Slug Short-Term Trading Journal

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Trading is frustrating. I really could have used this trade after taking a couple small losses earlier this week:

eurusd-m15-ibfx-inc.png
 
Trading is frustrating once again. I did not get entered into this trade last night because of the spread. Would have been a nice way to end the week after taking a loss earlier this week.

It's a bummer that you don't get entered into some nice winners because price didn't get to your entry point or because of the spread, but you never fail to get entered into losing trades!

audusd-h1-ibfx-inc.png
 
Trading is frustrating part 3:

* Places order to sell AUD/USD @ 0.8989 *
* Places order to buy USD/CAD @ 1.1052 *
* Cancels AUD/USD because CAD seems weaker *
* Goes to bed *
* AUD/USD materializes and USD/CAD does not *

USD/CAD
usdcad-m15-ibfx-inc.png


AUD/USD
audusd-m15-ibfx-inc.png
 
But, always, on to the next trade. Everyone misses.

Though I'm finding Judas Swings even more frustrating at the moment. I'm learning the GBPJPY pair. Judas doesn't just Swing, he's got an entire swingset there.
 
sqa said:
But, always, on to the next trade. Everyone misses.

Though I'm finding Judas Swings even more frustrating at the moment.

Right on man! I try not to let it get to me, but I need to vent my frustration somewhere! Haha.
 
Judas Swingset obliterated my trades today, haha.

I'm still in the early stages of Demo trading, but it was an odd hours week for me, so I was placing my setups early. (Since I'm a neophyte, the multi-hour away accuracy isn't there yet) I get the direction right about 85% of the time. I'm hitting 40% of the trades this week. Gotta learn the pairs for Time & Price to work.

But, once you learn, there's a lot of money to be made consistently. I'm already at the point of "seeing it" yet missing by a short amount. (I actually got a Judas swinged out at 2 pips this week at one point, that hurt, as it moved 90 the other direction) It's a bit frustrating, but I know to move on to the next trade already. I can see where to fix mistakes and, over the next few months, that 85% "movement" view should hopefully turn into a 60% "profitable trades" reality.
 
Just wait for and anticipate those Judas Swings to form so that you are not a victim of them. It can be scary, but you need to trust your analysis and this is the best way to get good R:R.

Also, it's a good thing that you are demo'ing.. all you need to do is stay alive long enough to get it.. and that shouldn't be too long with ICT concepts.
 
I think I'm still positive in my Demo account on my USDJPY trades, it's the GBPJPY that slaughtered me this week. Anticipating is one thing; knowing how wild they get is another.

But, like I said, my schedule was odd this week, so I was "guessing" a lot more for the entries. GBPJPY has a swingset, haha.
 
Here is a quick update on my YTD stats. I went through some draw down in February. The draw down stayed under 5% and I am currently climbing my way out of it and getting back to my equity high:

ZKPEkNs.png


I have actually been feeling really good about my trading lately and I feel like I am starting to get a better feel for price action and spotting stop raids. I also feel like I have been managing risk properly and risking the right amount on the right trades. Even if my last trade was a winner, I am reducing risk on less probable trades.

I took a scalp this morning based on support and stochastic divergence. I am expecting price to push up into an order block to get short on tuesday or wednesday and that will hopefully be my good trade for the week:

gbpusd-m15-ibfx-inc.png


InnerCircleTrader said:
Where are we Slug... update us.
 
You're up 7.3% On the Year, on real money, over at least 3+ months. If you can roughly produce that over the year, that's around 30% YoY. That ain't bad, by any stretch. In the current bounding/muddled market, that's not a bad place to be.

But, the nicer part will be this: a massive amount of *real* information about your own trading. With a foundation to build from (and hopefully a bit more of a trending, violate market), that means there's a career there in a few years. Or, even baring that, toss 30% into a compounding calculator. In the near future, you're talking a good chunk of change.

Keep up the good work Slug. You really are doing a good job.
 
sqa said:
You're up 7.3% On the Year, on real money, over at least 3+ months. If you can roughly produce that over the year, that's around 30% YoY. That ain't bad, by any stretch. In the current bounding/muddled market, that's not a bad place to be.

But, the nicer part will be this: a massive amount of *real* information about your own trading. With a foundation to build from (and hopefully a bit more of a trending, violate market), that means there's a career there in a few years. Or, even baring that, toss 30% into a compounding calculator. In the near future, you're talking a good chunk of change.

