I promised from the beginning that this blog would be different. No fake screenshots. No cherry-picked results. Just the raw truth.
So here it is — my full trading journal, 44 trades, January to May 2026. Every win, every loss, every mistake. Documented.
The Numbers
44 total trades. 21 wins. 22 losses. 1 draw. Overall win rate: 47.7% Average planned R:R: 1.79 Expected value per trade: +0.33R
At first glance, 47.7% does not look impressive. But here is what the raw number does not tell you — this journal was never meant to show a perfect strategy. It was meant to test one, find its flaws, and fix them. And that is exactly what happened.
Three Phases, Three Very Different Stories
When I split the journal into three phases, a completely different picture emerges.
Phase 1 — Trades 1 to 14 (Testing) Win rate: 50% I was placing trades across multiple pairs, testing the basic setup without full rules. Decent start, but not consistent enough to mean anything yet.
Phase 2 — Trades 15 to 28 (The Painful Middle) Win rate: 21.4% This is the phase that would have made most traders quit. Eight losses in a row at one point. The strategy was clearly broken — or so it felt. But instead of quitting, I kept journaling and kept asking why.
Phase 3 — Trades 29 to 44 (The Refined Strategy) Win rate: 68.8% Average R:R: 1.83 Expected value: +0.95R per trade
One change made all the difference. I will get to that in a moment.
The One Change That Moved the Win Rate From 21% to 68.8%
In Phase 1 and Phase 2, I was entering trades when price gave me a Break of Structure on the 15-minute chart after reaching my 1-hour FVG zone. That sounds reasonable. But something was consistently wrong.
What I was ignoring was the liquidity sitting just above equal highs or just below equal lows on the 15-minute chart. Price kept sweeping through my entries, hunting those clusters of stop losses, before moving in the direction I originally anticipated. I was getting stopped out on trades that were eventually right.
The fix was simple but hard to be patient about.
I stopped entering on the BOS alone. I started waiting for price to sweep the 15-minute liquidity first — equal highs, equal lows — and only then looking for the BOS as my entry trigger. If the sweep did not happen, I skipped the trade entirely no matter how good the setup looked.
The result is visible in the data. Phase 3 win rate: 68.8%.
What the Pair Data Revealed
Not all pairs are equal — at least not for my strategy.
Silver/USD: 100% win rate across 2 trades EUR/USD: 80% across 5 trades BTC/USD: 57% across 7 trades Gold: 50% across 14 trades GBP/USD: 28% across 7 trades USD/JPY: 22% across 9 trades
USD/JPY and GBP/USD together account for 16 trades and only 4 wins. They are the single biggest drain on this journal. If those two pairs were removed, the overall win rate across the remaining 28 trades would be above 60%.
The lesson: knowing which pairs your strategy works on is as important as the strategy itself.
What Happens When I Break My Rules
Of the 44 trades, a few were taken without fully following my setup rules. The results speak for themselves — the loss rate on off-plan trades is significantly higher than on trades where every rule was followed.
Trade 39 is the clearest example. My own review says it all: "I did not wait for LTF BOS and just entered the trade which went to hell not long after." The rules exist for a reason. Every time I ignore them, the data punishes me for it.
Something New I Started Doing
From trade 30 onwards I started scoring each setup out of 10 in my review notes and writing more detailed observations after each trade. Trade 31: "Before placing a trade in any other pair I should always check the Gold bias." Trade 36: "Clear liquidity sweep but I completely ignored new liquidity created — paying for it." Trade 39: "Did not wait for LTF BOS — went to hell." Trade 42: "Setup was good but placed on Friday. Will avoid these going forward."
Both trades I scored 9.5 out of 10 were wins. Over time this scoring will tell me whether my own judgment of setup quality actually predicts results — which is one of the most useful things a trader can know about themselves.
Where This Journal Goes Next
44 trades is a growing foundation. It is not a confirmed edge yet.
To statistically confirm this strategy works consistently, I need at least 500 quality trades. Phase 3 currently has 16 quality trades. The next real checkpoint is 100. At my current pace of 6 to 8 quality trades per month, that is roughly 10 to 14 months away.
Until then, I keep journaling. I keep refining. And I keep sharing everything here — including the trades that do not go to plan.
That is the whole point of Safe Signal.
Every trade in this journal has a screenshot attached. If you want to see the actual chart setups behind any of these results, click here to see full journal
Good luck and bye for now.
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