're "in it". I also traded real money too, made some, lost more than I made. went back to sim. Traded live again, made some but lost more, fell back to PDT. Dad fronted me more cash. This has happened a few times. He's dug me out of some holes because he believes in me. I'm fortunate.
Oh yeah, about that book my dad gave me. It's called A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online by Toni Turner. This book... is shit. This was supposed to be my framework for how to trade and I swear it's like literally nothing in this book fucking works lol. I could tell this pretty early on, intuitively, just by looking at charts. It's basically a buy-the-breakout type strategy, if you want to call it a strategy. No real methodology to anything just vague crap and showing you cherry-picked charts with entries that are way too late. With experience in the markets you will eventually come to find that MOST BREAKOUTS FAIL. It talks about support/resistance lines and describes them as, "picture throwing a ball down at the floor, it bounces up and then it bounces down off the ceiling, then back up." So many asinine assumptions. These ideas are a text book way of how to trade like dumb money. Don't get me wrong, these trades can work but you need to be able to identify the setups which are more probable and identify reasons not to take others. So I basically had to un-learn all that shit.
Present day, I have a routine in place. I'm out of the dungeon and trade by myself in my room. I trade with a discount broker that is catered to day traders and doesn't rape me on commissions. My mornings have a framework for analyzing the news and economic events of the particular day, I journal so that I can recognize what I'm doing right and where I need to improve. I record my screens for later review to improve my tape reading skills. I am actually tracking my trades now and doing backtesting in equities as well as forex. I'm not a fast reader but I do read a lot, as much as I can. So far I have read about 17-18 books on trading and psychology. I've definitely got a lot more skilled at trading.
As of yet I am not net profitable. Writing that sounds like selling myself short though, honestly. Because a lot of my trades are very good and are executed well. I have talent. However, lesser quality trades and trades which are inappropriately sized/ attempted too many times bring down that P/L. I'm not the type of trader to ignore a stop, I'm more the trader that just widdles their account down with small losses. I trade live because at this point, sim has lost its value, live trading is the ultimate teacher. So I do trade live but I just don't go big like I did before, I keep it small.
I could show you trades that I did great on and make people think I'm killing it but I really just don't need the validation. I don't care, I'm real about it. I just want to get better. I don't need people to think I'm a genius, I'm just trying to make some money.
Psychologically, to be honest with you, I currently feel beaten down and exhausted. I put a lot of energy into this, and sometimes I work myself physically sick, it's happened multiple times. About once a week, usually Saturday, I get a headache that lasts all day. My body's stress rebound mechanism you might call it. Getting over one of those sick periods now, which is why I barely even traded this week. I know I missed a lot of volatility this week and some A+ setups but I really just don't give a shit lol. I just currently don't have the mental capital, I think anyone who's been day trading every day for a year or more can understand what I mean by that. I'm still being productive though. Again, I'm not here to present an image of some badass trader, just keeping it real. To give something 100% day after day while receiving so much resistance, it takes a toll on you. So a break is necessary to avoid making bad trading decisions. That being said, I'm progressing more and more and eliminating those lesser quality trades and identifying my bad habits. I take steps to control those habits and strengthen my good habits such as having a solid routine, doing review and market research, taking profits at the right times, etc.
So maybe I can give some advice to some that are new to day trading, those who are feeling lost, or just in general thinking "...What the fuck..." I thought that every night for the first 6 months lol.
First of all, manage expectations. If you read my story of how I came to be a trader, you can see I had a false impression of trading in many aspects. Give yourself a realistic time horizon to how progress should be made. Do not set a monetary goal for yourself, or any time-based goal that is measured in your P/L. If you tell yourself, "I want to make X per day, X per week, or X per year" you're setting yourself up to feel like shit every single day when it's clear as the blue sky that you won't reach that goal anytime soon. As a matter of fact, it will appear you are moving further AWAY from that goal if you just focus on your P/L, which brings me to my next point.
You will lose money. In the beginning, most likely, you will lose money. I did it, you'll do it, the greatest Paul Tudor Jones did it. Trading is a skill that needs to be developed, and it is a process. Just look at it as paying your tuition to the market. Sim is fine but don't assume you have acquired this skill until you are adept at trading real money. So when you do make that leap, just trade small.
