I usually like to think of myself of a law-abiding citizen. However, after today I feel as if I need to make a confession. Me, Akil L. Stokes, along with over 60 other traders should be arrested for what we did in the market in a mere three hours today.  What did we do? Well...We stole pips... A whole lot of pips...And got away with it!

The Live trading room has been up and running for about two months now. During that time we have had many good days, bad days and even days. Today was a great day. I'm not going to go into detail about what we traded and why we traded it (maybe I'll do a Chart Talk post later) but today we were able to turn good trades on basic advanced pattern entries into great trades by being smart with our trade management skills and disciplined in our trading psychology.  We only entered two trades today and between those two trades and a swing trade from last week  we were able to grab a over 350 pips of profit from the market. Not to mention we still have half of a position trading towards  a second target as I type this. (Banking 46pips at minimum, shooting for 206 pips on a 2nd target). 

The final day of last month was pretty bad for us, almost sucking up all of our profits. I was delighted to see that we didn't have a repeat performance today. As I mentioned earlier, we still have one trade in action seeking a second target but aside from that we've made almost 800 pips in the room this month.  

To the members of the live room, Thank you for another fantastic month. I love the vibe in the room and it certainly makes my trading day a lot more exciting by sharing my thoughts with all of you, along with hearing you're as well.

To the new members taking advantage of the $7 two week membership trial: I hope you're ready to trade and share three hours a day with a group of experienced traders as well as others like yourself that are just getting into the market. 

 
Some may look at today as a day of missed opportunities. I'd rather look at it as a day of smart trading. I didn't take any trades today in the live room but there was a lot that I was watching as shown by some of the charts above. About 3 trades had limit orders set but for one reason or another never got filled. There were also a few other trades that I predicted but didn't get involved in because of my trading rules. 

In my heart I am a very aggressive shoot first type of trader. However, past experience has changed my view on things and as of late I have become much less aggressive when placing orders. Its no conquincidence that my change from very aggressive to a more conservative style of trading has gone hand in hand with my accounts change from consistently negative to consistently profitable. However days like todaymake me think "what if I was still aggressive?"  In the back of my mind I know what the right move is, but it's often irritating to predict a correct area yet not be involved when the profits are being made.  So the question is, if I'm so irritated then why don't I go back to being aggressive. Well the answer to that is simply. It's because the pain of losing money in the market is worse than the irritation of missing out on a trade and not losing money. I'm still pretty new to trading on the 5 min time frames and as my friend Rick said it moves pretty fast, leaving less time to think especially when trading multiple pairs. 

As I've done in the past, I'll continue to review my trading and make adjustments to my plan. If I notice that a more aggressive strategy on the 5 min charts is worth it, then I may change up my strategy. (Kaizen) Until then, I'll keep doing what I know best and that is making as much money as I can by not losing a lot of money. See you tomorrow traders!
 
What I thought was going to be a slow day turned out to be pretty eventful. It all started this morning when my morning market analysis gave me ten pairs to put on my watch list. Not all of these pairs had trade setups that were going to be relevant during today's session, but regardless they were worth taking notes of.  The room started out pretty normal. After reviewing a few of the trades we took yesterday we went ahead and looked at some of the pairs on my watch list. Eventually we came across a potential 2618 setup on a pair that I was short from earlier in the week. It was actually pretty cool to get an example of this setup because we have talked about it a lot, but haven't actually gotten the chance to trade one.  This 26-18 trade reminded me of when I was a young trader and was determined to find a Gartley. Back then I didn't know what a Gartley was, but it sounded cool and everyone around me was always talking about it. We have been talking about and falsely spotting 26-18's for the past month and finally I was able to show the newer traders in the room how to actually trader it.  Of the 2 26-18 trades we took today 1 had already hit target 1 and the other is in the green with stops at break even.  Needless to say we're sitting pretty safe on both. We also had a structure trade on AUDUSD that was a winner and offset a loss that we took on EURUSD.   We still have a GBPCHF trade in progress which is testing structure as I write this, we won't know how that one ends until later tonight or tomorrow. See you tomorrow 
 
What seemed like a pretty dull day in the market actually turned out to be a pretty great one. Not only was it great but it was profitable for many of us in the room as well. However, when I say many of us I must admit that I wasn't one of those that were able to "ring the register" and do my making money in the market happy dance. Regardless, I get my excitement from seeing my predictions play out successfully and from the comments I received from members of the room that were pretty happy about the wins today. As a member of the room wrote me this afternoon:

"Hope you enjoyed your run. All three (EurJpy, Gbpusd, Eurusd) hit their targets (618 exts). Pretty cool or what."

