Maintaining Self Discipline
- Thread starter studentofthemarkets
- Start date
Yesterday a friend told me she overcame a struggle with lying by immediately announcing to the person she just lied to, "I just told a lie." That quickly helped her to stop.
Although it may seem a little on the negative side of things, I want to take a similar approach to my struggle to do what I know I need to do when trading. Yesterday's trades revealed 3 issues that I often struggle with:
1. Entered too late, later than my plan allows.
2. Entered too early, earlier than my plan allows.
3. Didn't use my plan for trailing a winning trade.
So, for this week, I think I'll try to list those three things at the end of each trading day, if any of my trades have those issues.
This might be just what I need to become disciplined in following my plan!!!!!
Although it may seem a little on the negative side of things, I want to take a similar approach to my struggle to do what I know I need to do when trading. Yesterday's trades revealed 3 issues that I often struggle with:
1. Entered too late, later than my plan allows.
2. Entered too early, earlier than my plan allows.
3. Didn't use my plan for trailing a winning trade.
So, for this week, I think I'll try to list those three things at the end of each trading day, if any of my trades have those issues.
This might be just what I need to become disciplined in following my plan!!!!!Somehow ended in profits today.
I say somehow because it could have turned out very differently. Still seems like most of my trades are guessing and easily could have ended up in losses.
As far as working towards the goal for this week of no early entries or late entries and to trail trades, all 3 trades were entered into a little late, BUT NOT later than my plan allows, just later than what made the best entry. The first trade I did trail. The next 2 didn't get into enough profit to start trailing.
None of the trades caught a trend....probably because the NQ didn't trend well while I was trading.
Aside from not being too sure about the entry locations, how to manage the stop losses were the 2nd hardest thing.
1st trade: Taking profits during the retracement after the initial push gave me enough ticks that I could take the next 2 trades with some relief knowing that if I had losses for today, they wouldn't be very large. Price came back barely beyond my entry price, which would have been really difficult to sit through after having been in profit, and I probably would have closed the trade, however, if I had held on through a small drawdown, the trade had the potential of making 300 ticks. It's decisions like these that make using a set stop loss and target much less stressful when trading but I'm trying to keep in mind the bigger picture of going for taking just a few trades that make larger profits than scalping.
2nd trade: Was looking at a higher time frame chart when price began moving and so finding where to get in was a little more difficult. I wasn't sure if moving to breakeven quickly was the right thing to do, but since it was a late entry, I played it safe and thankfully didn't take a loss when price reversed.
3rd trade: This looks like a late entry, but we were still in the triangle shown on the chart and I've been trying not to trade in triangles, so I waited a bit. It was still in the triangle at the entry, but looked like it could push through the trend line, so I took the trade. However, getting in late and having just broken the triangle made me very cautious about the retracement on the next 1 minute candle, and so I took profits too early. This trade had the most potential, but in order to stay in the trade long enough to get it I would have had to leave my stop loss a little above break even for about 12 minutes....that would be difficult emotionally. However, it seems like most times trades do come back partway or all the way yet still end up going in the trade direction. Maybe staying in a trade when it retraces is just part of learning to wait for the price action to play out? Focusing on what is making waiting the best choice (catching a larger move) is going to be what helps here, if I do break this mental barrier. Still fills like I should be taking profits early and just re-enter in retracements, but since that's not the plan I'm working on, I'll keep at this and try to learn to sit through trades that aren't going anywhere or might come back and take out the trade.
Made 135 ticks.
I say somehow because it could have turned out very differently. Still seems like most of my trades are guessing and easily could have ended up in losses.
As far as working towards the goal for this week of no early entries or late entries and to trail trades, all 3 trades were entered into a little late, BUT NOT later than my plan allows, just later than what made the best entry. The first trade I did trail. The next 2 didn't get into enough profit to start trailing.
None of the trades caught a trend....probably because the NQ didn't trend well while I was trading.