Just survive. Trade small. get the experience. Protect your capital. To reach break even on your bottom line is a huge accomplishment. In many ways, experience and screen time are the secret sauce.
Have a routine. This is very important. I actually will probably make a more in-depth post in the future about this if people want it. When I first started, I was overwhelmed with the feeling "What the fuck am I supposed to DO?" I felt lost. There's no boss to tell you how to be productive or how to find the right stocks, which is mostly a blessing, but a curse for new traders.
All that shit you see, don't believe all that bullshit. You know what I'm talking about. The bragposting, the clickbait Youtube videos, the ads preying on you. "I made X amount of money in a day and I'm fucking 19 lolz look at my Lamborghini" It's all a gimmick to sell you the dream. It's designed to poke right at your insecurities, that's marketing at it's finest. As for the bragposting on forums honestly, who cares. And I'm not pointing fingers on this forum, just any trading forum in general. They are never adding anything of value to the community in their posts. They never say this is how I did it. No, they just want you to think they're a genius. I can show you my $900 day trading the shit out of TSLA, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Gamblers never show you when they lose, you might never hear from those guys again because behind the scenes, they over-leveraged themselves and blew up. Some may actually be consistently profitable and the trades are 100% legit. That's fantastic. But again, I don't care, and you shouldn't either. You shouldn't compare yourself to others.
"Everyone's a genius in a bull market" Here's the thing.. Markets change. Edges disappear. Trading strategies were made by traders who traded during times when everything they did worked. Buy all the breakouts? Sure! It's the fucking tech bubble! Everything works! I'm sure all those typical setups used to work fantastically at some point in time. But the more people realize them, the less effective they are. SOMEONE has to be losing money on the opposite side of a winning trade, and who's willing to do that when the trade is so obvious? That being said, some things are obvious AND still work. Technical analysis works... sometimes. The caveat to that is, filters. You need to, in some way, filter out certain setups from others. For example, you could say, "I won't take a wedge pattern setup on an intraday chart unless it is in a higher time frame uptrend, without nearby resistance, and trading above average volume with news on that day."
Have a plan. If you can't describe your plan, you don't have one. Think in probabilities. You should think entirely in "if, then" scenarios. If X has happens, then Y will probably happen. "If BABA breaks this premarket support level on the open I will look for a pop up to short into."
Backtest. Most traders lose mainly because they think they have an edge but they don't. You read these books and all this stuff online telling you "this is a high probability setup" but do you know that for a fact? There's different ways to backtest, but I think the best way for a beginner is manual backtesting with a chart and an excel sheet. This builds up that screen time and pattern recognition faster. This video shows how to do that. Once I saw someone do it, it didn't seem so boring and awful as I thought it was.
Intelligence is not enough. You're smarter than most people, that's great, but that alone is not enough to make you money in trading necessarily. Brilliant people try and fail at this all the time, lawyers, doctors, surgeons, engineers.. Why do they fail if they're so smart? It's all a fucking scam. No, a number of reasons, but the biggest is discipline and emotional intelligence.
Journal every day. K no thanks, bro. That's fucking gay. That's how I felt when I heard this advice but really that is pride and laziness talking. This is the process you need to do to learn what works for you and what doesn't. Review the trades you took, what your plan was, what actually happened, how you executed. Identify what you did well and what you can work on. This is how you develop discipline and emotional intelligence, by monitoring yourself. How you feel physically and mentally, and how these states affect your decision-making.
Always be learning. Read as much as you can. Good quality books. Here's the best I've read so far;
Market Wizards -Jack Schwager
One Good Trade -Mike Bellafiore
The Daily Trading Coach -Bret Steenbarger
Psycho-cybernetics -Maxwell Maltz
Why You Win or Lose -Fred Kelly
The Art and Science of Technical Analysis -Adam Grimes
Dark Pools -Scott Patterson
Be nimble. Everyday I do my research on the symbols I'm trading and the fundamental news that's driving them. I might be trading a large cap that's gapping up with a beat on EPS and revenue and positive guidance. But if I see that stock pop up and fail miserably on the open amidst huge selling pressure, and I look and see the broader market tanking, guess what, I'm getting short, and that's just day trading. The movement of the market, on an intraday timeframe, doesn't have to make logical sense.
