Hopiplaka's Journal

[sqa]

Thinking about my last comment on Psychology of Trading, while figuring out why I screwed up my recently stopped out trade (I didn't research the previous Order Block well enough, so I just got in too high; 7 pips!), my last statement is probably incorrect.

You don't need to take the emotion out of trading. You need to know how to properly channel Emotions to "post-session" and then deal with them. If you lose any emotional connection to the work, then you'll get too detached. It needs to be honed & shifted. Hyper focus in-session; emotional release out of session. This is what you have to do in even very to-the-second intense work.

The work of the trade itself: Reading the Chart, Entry & Exit need to be with as little emotion as possible. The post-session is where the emotion goes. A good day is a good day. Enjoy it and tag out of the week early. It'll keep you from burning out or over-trading.

 

[Hopiplaka]

Thinking about my last comment on Psychology of Trading, while figuring out why I screwed up my recently stopped out trade (I didn't research the previous Order Block well enough, so I just got in too high; 7 pips!), my last statement is probably incorrect.

You don't need to take the emotion out of trading. You need to know how to properly channel Emotions to "post-session" and then deal with them. If you lose any emotional connection to the work, then you'll get too detached. It needs to be honed & shifted. Hyper focus in-session; emotional release out of session. This is what you have to do in even very to-the-second intense work.

The work of the trade itself: Reading the Chart, Entry & Exit need to be with as little emotion as possible. The post-session is where the emotion goes. A good day is a good day. Enjoy it and tag out of the week early. It'll keep you from burning out or over-trading.

The ultimate goal will be point 12 of the Escape and Evasion scout sniper guide 15 Min timeframe

12. If the London Setup is missed or you were incorrect & stopped out – use 12 GMT to 14 GMT (NYO)

Not ready for that I must admit

 

[Hopiplaka]

However, he's definitely got an eye for "order flow" or "directional bias" that I'm not sure he can teach too well. I'm still not perfectly sure how he can pick directional bias from an Asian Range just on sight, but he's done it in at least several videos so far.

I watched and rewatched the Asian range videos and some of the trade videos you mentioned, but I don't have a clue of what Mike can see also. Glad I'm not the only one 8)

 

[Hopiplaka]

The ultimate goal will be point 12 of the Escape and Evasion scout sniper guide 15 Min timeframe

12. If the London Setup is missed or you were incorrect & stopped out – use 12 GMT to 14 GMT (NYO)

Not ready for that I must admit

But when I'm a master of the trade and emotion, I might go for something like this (BUY @ 1.0885).
note: I will not trade this, just something I see. And yes, "Unemployment Claims" come in 30 min >

 

[sqa]

In a follow up to ICT's videos and the ideas, I finally found a few pretty important bits.

The first is that ICT is actually the master of "burying the lede" far too often. WAY too much brilliant information is given off-the-cuff in the middle of other things. He can "read" the Asian Range for the same reason you can learn to read Asian Ideographic languages: he has the "templates" memorized.

He left a little tid bit near the end of the "Power of Three Example" livestream. He has templates for what a day is going to do. The implication is he has those pretty well memorized (and given his obsessive tendencies, it's a good guess he just does). So that's how he can read directional bias by sight.

He also left the wonderful line "ridiculous number of pips". I quite liked that one.

 

[Hopiplaka]

He also left the wonderful line "ridiculous number of pips". I quite liked that one.

So that's material for a second batch of t-shirts, together with the 'levels are too clean'

Thanks for sharing your follow up, it's really valuable.

Regarding your templates, I think you're right indeed. The old material were the templates, but I fail to apply them before they happen. I can't think of catching 'a typical London open' using his template/graph (little swing out of Asia, go to the other side to a KSR, and 2 ote's later back to the other side)

 

[Hopiplaka]

Yes, was totally off this week as well. Back to the drawing board. It was a continuation of last Friday's. I was correct in the Gold trade, I should have understand that the GBPUSD and EURUSD follow hist tail, and pay attention to that weekly order block.