Pretty cool indeed. As I mentioned earlier  today was a rather slow day to start. Other than looking at a few swing trades, nothing setup on the day-trading charts until the very end of class. Because I had planned on doing a distance run immediately after the close of our session I told the room that I would not be able to get involved in the trades if they didn't get filled by the end of the session. I explained in detail why not in the class, but let's just say I don't day-trade unless I'm in front of my computer to manage them. 

When returning from my run, I took a look on our Facebook Group page and noticed some comments about the trades. After reloading my charts I saw that 3 out of the 4 trades got filled and hit their first targets and were now rolling over to the second targets.  We decided in the room that (win or lose) I wouldn't tally these trades in our Trading Room Monthly Stats but between the 3 trades there could have been up to 270pips made.  It would have been nice to add that number to our current running total of over 300pips for the month, but I have to be true to my words. After all these trades could have easily went the other way. Well done traders I'll see you guys tomorrow. 

 
"Not a good day, a great day" as said by one of the members of the live room this morning. And you know what I can't disagree. I had a slight feeling that today would be a little different when a lot of members seemed very excited during the pre-session chat. I tend to open the room about 15mins early everyday and I usually get the normal round of "good mornings" and "how are you doings" but today people just seemed a little more fired up.  We first started the session by reviewing a few of the trades that I was in. Although the EURUSD trade (that I probably jinxed by writing a post about it lol) failed, our EURJPY was still rolling strong and I personally had a USDCAD position that was kicking tail.  Soon after a few traders in the room identified an excellent setup on the AUDUSD (that I'll go over later in a Chart Talk Post). I also found a pretty nice structure based trade on the GBPUSD that (as you can tell by the chart above) just skyrocketed soon after we entered. Other than a low risk trade taken at the closing of the session that was basically it for the day. So the question is what made today so great?  Well, today was great because everybody was on the ball. Whether it was identifying awesome setups on AUDUSD and NZDUSD that ended up being winners or whether it was just proving that they had an understanding of market structure and harmonics, it was just a great atmosphere and it felt really good to be a trader.  It just seemed like we were one big market killing machine....
 
Despite the lack of updates the past few days have been pretty good in the live room. It all started off with a few people catching a nice winner on a GBPUSD trade that got filled on Friday. I was out of town on Friday and didn't have a chance to get involved, but for those who did I think it profited them over 70pips.  Since the trading room was closed on Monday we looked to continue this momentum on what I now call our "Aggressive C Tuesday." I call it this because it seemed like we had an aggressive C setup on almost every day-trading pair. A lot of them ended up either not completing, or not completing to my liking, but we did take three live trades in the room.  The first stopped us out for break even, then second gave us a 33pip loss and the third we ended up holding overnight.  The trade that we held overnight (EURJPY -Top Left) traded sideways until today's live room session when it started to finally rollover. It took us nearly the session, but price action eventually broke through and hit our first targets giving us 89pips in the process.

Although these were two different trades on two different time frames, it does serve of as a reminder of why a proper risk ratio should be taken when trading. On one hand we had a 33pip loss which when you add both contracts gives you -66pips. The you turn around and wipe out that entire loss on the first target of another trade plus some. Again, this isn't the best example of the importance of using a good risk/reward ratio but it can give you an idea of how trading works. 1win+1loss=Profit. 

Lastly, the top left is a trade that we identified yesterday but didn't get filled until today. It's actually pretty cool what we're up against on that pair so be on the lookout for a "Chart Talk" post later. 
 