Aside from not being too sure about the entry locations, how to manage the stop losses were the 2nd hardest thing.
1st trade: Taking profits during the retracement after the initial push gave me enough ticks that I could take the next 2 trades with some relief knowing that if I had losses for today, they wouldn't be very large. Price came back barely beyond my entry price, which would have been really difficult to sit through after having been in profit, and I probably would have closed the trade, however, if I had held on through a small drawdown, the trade had the potential of making 300 ticks. It's decisions like these that make using a set stop loss and target much less stressful when trading but I'm trying to keep in mind the bigger picture of going for taking just a few trades that make larger profits than scalping.
2nd trade: Was looking at a higher time frame chart when price began moving and so finding where to get in was a little more difficult. I wasn't sure if moving to breakeven quickly was the right thing to do, but since it was a late entry, I played it safe and thankfully didn't take a loss when price reversed.
3rd trade: This looks like a late entry, but we were still in the triangle shown on the chart and I've been trying not to trade in triangles, so I waited a bit. It was still in the triangle at the entry, but looked like it could push through the trend line, so I took the trade. However, getting in late and having just broken the triangle made me very cautious about the retracement on the next 1 minute candle, and so I took profits too early. This trade had the most potential, but in order to stay in the trade long enough to get it I would have had to leave my stop loss a little above break even for about 12 minutes....that would be difficult emotionally. However, it seems like most times trades do come back partway or all the way yet still end up going in the trade direction. Maybe staying in a trade when it retraces is just part of learning to wait for the price action to play out? Focusing on what is making waiting the best choice (catching a larger move) is going to be what helps here, if I do break this mental barrier. Still fills like I should be taking profits early and just re-enter in retracements, but since that's not the plan I'm working on, I'll keep at this and try to learn to sit through trades that aren't going anywhere or might come back and take out the trade.
Made 135 ticks.
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Lost 76 ticks and used up all 3 trades within the first 7 minutes of the open.
So much for my plans for trading until 11 am CT. Spent a lot of time on my analysis in the premarket and kind of had in mind that I would stagger my trades throughout the day but when I thought I saw good opportunities, I took them instead of waiting. The best way to trade, I think, is to take a lot of attempts that are low risk....meaning you move to break even quickly or give the trade a really small stop loss because one of them should work. But I can't do that right now because I'm determined to increase my accuracy and so I'm using a limit of 3 trades in a day to force myself to be more selective and more disciplined. The frustration of not being able to trade the rest of the day is the best way I can think of to train myself to use my 3 attempts very carefully. I'm writing this out as a way to reinforce my belief in my plan because I really want to be trading with unlimited trades. Live accounts don't work like that though, no matter how badly I'd like them too.
First trade: I need to rethink if I want to be taking trades this early in the morning. Every day is different but I misread price action the most around the open. By moving to Breakeven quickly it gave me a low risk trade for a small chance to make a profit, depending on if price took off suddenly. But I don't want small chances, I need dependable chances. So, that is not the type of trade I should take if I'm limited to only 3 trades in a day.
Second trade: My impulsiveness said it's going down, get in quick before you lose the opportunity and I did, without waiting for any pullback. This time of day I don't always know if there will be a pullback to get in. So this doesn't meet my criteria of selecting low risk high probability trades.
Third trade: Figured since I'd been stopped out and price was still pushing down, THIS trade would work....split second decision to give up my last trade.....completely forgot about using only a 30 tick stop loss which wouldn't work well this time of day anyhow...and really didn't care about waiting 5 minutes between trades. Felt like this was where to get in, I should take the trade. And that brings out another problem. It was a right entry. Price did move a lot lower. But my stop loss was barely too tight. It was set to 40 ticka and price retraced to 46 ticks ....and I was stopped out. I possibly could have entered slightly earlier on the trade but the time frame I was using might have been too large to time the trade well, smaller seems better around the open. However, the reason I wasn't using a smaller timeframe is because I'm trying to avoid entries that need them...so just another reason I should have stayed out. It's not that it wouldn't work, it's that it's not the best opportunity.
