aIQue Trading Blog

Quick vs Patience

Depending how you develop yourself to be the type of trader that suits your character, there are options to go more often for quick trades (shorter range target but higher win rate), or go for bigger trades where the return is a lot more higher but the time duration of trade is much longer.

We are talking about minutes (1 to 15 mins) vs hours (3 to 36 hours)

Know yourself, choose your own poison.

Trading is typically being measured of being right and wrong (winning and losing trades).

What most people are missing is when right, "how" right can you be?
When wrong, "how" wrong can you be?

If you trading ruler has only 1 and -1, then the process of trading is going to be extremely tough. I have created my ruler where the positive scale stretch from 1 to 20 (still extending), the negative scale is -0.3 to -1.

Trade Accuracy

It is very dependent on how fast you get out of the market, which also means the range of moves is short relative to the daily range.

Without changing the size quantum, the only way to earn more is trade more. So, this is one way to increase amount of profits.

The other way is to size up when price moves, but the initial building might have failed attempts due to early anticipation for better prices.

There are many ways to skin the cat. Find one that you can execute and adapt.

Ex*****on and Control Abilities

A properly trained trader will understand that ex*****on and control abilities topped the list.

Having your trading edge is all the pre-work and training you require before you develop your trading process.

A modern trader needs to have two major departments:
1. Skills and Abilities
2. Trading systems

Not easy to keep up with posting. Been busy trading... when I have free pockets of time during the day, I go exercise or sleep. These activities are essential to my trading life.

Hmm..... seeing more advertisements on AI trading and investments. No doubt technology can help with many areas in trading, but IMHO a human trader's decision making brain is not easily replaceable.

If you want to have skills of a trader, then you probably have to do it manually. Use technology to automate or take over certain parts of trading. Asking other people to earn money for you is not trading, just buying a service or product.

Is trading discipline important?

It is one of the keys to trading success. Most traders don't really understand and equate those bad results due to a lack of discipline.

Discipline is a quality you have to learn and acquire to use in training yourself to achieve certain goals.

So, in the first place, you need to be able to break down your training and set specific goals. E.g. reduce size when loss limits are hit; be deliberate in choosing the right entry method for each type of setup; review trades daily to pinpoint mistakes and lesson learned, etc

It is only through conscious training that you can acquire the necessary skills of a trader. This is how you can become a profitable trader.

End of 2023

I did not anticipate that I still had to evolve my trading as I pushed for higher performance. The efforts and time paid out and managed to close the year well.

This year, the most important thing that I have achieved is to push the win column much higher. It took months to be able to select the right trades to size up big (bigger than I used to). It's very mental to re-train my decision process, and it is no joke. The ability to recover from failed high-risk trades is the key to success.

Market (Wall Street) has been crazy. What about main street? Especially in 2024.

I have no idea. Can only trade based on how the prices move.

Before you are clear about your trading edge and have achieved it...

Don't think of returns yet.

Keep trading and learning to create trading edges. There is a long list of things to learn and sort out before you can talk about profits.

You can't have the highs without the lows

You can get someone to teach you trading, but you need to spend many more times of time and effort to acquire the necessary skills. You can't just buy a system. There is no such thing.

big picture

Testing 2022 low?

2023-10-24

Broke out of the 6 days consolidation

vs

Which one should I use? This is a wrong question.

Before you enter any trade, you must already know how much you are going to risk. You already have identified the stop loss price.

This translate to what is the ideal and worst price that you would take the trade. If price is within your defined zone, enter at market. If it's outside, send in a limit order.

Do this consistently, you would often have a good entry.

Based on 250 trades and maintaining average dollar loss at $100 (Avg$Loss), below table can be used for calibrating the way you trade.

Over time, you should be able to estimate your winning percentage and how much return your methods/strategies can generate. Keep your trade log only for methods that are similar in nature and performance. Create different logs if you have entirely different methods of trading.

