Just wanted to share something with the group.

A while back I was PM'ing with Strat. He asked me some questions about trading, one of which being what I understood about price action. My answer was, quite obviously (now), one of complete non-understanding. Strat didn't reply again. I don't blame him.

So what did I do. Well I went out and found out about it. It's easy really. Open google, or yahoo, or ask, or whatever your preferred search engine and type in "price action trading". Hey presto! A multitude of websites discussing the topic. Then - do some reading.

So firstly thanks Strat for not replying. It got me to do some research.

And second, newbies (or not so), if you don't know about something, google it first. Don't sulk about it.

cheers, and great thread Strat.

TonyH

 

When I switched trading methods the first most important thing I did was close my live (real money) account!! Being confused was costing me money and I went back to demo for quite a few weeks.

Then I downloaded read the J16 thread and Buffy's price action website several times! There is no short cut to this step ...
If you go to the J16 thread (and BIG THANKYOU to J16 ...) there are a list of file attachments you can download that include price action, price action set ups and fibonacci stuff. They are priceless. Also the videos in the guest area at J16 explaining them are brilliant, I cannot recommend them highly enough too.

Then I learned to draw support and resistance and price pivot zones. I only draw them for the time frame I am looking at and the one above it. Otherwise my chart looks like I dropped spaghetti on it and my trades would never go anywhere.

Then I had to learn price action, one candle at a time. I am still learning really. I know Strat does not like pin bars but they are the first one I learned and applied. At the end of the day they are just a powerful sign of price rejecting a level.
I learned all the other candle patterns one by one and went back over charts looking for them and looking to see what happened. On my desk I have big drawings of them under a clear plastic cover (for when I spill coffee) so if I have a blonde moment or I am bored I stare at them until they are ingrained in my memory! I also have reversal patterns and stuff so I can recognise them.

Then I tried to apply everything I was learning and watched what price did at S/R and PPZ levels.
I also draw support lines, trendlines and channels. They really help me notice when something is making a move and breakouts are great trades.
Once I did all that I demo traded using my new knowledge and some of my tricks too using the moving averages. It did not happen easily and not without a crisis of confidence either.
I am now at the stage where I am putting my real money on the line, only a $1 a pip at the moment (unless I am absolutely certain then I might go a bit higher) but I am planning on being a turtle and still having an account left by the time I master this ...

The more I learn the more I realise that I have to learn. There is no short cut for the reading and the looking at charts. But I absolutely know where I want to be and I am in the right place on this thread.
I hope this helps someone ...

 

I woke up in bed this morning with a huge problem. The 10pm closing for the UK traders - I'm surprised about that and that it is so much of a problem for them.


No probs..but firstly we are AC milan so its a good thing and my Dad is Sicilian so watch out and my mummy is from Leicestershire which is why i went A.C not City but i am Tigers.Dont say im a glory boy as my school chums used to say as i was born in Nottinghamshire and schooled in Leicestershire and London but im Italy for my national team.My son is Arsenal my bros Forest.Are you into that Rugby for girls in tights with big shinny helmets now?

right to work its called TRADER DISIPLINE !!!!

There is one thing that all markets have in common.....time.Its the 4th dimension or element of the fibonnacci of growth in the universe.The golden mean.There is order in the universe the fibonnacci numbers prove it.
Now the bars have a time.A time to open a time to close in fact we trade time dont we when you think about it and we try to predict a future time event and i know that Strat has had this "it just all came together", i feel this is because when you pick a winner you have become one with time and that market.
If we want to become one with her (the market) and gain lots of booty with all its shinny,bright sparkles which drive you mad she demands one thing from you as payment regardless of whether you reach that oneness with her.... your time.Its a big price.Time is life.So what do we do?well if she is our Queen, our endevour and our desire we must yeild to her wishes.What else can a good Knight do.It may be Mother Earth having the last laugh or being at your kids school play you MUST be on time.
Now this is my full time job so i have total control of my time so it was easy to make the shift but for me there is no time only bar time.
My day STARTS at 11pm gmt.Thats when i place orders or adjust my weekly and monthly.On the over night tickets i place take profits just incase she kicks off over night but if its an Asia pacific cross im up all night.I wake up for every 4 hr bar if i got tickets pending and if its in a consolidation zone on the overnight im workin the night shift.I let the 4 hr time frame tell me if its likely to engage soon and the hour so its cool.

Whens theres a bar to play i give 100000% attention at all costs the plan must go ahead.Like a fighter pilot on scramble during the battle of Britan.

Now when there is no bars or im locked off im getting ready for trigger time sleeping,eating training for that one moment of engagment man i love trading.During the day im sizing up my kill looking at the places she can hide or pause and i make all my choices during the day slowly at my own time.From7pm till 11pm regardless i take a trader nap as she always goes quite for some reason than at 11 gmt the Alarm goes and its trigger time.Did i get what i wanted, do i get to fill the ticket, my heart races the adrenaline pumps....no bars....oh well. or BARS!!! lock and load go standby code red.

It takes total dedication and that dosnt mean stareing for hours at the 5 and 15 min.Come on logic says if a 5 or 15 min was really a viable way there wouldnt be such a HUGE market of lossers scratching round the web for help come on ask yourself that together with this get rick quick vibe doom doom doom.How much time did you all put into your current buisness,your family,your house?This is no different.You wont find the grail you are the grail.For me the chase is as good as the kill and all the above is vital to a good buisness,any buisness.