Sometimes I've heard traders say that mistakes are blessings because you can learn from them. That's how I'm viewing today's trades. I don't want to place strict rules in my trading plan saying I can't trade around the open, but I do think today was a good reminder that I don't trade around the open consistently enough to make it worth using up trades on. There should be safer opportunities later in the day, and if don't see good opportunities, then it's OK not to take a trade for a day.
Regarding my 3 goals for this week: The trades were not really late or early entries. Never got the chance to trail.
Lost 76 ticks.
For the next 90 minutes I'll be watching charts and drawing lines where I wish I was taking trades.
So much for my plans for trading until 11 am CT. Spent a lot of time on my analysis in the premarket and kind of had in mind that I would stagger my trades throughout the day but when I thought I saw good opportunities, I took them instead of waiting. The best way to trade, I think, is to take a lot of attempts that are low risk....meaning you move to break even quickly or give the trade a really small stop loss because one of them should work. But I can't do that right now because I'm determined to increase my accuracy and so I'm using a limit of 3 trades in a day to force myself to be more selective and more disciplined. The frustration of not being able to trade the rest of the day is the best way I can think of to train myself to use my 3 attempts very carefully. I'm writing this out as a way to reinforce my belief in my plan because I really want to be trading with unlimited trades. Live accounts don't work like that though, no matter how badly I'd like them too.
First trade: I need to rethink if I want to be taking trades this early in the morning. Every day is different but I misread price action the most around the open. By moving to Breakeven quickly it gave me a low risk trade for a small chance to make a profit, depending on if price took off suddenly. But I don't want small chances, I need dependable chances. So, that is not the type of trade I should take if I'm limited to only 3 trades in a day.
Second trade: My impulsiveness said it's going down, get in quick before you lose the opportunity and I did, without waiting for any pullback. This time of day I don't always know if there will be a pullback to get in. So this doesn't meet my criteria of selecting low risk high probability trades.
Third trade: Figured since I'd been stopped out and price was still pushing down, THIS trade would work....split second decision to give up my last trade.....completely forgot about using only a 30 tick stop loss which wouldn't work well this time of day anyhow...and really didn't care about waiting 5 minutes between trades. Felt like this was where to get in, I should take the trade. And that brings out another problem. It was a right entry. Price did move a lot lower. But my stop loss was barely too tight. It was set to 40 ticka and price retraced to 46 ticks ....and I was stopped out. I possibly could have entered slightly earlier on the trade but the time frame I was using might have been too large to time the trade well, smaller seems better around the open. However, the reason I wasn't using a smaller timeframe is because I'm trying to avoid entries that need them...so just another reason I should have stayed out. It's not that it wouldn't work, it's that it's not the best opportunity.
Sometimes I've heard traders say that mistakes are blessings because you can learn from them. That's how I'm viewing today's trades. I don't want to place strict rules in my trading plan saying I can't trade around the open, but I do think today was a good reminder that I don't trade around the open consistently enough to make it worth using up trades on. There should be safer opportunities later in the day, and if don't see good opportunities, then it's OK not to take a trade for a day.
Regarding my 3 goals for this week: The trades were not really late or early entries. Never got the chance to trail.
Lost 76 ticks.
For the next 90 minutes I'll be watching charts and drawing lines where I wish I was taking trades.
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For tomorrow only, I'm going to keep a tight stop loss and not worry about getting stopped out. I want to place 3 trades that have the potential to end up going somewhere and getting stopped out doesn't matter (tomorrow only). If I can learn to get the location of the entry right, then I can figure out the stop loss placement that usually would work. If any trades do work, I don't want to move to BE quickly. I want to give each one enough room to work. I will trail, but I'll decide while I'm in the trade which method of trailing to use and no closing early, until my trailing method gets me out...oh, maybe I should use my trailing method to bring the trade to BE....I've been moving it there whenever I think the trade could fail. AND I need to space all 3 trades out to a different trend for each one.
