My Personal Trading Plan Reviewed by Trading Expert Kim Krompass
Here it is, my personal trading plan out with the world to see and review. I have asked trading expert Kim Krompass from the Price Action Institute to review my plan and find holes in it to make it better so I can adjust and improve. I believe in reviewing something with critical thinking so that I can become the best I can and make money in the markets. So first you will see my plan then below you will see Kimโs comments.ย Additionally please share this article via social media and leave your own comments on my forex trading plan in the comments section.
Core Values: Mission Statement
The purpose of trading: my trading will fit in with my core values in life to live a complete and fulfilled life serving my family and my community in my world. Thatโs very simple just a one-sentence statement to help me keep my vision in front of me so that I donโt lose sight of it.
Foundational Components of the plan:
I am going to trade Monday through Friday 8 a.m. And 8:30 every day Iโm going to spend 30 minutes a day 5 days a week trading Iโm going to be looking at the weekly and daily time frames. I am looking to hold trades for 3 days up to 3 months. ย With a target of 300 to 1000 pips and a risk to reward of minimum 1 to 1.
Strengths:
My strength is my ability to read the charts into where the market is going and also my understanding of technical analysis.
Weakness:
My weakness is following the plan maintaining the discipline do I need to execute my strategy.
Goals:
Profit goal is 10% return on investment in the first quarter of 2015.
To Follow Trading Plan.
To do quarterly reviews of my plan.
Strategy:
Step 1: Daily Process
I believe a successful trading strategy is a process and I will go through the same process every day the same way before I make a trade. I will continue to use the same process until I purposely change it because I believe I have found a better way. So as I am explaining the strategy remember this is the same step-by-step process that I use that I will use every day when analyzing the charts. This will be a simple strategy since I am only trading for 30 minutes a day I have to have something and find a good trade.
Step 2: Technical Analysis
My strategy will be using weekly and daily charts to identify the trend. I will use trend lines to determine the direction of the trend that Iโm trading.ย Once I find a good trend I will then use support and resistance levels to find a potential entry area. I will also check Fibonacci levels for confirmation. I will also be looking for price action and Candlestick patterns such as pinbars and engulfing candles to plan my entry.
Step 3: Fundamentals Analysis
I will check the news reports and fundamental numbers and write a statement on where I believe the fundamentals are telling me the pair will go.
Step 4: Plan the Trade
Once everything is lined up I will begin to lay out the actual trade.ย I will set an entry order or market order at the location where I want to enter the trade. If you donโt have a good trading plan you will fail. Click To Tweet
Risk To Reward:
I am looking for a 1 to 1 minimum risk to reward ratio on my trades with a goal of 3 reward per one risk.ย Since these trades are on a large time frame and will take some time to develop I will risk up to 5% per trade. With a goal of 15% ย What that means is if I win one trade by hitting my goal I will already have hit my profit target for the quarter.ย I will be willing to add positions to the trade. I will add if the price moves in favor or against me.
Here are the conditions I will add:
- If I get an additional price action signal in my direction.
- If I hit another support or resistance level.
I will add a total of 3 positions which will equal a total of 5% I will add 3% on the first trade and each additional position will add 1% of risk to the trade.
Stop Loss Movement:
I will lock in profit based on the price action of the daily bar.
Trade Example: To show the process of how I trade.
Audjpy Long
Long Aud/JPY
Technical:
I have 5 points of confirmation see above image:
Fundamental:
The fundamental outlook for Australian Dollar looks to be improving with recent job numbers improving and recent price bounces. Additionally, weak jpy is much coveted by the BOJ and they will be working at making the weak yen if possible.
One other bonus for this trade is positive swap on the trade.
Swap Rates Below:
Enter at 96.89 with initial tp of 103 = 607 pips If the price looks good at the time I get to TP may extend TP for additional Gains. Risk 3% with a stop loss at 90.89 = 604 pips.ย Add additional 1% with price action or support or resistance areas.
Outside trade plan review:
By Kim Krompass of the Price Action Instituteย โ Follow Kim on Twitter
Trade Plans, like any plans, whether they are for a business or for your personal life all have 3 things in common in order for you to be successful. ย They must be:
- Specific
- Measurable and
- Time bound
Caseyโs trade plan has touched on all 3 parts that make goals or plans successful. Before I dive into some of the areas that may be improved, let me first look at what makes a good plan.
Recently, I dined at the famous French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, CA.
If you are unfamiliar with the restaurant, it has been named as one of the Best Restaurants in the world and has a Michelin 3 star rating. ย The restaurant has earned numerous awards and accolades in the press and among food critics worldwide.
There were 2 things that struck me about the French Laundry experience. The first was just how well run the business is, and how the world-renown Chefโs in the kitchen are following recipes that will guarantee a successful outcome of food. Now whether or not you like the food ( and honestly, I didnโt care for a lot of the food) is not the point.
What is the point, however, is that both the operation of the French Laundry and the food preparation follows a 5 step success plan:
- Vision-the chefs have a beautiful picture of what the food is to look like as it lands on your table and they want your experience in the dining room to be like royalty
- Sequence- they have an exact sequence of steps to go through for the dining experience
- Specific Ingredients- they know the exact ingredients they must use to prepare the food
- Measurement of Actions- they know the specific measurement of each ingredient in each dish they prepare.
