High Reward to Risk Trading

Nothing but respect for this thread. But couple of questions as I'm just trying to see this from your perspective.

First post you state that you only trade London session.
-why limit yourself to a time of day. Doesn't it make more sense to limit yourself to locations? I .E. Key S/R areas where price isn't likely to return for stop hunts?

You stated to close positions at the end of the day.
-Ever noticed how some weeks where price tends to trend during certain sessions? Last week price seemed to trend well during late Asia, the week before price moved nicely during mid us sessions. Seems like by closing positions at a set time that you could leave a lot of pips off the table and reducing our reward.

There was a post a long time ago that I forget who said it but it has always stuck with me. Something a long the lines of a profitable trader is a trader who has shifted his focus from improving his entries to reducing his risk.

Thank you Hawkins. I agree.

There are multiple ways to look at this, depending on timeframe(s) traded.
For entry, I prefer London session.
For exits, it doesn't matter, and to support our High RR goal, we might let winners run for days or weeks when levels support that.

Stick to the plan

EUR/JPY Weekly on crossroads.

Position Management:

So far and in most of the cases I was entering with full position size, and scale out taking partial profit, and let the remaining position run.
This week I will try entering in a smaller position, and scale in on retraces if I managed to get a runner.
All open positions will share one stop loss that is trailed at BE on all positions.

Demo trade this week to learn, TE created.

I had a great week going last week up until Friday I was up 25% for the week then broke Cardinal trading rules... took losses & revenge traded & over traded gave all profits back on Friday plus ended down 9% for the week. Shame on me!

Well It's a new week, let's see what we can do this week. One thing about trading is... "Trading opportunities are like trains; There's always another one coming"!
The good thing is I kept my risk in check or it could have been a disaster!

Gold is testing H1 Down Channel.
Trying a small short here.



EDIT : Moved SL to BE as it doesn't look good so far.

I'm holding off to buy in at the bottom of that channel, but looks prime for a short

However, demo will not give you the real feeling of this style.

I checked your demo TEs, and I noticed many entries.
I suggest you reduce the number of entries to for example 1 per hour, and try to let the winner run at least 3 to 4 hours.

Good Luck.

Well, I hope it gets there before hitting my SL, it could be > 10:1 RR.

Same here buddy.
It is a psychological test.

It seems that GU is finding support at day's low.



Yes it did.

If this one lives, first target @ 1.446x



GU SL almost hit. But still surviving.
Two outside bars, hitting daily high and daily low, .... spooky



Stopped. -1%.

Meanwhile, Gold is suffering at daily high.
Might try another small short.

Speaking of psychology, here is a good read, posted on tradeciety, by Moritz.

Why your mind will forever keep you a losing trader

At the table, you are your own worst enemy. Stu Ungar, the worlds greatest poker player.

In front of the charts, you are your own worst enemy as well. Giving 100 people the same strategy will have 2 of them come out on top as profitable traders and the other 98 will blow their accounts sooner or later. This is the eternal truth of trading, and also the reason why there is no universal holy grail that holds redemption for everyone that drinks out of it. Really, there isnt. You have to finally get this in your head, do yourself the favor, please.
YOU are the holy grail. And at the same time, YOU are also the one that keeps you from becoming your own holy grail. There is a great book on this topic actually, written by psychologist Dr. Alan Schoonmaker, called Your Worst Poker Enemy. I can highly recommend it to traders, as well. Reading it, I learned for the first time how our mind is manipulating us when we come under pressure. And in trading, most of us are under pressure as soon as a trade is opened. Many of us are even under pressure before they put a trade on because they want to make a million dollars right here, right now. Obviously, exactly this mentality will keep you from ever making single a cent in trading.
Lets take a look at the two main reasons why we sabotage ourselves