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Made 269 demo ticks. I might not be done trading for the day, I still have one more trade left to use. If I keep to my plan of 30 ticks for a stop loss, then I won't lose very much of my profit.
Today seemed more like dumb luck...maybe even stupid luck. And I'm not trying to be super negative about it, but I took 2 trades right at the open, when I had determined I wasn't going todo because I often get stopped out over and over again at the open, but I took the trades anyhow. That worries me.
I'd rather have something I can do consistently, over and over again. But then, what if I limit my attempts to one per day....my first trade failed today, so I wouldn't have made anything from the open if I had followed that rule, but it seems like over time, it might pay for itself to have one attempt per day, if only I could tell how to get in right.
So, took 2 risky trades and 1 happened to work really well, and I didn't close right away like I usually do. I was determined to trail and did have about 90 ticks locked in when I gave in to closing the trade. This trade could set me ahead for the week. If I generally lose 120 ticks a day, then it will cover 2 awful trading days, and we only have Thursday and Friday left, so I should still be ahead for the week...just as long as I keep to my plan. It didn't make sense to stay in the trade and risk giving anything back when I was really happy with the profits.
Oh, and I stayed in the trade for 9 minutes!! That's getting closer to holding for 20 to 60+ minutes that I wish I would stay in (winning) trades for.
Today seemed more like dumb luck...maybe even stupid luck. And I'm not trying to be super negative about it, but I took 2 trades right at the open, when I had determined I wasn't going todo because I often get stopped out over and over again at the open, but I took the trades anyhow. That worries me.
I'd rather have something I can do consistently, over and over again. But then, what if I limit my attempts to one per day....my first trade failed today, so I wouldn't have made anything from the open if I had followed that rule, but it seems like over time, it might pay for itself to have one attempt per day, if only I could tell how to get in right.
So, took 2 risky trades and 1 happened to work really well, and I didn't close right away like I usually do. I was determined to trail and did have about 90 ticks locked in when I gave in to closing the trade. This trade could set me ahead for the week. If I generally lose 120 ticks a day, then it will cover 2 awful trading days, and we only have Thursday and Friday left, so I should still be ahead for the week...just as long as I keep to my plan. It didn't make sense to stay in the trade and risk giving anything back when I was really happy with the profits.
Oh, and I stayed in the trade for 9 minutes!! That's getting closer to holding for 20 to 60+ minutes that I wish I would stay in (winning) trades for.
Just noticed that yesterday was my 1 year anniversary with Elite Trader. That makes today's wins even more exciting. This was my journal entry from a year ago:
I haven't been reading through my journal and I've forgotten about the struggles I've gone through and the lessons I thought I'd learned, but I'm still struggling with.
I'm making it my goal to read through it carefully, beginning today...now I have free time because I made profits early in the day, so I can use this time to start reading through it. Probably should have been doing this every once in a while, but I spend most of my study time looking at charts and recent trades.
Comparing last year's post from 11-11-2019 and today's post:
Made money today. Last year BE minus fees.
Took only 2 trades today. Last year took 30.
Both days had a 50% winrate.
I'm adjusting stops and targets. Last year I didn't.
I did struggle with revenge trading today....got right back in after a loss, but based it on market structure and it was a good trade. Last year I didn't have a 3 trades per day rule to limit revenge trading.
I did jump into a fast moving market...still not sure if I should have, although it worked. Last year I had more self-control and didn't.
I didn't follow my plan exactly today. Last year I made up a rule while trading.
Not sure today's entry types were best for the open. Last year I also struggled with trades that didn't work and taking less reliable entries.
Last year I wasn't profitable when starting this journal. I think I might be profitable now.
