2 Open EU and EG shorts, 1 Pending EA short

More when positions close...

Method Update + vid and a Couple Orders+ vid

So as anyone who follows my youtube page or blog will know, I have predominantly been trading with supply and demand this year.

My coach Paul Wallace (@fxtraderpaul, www.fxtradepaul.com, www.tradingbeliefs.com) has been helping me implement this method more effectively and recently included me on a course he usually runs for veterans of the armed services, it is called the Veterans Trading Program (VTP). Its content have been extremely thorough and informative and has given me more a far more extensive and I believe professional framework to place my trading ideas around, manage them and analysis there outcomes. 

It is clearly not my place to share the specifics of the VTP course but in this video I hope you get the broad strokes of where my trading is moving with the aid of its input.

Method Update Video...

Sell orders

R-1: 1 Loss, Stopped by the Pip

intro: reverted to old method of IDing S&D. this helped and ensured I wasn't missing anything obvious. Got short the EJ and just got stopped before it started to return to my trade direction. Also got short EU , which I'm still in.



thoughts: slightly adapted my levels of S/D to be slightly nearer momentum this was to avoid just missing an entry by a few pips,



summary: moving levels so there nearer momentum was a good idea I also I think adding a 5-10 pip margin on top of my stop to avoid premature stops would be a good despite increasing the risk size.



EJ trade:

Nothing Triggered

intro: reverted to my old method of IDing S&D. Nothing triggered but orders remain in place. See method tab for more details of method.

R-2: 2 Full Losses

intro: Got short the EU and EJ this morning (tuesday 21st) on sell limits at supply. The Euro entered a hard uptrend and both shortly triggered and got stopped out. Failed to notice they were both at daily demand!



thoughts: I changed my method for identifying S/D areas on Monday and it doesn't seem to have helped! Couple this with the fact that I failed to to measure the potential moves, both of which were sub 1:3 which is not the game plan, so many faults



summary: Faultly by nature, "hip stop horray". Either got to set limit orders at daily levels or at least have them marked to avoid being on the wrong side of the move and to measure risk correctly!



EJ trade:

EU trade:

R+1: 1 Win, 3 Misses

EG trade:

intro: Got short the EG some point this PM on a sell limit set this morning, exited this PM for R+1. Closed as end of day and an intraday position , so didn't want to be exposed overnight. My other sell limits didn't trigger.

thoughts: Slight change of approach in identifying S/D zones which can be seen on the "method" tab
or as follows...

1. Look for the very nearest pivot, gap, counter trend bar in a hard trend or cluster and draw a rectangle around it. Levels below price are demand, above supply. 
2. Now drill down to next timeframe Ie MN to W1. W1 to D1, D1 to H4 or H4 to M30. 
3. The move will now look far stronger on the shorter timeframe, use it to find where the momentum really kicked in and adjust the rectangle accordingly, it should usually get tighter. 
4. Set limit order around this momentum adjusted level, this is your supply/demand level for that time frame. 
5. Levels that are pivots, untested, near LT S/D with fast returns are preferable to the counter. 
6. Include any up/down fractals around the same price to avoid premature stop outs. 
7. Measure the distance between the demand and supply level and determine whether or not there is a desirable profit margin (approx 1:3 Swing / 1:1 Intraday), if there is not you will have to widen your search. 

summary: Like the method above, it is shorter, simpler and easier to follow. Re trade, followed the plan so execution and performance were good all round.

video: 

Nothing Triggered, Orders Left in Place

As said nothing triggered so didn't bother updating video. Orders left in place as swing trades, so should still be valid tomorrow.

R+1.6: 1 Win, 3 Misses

intro: set 4 sell limits, many were way off the mark, one triggered.



thoughts: Because I didn't take trades that "triggered" last Friday this sort of upset my ability to see which were "current" levels and previously "tested" levels, I think this makes sense in the vid if it doesn't here. Basically today I really should have been holding positions open from last week rather than a looking for new levels to trade. Anyway GBPUSD short triggered and I exited manually at R+1.6,  which was bad form as this is a swing trade so the minimum RRR should've been 1:2.



summary: Not a bad read. Despite the levels I chose being mostly way above price action, they're still valid and good levels. Yes I should have been in trades from last week but I can't cry over split milk, all I can do is get on with identifying the next tradeable levels which I did.



GU trade:

091015 Better Read (momentum), Nothing Triggered

Very little to say as nothing actually happened to my account. But worth noting prep is made much easier/faster by looking for strong momentum and then retracing it to it's origin.

080715 No Trades, Tired

intro: Okay, had a hell of a job doing my prep this morning, I was "umming and arrhing" over everything. I was over-tired.



thoughts: Been pretty physical Monday and Tuesday and coupled with not sleeping right I just wasn't in the head space to make clear and logical decisions, as can be seen. What I have done though is update my trade plan. Just putting in some more checklists so that it's easier to follow/eliminates  decision making when I'm tired.



summary: I can't "not trade" every time I'm a little tired, I'd never trade! I've got to assume that I might be tired everyday of the week, however I know I can still function provided I stay "slow and steady". It's when I'm tired and I try and go fast, in all areas of my life, that the wheels fall off. So with the additional checklists hope I have eliminated some of the decision making from my day, guess we'll see...

070715 No Trades Triggered Me For Today

Set some sell limit orders as you'll see in the video none of them triggered as price dropped like a brick off the bat. Not much else to say.

060715 R 1, didn't measure risk correctly

intro: A good read throughout except the GBPUSD, I set a limit order on it which felt/looked "wrong" and subsequently gave me the loss.



thoughts: In hindsight, well with fresh eyes the fact is it didn't offer a "solid" 3R from the offset. It  "felt wrong" because the supply/demand imbalance just wasn't that out of balance.



summary: Today I have defined a "solid 3R" as : 3R being reached before price runs into the top of demand or bottom of supply. These precise definitions are the reasons why I am not struggling to follow this trade plan and the reason why I am making less mistakes, there is no ambiguity. There was today but there won't be tomorrow or until I find another unclear area of my plan.



GU trade:

030715 Momentum Turns + RRR = Best

A great read today and would have been great results. This was achieved solely by putting the 2 major points first. 1. identifying supply and demand as the origin of momentum turns 2. only accepting them as levels to trade if they offer at least a 1:3 RRR to the next level of S/D.

Will be back forward testing next week, so there will be some actual trades to view. Going to tidy my trade plan up over the weekend.

020715 Defining RRR

Okay another pretty good read. Two levels triggered but because they were so wide they were hard pushed to meet their profit objectives. Just the way it goes sometimes I think but asks the question what do you do, hold over night? or close at end of day? guess tomorrow will answer my question.



The only other thing worth mentioning was how to correctly measure potential RRR which is as follows and in in Seiden's own words...



"Only trade opportunities that offer at least a 3:1 profit zone to the first target....

1) Identify the nearest demand level below current price.

2) Identify the nearest supply level above current price.

3) Measure the distance between the demand and supply level and determine whether or not there is a desirable profit margin (3:1)"

010715 Trend Analysis Addition

Okay another good read in general however two things came up.



1.My trade plan is lacking trend analysis. This was intentional as I am trading between levels so the trend felt irrelevant but of course it isn't, particularly when day trading I don't want to be pissing in the wind of a longer term trend. So I am going to define the trend on the H4 chart, as the current fractal trend (look midway/right!) and I am going to trade with it on the M30 chart until price reaches H4 S/D and reverses.



2. A level I chose today got tested and a little leeway would have helped me stay in the position. So i'm going to add spread x2 (3-4pips) to the stop loss size to avoid getting faked out in the future.