I regret I could attend the second live session last week where the NFP and Monthly low were explained.

Let's see what next week brings

Most of the times, when I'm incorrect (stopped out), it's because I fail to check the swing pattern (a low with two higher lows left/right, or a high with two lower highs left/right).
I have checked my entry this weekend, and this was again a prime example. The entry USDCAD on Friday was the one I should have taken, a swing low was formed, Judas swing out of Asia into a 1H Order block. In @ 1.0920, out @ 1.0970 (200 ext) would have got me 50 pips.

That's why I will not enter the buy GBPUSD today @ 1.6708 (15Min MS break, back into 15M order block). I have no swing low pattern yet. So if this plays out and we go up today, I might look for a nice buy GBPUSD tomorrow only.

Also, this is based on the USD resistance level 79.80. Which is a new given for me, or something I did not look into yet. It's the fact that the top of the bearish order block - which should act as support for the OTE - can turn into resistance as well.

 

[Hopiplaka]

Weekly setup Week 16 USDCAD

a trade with a ultra tiny stop loss of 6 pips, with a 3:1 risk/reward ratio.

[list type=decimal]
[*]Determine the 4H order block
[*]draw a line, determine market structure break on the 1H. This happened on Tuesday, making Monday low
[*]Draw a fib form the last swing low to the swing high made on tuesday, right into the 4H order block and sweet spot
[*]Zoom into 15 min for conformation of Wednesday LO. We saw the break 1, break 2 and back into the 15 Min order block confirmation
[*]Zoom into the 5 Min for the last confirmation. We could see the break 1, break 2 and back into the 5 Min order block.
[*]Green light go: Buy USDCAD @ 1.0978
[/list]

Now, the 6 pips sl is just theoretical The 200% extension @ 1.1012 is yesterday's high. Interesting to say the least

 

[Hopiplaka]

Re: Weekly setup Week 16 USDCAD

a trade with a ultra tiny stop loss of 6 pips, with a 3:1 risk/reward ratio.

[list type=decimal]
[*]Determine the 4H order block
[*]draw a line, determine market structure break on the 1H. This happened on Tuesday, making Monday low
[*]Draw a fib form the last swing low to the swing high made on tuesday, right into the 4H order block and sweet spot
[*]Zoom into 15 min for conformation of Wednesday LO. We saw the break 1, break 2 and back into the 15 Min order block confirmation
[*]Zoom into the 5 Min for the last confirmation. We could see the break 1, break 2 and back into the 5 Min order block.
[*]Green light go: Buy USDCAD @ 1.0978
[/list]

Now, the 6 pips sl is just theoretical The 200% extension @ 1.1012 is yesterday's high. Interesting to say the least

So the 200% extension was met yesterday. Came close to take out the standard 30 pips stop, still made a small 40 pip gain.

In hindsight, the entry could be better, focussing on the 1H timeframe. It went into a larger 1H order block - giving a nice reflection pattern for my 15Min timeframe.
It went straight to the 127 extension.
All in all a good day, but it could be better. That's for next time

 

[Hopiplaka]

Weekly Setup EURUSD Week 17

Hi Folks,

This weeks setup came to fruition on Wednesday.
We see the 2 break pattern of a support line, in direction of the 1D/4H 9/18 ema, UP.

Entry at the sweet spot 1.3801 during Wednesday LO with the news volatility, exit is planned at 1.3878.

 

[jack]

Re: Weekly Setup EURUSD Week 17

Hi Folks,

This weeks setup came to fruition on Wednesday.
We see the 2 break pattern of a support line, in direction of the 1D/4H 9/18 ema, UP.

Entry at the sweet spot 1.3801 during Wednesday LO with the news volatility, exit is planned at 1.3878.

Hope you held your early entry (or added at your "sweet spot"..) You basically called it down to within a few pips.

 

[Hopiplaka]

Re: Weekly Setup EURUSD Week 17

Hope you held your early entry (or added at your "sweet spot"..) You basically called it down to within a few pips.