Keep up the good work Slug. You really are doing a good job.

sqa, I appreciate the kind the words and motivation you have given me. I really hope there is a career in trading for me. I have put a lot of time and effort into it and would really like it to pay off for me in the long run. I believe as long as I can keep risk under control and not get caught up in greed, then I will be able to stay alive long enough to get there.
 
I don't know how old you are, but let's assume you're 40.

If don't "go pro", but can find a way to pull out this amount via Swing/Position type trading each year, 20% adds up to a lot, over time. And, this is probably the key, how much you need to "produce" goes down a lot as your supply of money gets higher.

20% (I'm trying to do a basic account for taxes) on 10k is 2k. Not bad, really, as long as the work isn't too much. And, for most people, their hobbies probably cost a lot more than *make* them money. But, roll this forward a couple of years. 20% on 100k is 20k. That's not quite a living, but if you don't have to put in all that much work, that's a pretty dang nice side income.

What if we roll forward a bit further. Say you have 250k in your account. The first note is "NICE JOB!". The second note is that 20% of 250k is 50k. If you're still doing both this & your normal job, you should have 0 debt, a good house, good car and be living real pretty. But this is also an inflection point, as you could (with little to no debt) simply live of that yearly.

So, if you're 40 and this is your "side hobby" until retirement around 65, you will know why compounded interest is so wonderful: $1,192,452. Seems like a nice retirement account, along with other savings you should be doing (401k and the like from work). Pays off a lot better than stamp collecting.

But here's the fun kicker: This is assuming adding no money extract to the account. If you're getting consistent returns, and you have the control to not bomb it out, you can add money.

https://www.investor.gov/tools/calculators/compound-interest-calculator

If you start at $12,500, add 250 a month and "make" 20% per year, you're at $155,272 by year 10. If you can get it up to 40%, it's 100k after 5 years.

But, looking back at the start of the thread... have you taken an account from Jan/Feb 2013 @ $5000 and gotten it to $12500 in 14 months? I think you might be doing better than you realize.

On the "bigger" thoughts, I'm way too new to give technical advice, but I'm very good at self-analysis and eliminating problems. (I have way too much practice at that) If you're consistently *profitable* over *months* and not taking wild swings, that means "you've gotten there". The issue now is "getting over the hump" and getting more out of winning trades/limiting losing trades more. That'll be worth a good bit.

But, the outer goal, is to really refine what it is you "know" happens. What's your Insight. What can you "see" about to happen. What is *your* edge? It'll take a while to both find & understand it. Don't fret if you don't have it for a while. Most people never got to that point in whatever it is they do. But let the concept rumble around in your head. What do you consistently "hit" in trading? Like Smart Money, it leaves hints.

If you find it, refining it and cross-applying it is where the "big money" shows up. Whether in Trading or Academics. Not joking. This is an adapted version of an insight one of my professors gave me about being "great" in the Sciences. You find your 1 key Insight and just apply it everywhere you can find to apply it. It'll make an entire academic career.

Keep it up, you're already doing really well. And a whole lot better than most traders. Be glad in that and relax. Step into the next phase in confidence.
 
I am 24 years old so I have a lot of time to let this thing compound and I have about as much money in my bank account as I do in my trading account so I am also able to let it compound. I did not trade it up to 13K from 5K, I have been making injections into the account over time, but I am starting to find some consistency and I am not seeing those wild swings that I was having last year. I am finally starting to realize what I have to do and not what I want to do. For example, if I am finding that I have an itch to be in the market, I know that is a bad feeling so I can place a low risk trade in a smaller separate account to feed that itch, but not force a trade in my main account.

My new thing is learning to spot stop raids and this really clicked with me when I watched the "Higher Time Frame Analysis Part 2" webinar by ICT. For example, I wanted to short Fiber around 3770 last which was the trade I said I was going to wait for this week a few posts ago. Well London Open comes around and the price action just didn't look like a stop raid. It had a lot of things going for it (in sync with higher time frame, stochastic divergence on 4H, SMT divergence, pivot sell zone), but I still didn't take the trade because it didn't have the characteristics of a stop raid. I wake up this morning and sure enough price shot right through where the old me would have sold (I wish I would have held my Cable long yesterday instead of just scalping it).

