Quote from NoDoji:
You are on the right track, dude! Take the opposite side of your intended trades and you can't go wrong! Please call your intended trades in real time for us, so we can all join in this 100% win rate
Seriously, you should print screen your chart at the time of entry, then compare to a chart later on. Determine why your timing was off. It's likely a simple thing like this:
I short stocks that pull back a after a run up, leaving behind a lower high. That's normally a fine short signal. BUT I used to often miss the fact that a higher low was there as well, meaning a strong chance the previous resistance level would be tested. So I'd get stopped out above the lower high, price would test the next R level, fail to break through, then crash nicely. My direction was right and my timing was off and I threw money away.
A sample chart is attached.
I have gone back to tried to work out why I lost money (one of the reasons I ended up here). The reasons were fairly obvious in hindsight - excessive leverage (10 to 1) and buying in too early. My trades were not short term plays, but mid-term predictions based on economic and political data. Exactly what I predicted would happened did happened and for the reasons I predicted, however, until the news filtered down the market went in the opposite direction and I got stopped out.
I have learnt two important lessons:
1. Watch the leverage because even if you are right random movement can blow you out of the water.
2. Wait until the market tells you that it has finally noticed the data. Being too far ahead of the market risks having your trades stopped out because of random movement.
Both of these are fairly obvious, but having not thought about trading enough before jumping in (I guess I thought all that mattered was being right) I made some silly mistakes. I hope to avoid making such mistakes in the future.