I haven't been reading through my journal and I've forgotten about the struggles I've gone through and the lessons I thought I'd learned, but I'm still struggling with.
I'm making it my goal to read through it carefully, beginning today...now I have free time because I made profits early in the day, so I can use this time to start reading through it. Probably should have been doing this every once in a while, but I spend most of my study time looking at charts and recent trades.
Comparing last year's post from 11-11-2019 and today's post:
Made money today. Last year BE minus fees.
Took only 2 trades today. Last year took 30.
Both days had a 50% winrate.
I'm adjusting stops and targets. Last year I didn't.
I did struggle with revenge trading today....got right back in after a loss, but based it on market structure and it was a good trade. Last year I didn't have a 3 trades per day rule to limit revenge trading.
I did jump into a fast moving market...still not sure if I should have, although it worked. Last year I had more self-control and didn't.
I didn't follow my plan exactly today. Last year I made up a rule while trading.
Not sure today's entry types were best for the open. Last year I also struggled with trades that didn't work and taking less reliable entries.
Last year I wasn't profitable when starting this journal. I think I might be profitable now.
+16 demo ticks for the day.
As far as working on my goals for not entering too early or too late and trailing:
1st trade: all wrong....nothing to even evaluate here.
2nd trade: It wasn't necessarily too early, but I think if I'm going to take a trade a little early like this one, I should give it a wider stop. The trade had a 40 tick stop loss and retraced 52 ticks, so I needed about 60 ticks to stay in, or placing the stop loss at the next level up, which would have been 80 ticks. The safest way to play this is to wait in case there is a pullback and then get in, which means missing out on what might, on a different day, have been a larger drop, but might have given me a better chance at staying in with a smaller stop loss.
3rd trade: Needed a larger stop loss or better timing on the entry. I didn't trail.
Taking these same trades would have been a mental challenge if trading with real money. The last trade I was so concerned with the drawdown I had for the day of 82 ticks that I nearly closed early when it went against me a little and almost didn't stay in the trade. I recovered my losses and got out quickly, thinking that I was closing to early, it would continue up, and thinking I was still doing the wrong thing. There were so many "what ifs" about today's trades that I don't think any of them were high probability trades. A day like today might be better as a scalping day and not looking for a trend to get into. [Edit: Price finally started trending 1 hr and 45 minutes after the open. It wasn't a ranging day after all.]
As far as working on my goals for not entering too early or too late and trailing:
1st trade: all wrong....nothing to even evaluate here.
2nd trade: It wasn't necessarily too early, but I think if I'm going to take a trade a little early like this one, I should give it a wider stop. The trade had a 40 tick stop loss and retraced 52 ticks, so I needed about 60 ticks to stay in, or placing the stop loss at the next level up, which would have been 80 ticks. The safest way to play this is to wait in case there is a pullback and then get in, which means missing out on what might, on a different day, have been a larger drop, but might have given me a better chance at staying in with a smaller stop loss.
3rd trade: Needed a larger stop loss or better timing on the entry. I didn't trail.
Taking these same trades would have been a mental challenge if trading with real money. The last trade I was so concerned with the drawdown I had for the day of 82 ticks that I nearly closed early when it went against me a little and almost didn't stay in the trade. I recovered my losses and got out quickly, thinking that I was closing to early, it would continue up, and thinking I was still doing the wrong thing. There were so many "what ifs" about today's trades that I don't think any of them were high probability trades. A day like today might be better as a scalping day and not looking for a trend to get into. [Edit: Price finally started trending 1 hr and 45 minutes after the open. It wasn't a ranging day after all.]
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Made 45 ticks today with 2 trades and I won't take another trade the rest of the day.
I did draw lines for where I would have liked to have taken 3 more trades and I call these "paper trades." 2 would have been stopped out right away and 1 was the trade of the day. I only left the good trade on the chart to show how I might have trailed it.