Anyways, once again, thanks for the motivation it keeps me thinking that I am on the right track and it was a good read as well.



sqa said:
I don't know how old you are, but let's assume you're 40.

If don't "go pro", but can find a way to pull out this amount via Swing/Position type trading each year, 20% adds up to a lot, over time. And, this is probably the key, how much you need to "produce" goes down a lot as your supply of money gets higher.

20% (I'm trying to do a basic account for taxes) on 10k is 2k. Not bad, really, as long as the work isn't too much. And, for most people, their hobbies probably cost a lot more than *make* them money. But, roll this forward a couple of years. 20% on 100k is 20k. That's not quite a living, but if you don't have to put in all that much work, that's a pretty dang nice side income.

What if we roll forward a bit further. Say you have 250k in your account. The first note is "NICE JOB!". The second note is that 20% of 250k is 50k. If you're still doing both this & your normal job, you should have 0 debt, a good house, good car and be living real pretty. But this is also an inflection point, as you could (with little to no debt) simply live of that yearly.

So, if you're 40 and this is your "side hobby" until retirement around 65, you will know why compounded interest is so wonderful: $1,192,452. Seems like a nice retirement account, along with other savings you should be doing (401k and the like from work). Pays off a lot better than stamp collecting.

But here's the fun kicker: This is assuming adding no money extract to the account. If you're getting consistent returns, and you have the control to not bomb it out, you can add money.

https://www.investor.gov/tools/calculators/compound-interest-calculator

If you start at $12,500, add 250 a month and "make" 20% per year, you're at $155,272 by year 10. If you can get it up to 40%, it's 100k after 5 years.

But, looking back at the start of the thread... have you taken an account from Jan/Feb 2013 @ $5000 and gotten it to $12500 in 14 months? I think you might be doing better than you realize.

On the "bigger" thoughts, I'm way too new to give technical advice, but I'm very good at self-analysis and eliminating problems. (I have way too much practice at that) If you're consistently *profitable* over *months* and not taking wild swings, that means "you've gotten there". The issue now is "getting over the hump" and getting more out of winning trades/limiting losing trades more. That'll be worth a good bit.

But, the outer goal, is to really refine what it is you "know" happens. What's your Insight. What can you "see" about to happen. What is *your* edge? It'll take a while to both find & understand it. Don't fret if you don't have it for a while. Most people never got to that point in whatever it is they do. But let the concept rumble around in your head. What do you consistently "hit" in trading? Like Smart Money, it leaves hints.

If you find it, refining it and cross-applying it is where the "big money" shows up. Whether in Trading or Academics. Not joking. This is an adapted version of an insight one of my professors gave me about being "great" in the Sciences. You find your 1 key Insight and just apply it everywhere you can find to apply it. It'll make an entire academic career.

Keep it up, you're already doing really well. And a whole lot better than most traders. Be glad in that and relax. Step into the next phase in confidence.
 
On the Stop Raids issue, I'm actually running into the same problem in general. My "Insight" is definitely finding reversal ranges & knowing what the "trend" of the week is. (I'm starting out a USDJPY trader) But even when I know *where* the Market is going, *why* it's going there and *where* I want to get out, I still couldn't get into the trade this week. 150 pips missed, even when I knew it was going to do that.

The issue is I was looking for a "run back" or some sort of on Monday, but it was an utter Dead Cat. Or was it? That was *my* problem. Using the Monthly OHLC chart setup ICT showed, I knew exactly how this was going to work at the start of the week, but I didn't put the Month Open on my closer-view chart. So I completely missed that it spent all of Monday collecting there. I was expecting to get stopped out if I wasn't careful, using just Retracements, and completely botched the Consolidation at a massive Order Block they were creating.

But, as much as I want to beat myself up about this, I also know this fact: the pair will be there tomorrow and next week. So, for you Slug (or anyone else reading), if you keep your Risk Management, you'll be in it for the trades tomorrow as well.

And as much as I don't want this to be a "you're young, you have time" line (which I got recently myself, actually), there's a reality to that. As a 24 year old Male, you only at the start of your Physical Prime (25 to 32), before your relational prime (32-42) and you're not even half-way to your Highest Earning Potential (50-55). You've got a lot of time ahead of you, but the main point is this is a Marathon.

And you can already do it in under 4 hours. You're most of the way there. Now it's a matter of training to "lower your time", make the hard parts easier on yourself and make the currently easy parts exceptional.