Adapt. In March I used to be able to buy a breakout on a symbol and swing it for the majority of the day. In the summer I was basically scalping on the open and being done for the day. Volatility changes, and so do my profit targets.
Be accountable. Be humble. Be honest. I take 100% responsibility for every dime I've lost or made in the market. It's not the market makers fault, it wasn't the HFTs, I pressed the button. I know my bad habits and I know my good habits.. my strengths/ my weaknesses.
Protect yourself from toxicity. Stay away from traders and people on forums who just have that negative mindset. That "can't be done" mentality. Day trading is a scam!! It can certainly be done. Prove it, you bastard. I'm posting to this particular forum because I don't see much of that here and apparently the mods to a good job of not tolerating it. As the mod wrote in the rules, they're most likely raging from a loss. Also, the Stocktwits mentality of "AAPL is going to TANK on the open! $180, here we come. $$$" , or the grandiose stories, "I just knew AMZN was going to go up on earnings. I could feel it. I went ALL IN. Options money, baby! ka-ching!$" Lol, that is so toxic to a new trader. Get away from that. How will you be able to remain nimble when this is your thought process?
Be good to yourself. Stop beating yourself up. You're an entrepreneur. You're boldly going where no man has gone before. You've got balls.
Acknowledge your mistakes, don't identify with them. You are not your mistakes and you are not your bad habits. These are only things that you do, and you can take action necessary to do them less.
It doesn't matter what people think. Maybe they think you're a fool, a gambler. You don't need their approval. You don't need to talk to your co-workers and friends about it to satisfy some subconscious plea for guidance; is this a good idea?
You don't need anyone's permission to become the person you want to be.
They don't believe in you? Fuck 'em. I believe in you.

After my 1:20 RR buys on EURUSD after the ECB event, I got a lot of questions about news trading.
These buys were a slight adaption of a strategy I have that is only for trading news events. I've attached a write up of the strategies engagement rules and risk controls to explain things I do and do not do in news events (If I trade them at all).

News Momentum Follow / Fade

​
Strategy Objective
To find opportunities where high RR trades can be achieved in short periods of time, due to increased volatility in the market after news events.
​
Strategy Method
The strategy is fully technical analysis based, but uses a trigger of strong moves on high impact news events to filter for trading opportunities. The news events have to be important (interest rates etc). Price action has to make a consistent move in the first 10 minutes (no whipsaw ranges).
The strategy will define areas before the news event where price might breakout in a trend, or reverse after a trend correction. These areas will be marked in, if there is strong momentum into these areas after the news event, the strategy will place limit orders to enter at strong RR prices.
When the news is against the trend, we are looking to fade it from key retrace areas. When it’s with the trend, we look for continuations after breakouts.
​
Strategy Engagement Rules
There must be high impact, scheduled news. This will usually only be interest rate decisions, although there will be some exceptions to this.
The pairs on watch lists must have overall trending conditions on larger charts, and support/resistance zones taken from these charts.
No action can be taken before the news event, or in the 10 minutes after the news event.
Market entries are not permitted. Limit orders must be used to reduce slippage risks.
Strong moves are required. Over 100 pips in the first 15 minute close.
A brief period of consolidation has to follow the initial spike. Even using limits, orders are not placed while price has strong momentum.
​
Strategy Risks
The obvious risks for this strategy are volatility and execution. It deals with these in multiple ways. Since entries are made after the news and during consolidation with limit orders, slippage on entries is not a problem. The main threat is slippage on stops. These will usually be 50 pips or so, so are unlikely to massively rack up larger losses in slips. Fills on profitable exits should be fine. These will usually take a few hours at least, and liquidity will have returned to normal.
The added volatility can add some more possible variance, but this is balanced out by good entries being able to get 1:10 RR trades in only hours.
​
Strategy Trading Frequency and Duration
This strategy will usually only trade on a few occasions per month. It’s trading activity will be centralised around the times there are interest rate decisions from major central banks. Losing trades will usually be complete in under 4 hours. Winning trades 12 - 18 hours.
