Recently I posted my results from July 5, 2018, in which I spent a day scalping 5-micro-lot-sized trades from my demo account for about a $22 gain using my old guerrilla style of day trading—for the purpose of illustrating that it
is possible to day trade profitably without relying on a few winning trades to offset a vast majority of losers—and I had a contributor to this website respond in a manner suggesting that one day spent reaping gains of between 40¢ to $2.00 for a total of a mere couple of dozen bucks rather than working a regular job means nothing.
However, this reminded me of when the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon and began to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem…
For a time, the work languished. So Yahweh sent the prophets Zechariah and Haggai to spur the people on to finish the rebuilding. Their message was encouraging—that the people should not despair over small beginnings because Yahweh would see to it that the temple was completed. As insignificant as the work might seem, it was not contemptible because Yahweh was watching, directing, and regarding it with favor.
So now that I am making trades of a
single micro lot from my live account, I do so with the same attitude, though I of course have no prophets by my side assuring me that I am being watched, directed, or regarded with favor.
Also, I’m beginning to get bored with making forecasts and then posting winning trades, so I think I am going to begin focusing on my
losers, starting with Friday’s NZDJPY short position.
(Had I remained in the trade, it would have ultimately hit my take-profit target and I would not have had any losing trades on Friday.)
I abandoned this trade because candlesticks began forming north of my (black) intraday trend line, and given that it was Friday, I feared there might not be enough time left in the week for things to turn back in my favor.
However, with hindsight, and having had the time to think things over/reconsider... given that my confirmation bumblebee (yellow and black) moving average still displayed a negative slope, there was reason for me to hold out hope and remain in the trade!
But on closer inspection, it looks like my confirmation trendline might have
just begun hooking to the north when I exited the position (upon the formation of the blue candlestick in the white circle). However, I do not recall if this was the case, or if the hook formed with the
following candlestick.
If the formation of the hook took place at the close of the blue candlestick, then my abandoning the trade
was justified and I have no reason to second-guess myself.
On the other hand, assuming the opposite was true, there were two more factors to consider...
Most importantly, at the close of the blue candlestick, price was not that far below the upper limit of the intraday price range (the purplish upper band of the envelope) which I regard as statistical resistance.
In other words, there was reason to believe that the statistical odds were in favor of the short-term trend reversing direction and heading south from there. So it would have made sense to remain in the trade for at least one or two more candlesticks and observe whether or not this indeed happened.
Countering such a decision however is the fact that the day-to-day trend line (the black and green moving average) is so bullish.
So in the end, I’m still not sure whether I “should” have abandoned the position or not. But what I hope to always remember to do going forward
(I don’t want to construct a checklist until I’m relatively sure I cannot remember on my own) is to not only consider what is going on with the trendlines, but to also note exactly where the rate is
within the intraday price range!
P.S. No, abandoning the position WAS justified, because I ALSO have a guideline directing me to do this if and when a candlestick opens and closes on the opposite side of the confirmation trendline, which the blue candlestick did indeed do.
(Whether or not it makes sense to give a rate's position with the intraday price range precedence over the confirmation moving average guideline will need to be determined by Friday's observations in tandem with those made in the future.)