PenthousePips' Trade Journal

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I'm starting this trading journal so I can keep an electronic log of my trades in one place. The method of trading that I will be using for these trades is something that I have been thinking about for the past few months. I've decided now is the time that I will begin to demo trade this method and see how things go.

My plan is to demo trade until the end of the year and if the results are profitable I will then begin the year of 2013 with a small amount of money in my live trading account.

If I had to be specific with what type of trading this will be I would have to say it's a scalping method.

I use an emergency stop loss of 10 pips and I don't have a pre-determined take profit level. I use an emergency stop loss just incase I lose my internet connection, my power goes out, etc.

I only will be trading the EUR/USD currency pair. I like keeping things as simple as possible. I feel if I trade EUR/USD in a profitable manner then I can make more then enough to live comfortably.

I will be using Oanda's MT4 demo account for charting purposes and Oanda's fxTrade demo account to enter the trades. My reasoning for this is because I like the functions that Oanda's fxTrade demo account platform has that their MT4 platform lacks.

As of right now I will be trading Monday-Thursday from 11am-9am PST. That is my trading window. It does not mean that I will be trading that entire window of time. It just means that during that window of time is when I will look to take trades.

Tonight will be my first night trading this week so I will post my results after 9am PST.

 

No Trades

I did not have any trades to post today. I may have jumped the gun a bit on setting up my journal here. I'm in the process of fine tuning a few things (I thought I was past this phase) so I will post once I'm done fine tuning and ready to begin trading again.

I want to make sure that once I start posting and sharing that I don't have any breaks after a few weeks so I want to make sure I have everything set up on my end properly.

 

Finished Tweaking

I'm done making the few tweaks that I was making earlier in the day and I will begin trading once my first valid trade appears.

There are a small change that I need to speak about since I'm unable to edit my first post. I will place my stop loss based off of technical analysis rather than just using an emergency stop loss of 10 pips.

 

Hourly Method

I've decided that I will be trading off the EUR/USD hourly chart and move my mechanical scalping method to the side for now.

This journal will be strictly dedicated to my trading off the hourly EUR/USD currency pair.

Staying up late has begun to take its toll on me when I was trying to scalp.

 

First Trade

I didn't get a chance to post my view on the market last night but I did enter my first trade and it was a winner. The is one more tweak I made and that is that I will use a stop loss of 40 pips for right now but will also keep an eye on technical analysis also.

So in the cases when I can use an initial stop loss of less than 40 pips, I will do so.

As for my trade that I took, I've attached a screenshot for you to view.

Files:
trade_1.png  99 kb
 

Current Market View

I've attached a screenshot giving an explanation of my current view of the market.

Files:
market_view_1.png  103 kb
 

Current Market View

I've attached a screenshot giving an explanation of my current view of the market.

Files:
market_view_2.png  104 kb
 

Quick Update

I did not get to post a chart earlier of my trade but I'm currently long from 1.2750. I missed being stopped out by 1 pip. I think that may have been the first time that I was saved by 1 pip.

Usually I'm stopped out by 1 pip and then price heads in the direction I was predicting price was going to go.

Feels good to be on the opposite side this time around.

I will try and post a screenshot a bit later.

 

Final Changes Coming Soon

I will be making my final changes. It has been hard trying to figure out just exactly what I want this trading journal to be about but I believe that I have come to a final decision.

I've decided that I will go back to my original plan and have this journal be dedicated to scalping.

More specific details will be coming soon.

 

Daily Trading

As much as I want to scalp, it's just not for me. Not that I'm not able to do well with it I just don't want to be tied to the computer like that.

So I'm in the middle of getting a daily trading method under my belt. I'm using Oanda fxTrade for me trades and I will begin trading at Sunday night. Oanda forms a new daily candle at 9pm PST.

I will be trading the daily charts using 6 currency pairs. The pairs I will be trading are EUR/USD, GPD/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY.

I'm currently still looking at what I want to use for a stop loss on my trades. I hope to have my journal updated with my final decisions by Sunday evening before Oanda produces a new daily candle.

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