​
Position Structure
Positions for this strategy will be opened in block of five trades. These will be limit orders spaced out evenly in a grid formation in a possible reversal zone. All positions will be of equal size and use the same amount of pips in stops, but have different profit targets at various RR points.
​
Money Management
This strategy uses the same amount of risk in all net positions.
Stop losses are applied when opening all trades to cap risk.
This can be as low as 0.1%, or even lower (on suitable funds).
No more than 1 losing trade allowed on one day.
No more than 4 losing trades allowed in one week.

After my 1:20 RR buys on EURUSD after the ECB event, I got a lot of questions about news trading.
These buys were a slight adaption of a strategy I have that is only for trading news events. I've attached a write up of the strategies engagement rules and risk controls to explain things I do and do not do in news events (If I trade them at all).

News Momentum Follow / Fade

​
Strategy Objective
To find opportunities where high RR trades can be achieved in short periods of time, due to increased volatility in the market after news events.
​
Strategy Method
The strategy is fully technical analysis based, but uses a trigger of strong moves on high impact news events to filter for trading opportunities. The news events have to be important (interest rates etc). Price action has to make a consistent move in the first 10 minutes (no whipsaw ranges).
The strategy will define areas before the news event where price might breakout in a trend, or reverse after a trend correction. These areas will be marked in, if there is strong momentum into these areas after the news event, the strategy will place limit orders to enter at strong RR prices.
When the news is against the trend, we are looking to fade it from key retrace areas. When it’s with the trend, we look for continuations after breakouts.
​
Strategy Engagement Rules
There must be high impact, scheduled news. This will usually only be interest rate decisions, although there will be some exceptions to this.
The pairs on watch lists must have overall trending conditions on larger charts, and support/resistance zones taken from these charts.
No action can be taken before the news event, or in the 10 minutes after the news event.
Market entries are not permitted. Limit orders must be used to reduce slippage risks.
Strong moves are required. Over 100 pips in the first 15 minute close.
A brief period of consolidation has to follow the initial spike. Even using limits, orders are not placed while price has strong momentum.
​
Strategy Risks
The obvious risks for this strategy are volatility and execution. It deals with these in multiple ways. Since entries are made after the news and during consolidation with limit orders, slippage on entries is not a problem. The main threat is slippage on stops. These will usually be 50 pips or so, so are unlikely to massively rack up larger losses in slips. Fills on profitable exits should be fine. These will usually take a few hours at least, and liquidity will have returned to normal.
The added volatility can add some more possible variance, but this is balanced out by good entries being able to get 1:10 RR trades in only hours.
​
Strategy Trading Frequency and Duration
This strategy will usually only trade on a few occasions per month. It’s trading activity will be centralised around the times there are interest rate decisions from major central banks. Losing trades will usually be complete in under 4 hours. Winning trades 12 - 18 hours.
​
Position Structure
Positions for this strategy will be opened in block of five trades. These will be limit orders spaced out evenly in a grid formation in a possible reversal zone. All positions will be of equal size and use the same amount of pips in stops, but have different profit targets at various RR points.
​
Money Management
This strategy uses the same amount of risk in all net positions.
Stop losses are applied when opening all trades to cap risk.
This can be as low as 0.1%, or even lower (on suitable funds).
No more than 1 losing trade allowed on one day.
No more than 4 losing trades allowed in one week.

Hi, so I am writing this not to tell you a magic strategy or specific way to win in the market, but I do want to state making money on forex doesn't come down to just simply a few indicators and resistance...
​
I Started trading in the US Stock market for about 4-5 Months and I lost around 1500 dollars trading which was what I was willing to lose financially. I then took a break for about a week, but my slight addiction and determination brought me back to the market, but I knew the US Stock market wasn't for me so I switched to Forex.
My journey in Forex went a lot better than before and I ended up making around 600 dollars within my first few weeks, but I was then met with the few mistakes of not looking at larger time frames for patterns and also refusing to take a loss which took about 1000 dollars away from me once again.