Find your sweet spots. Learn and train techniques that can enhance your performance.

Daily loss limit

Log all your trades, accumulate at least 250 trades, this is the start for you to analyse your trading.

You should be able to identify if you apply a daily loss limit. The net result would have been much better.

(The challenge is that most people can't even reach 250 trades)

Clarity comes from trials and errors

While you have not figured enough, just keep trading with small risks. Plan to lose. Keep honing your skills and create a structure for yourself.

After thousands of trades, you will start to figure out the type of risks you have to take. This is a very difficult process.

Learn how to manage and take risks.

2023 Week 40

On Thursday and Friday, price held above 1.2100. After NFP, it reversed strong and closed with new week high.

Monday is JPN and US bank holiday. Wed has Core PPI news and FOMC meeting after midnight Wednesday, followed by 2pm GDP and 8.30pm CPI news on Thursday.

Potential up moves in coming days

Being a trader, I am subjected to my emotions. What's important is to digest the emotions and go back to the routine that I have built.

If you have not gotten a routine, you would need to build one for your long-term success. I prioritize this over the system/strategy. Systems/strategies are necessary, but they are just building blocks. If you just tie profitability to systems/strategies, you probably would never get your answer.

Data Tools

Comparing and .

I use to determine my approach to the market. There are many patterns that can be identified and used for trade ex*****ons. In general, it can easily divide into two categories -:reversal and continuation patterns.

Both and can be used on its own or together. And patterns can appear in different time frames. I have learned to combine them and use them as and when they are applicable.

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a last-minute spending bill Saturday night averting a government shutdown that would have triggered a calamitous domino effect on the American public and economy.

The Senate voted to pass the continuing resolution 3 hours before a 12:01 a.m. shutdown of the federal government would have taken effect. The measure was signed into law by President Joe Biden late Saturday night.

The bill allows the government to stay open for 45 days, giving the House and Senate more time to finish their funding legislation.

The 71-page short-term bill, crafted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., allocates disaster relief funds, but does not include new financial assistance for Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia.

Since the inception of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, the U.S. has unleashed a war chest worth more than $43 billion in security assistance for Kyiv.

Earlier on Saturday, the House voted 335 to 91 to pass the stopgap spending measure. The House will resume its work on Monday.

Source:

Government shutdown updates: Biden signs 45-day funding bill to keep government open The Senate passed a spending bill Saturday night averting a government shutdown that would have triggered a calamitous domino effect on the American public and economy.

Analyzing the six H4 candles. Clearly, for Asian sessions, don't have to look at it.

The after lunch H4 candle, if you can find nice entry, targeting 50 points, would still give you a good 62% chance that your target can be hit.

The London candle usually starts to be more active and there is a high chance (59%) of seeing more than 100 points movement.

Of course, NY open is the best timing. it normally would move more than 100 points for 82% of the time.

The data is YTD for 2023.

This data can help you to formulate simple strategies and targeting 100 points of movement. It also tells you when you should risk more and how you should manage your expectations

My progression revolves around the expectancy formula.

At the beginning, I learned not to lose. Size were all small, focused on basic trade ex*****on. Took thousands of trades to confirm that.

Then improvements came when I started to increase the Avg$Win and increased the sizing over time to match a certain financial goal.

There were lots of back and forth as I tried to balance up the win rate and get used to bigger sizes. Emotions and decision-making were affected when the size was bigger. This was a very important progress.

As the position size varies, it makes it possible to reduce the Avg$Loss. This helped tremendously with the performance, bringing my level up again and gaining lots of confidence.

It's a continuous process as I kept moving the bar higher.

Stamina for trading also needs to be trained.

2023-09-26

Another re-test setup

2023-09-25

Multiple Time Frames (MTF) example.

Last Saturday, we talked about trading sessions. Below is some data for better understanding of how you can incorporate into your trading.

full range - refers from high to low
body range - refers from open to high/low (depending on bull or bear candle)

Data is for GBPUSD