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Trading Price Action On Renko Charts - Live Trades


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Trading Price Action On Renko Charts - Live Trades

  #1 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78

Hello everyone,

This will serve as my trading journal across all markets. I trade Brooks Price Action on BetterRenko charts, and I consider myself mainly a pullback scalper. I've been posting a journal on Al's site for a while, and I've decided to share it with nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). I've gotten a lot of good information - and even my chart type - from nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), so I'm hoping it will be helpful to others.

Some Background About Me

I discovered futures near the end of 2012 and promptly opened an account with Mirus so I could acquire my fortune. I lost a small amount of money quickly and realized that I really didn't know what I was doing. So, I began studying Brooks Price Action in January 2013. While doing that, I started trading in TopStep combines, and I eventually passed one in Dec. 2014 trading CL using BPA with a Mack style entry system (PATs Trading). [Combine report attached below if anyone's curious]

Before doing Live Trader Prep with TsT, I decided to trade my own small account in early 2015. It went great for about a week, and then I lost about $2K in 2 days... It became clear that I needed help with psychology, so I purchased Andrew Menaker's MYMYT course and have been working through it. I started LTP but eventually stopped before finishing it because I realized that no amount of continued sim trading was going to help me. I needed real money stress in order to keep growing. (I also had some misgivings about TsT's loss limits - namely, they forced me to risk far more than I thought wise on a $2K account in CL)

So, I decided to start trading very small with my FXCM account. During the last few weeks, I've modified my approach radically. I now use wide stops and scale in as trades go against me to increase probability (when appropriate). The entries and exits are much more mechanical, too.

My Approach

(I will post a more detailed plan soon. But for now, here's the basic ideas)

For the EUR/USD, I use a 4 BetterRenko chart with a 30 period EMA. I also have the 20 period EMA of both the 15 min and 60 min charts on my BetterRenko chart. All EMAs are used solely as support and resistance - no crossovers, etc.

The charts below show the general concepts of my entries and exits:




I use a lot of "ALbreviations" in my analysis, but please feel free to ask if something is unclear. I look forward to new ideas and feedback!



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  #3 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78




Summary/Review:

I like the new plan so far. We'll see if I still feel that way after I take a couple of big hits in the future. But today was one of the best days I've had in FX - despite an early large loss due to stupidity. For now, I'm trading in units of 2K (regardless of the stop size) because I want to be able to scale out. I've also sized up to the 4 Renko because the legs are clearer, and I don't need all the extra info from the 3 with this method (although it still seems to work fine...).

One other observation: to be considered a proper leg, the move must have at least 5 bars in it without 2 consecutive bars in the opposing direction. Most of the time, I see a lot of 4 bar PBs, so I'm using this as a quick filter. I'm sure I'll miss good trades occasionally, but this should keep me out of the marginal ones. This will also ensure that the leg is big enough for the scalp - so that commissions don't become an issue. It should also prevent me from forcing trades during those 20 tick TTRs.

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  #4 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78



Summary/Review

No trades today. I hesitated on a good trade and also on what I thought was a great trade. Then I tried to take another trade with no fill on the limit entry. There were other smaller scalps around the 33% PB levels, but the MKT was slow and rangy. I don't think I made any bad choices, but I'm trying to do less cherry-picking with this method.

One thing I have to work out is when to take the 33% vs. 66% levels. I have a general idea, but I need more data. One option is to trade the 33% and then scale in at the 66% level anytime the MKT is in a TC. I'll keep working on it and post more details once I have firmer ideas in place.

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  #5 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78



Summary/Review

Pretty good day. So far, I'm much more comfortable with this 'new' style of trading, and it's working out great. I've made more in the last 2 days than I ever had before in forex, and I'm trading smaller as well. I'm planning to stick with the 2K size for a while - just until I've explored this method fully.

One thing I'm interested in learning more about is adding to winners. I heard Big Mike once say that he didn't really start making money until he started doing this. But for now, KISS...

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  #6 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78



Summary/Review

I've been busy with some household things the last few days. I only took a couple of SIM trades today because I felt tired and out of tune with the MKT. But so far, so good with the new method. I marked a few other trades with purple arrows just for reference. I'm never up that early to trade...

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  #7 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78



Summary/Review

The trade I took today was difficult. I thought for sure I was going to get creamed, but that was just emotion talking. I kept repeating, "Trust the math, trust the math." I managed to trust myself, held on, and got a nice win. My instinct was to stop trading after the winner, but I'm trying to break this hyper-vigilance about my profits (if there are still good opportunities to be had). So, I was going to force myself to keep trading. Unfortunately, my internet and computer kept freezing up, putting a stop to my trading.

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  #8 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78






Summary/Review

I'm still sorting out the issues with FXCM, so I decided to trade the Dow mini today. I only had about $800 left in my futures account, so I figured I'd be thinking about the money. I did, but it still worked out ok. Unfortunately, I kept trying to swing trade and thinking about probabilities in terms of scaling in....but I wasn't able to scale in. As you can tell by the last image, all of my trades were profitable scalps with small actual risk, but I mismanaged them and ended up costing myself a good bit of money. I don't necessarily think I made bad choices, but my first goal is always the scalp, and it should have been my only goal since I was a 1 lot warrior today. In my defense, during a few of my trades, the MKT was incredibly jumpy. I went from +12 to +3 ticks on first trade in one second. So, that made it harder to make good decisions.

Basically, I learned that I do not really have a good plan for this strategy when trading only 1 lots with no scale-in ability. Something to work on developing.

The other thing that surprised me was the speed of the market. I had become so used to the pace of forex that I was unprepared to read the chart so fast. I laughed when I realized this because I used to think the equities were mind-numbingly slow (compared to CL). I still don't really like them, but it will be a long, long time before I can trade CL using a scale-in approach.

I think the best option for me will probably be to continue with forex. I may add some money to my account so that I can trade slightly bigger - maybe 5K for each entry. Since I look at each entry as a separate trade, I'm also willing to increase the risk on the entire position from 1% to 2% of capital. The more I trade this way, the better I understand the tradeoff between probability and risk. I think the probability of this method is quite good, but it will be very hard to stay within 1% risk with my current account size.

If my account issues aren't fixed by tomorrow, I'll probably give YM another go.

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  #9 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78




Summary/Review

A very good day for me in the YM. I made 53 ticks on 4 trades with no losers. I exited too early on a few trades, but I was trying not to repeat yesterday and hold too long. I passed on another 5 trades or so because I thought I needed WSS in order to have a better probability. They all worked, but passing was the correct decision since I wouldn't be comfortable with those trades without scaling in.

I was going to keep trading, but my mind started playing tricks on me. I was thinking too much about giving back my profits, so I decided it was time to stop.

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  #10 (permalink)
 macgwrite 
Raleigh NC USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: FXCM, NTB
Trading: YM, CL, EUR/USD
Posts: 67 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 75
Thanks Received: 78




Summary/Review

Just a quick trade today to test the new FXCM account. I usually don't trade on Fridays because my wife has the day off

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Last Updated on October 12, 2016


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