A Complete Five-Rule Trade: EURUSD from Bias to Journal Entry
A full annotated EURUSD walkthrough of the SMC Ledger five-rule system — from the 15-minute bias to the logged journal entry and its grading.
The preparation (Rules 1 and 2)
Yesterday, EURUSD delivered down from 1.0850 to 1.0800, sweeping the previous day's low on the way. Asia overnight built a quiet range between 1.0805 and 1.0815. On the 15-minute, price is in discount of yesterday's 1.0800–1.0850 dealing range, and the previous day low at 1.0798 sits just below the Asian low — an obvious shelf of sell stops.
Bias sentence: "Bias long — discount, sell-side liquidity beneath 1.0800, drawn toward buy-side liquidity at 1.0850." The window is London, 2:00–5:00 AM EST. No bias or no window means no trade — here we have both.
The event (Rules 3 and 4)
At 3:10 AM EST, price displaces through the Asian low and sweeps 1.0798, printing 1.0795 before rejecting back above 1.0800 inside ninety seconds. That is a textbook sell-side sweep: energy in, energy out, level reclaimed. Rule 3 is satisfied and video-reviewed later in the journal.
At 3:15, the 1-minute prints a Market Structure Shift — a full-bodied candle breaking the last lower high at 1.0808, leaving a fair value gap at 1.0802–1.0805. The 5-minute confirms the same shift. Rule 4 is satisfied: the sweep has its confirmation with displacement behind it.
The execution (Rule 5)
Entry: the 1m FVG rebalance at 1.0803, stacked with the origin candle of the displacement. Stop: below the swept low, 1.0794 — the objective invalidation. "I am wrong if price closes back below 1.0794" — the sentence finishes itself before the click.
Size: 1% risk ÷ 9-pip stop = position size, entered into the journal's Position Size field ("0.7 lots, 1% risk"). Targets: 1.0815 (Asian high) first, 1.0848 (previous day high) final — 1:5 to the runner. R:R minimum cleared before entry, per the checklist.
The journal entry
In SMC Ledger the trade is logged with the fields that matter: pair, direction, session (London), date & time, setup ("SSS sweep + MSS + FVG"), emotional state ("Calm — waited for retest"), entry/exit prices, and all five rule checkboxes ticked.
The grading is automatic: 5/5 rule adherence, outcome pending until the target resolves. On the dashboard, this trade joins the track record — profit factor, drawdown, monthly consistency — and the rule-adherence chart, where twenty of these will show you something no screenshot ever could: whether you actually trade the system you studied.
Common questions
How long does a trade like this take from start to finish?+
Preparation is 15 minutes before the killzone; the sweep-to-execution sequence usually resolves within 30–60 minutes. The patience is concentrated at the start — waiting for the sweep.
What if I break a rule but the trade wins?+
Log it honestly anyway. A rule break that pays is the most dangerous trade in your journal — the whole point of scoring process is to see what the wins are hiding.
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