Today's session seemed to go pretty quick which is usually a pretty good indicator that it was a good day. I actually started the session a few minutes early to be sure that we had a chance to get involved in a good opportunity on a GBPUSD setup. I won't go into details about why we entered the trade but it ended up being a two target winner totaling 63pips. Unfortunately only half of the class got filled on the order due to the spread. Myself being one of those. Would I have liked to be involved in that trade...yes. However, it didn't bother me for two reasons. First of all, I'm fully aware that the market will give me many more good opportunities to trade, and secondly, I know that I made a good call. Now you've probably heard me say before that one of the worst feelings a trader can have is making a good call and not being involved.  But that saying is more directed towards a person being scared to enter and hesitating, not so much for those that placed an order and simply didn't get filled. 

As the markets moved throughout the NYC/Euro session we had a lot of potential patterns set up, but none of them met my rules for entry. In hindsight this was probably good thing because a few pairs blew right through the predicted reversal zones. But hey, that's why we have rules. 

Other than that we watched our EURJPY trade from yesterday retrace to a more comfortable level, and I personally took a position on the USDCHF before the room opened which a few people hopped on as well. Most importantly people involved in the room are saying that they have really been enjoying themselves. I don't know if its because we're making money, or it's because their learning/mastering there craft, or it could be the fact that I gave out money everytime somebody gave praise to the Pro Trader Course. lol I didn't really give out money but I kept ringing the register, (you had to be there to understand how funny it was). The point is we're having a good time and I'm liking this a lot more than trading by myself everyday. I'll see you guys tomorrow!
 
Today was a pretty uneventful day in the live room. We missed a few opportunities at the open of the session due to some technical issues with half the class being in the wrong room. And once we got all of the settled, the moves we might have been in were already on there way. Personally I don't really care that we missed the moves because there are always more to come, plus they could have just as easily been losers. So as usual, we sat back and waited for some valid opportunities, We had a few setups on the 5min charts that looked pretty good, but none of them followed through in a way that would give us reason to get involved. With that being said we did find 2 opportunities to get in on some longer time frames (60min & 15min).  Both trades are still in progress so I can't give you a total pip update, but it gives us something to look forward to tomorrow. 

One thing that i'm really happy to see is that many of the traders in the room are starting to see the market just as I see it. When I say this I don't mean that I am always right, or only what I see counts. Rather they are starting to use the skills taught in the Pro Trader Course and relate it to the live markets. It's always cool when multiple people can notice and predict the same setup. Just makes you feel kind of good! See you guys tomorrow and we'll see how these 2 tra
 
There is no better feeling then making money on your day off. I've updated the site a few times today already so I'll keep this brief but both of the swing trades we called on the EURUSD & GBPUSD on Friday have paid off and gotten us some good money. GBPUSD has hit target 1 and 2 for over 160 pips and EURUSD as hit target for around 5o pips. Long story short we made over 200pips today without even actively trading the markets. Well done traders. We're up over 300 for the month already which is a great start but as you know that means nothing. Just have to keep trading as Roy stated in his post. See you guys tomorrow, along with anybody new that signed up for the 2-week special. 
 
Today was a little different than most days in the live room. Because of the NFP at 8:30 I didn't even bother looking for any trades in the market seeing how my rules tell me to stay on the sideline and enjoy the firework show. When the news event arrived the market went into complete madness, then retraced, followed by some more madness. Of course we were not involved in any new trades so we simply sat back and laughed, but it was pretty cool to see how the newer traders reacted to this monthly event.  Although we didn't trade for basically the first hour we did have some pretty good conversations ranging from money management to growing your trading business to me trading in a robe with a cigar swirling a glass of wine....Please don't ask lol.  But seriously though, we did cover a lot of topics dealing with trading which I really enjoyed. After the madness was over we identified a few setups on the hourly charts but none got filled by the end of the session. In fact we didn't get filled in any trades until the very end of the class. As of writing this both of the trades are still in progress 1 having hit tgt 1 with stops at break even and the other trading barely in the black.  So technically no pips were grabbed in the room today but we did have an 86pip winner from yesterday get filled for tgt 1 and for those brave enough to stay in the GBPUSD trade from Wed, grabbed over 100 pips.