JCP's Journal

[JCP]

I have been wanting to start a trading journal for some time now, mainly to hold myself accountable and to force myself to continually assess my
progress when it comes to money management.

I think that Joe is doing a great job in his journal and he has inspired me to move forward with mine.

To start off I want to only post my results, as I am not ready to explain my strategies yet because I will be tweaking them as I start this process. They
are very simple strategies that are from this site.

Thanks again Edward and everyone else who contributes to this site, it has been a true asset. I hope to be able to give back by sharing my own experiences.


My current account balance is $5,920 as of 09/22/09, 12:00pm PST.

Below is my first purchase of this journal:

OPEN POSITION: 09/22/09 / GBPUSD / 1 hour Timeframe / Buy at 1.6357 / 25k lot / Stop Loss at 1.6259

[JCP]

POSITION CLOSED 09/22/09 / GBPUSD / 1 hour Timeframe / Buy at 1.6357 / 25k lot / Stop Loss at 1.6295 / Closed at 1.6396 / Profit +39 PIP (+$97.50)

Account Balance = $6018

[JCP]

09/23/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 08:45 PST / Buy at 1.4743 / 25k lot / Trailing Stop Loss Started at 1.4728 / Closed at 1.4759 / Profit +16 PIP (+$40.00)

09/23/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 12:20 PST / Sell at 1.4774 / 25k lot / Stop Loss 1.4762 / Closed at 1.4762 / Loss -12 PIP (-$30.00)

09/23/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 12:50 PST / Buy at 1.4752 / 25k lot / Stop Loss 1.4732 / Closed at 1.4732 / Loss -20 PIP (-$50.00)

09/23/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 12:55 PST / Buy at 1.4744 / 25k lot / Stop Loss 1.4722 / Closed at 1.4722 / Loss -22 PIP (-$55.00)

09/23/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 17:05 PST / Sell at 1.4736 / 20k lot / Stop Loss 1.4746 / Closed at 1.4722 / Loss -22 PIP (-$55.00)


Account Change (split account, now have 2 linking accounts)
New Account Balance (long term trading account) = $3023
New Account Balance (short term trading account) = $2900
Total = $5923

[JCP]

OPEN POSITION 09/24/09 / GBPUSD / 1 hour Timeframe / 06:00 PST / Sell at 1.6159 / 10k lot / Stop Loss 1.6245 / Limit at 1.5900

[JCP]

POSITION CLOSED 09/24/09 / GBPUSD / 1 hour Timeframe / 16:00 PST / Sell at 1.6159 / 10k lot / Stop Loss 1.6245 / Closed at 1.5957 / Profit +202 PIP (+$202)

Account Balance = $6124

[JCP]

09/25/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 07:25 PST / Sell at 1.4703 / 20k lot / Stop Loss 1.4720 / Closed at 1.4703 / Loss 0 PIP

09/25/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 08:15 PST / Sell at 1.4696 / 20k lot / Stop Loss 1.4706 / Closed at 1.4706 / Loss -10 PIP (-$20)

Account Balance = $6004

[JCP]

END OF WEEK SUMMARY:

I am having trouble with the shorter term strategy. It was working well over the last couple of weeks, prior to my Journal. This week I broke some of my key rules on the short term trades and let emotions control the trades, I chased the price down. I do like the 5 minute time frame, and I believe there is opportunity to grab 10-20 PIPs per trade, I just need to work on my consistency, as well as refining and sticking to my rules.

The longer term strategy is coming together, but it still needs refining. Right now it's based on the 1 hour time frame, 80EMA, and the 1,2,3 system. After the purchase I am setting my stop at point 3, and if goes to 50 PIP profit and reset the stop to break even point, my goal with this is to set my profit target at 3x the potential loss.

Overall I am still leaving some room for "instinct". In my experience, when I go completely automated I don't do well at all, I'm trying to figure out a way to work my own instinct into my set of rules. I guess the first step to this process has been ALWAYS placing a stop, and never entering a trade unless I have a great position, meaning a short and logical distance between my purchase and my stop, while allowing myself enough room for a good profit. Not sure if this makes sense, but it seems to be the only way I have profited in the last year or so.

Another frustrating issue that I am starting to wrap my brain around is back testing. This has really hindered my growth for the most part. Every time I develop a strategy, I back test it for a few years and find that overall it is somewhat profitable, but there are stages where big hits are taken. I find that making my strategies more flexible and able to evolve is working well, as long as the number one rule is always set, which is always to set my stops. The strategy on this site that comes to mind is the "System Selection Technique", I think strategies like this really lend themselves to consistent profits.

My last note is I need to work on sticking to the two strategies above, and just go for it. I spend a lot of time getting sidetracked looking for the "Holy Grail" of strategies. I think many strategies can work, I just need to focus on the two I've selected.

Anyway, these are my thoughts, and it feels good getting them down in writing for once so I can refer to them as I evolve.

JCP

[Edward Revy]

Hi JCP,

Congratulations on starting a journal and welcome to our forum!

Your first trading week summary is already showing good signs, as you're making a lot of useful and realistic conclusions.
Always set your stop, select trades that give you the best advantage; if your instincts are helping you, use them, after all, there should be the reason why you'd feel that a trade is worth entering: e.g. some patterns, some situations/setups that look familiar to previous ones you had, a good profit potential ahead etc etc, there should be something that motivates you, something you can anticipate by looking at charts.

Backtesting can be tricky by its nature. If to do it manually, first of all, we tend to look at the most obvious trading cases, such as a beginning of a large trend, which will catch our eye because we want to know how much profit we could've made there; we will also pay great attention to large whipsaws on the chart etc. At the same time we may disregard the tiny small ranges that in a real trading situation would also trigger our entry/exit signals. Robots outperform us in backtesting

But we have an advantage in forward testing , because when seeing a problem or a Winner, we can quickly adapt, take notes and improve. A robot can't - it gives backtesting results as is, and most of the time as a programmer gets exited, he ends up continuously curve fitting various settings until better backtesting results are achieved, forgetting about real charts

Happy testing and trading!

Regards,
Edward

[JCP]

Thanks for the feedback Edward, I'll continue to keep you posted on my progress as I continue to trade, test and refine my strategies.

Here's my status for week 2 so far:

I had an error on my last balance posting, it was actually $6104 versus $6004.

09/27/09 / GBPUSD / 1 Hour Timeframe / 18:00 PST / Buy at 1.5802 / 10k lot / Stop Loss 1.5782 / Closed at 1.5847 / Profit +45 PIP ($45)

OPEN POSITION 09/28/09 / GBPUSD / 1 Hour Timeframe / 10:00 PST / Buy at 1.5918 / 10k lot / Stop Loss 1.5812

Account Balance = $6141 (including the open position)

[JCP]

POSITION CLOSED 09/28/09 / GBPUSD / 1 Hour Timeframe / 10:00 PST / Buy at 1.5918 / 10k lot / Closed at 1.5918 / Profit 0

09/28/09 / EURUSD / 5 Min Timeframe / 17:20 PST / Buy at 1.4620 / 20k lot / Closed at 1.4604 / Loss -16 PIP (-$32)

OPEN POSITION 09/29/09 / GBPUSD / 1 Hour Timeframe / 08:00 PST / Buy at 1.5938 / 10k lot / Stop Loss Adjusted to purchase point 1.5938

Account Balance = $6159 (including the open position)