It might sound crazy but have you seen the charts there crazy!
11 pm GMT be there,dont miss it and be fresh or stay with the 5 mins or give up.No time here for the wasters.Be a Warrior,grab your life by the short and curlys and get your loot.

Remember you only ever trade yourself,so do it miss that order over sleep see how you feel....worse if your down.I did it once 2 years ago on kiwi,i will never forget it........G

 

Here you go, files attached, this all helped me.

Great videos in the guest area here: http://www.james16group.us/

Every kind of price action links you could ever want ... http://www.trading-naked.com/PriceAction.htm

Buffy simple price action list - http://www.dacharts.com/articles/Buf...ice_action.php

Nic

Attached Files

	price action.pdf (44.6 KB, 153 views)
	PriceActionSetups.pdf (42.5 KB, 149 views)
	James16_upto2ndofmay2008.pdf (43.6 KB, 138 views)
	PA Decision Checklist v2.pdf (303.1 KB, 145 views)
	Pin bars-introduction.pdf (66.9 KB, 92 views)
	Pin bars-advanced.pdf (112.7 KB, 88 views)
	Practical Fibonacci Methods.pdf (431.1 KB, 199 views)

 

I was going to change the title to "making pips is easy, making money is hard" because that has been my experience thus far.
I know a lot of very knowledgeable people tell you to demo demo demo until you are profitable but I wanted to explain what happened to me and what I think happens to a lot of people. Demo is easy psychologically and real money trading can be very hard!

Most people know I started life as an air traffic controller. I'm pretty good at following rules and I can stare at a wiggly line on a screen all day without losing it and I am pretty good at dividing my attention between a number of trades if needed. Controllers learn in a simulator and you learn quickly mental rules, such as if this gets to this point I need to do this or re-evaluate etc. The switch to live controlling is pretty seamless. Most pilots learn in a simulator too, so that when you need to do that water landing for real you have done it so many times and it is so realistic you can pull it off.

Trading for a lot of people is NOT like that and something happens when you switch to trading real money. I was one of those people who struggled with the switch and I still am ...
I wondered if it was just me but it is something that a professional trader I really respect (who posts on J16 as Wizard) pointed out it happens a lot.

When I started I was the queen of demo, I could make loads of pips and it was not undue risk either, I cared very much about my demo account balance. After a couple of months I funded an account and I thought I would be off on the road to riches. It was a disaster ... I started out in a place of being over-confident and complacent, which is a KILLER, in trading.
Then I lost a few real money trades big and psychologically I crashed ... I could not pull the trigger, I second guessed myself, I put in crappy too-tight stops, I cut winners early and I generally traded like an idiot.
It has been a long road back to confidence for me that I am still working on but I did not go back to demo. Instead I traded real money with very small stakes and I forced myself to deal with it because I knew I would never really make it until I conquered the mind over matter with money.

Another trader I really respect who trades for a hedge fund told me that most traders do not make money the first six months of trading, and it is exceptional if someone does. He told me that if you get to the end of your first year and you break even you will probably make it. Well, that is not the road to riches so many who start think it is, is it? But I am sure it is the truth.

I would say that if you are starting and you can afford to fund a SMALL account and trade VERY SMALL size REAL MONEY then you might do better in the long run because you will have a better chance with the psychology.
The goal is to master trading without blowing all the money you have to trade with when you get there.

I did not post this to discourage newbies, more to say if you are not profitable yet, don't worry, it's normal!
But it is all about the money ... and how you deal with it.

 

Hi Strat and team,

A few pages back i posted asking for your thoughts on how i was trading.

Not my entries or trades, but HOW I WAS ACTUALLY TRADING. I was setting up my charts, analysis, entries etc on daily bars, s/r etc etc, and then moving very quickly once they opened to lock in profit.

This was working for me (profitable) but i knew something was wrong (and yes, i do know how absolutley stupid that sounds in hindsight).

I wasn't in fact trading the daily, i was still in 15M mode.

My GREED and FEAR were causing me to jump back into the market during the daily bar and trade as if i were on a shorter timeframe, when in fact (and again, i know this sound so ridiculously obvious to a lot of you), i should only be evaluating my decisions at the DAILY BAR CLOSE.

Our resident Sage Baba summed up my problem in one easy sentance; either i don't TRUST my plan, or there are holes in it. I have not even been letting my trades run to plan to find out if there are holes in it, so i obviously don't trust it.

I'm not going so far as to say i've had a 'lightbulb' moment (i feel far to stupid for that) but it has only just struck me over the last day or two that for all my bluster about moving to the daily - how great it is, how profitable i am blah blah blah, i hadn't changed a bit - i was still acting like a scalper - which is not where i want to be by any stretch.

As Strat and many others have said, profitable trading is 90% psychological, and this is where i am going to focus most of my efforts. To this end, i would love to here from Strat and others about managing open trades, particularly scaling in/out when in profit OVER A LONG PERIOD.

I am confident in my growing knowledge of PA, S/R etc - i'll get this right, guaranteed (with a little help from my friends ).

However, it's TRADE MANAGEMENT where i'm going to make my money (or preserve my capital), and let's be honest, that's why most of us are in this game.

So thank you to everyone who has helped me so far, commented on my analysis, offered advice, taken the p1ss () and contributed to this thread. It's the first thread i've contributed to out of the many i've read and i think it's fantastic. Thank you Strat for setting it up and taking the time to help us rookies and even experienced guys (and gals) out.