Still in the position, but it is clear I have a lot of work still
The fake short OTE trap I was talking about in chat was apparently a nice short setup
So although the direction is ok, I still need to work/account for deeper retracements back into the 4H/1H order block.

But I do hope it reaches 1.3841/1.3854 today, it's gonna be a quiet day today I assume. Final is 1.3878 still.

 

[Hopiplaka]

Re: Weekly Setup EURUSD Week 17

Still in the position, but it is clear I have a lot of work still
The fake short OTE trap I was talking about in chat was apparently a nice short setup
So although the direction is ok, I still need to work/account for deeper retracements back into the 4H/1H order block.

But I do hope it reaches 1.3841/1.3854 today, it's gonna be a quiet day today I assume. Final is 1.3878 still.

Well it took ages, but I got out @ 1.3875 today.
The reason for exit is that we're in the sweet spot sell zone, also lines up with a daily order sell block.
1 pip short of the 75 pip target, but not too bad. Don't like to hold over the weekends though

 

[Hopiplaka]

Weekly Setup EURUSD Week 18

Some nice opportunities this week, but we'll stick with the 4H/1D 9/18 EMA and only looked for BUY opportunities.

I started developing a new indicator to highlight the central bank dealer ranges. I must say things just got a lot easier/logical with this new info
I will probably share the indicator after I solved a little problem with the Friday/Sunday gap on EST servers. It works nice on the GMT servers, still need to test on GMT+3

So we had the Wednesday low this week. Entry was on the STD3 dealer range @1.3790, below the stops of Thursday 24th April. We retraced deeper, but in hindsight we hit the reflection pattern to the pip + pivot buy level as well.
So it gets a recurring subject , but I should definitely focus more on the reflection patterns.

Also notice the divergence between EU (lower lows) and GU (higher lows).

The clean stops were above the 1.3880 level, so the 75 pip target was met easily.

Also see the sweet setup during NFP. Back into the 4H order block, and into the dealer range of Wednesday.

No update next week due to some time off.

 

[sqa]

Hopiplaka... my eyes hurt. But good job on the week!

 

[foreigner]

Hop can you elaborate on the reflection patterns, this was before my inner circle time, whats the method?!

 

[Hopiplaka]

Hopiplaka... my eyes hurt. But good job on the week!

Thanks sqa. The best thing about the indicator is that you can change the colours to your liking

 

[Hopiplaka]

Hop can you elaborate on the reflection patterns, this was before my inner circle time, whats the method?!

You draw a normal fib. Next select the fib and pull the 100% down until the point which was original the 100% now becomes the 62 or 79 or sweet spot level.

I have a slightly different approach. I included the reflection points in my fib settings, so I do not need to pull anymore . The levels are at the first post of this thread.

 

[sqa]

Hop can you elaborate on the reflection patterns, this was before my inner circle time, whats the method?!

It's a way of calling Tops/Bottoms, when a pair is approaching a key Order Block. It resulted from ICT looking at a Corn Chart in his entertainment center. The final move makes a perfect OTE pattern, if it was flipped in the action that it happened.

 

[Hopiplaka]

Weekly trade setup GBPUSD Week 20

Hi Folks,

Back from holidays. Tons of new material to study, missed a few live sessions.
Thanks to sqa for the note taking, it helps a lot to get up to speed. ICT is really up to speed lately

This weeks entry is for GBPUSD. We still made a higher low, and the 3 bar daily pattern had formed a swing low yesterday.
So I was hunting for a nice long entry.

We saw the break 1 / break 2 and back into an order block pattern, right into the STD 2 level of today's dealing range, also yesterday's dealing range.

Entry is based on a hidden OTE, also the R0 point of a reflection of the low made in london close yesterday to the asian range high of last night.

buy @ 1.6845-1.6850 and exit is planned @ 1.6920-16930 (dealing range of Friday), stop is @ 1.6820.