From today on, I will be writing a journal on my practice account for EURJPY

Through this round of backtesting, I have incorporated most of my bias based on pro vol on H1 and H4 and stage counting on M5 for retracement trades.

Today I did some simulation and some demo trades.
Below are the demo trades I took.

H1

15M

Was carefully bearish because price has moved 3 stages based on H1. Took a short based on this candlestick. But the price wasn't the best. Maybe I should have waited for the last fake price push and take a trade from there after potential stops have been cleared as illustrated by the arrows above.

Looking at the 5M chart above, I shorted at a very obvious candlestick formation. I should have expected that price will move up to trigger my stop. Furthermore, my stops were too tight.

After losing 2 trades, and seeing the formation of the pin bar, I did not chased the price. Instead, I parked a buy limit order as illustrated below before turning in to sleep:



The reason why I went long was that price has moved down 3 to 4 waves and there was appearance of red pro vol bar at previous day low and a high volume pin bar during US open.
When on bed, I realised that my buy limit was triggered and the bear momentum was still very strong. So I went short at over the phone which TP fortunately in the end but my buy order was stopped out.

Main issues:

There was a red volume bar on H1 after the formation of the red vol hammer on 15M. At the end of the day, it turned out to be fake hammer to induce people to go long and force them into bad positions.

1. But how to know this without having to wait for the formation of H1 and H4 info
2. How to determine the correct bias?
3. How to determine the best places to enter the trade with minimum risk and tight SL. Where do the pros normally squeeze retailers?
4. Professional bars and what happens after that. I recalled he told me that if there is a high vol pro bar and it does not follow through. You have to be careful.





Emotions:
A bit frustrated but did not flare up.
Did not over trade.

Some good emotional management today despite the losses.

Spent some time doing simulation for EJ today for sept 2015

For the long trades at the bottom on the 22 Sept, I should not enter on the first high volume. But wait for another drop to test. The 3rd drop is the most crucial for me to standby. Such similar patterns can be found on the 28 September:

The simulator has several disadvantages. There is no way for you to do analysis on higher timeframes.

If we look at H1, I should be bullish instead of looking for short on the 24th September.

Therefore, by right the trades should have been taken at the arrow:

All the shorts that I had taken were stupid trades:

My old bad habits. When I am wrong, I tend to average in and shift my SL. I should stick to my plan. Once I am stopped out, I need to spend some time to re-evaluate my thinking.

Below is a close up view of the trades I took the following day:

Again, I am showing signs of revenge trading. The circle refers to stupid trades.
Market has already moved down 3 to 4 stages. Did not know what got into me to short at that price.
Thinking that price moved a new low, the subsequent up move (2nd circle) was interpreted as a stop hunt during US session. Again, this is interpreted wrongly as a manipulation move.
This was followed by a long trade at terrible price (Chasing because I have lost so many times on this day)

On the following day on the 29th Sep, I took a long trade at a good price after Asian Low was cleared. Price did not hit my 50 pip TP.

During the Euro session, the high volume bullish bar was being taken out. Immediately, I wanted to short. After the high volume bar was taken out, there was no setup for me to short unless the challenge of the previous high to form a HnS for short is one of my strategies. The place where I shorted was too low. In fact, it was a stop hunt high and low. Price actually move 25 pips to catch ppl off guard. However it is really quite difficult to long after a move of 25 pips out of the range although I was taught that pros can move price 25 to 50 pips of previous day High Low and Asian High Low.

There are clues on higher timeframe indicating that I should take a long trade. The last 2 long trades were stupid trades as I had lost too much and chased.

The next day is a challenging day.I should be bullish based on the price action on the previous day.
However, during the Asian session, the professional bars tell a very different story on 15M. Price was accumulating towards the end of the session the previous day. n the 30 Sept, price challenged 135 and dropped. It was followed by a retest of 135 and dropped deeper, though it did not challenge the previous high. During the drop deeper, there was no new resistance. I should have waited for price to challenge the high or the previous high circled and short. Instead I averaged in all the way to the top. This is a bad habit.

On the 1st Oct, the previous day pro down push was cleared by the high during Asian Session. I went long on the bearish bar. I should 1) have waited for the price to drop at least 5 to 10 pips below Asian high before going long. 2) wait for a new support and for price to challenge this new support. This is a setup for myself illustrated by the red arrow. Did not know why I did not go long during simulation. The 3rd trade during mid euro session was valid but stopped out. This trade was largely driven by the color of the candlestick of SONICR. If I had looked carefully, actually the volume is not fantastic. Then I got fed up and over traded. This type of stop hunt up and down was similar to the move on 29th October. The move on 1st Oct to challenge the previous day low was approximately 25 to 30 pips.

09012012

GU 02012012

On H1, price has moved 3 stages towards the supply zone.

As price move towards the supply zone, a triple top forms at the supply zone and price starts accumulating. The confirmation came when the red volume bar was cleared by a strong down move. A trade can be taken on retracement back to round number at 1.565.

If the trade is missed at the top, a short trade can be initiated 10 pips above resistance above the green bar. Another opportunity will be to short 10 pips above the 2nd resistance.

For the rest of the week shorts should be taken.

02012012
GU D1

Looking at the horizontal lines, there are 2 potential stop hunt zones based on daily chart. The moving average is down.

The high volume bar was cleared by the bullish bar on H4. Based on H4, I should be bullish and look for stop hunt support zones for longs.

On H1, the most obvious immediate support is illustrated by the green line.

Possible entries are illustrated by the arrow and a few pips below the green support line.

Some of it adapted from Brett Steenbarger's blog:

1) Trade in the direction of intraday sentiment, as captured by NYSE TICK and Market Delta;
(I am trading currencies and futures. Therefore, I need other tools to give me an edge in finding sentiments)

2) Start with profit targets: range extremes, pivot prices, and R1/R2/R3 and S1/S2/S3 targets. First figure out where you think the market is likely to move.

3) Execute the trade on a pullback in intraday sentiment: a drop in TICK during an uptrend; a bounce in TICK during a downtrend. Don't chase price highs or lows. Make the market show you that it is making a higher low (uptrend), a lower high (downtrend), or holding support/resistance (range).

4) Put your stop loss level far enough away that it won't be hit by random noise; that, if it's hit, it will tell you clearly that you're wrong. Size the position small enough so that you can readily weather getting stopped out.

5) Don't get into a trade unless you have at least 1:1 risk/reward to the first profit target and meaningfully higher to subsequent targets.

6) Enter your position with enough size so that you can take a piece off at your first profit target and still meaningfully participate in a further move in your direction. Enter your position with small enough size so that you can add to the trade if it proves particularly strong. If things look dicey at your first profit target, don't hesitate to take quick profits.

7) Don't look back while you're trading and second guess yourself; reviewing comes after the closing bell. Identify any lessons you've learned from your trade, but keep focused on fresh opportunity once you've closed a position.