If that isn't enough encouragement, two other thoughts: 1) ICT said he started trading around 25 (I think he said he'd made his first million when 26). He's in his low 40s now. You're ahead of ICT. :) 2) You've made, on Net, more money than all of the fools that pissed ICT off enough to leave the other forum... combined. You're doing good.
 
I find it funny how none of the "traders" in the Forex industry take responsibility for their own actions. They think they have learned ICT material and they are not turning a profit so they automatically assume that it is the material/mentor at fault. Do you think they know the material like the back of their hand? Probably not. Do some people just not have the mentality to be a successful trader? Probably not. Do they have the patience to see it through long enough to become a successful trader? Probably not. I believe in the material and it feels like magic when I get it down and am starting to show some proof that it does work for me. It obviously works for ICT... unless he won the lottery at some point in his life where would he be getting all this time?

Where did you hear him talk about when he started trading and when he made his first million? I have watched and taken detailed notes on all of his educational videos and have snippets of him saying how much he made during certain periods of time, but nothing too detailed about his Forex career. It must be in Pro Trader's Club, Market Review, or Live Trade video that I haven't watched yet?

I'd like to make a million by the time I am 26 (uh oh I am running out of time, better start betting the farm). 8)
 
I heard ICT say that during one of his really, really long videos. While I was thinking it's the NYO tactics video, it's probably in the 2014-01-15 Webnar. It's 3+ hours (which is why Sniper #8 seemed so short, haha), and I'm pretty sure that's where he mentioned it. It was something like $930k or $960 at age 26. He also mentioned losing $50k on a trade as well around there. I think that was also the video we learned he lived near a major path that Fire Engines use, haha.

As for the people that complain about him, there's a skill to figuring out fakes & experts. It's quickly noticeable with ICT that he was either the best actor at being random or he knew what he was doing. He showed none of the tell-tale signs of a fake. You really can't fake subtle details without extensive work, and, given his own admitted ADD tendencies, it was really noticeable he knows what he's doing.

There's also the issue that he put more effort & money into his production than every other "mentor" that's actually selling "systems" as a career. It's a bad idea to have "buy my system!" videos that look like they were shot on a worse camera than I was doing student film work with a decade ago. Plus he's now showing what he's up to on 1 or 2 pairs each week. It's a little hard to fake calling stuff early.

Speaking of which, I'm waiting for him to let slip how much he had on that GBPUSD run on Tuesday. You know he was hunting that after the small NFP move/lack of bounce. (I don't trade that pair, but a quick look shows a lot of what he hunts)

Someone might be able to help me with this. I'm going through the 2011 Christmas videos and the Asian Session one he talks about seeing the directional bias for the day from the Order Pairing that happens there. He can "see" it, but I don't know what he's actually looking at. There's some aspect of Price Action that he really keys on that I don't "see" yet. Or, if I see it, I don't know which way it's actually pointing. Anyone know where he goes into detail about this?
 
ICT really frustrates me sometimes, yeah I know I go over board and he is doing this for free, but one of the major things that drives me nuts is the lack of detail.

He mentioned this a couple of times about how during the Asian session he could tell which way orders were building up, but like I mentioned above he never went into details as to what he sees or anything to that sense.

He also seems to change gears to something new every chance he gets. I wish he would stick with something and then do a true over the shoulder look at how he implements it into live trading. I don't want a signal service, I just want to be able to see over his shoulder as to how, why, when, and where he is using his tools.

I'm more of a visual person and I can remember or pick up on things if someone shows me first hand. I mean what job did you ever go to were they didn't show you how to do something before they sent you on your way to complete your job. Companies don't just take new employees and throw them to the pit, well usually...Trading always seems like mentors give just enough information so you then have to pull your hair out to try to figure out what they are saying or mean.

Can for once we get a mentor that ACTUALLY opens up their trading room to the newbies? I know he mentioned it several times that he was going to open his trading to us, and bragged how no other trader does this and that's what we need as new traders, but as you can see that's never happened.
 
Oh yeah, now I know what you're talking about. It was in the market maker webinar he actually said that in his early 20's he was making almost $20,000 a week without anybody really knowing and that that kind of money can get to your head.

After that he said that he made $830,000 from $2,600 account.