I'm still not sure how I'm actually doing as a trader. I do seem to have profitability each week, but I'm definitely not consistent. When going through my stats just now I found that I've only been trading at breakeven for the net of the short trades for the last 3 weeks. Yet I've made 840 ticks from long trades. My first thought was that I should never take a short trade again, but then I realized that most down days I haven't taken short trades, but wait for a long set up. Yet I've taken almost an equal number of short trades as long trades. What is more likely happening is that I've avoided the best trend trades for going short, because they are generally more volatile entries than long entries, and I've taken shorts later in the day when there is more structure, so I think the trade is safer, but it likely is not. Also, I have a tendency to want to trade a reversal on an up day, and that is countertrend and perhaps not as likely to do well? I need to compare the time stamps between the longs and shorts and see if they add any insight.
Also, this week's demo profits came from one really good, but very risky trade I took on Wednesday. If I subtract Wednesday's profits, I come up with only 120 ticks profit for the week....that's around the maximum losses I try to limit myself to per day, so not very good. If I take away just the 1 risky trade, I end up with only being 79 ticks in profit for the week. So, once again, I'm back to being a slightly profitable trader who is taking too many losses. Even though the profits look great for the last 3 weeks, there's no way I want to trade with real money yet and risk taking a lot of losing trades to barely make profits. I think my consistency is improving, so maybe it will only be a short amount of time until I can try going live again. If I stick to my plan when going live and don't change anything, it might really help with overcoming all the emotions that go with trading live. I let my emotions interfere with my demo AND paper demo trades. Live will be harder, which is why I have to know my plan thoroughly first.
Trade List and Statistics for this week.
Statistics for the last 3 weeks. It's nice to have consistent weekly profits, but most of the time it still feels like gambling, not high probability trading.
I did draw lines for where I would have liked to have taken 3 more trades and I call these "paper trades." 2 would have been stopped out right away and 1 was the trade of the day. I only left the good trade on the chart to show how I might have trailed it.
I'm still not sure how I'm actually doing as a trader. I do seem to have profitability each week, but I'm definitely not consistent. When going through my stats just now I found that I've only been trading at breakeven for the net of the short trades for the last 3 weeks. Yet I've made 840 ticks from long trades. My first thought was that I should never take a short trade again, but then I realized that most down days I haven't taken short trades, but wait for a long set up. Yet I've taken almost an equal number of short trades as long trades. What is more likely happening is that I've avoided the best trend trades for going short, because they are generally more volatile entries than long entries, and I've taken shorts later in the day when there is more structure, so I think the trade is safer, but it likely is not. Also, I have a tendency to want to trade a reversal on an up day, and that is countertrend and perhaps not as likely to do well? I need to compare the time stamps between the longs and shorts and see if they add any insight.
Also, this week's demo profits came from one really good, but very risky trade I took on Wednesday. If I subtract Wednesday's profits, I come up with only 120 ticks profit for the week....that's around the maximum losses I try to limit myself to per day, so not very good. If I take away just the 1 risky trade, I end up with only being 79 ticks in profit for the week. So, once again, I'm back to being a slightly profitable trader who is taking too many losses. Even though the profits look great for the last 3 weeks, there's no way I want to trade with real money yet and risk taking a lot of losing trades to barely make profits. I think my consistency is improving, so maybe it will only be a short amount of time until I can try going live again. If I stick to my plan when going live and don't change anything, it might really help with overcoming all the emotions that go with trading live. I let my emotions interfere with my demo AND paper demo trades.
Live will be harder, which is why I have to know my plan thoroughly first.Trade List and Statistics for this week.
Statistics for the last 3 weeks. It's nice to have consistent weekly profits, but most of the time it still feels like gambling, not high probability trading.
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Made 79 ticks.
Yay! It was a profitable day.
But it wasn't a perfectly traded day. I don't want to sound too negative, but there is a danger with only making 80 ticks in a day if I generally have a maximum loss allowed of around 120 ticks in a day.