- Deadlines โ they know the exact time and temperature they must use to produce such exquisite dishes. There are 2 sittings each night for dinner and you must be on time.
So on to the trade plan:
The vision for โwhyโ you trade must be specific. The reason all of us trade is to make money. ย Now the โwhyโ of what you want to make the money for should be clearly stated. Just being a good family person is not motivating enough to keep you focused day in and day out, especially when times get hard in the markets.
All traders want to make money. ย But againโฆletโs be specific. For example:
I will make $20,000 trading by December 31st, 2015 in order to take my family on a European vacation in May 2016. Or I will increase my retirement income trading by 10% in 2015 and use it to pay off our mortgage. Or I want to make $1000 a month to save for retirement. Thatโs being specific as to how much money you want to make and why you want to make it.
So in Caseyโs plan, he has several areas where he is specific. Trading times will be Monday through Friday 8 AM โ 8:30 AM. He wants a 10% profit by the end of the 1st quarter in 2015.
He has a specific risk to reward of 1:1 and he will risk no more than 3% per trade. But there are gaps or holes that still need to be addressed.
Like a recipe, I would like to see his vision, his actual sequence of steps, the specific ingredients, the measurable actions and more deadlines. What would that look like? I will make $500 a month in 2015 trading to help fund my daughterโs college education account. I will hunt for my setups Monday through Friday 8 AM โ 8:30 AM.ย I will only take trades or use pending orders to take trades using the 5 confirming signals on a daily/weekly chart. I would forget the fundamentals as that is a subjective and very hard to quantify. I will risk no more than 3% per trade and I will only take trades that have a minimum of 1:1 risk to reward.
At the end of the 1st quarter in 2015, I will review my progress and make any adjustments if needed.
It is simpleโฆit is straightforward and you know exactly why you are doing what you are doing every day you sit down to look for trades.ย Here are some ofย the trading conditions you want to avoid in the forex market.
Conclusion:
I want to thank Kim for taking the time to help me become a better trader and to help all of you see the process that we are going through so that you can go through a similar process in the creation of your forex trading plan. Please share your comments on my plan or on Kimโs comments. I do plan on making some adjustments soon because of Kimโs feedback.
Thank you for reading!
Please leave a comment below if you have any questions about this trading planย !
Also, please give this plan a 5 star if you enjoyed it!
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Hi, Casey here. If you want to invest in me or anything on my website I have the perfect plan. Its called the Scam Plan, where you give me money or buy something from me and I donโt honor our agreement and keep the money forever. You get ripped off and, Happy days for Casey.
i agree with what she said about fundamentals
Thanks for the comment.
Making a plan for me seems to be the hardest part of the trading process I know its important but thingโs are going okay right now I suppose long term could be different
Plans are important because it is setting out a road map for your life. If you donโt have a map how do you know where you are going?
I think your plan is sound Casey (although Kimsโ feedback offers opportunity to enhance it, which I missed). The only thing I would add is that you need a feed back action to ensure that following your plan to the letter never left you in a situation where you didnโt know what to do, as well as the quarterly review of its performance
Three things struck me in the detail though (I appreciate thatโs not specifically โthe planโ)
1 Time of day. Trading in the US morning seems congruent with the weekly / daily bar price action, because every morning you look at a daily chart, the current bar will be 2/3rds through. (Unless when you look you are going to look at End of Day only, ie close of the US session the previous day and ignore whatever has occurred in Asia & Europe?)
2. RIsk to reward. Personally I would not be interested in set ups that offered less than 2 times reward for the risk. If you mentioned that you expect the execution of your plan to win x% of your trades, then I might revise my opinion (I believe you can either trade a high risk to reward, low win rate strategy or a low risk to reward high win rate strategy. I can see you are comfortable with the low risk to reward ratio but missed any comment about win to lose ratio)
3. Adding to losing positions. To me this is increasing the risk per trade level unacceptably. I would rather see a strategy to ease out of losing positions as price goes against me. I very much agree with the adding to winners though, but each new position must still satisfy the same โnew tradeโ criteria before it is entered and all previous trades must at a minimum be risk free (stop on break even) and better at 1 or 2 times risk already (thus making the new position โrisk freeโ)
I hope these suggestions make scene and are of use. Good luck for 2015 Casey!
Paul that is great feedback. Thanks so much for the time you took to go over it in detail. That is much appreciated. Sometimes trading the daily candle early has caused me some trouble. So I will be reviewing what you said here in addtion to Kimโs comments as I develop my new plan.
I have really struggled writing a trading plan but this is great as it clearly explains what you intend to do 5 days a week. I think that Kimโs comments were also very helpful.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you should examine the PATTI strategies a bit more carefully as it is over simplified, unnecessarily hard work and most of the time guess work. What makes it popular is the polished marketing. Other than that, its a pretty empty system aimed at people who donโt really want to learn proper trading. Sorry..I hate it when I am being sold fluff.
I disagree Frankie, I know many people are trading her price action strategy with great success. I think it is a solid method that works.