Anyways.. still only 1 trade this week for +0.5%. Didn't have a good feeling about my short bias today so no trades taken.

sqa said:
I heard ICT say that during one of his really, really long videos. While I was thinking it's the NYO tactics video, it's probably in the 2014-01-15 Webnar. It's 3+ hours (which is why Sniper #8 seemed so short, haha), and I'm pretty sure that's where he mentioned it. It was something like $930k or $960 at age 26. He also mentioned losing $50k on a trade as well around there. I think that was also the video we learned he lived near a major path that Fire Engines use, haha.

As for the people that complain about him, there's a skill to figuring out fakes & experts. It's quickly noticeable with ICT that he was either the best actor at being random or he knew what he was doing. He showed none of the tell-tale signs of a fake. You really can't fake subtle details without extensive work, and, given his own admitted ADD tendencies, it was really noticeable he knows what he's doing.

There's also the issue that he put more effort & money into his production than every other "mentor" that's actually selling "systems" as a career. It's a bad idea to have "buy my system!" videos that look like they were shot on a worse camera than I was doing student film work with a decade ago. Plus he's now showing what he's up to on 1 or 2 pairs each week. It's a little hard to fake calling stuff early.

Speaking of which, I'm waiting for him to let slip how much he had on that GBPUSD run on Tuesday. You know he was hunting that after the small NFP move/lack of bounce. (I don't trade that pair, but a quick look shows a lot of what he hunts)

Someone might be able to help me with this. I'm going through the 2011 Christmas videos and the Asian Session one he talks about seeing the directional bias for the day from the Order Pairing that happens there. He can "see" it, but I don't know what he's actually looking at. There's some aspect of Price Action that he really keys on that I don't "see" yet. Or, if I see it, I don't know which way it's actually pointing. Anyone know where he goes into detail about this?
 
To PipHanger's comment, I think part of the problem is Michael tends to mention concepts from "other series" when he's not doing one of his produced videos.

If you take the series together, especially the Trader Planning or Sniper, they're very consistent. The issue is the stuff between where he references from his entire toolbox. Which I think I can explain with a funny story from my childhood.

My father had a 1971 Pinto. In poop brown. (It was a 70s thing) This was a year before the "exploding" variety (even if it caught fire no more often than any other car of that period and the Memo was a fake, but everyone remembers it for that). There was some weird aspects about that Pinto. The main one being the toolkit you needed to work on it. You needed a full collection of American & Metric wrenches just to change the battery.

It took me a lot of searching a few years ago to finally figure out what was up with that car. It turns out that a California dealer ended up with some Race Homologation from Germany in the 1/2 production year of 1971. So my Father's Pinto had a high strung, aluminum block engine from a Rally car, race suspension and a much faster gear shift. This was a poop brown, 1971 Pinto and it was easily doing 0-60 in around 7 seconds, even after being nearly 30 years old. I was actually in that car going 140 (my brother driving) one time. I was scared but it was still stable. And it got around 35 mpg.

I tell that story because the car was Dr. Frankenstein running a marathon on stilts. It made very little sense from the outside. But once you got an *entire* toolkit, broke it down piece by piece, you can see why it could do what it could do, even if you seemed to need 3x as many tools as you would think.

So, what ICT definitely ran into, looking at his early stuff, is utterly flooding people with all of the details. It makes sense when you have it all, but it's nearly a wall of utterly different vocabulary. If you're not stupidly dedicated (and similar to ICT himself), it's really hard to grasp what he's up doing. This is why he's made "series" or "modules". Though what he's really doing in each is outlining a specific set of tools that work over multiple time-frames. But he's got the entire Toolkit, which would take a very long time to understand individually.

I can, however, understand the problem. I come from a Pure Mathematics background. As in PhD-tract Mathematics. And it comes naturally. I can, quite literally, "see" equations in ways no amount of training will ever get you to. That doesn't mean everything I learned isn't teachable, it's just truly being "great" at something might be beyond you.

But in Trading, "Great" is 10s of Millions. "Good" is Millions. Isn't anything wrong with being "Good". If you keep your Risk & Equity Management under control, don't over-trade and can consistently hit a type of Trade, you can make a career. You might just not be able to go "full time", because you don't need to. But you might just retire at 40. What's wrong with that?

Also, something to keep in mind, ICT is a pretty obsessive geek, which he freely admits. But, rather than being a Star Wars geek, he's a Trading Geek. One of those makes a fortune and one doesn't. I'm sure he appreciates his choice.
 
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