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Psychology

Fulfilling a promise to share my trading Part 1. (Education) Please ignore the previous post as I lost internet connection Dear all, as mentioned i not only want to share trading signals and ideals but more on my psychology. There are tons of signals and ideals just on this platform itself. I do not see I'm the best out there, nor am I not trying to be special or trying to sell something. I have always been wanting to contribute to the community and this is one of the best way to do it. The more I share, the more i learn as well. My view of a trading career is that it'd be one of the toughest endeavor you undertake in your life because you need to be constantly aware of your own emotions, keeping your actions in check and be patience. I mean, who can do this day to day? I can't for sure. There are countless days where emotions creep in and before I knew it, I did something totally contrary to my plan. My honest opinion is, I can never be perfect. What I do is to admit that and find ways to be better, but stop trying to be perfect because the market never is as well. HAHA. *** Please bear with my "English", I've a lot to improve on for myself on that. *** I'm breaking down this into a few series because it can be very dry to read all at one shot. OK, let me start by going back to the very beginning in which a 4 hour Bullish Bat is discovered. If I go to a larger time frame, we can see that A6 has been on an uptrend on a longer term basis when it broke 7700. Momentum was good. This move began on 13th July and lasted all the way to 27th. (The first part is dedicated to momentum and swing traders) It's always easy when we are conducting post mortem analysis on price action. Who can't see its an uptrend and we should go long? While that is true, there ain't much ways to learn besides that. I don't see much of a issue if, you already have a trade plan that encompass a entry, stop loss and viable risk to reward ratio. Such post mortem exercise are only useful if you do it in a meaningful way. So, with the beginning of the break on 7700, this instrument should already be on your radar. The first thing that comes into my mind is: 1) This breakout is confirmed as the close above 7700 is confirmed. You have to believe in it because you can't execute or take action if you don't. This is the point where previous false breakout creeps into your mind and says: "haha you are not going to fool me!". If you develop such habitual thinking, you are going to face a lot of execution problems and this is where many attempt to trade "tops" or reversals, in total contrary to a swing trade long. Trading requires a lot of muscle memory. To be successful trading momentum and swing, you must constantly cast away contradicting signals and focus on your predetermined swing or momentum quantifiers. Build it into your subconscious by practice. 2) Accept that the best plan will fail. Having said the first point, are we going to be stubborn and keep trading? The answer is no. You see, even the best get it wrong. So, I personally propose let the market decide on that. If you have a plan, you always have a stop loss. A stop loss is there to tell you to review your trade plan if you got stop out. By the way, if you have the habit of moving your stops, I'd suggest you practice to keep it. Personally, I only move stops when my trade becomes profitable. Once an entry is triggered, believe in your plan and let the market decide. 3) Do not be greedy. Again, I cannot emphasize enough on sticking to the plan. In the last 10 years, greed has been one of the emotions that affects my trades a lot. Who doesn't want a winner? Umpteen times with good profits I failed to capture and ended up being stop out. "Revenge" is sweet. The vicious cycle of doubling up, moving my stop loss began and by the time I realize it, I had a big loss. So, when you enter the market, a stop loss and profit targets is a must.
AEducation
by trutt79
Building a case to long Euro Trading is similar to investigative work. At this point and time, I do not know the high is formed or not but it's ok since I trade pull backs and I want to illustrate how I use various perspective to gather evidence to substantiate a trade. So, if the current high is at 1.2082, what I'd do is to wait for Euro to pullback to the zone highlighted in Blue. I am willing to take a trade because A) Risk to reward is in my favor B) This blue zone will hold if the evidence point conclusively to long C) I do not have to guess where the breakout ends and is not stress It works for me because I have time to build my trade plan, knowing the risk to reward is in my favor, and of course your own statistics of win/loss ratio that it becomes "easy to manage". I may still get it wrong after waiting but the result of this trade itself does not determine the long term outcome of your equity curve. As long you adopt certain mindset that winning and losing is part of the game, you are ahead of the game.