1. Unrealistic Expectations
2. No Work-Life-Balance

These two are the mothers of all psychological issues you have in your trading impatience, anger, frustration, fear, anxiety and greed. They all stem from unrealistic expectations and being in a bad mindset from the get-go. Obviously, unrealistic expectations stem from false marketing and claims of people saying that they turned 1000$ into a million dollars and that you can do it, too. No, you cant. Even if their claims were to be true, they are outliers! Why do you think you would be the next outlier? Are you that special? I bet not. First, you have to reach profitability in any way. Then you can think about how to monetize that profitability. But you cant start trading with the goal to make a fortune out of nothing, no. Once profitable, you have a lot of choices signal services, mentoring, managing money. This is how the real money in this industry is made, NOT in any other way. So your goal should be to become profitable. 10% ROI a year and you are world class. That should be your ultimate goal. But before that, your first goal should be to protect your money at all costs. A closer look at the emotions that sabotage us will reveal that they are all our very own creations, as all emotions are, by the way.

1. Impatience arises because you want it all and you want it now. If you have to make 20% or more per month just to cover your costs or to reach your unrealistic expectations, this will lead you to overtrading, oversizing your positions, and forcing trades.
2. Anger is a result of both unrealistic expectations and no work-life balance. If all your satisfaction or your self-valuation as a human being is derived from your results in trading, you will be on a constant roller coaster ride headed straight for hell. You need to find other things outside of trading to satisfy your need for achievements.
3. Frustration will get you even when you are profitable because even though you are already better than 99% of traders, you are never satisfied because you cannot reach your monetary goals which are set way too high. This will lead to frustration and eventually to losing everything you made in the first place.
4. Fear and anxiety will get the best of you because once you hit a losing streak, which is perfectly normal in trading, as we are in a game of probabilities, you will become worried about putting on another position as you think you are going to lose the next trade as well, anyway. This fear comes from not understanding expected value and not having a longer term view of things. Of course, if you have monetary goals, every trade you lose will steer you away from that goal. But losses are inevitable. Anxiety, on the other hand, will strike after a winning streak. You feel that somehow you finally made it, and that the next trade could be a loser and destroy your dreams once again. But the next loser will come, of course. You have to accept losses as part of the game. You absolutely have to.
5. Greed also stems from having unrealistic expectations towards your trading, causing you to take on too many positions, too big positions, holding them too long, widening your take profits, and so on. A bad work-life-balance, where your happiness is derived from how much money you have on your bank account, will nurture this emotion as well.

The thing with our mind is, that most people are controlled by it. It tells us what to think, when to eat, when to sleep, when to be happy, when to be sad, we are a playball of our subconscious. But in fact we do have the power to control our thoughts and our emotions, we have the power to make our mind work for us instead of against us. But this requires a lot of mental strength, and many simply do not have that strength or are not aware of how they are manipulating themselves.
In trading, there are a lot of things we can control, and we have to focus on these in order to create an edge for ourselves. If you can control how you feel about your trading by letting go of unrealistic expectations, seeing things for what they are, and creating a productive framework around your trading through healthy living, then why in the world wouldnt you do that?
Would you rather keep feeling frustrated, angry, depressed, and disappointed by yourself by having a completely wrong definition of success, or would you rather want to shift your focus to a healthy process of learning, improving, and praising yourself for your hard work? Its up to you. And remember, whenever you find yourself in a rough spot, do not let your mind get the best of you because it is indeed your own worst enemy. But it can also be your best ally. Learn how to control it.

abokwaik did you earn on GOLD today ? My SL hit ; /

Early Shorts closed at BE, few longs later made profit. Now all gone with the last down move.
It was better if I did avoid Gold as was the plan for the week.

Reached +6% on account today, and now at BE. Most probably will close in loss.

I don't know the reason for the recent drop in Gold.
I mean EUR, GBP, Oil are all up.

But who am I

Going in long here on N/U see if I can close a few LVC long targets & pick up a few pips end of day.

@ abokwaik

What determines the close of the LVC target? Is it when price just returns to the LVC or is it when price penetrates 50% of the LVC or does price have to reach the open of the LVC or beyond?

Thank you.
G

An LVC is closed when it's OPEN price is hit by any following candle.Good luck with your NU trade.