At this point and time, I was frustrated and was on the edge of giving up so I took a week-long break once again. I then started trading with 300 dollars so I didn't lose too much money but I could also make trading worthwhile if I did win. Once again I lost 100 dollars.
Around this point, I began to develop some skills of patience and I made around 75 dollars which was great when compared to my account size and position sizes. I was finally consistent for more than 2 weeks, and I thought I was ready to start making some real money. I went ahead and deposited 4000 dollars and started trading larger position sizes.
I immediately lost 1200 dollars within a week with two bad trades that I let run way too long.
​
This is when everything changed...
​
I began to notice something unusually similar in Forex, it moves in a specific direction and almost always begins to form some kind of pattern. Short term patterns on a 30 min chart are based and leading up to the 4 hour and daily chart patterns. Despite having a bull flag on the 30-minute time frame, the 4-hour chart was showing a bear flag formation.
My point being is depending on your style, I would highly recommend trading based on the higher time frames, It makes it a lot easier to find your perfect exact entry points. You can even day trade the patterns leading up to the bigger move if you want to catch some smaller profits throughout the day which is what I do before the big move.
I know this is long, but here is what I learned ... The charts never lie, and every move happens for a reason. Trust the trend and patterns and use technical analysis and also the news to determine if the market will continue a move or if the move will go in the opposite direction of a breakout.
Use indicators to prove that you're on the right side of the market & Please be Patient!! If you are right on the movement of the stock, It will move to your exact entry point, If it doesn't then you know you are wrong and you need to re-analyze the charts. Don't let your emotions get the best of you!
If you get an entry point and it moves against you showing it is not following your pattern, then get out and take the loss because you were wrong. Don't be afraid to take a loss it will help you make more money in the long run.
​
Anyways this is my story. I am happy to say I have made my 4000 dollar account back to where I started... 4000$. Which were 1200 dollars in 2 weeks. Have I made more money yet, no I haven't, but I have full faith in myself now and I am for sure positive I will be making the money I have been working my ass off for 8 months.
A few other tips:
1.) Don't focus on the money, focus on the exit point.
2.) Play it safe by putting your fill price at a guaranteed price level.
3.) USE CHANNELS!! I can not repeat how using channels is so useful. It enables you to find entry and exit points.
4.) Begin to understand price action and candle patterns to confirm your trade or tell you something is going wrong.
5.) Keep practicing, and know you are going to fail when starting out.
6.) Size your positions accordingly, maybe use larger sizes on the big move, but use smaller sizes on the moves leading up to it.
7.) Keep practicing!!
​
I would also like to note, I don't care if you believe me or not, but I know what I am doing is working and if you want to use anything I have learned to benefit you please do, if not fine with me.
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Keep Trading!

Hello all.
I will make this quite frank. I've been noticing dangerous advise being spread around the forums that is based too much on hype and I do not want the layman investor to suffer. We are all here to profit intelligently, not to gamble. So I would just like to offer a few tips to new investors of stellar. I am not a stock professional but have ties to the finance industry and have dabbled in forex and investments. I got burned so that you don't have to, so heed my advise. Especially since I have institutional friends who have helped me along the way (think Goldman, BNP, JP, etc).
Tips:
1.) Do not over-diversify your portfolio but pay attention to exposure. Investing is all about the risk-reward ratio. Greater risk does not always mean greater reward. For example, I have 80% of my portfolio in traditional investment vehicles like real estate investment trusts, stocks, bonds, and exchange traded funds. 20% is for cryptos however this is what I consider my 'play' money since cryptos are a very young market, that is based more on potential rather than value (you can't gauge the financial health of crypto using traditional tools like cashflow analysis or price/earnings ratios). I think cryptos are incredibly valuable but going all in especially with the inflated nature of bitcoin, would be dangerous for any of you, so I would suggest you diversify between traditional and cryptos.