ELong
by trutt79
Dissecting ES: Shorting at Structure or Breakout?ES As of now, what we know is Friday's rally fizzled out into the afternoon session and was close to retest the low. This suggest the bears are still around to battle with the bulls for the bullish structure between 2420.5 to 2404. What is conclusive is that the uptrend has been broken and attempts to rally failed at 2440, which is now a bearish level. As long as this level is not retaken by buyers, there are more downside risks. In Part I, i mentioned of a long potential at 2375 (Daily Cypher) after this selloff bottom out. This is part of my plan to trade ES. Speaking of which, could the market selloff to that level? I'd leave that in your hands.  The second trade I missed was the late morning retracement back to test 2440. (You can find this in my previous blog, Dissecting ES Part II.) Back to the present, ES is now entrenched between a major support structure and important resistance level at 2440. Frankly, i do not wish to trade on the long side as there are not enough confluence of factors that i should go long. When i view my trades in risk to reward fashion, i could quickly decide that any trades i am taking now will be short term and do not expect big risk to reward if I'm trading it. I'd wait for price action to trade to 2436 to 2444 where i could have at least a 1:1 risk to reward. Another trade i will envision is a breakout trade on Fri's low at 2419.75. It could mean a test on 2404, which if broken will be bearish. For my experiences on breakout, i would think if the breakout is within a support structure, there is only lesser then 50% chance of it working. So if you are going to trade it, I recommend taking the trade on 15 min chart where you could manage the trade better. I'd then take a 2 ATR risk against a 2 ATR reward upon entry (Depending on your trade size and max losses permitted). Whatever you are going to do, consider it from a risk to reward perspective and work your plan out. I might not be right all the time, but if I keep your risk controlled it will keep my trading career alive till the next boat out. Good luck and have fun! 
CME_MINI:ESU2017Short
by trutt79
BTCUSD - The FOMO is so thick, a chainsaw is required to cut it.Stepping back a bit from Elliott Wave Analysis (yeah, I do that too, but there are so many other voices...), the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) radiates all over the BTCUSD charts. What my experience has been, is that the FOMO does not lead to sustainable breakouts. Key word: Sustainable. It is most obvious on the Kraken data feed. It actually traded at an ATH, for a while, a few days back. On the other charts from other exchanges, we can see this too. Depending which dots or data points are connected, all of the charts can display a rising wedge, a Bearish pattern leading to a breakdown. Should this happen, it may act to calm the BTC enthusiasm enough to establish a Sustainable bullish pattern that eventually leads to sustainable new highs, a the kick-off of Elliott Wave V for BTC. A rising wedge is the perfect chainsaw therapy to cut through the FOMO and develop a sustain base from which a long run set of higher highs can be established.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSD
by RogueDave
10
Discipline in trading is especially hard for forex tradersI love trading forex due to many reason one being the high volatility. You almost always get second chances for entries and exits. Prices tends to oscillate around their "fair value" al to more than in Stocks or ETF´s. There is almost no pair the rallies 50% in a year. While there are scenarios for early exit, one should only execute such planed exceptions right? But even after 12 years of trading my n°1 mistake remain early profit taking!
Short
by LorbeerInv
Very nice confluence on GBPUSDHey guys, this morning during my analysis i've spotted this nice opportunity to sell the pound against the dollar. Not often it occurs to see such a good confluence. So i thought i could share with you this outlook. As you can see above on the pound price is testing a daily structure level (blue rectangle ) that happens to be also a psychological number and the termination point of two different AB=CD patterns, along with some fibonacci confluence . Furthermore, you can see RSI went OVERBOUGHT and also that there's a Cypher that's been completed and it's still valid. For all those reasons together i think it could be a nice spot in order to find shorting opportunities in form of candlestick formations like engulfings or double tops. I'll let you know how it develops. Feel free to comment below if you want to ask questions or share your standpoint. See you in the next chart!
Short
by Roker1
4