2.) Reduce crypto risk by analyzing competitors to your alt coin. As I said before, do not overcompensate this diversification but bet for and against a crypto. In forex institutions use this tool to limit exposure to currency volatility. Imagine you go long GBP/USD, then you should naturally short GBP/CAD to a degree in order to limit exposure, but maximize growth potential. In the crypto world crypto pairs aren't really traded so they are illiquid markets, but I would suggest hedging a bit of stellar with XRP and even bitcoin. With this strategy I have been able to mitigate my losses from the recent stellar drop. Picture cryptos as a ranked list with the most valuable on top and the worst in the bottom. If BTC is on the top of your ranked list and XLM is in 3rd place but XRP is in 2nd place, then short XRP/BTC and go long XRP/XLM. I know these pairings don't all exist but it's to give you an idea how to think about the market.
3.) Support and resistance is important for technical analysis. The way you determine this is simply by seeing the area where past price action has not been able to surpass (resistance) or where past price action has not been able to drop below (support). Usually when a support or resistance level is tested multiple times it becomes stronger. However, there are ways to guess how breakouts are formed. See the chart below.
https://imgur.com/u9r2e0c
In the chart you have what is called accumulation. The price keeps testing the 400 resistance mark, making it a stronger barrier, however every dip in price is higher than the proceeding dip. This signals that there is a solid accumulation that will result in a break out. Just because a price level is tested multiple times does not mean there is a break out. You need to usually have such an accumulation phase (think of the imagery of stairs). In the same chart you can also see the price has not been able to really go below 400 because it is the new support level and the more it tests it, the stronger the barrier will become.
4.) Statistics has a fine way of helping us in our journey. My best friend is a mathematician and was able to offer advise on statistical trend setting. He stated that the longer the trend is set, the higher probability that it will keep going in that direction. Sounds obvious right? Well there is some truth to this but this goes right to my next point.
5.) For every second and moment you have a position open you increase your risk exponentially. This is why high frequency trading exists. So I am trying to offer a nuanced point that while trend continuation is statistically likely, so is the exponential increase of risk. These two last tips are particularly for leveraged traders.
6.) Be creative. Try to implement value investing criteria on cryptos in order to assess the true value of your chosen currency, whatever that may be. It can truly be difficult for ones like Bitcoin but for centralized cryptos like XRP and non profits like XLM it isn't too difficult. I saw an investor here requesting stellars financial statements and had a slight grin. That is the type of investor you should be. Vigilant, because more than making money, we should all be focusing on protecting money. Do not be greedy, because you will be susceptible to hot tips and emotion. Make 'preserving' your capital a priority. As long as you are gaining above inflation, all of you are winning. And now...
7.) Luck number 7! Anyway, buying on the dips is a great strategy, especially when it is testing a support or resistance zone that has been tested a bit before. Buying into a dip in a zone that has only been tested once is a bit risky. You want to see a form of sustainable accumulation.
8.) Do not simply invest in a crypto purely based on the dip. I will admit I have done this sometimes to an extent and it is okay. But the point of this post is to encourage you to do your homework and measure valuations, based on market volume, liquidity, technological announcements, and financial statements. The reason I sometimes partially ignore this is because I usually enter investments to hold at least 8 months -1 year minimum.
9.) Centralization and decentralization do not matter in crypto. I know XRP gets hate and I'd prefer stellar lumens, but that is not purely a reason to not invest in a currency. With centralization you get more compliance and regulatory oversight which marks higher security in investment. Cryptos are amazing, but with institutional involvement, this is an important case to make.
10.) Governments do not have conventional ways to regulate cryptos, but they do have tools to manipulate the market, so be attentive. All it takes is one major country to become heavily involved, in order to ensure a large price drop.
11.) DO NOT SHORT! I REPEAT DO NOT SHORT! Leave this to the professionals. Whereas with buying a currency you have a limited downward risk (you only have the risk to lose all your money), with shorting you effectively have no price floor to limit risk and exposure since the price theoretically has unlimited growth potential. If you decide to short stellar at 0.10 cents then you can lose all your investment and even be in debt (depends on leveraging), because the price can go anywhere from 0 cents to infinity. When you buy, you limit your risk to 0 cents which is where you lose all your money, but maximize growth potential which is technically infinite. This plays into the concept that the longer you have a position open, the greater the exponential risk.
I hope you all enjoyed my guide. I am by no means an expert and am new to cryptos, however I've had associates involved for longer and friends that are also in finance (I worked in the back office of a private equity firm even though that wasn't glorious).