1. I struggled with not wanting to take another trade, in case it didn't work and ate into my profits. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I have to remember that I should really take at least 2 trades a day, or maybe all 3 of my allowed trades if I want to have more opportunities. The only downside is if I don't take high probability trades with all 3 trades because then it will be costly. I know that's just beginner stuff, but it helps to write it out to reinforce it in my mind....and it helps me with adjusting to taking only 3 trades a day when I am used to taking many trades in a day and NOT being as selective.
2. The price action should have been easy for me to read today, but it wasn't. I wanted to short all morning....I have no idea why. In hindsight going up (in the hours I trade) makes perfect sense. Thankfully my rules and trying to be more selective in finding high probability trades kept me out of going short. It also helped that on Friday I discovered my statistics for the last 3 weeks say that my short trades don't usually work. And some of that is likely due to shorting in an uptrend, which is what I "felt" like doing today...since I didn't...maybe I've crossed this hurdle??
3. Ideally I should have used my remaining 2 trades to try to go long and either trailed tightly or kept at BE soon after entry to avoid losses in today's slower grind upwards. Being OK with exiting with 40 to 60 ticks per trade would have been best to avoid the larger pullbacks it made on it's way up. I guess I should plan for times when it's trending but staying in the trend involves more risk of pullbacks than other times....if I can know when it's more likely to pullback, then it makes sense to get out for 40 to 60 ticks and be OK with that rather than stop out at BE or worse, a full stop out after being in profit.
Regarding the 3 things I worked on last week: getting in too soon, getting in too late or not trailing and maximizing profits: Today's entry was about right. I might have been able to get in sooner, but that had more risk, I think. I could have and maybe should have trailed it. I simply got out when I decided it was enough. Part of that was because price didn't jump super high right away, as it sometimes does and I figured it could easily take out my stoploss, so played it safe and closed with an amount I'm happy about. So, maybe that will be my rule. If price is moving super fast, I can lock in profits and still trail. If it's moving slowing, might be best to take profits before it gets the chance to retrace. So, if I make this a new rule and put it in my trading plan, then I guess I trailed it correctly after all.
Yay! It was a profitable day.
But it wasn't a perfectly traded day. I don't want to sound too negative, but there is a danger with only making 80 ticks in a day if I generally have a maximum loss allowed of around 120 ticks in a day.
1. I struggled with not wanting to take another trade, in case it didn't work and ate into my profits. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I have to remember that I should really take at least 2 trades a day, or maybe all 3 of my allowed trades if I want to have more opportunities. The only downside is if I don't take high probability trades with all 3 trades because then it will be costly. I know that's just beginner stuff, but it helps to write it out to reinforce it in my mind....and it helps me with adjusting to taking only 3 trades a day when I am used to taking many trades in a day and NOT being as selective.
2. The price action should have been easy for me to read today, but it wasn't. I wanted to short all morning....I have no idea why. In hindsight going up (in the hours I trade) makes perfect sense. Thankfully my rules and trying to be more selective in finding high probability trades kept me out of going short. It also helped that on Friday I discovered my statistics for the last 3 weeks say that my short trades don't usually work. And some of that is likely due to shorting in an uptrend, which is what I "felt" like doing today...since I didn't...maybe I've crossed this hurdle??
3. Ideally I should have used my remaining 2 trades to try to go long and either trailed tightly or kept at BE soon after entry to avoid losses in today's slower grind upwards. Being OK with exiting with 40 to 60 ticks per trade would have been best to avoid the larger pullbacks it made on it's way up. I guess I should plan for times when it's trending but staying in the trend involves more risk of pullbacks than other times....if I can know when it's more likely to pullback, then it makes sense to get out for 40 to 60 ticks and be OK with that rather than stop out at BE or worse, a full stop out after being in profit.
Regarding the 3 things I worked on last week: getting in too soon, getting in too late or not trailing and maximizing profits: Today's entry was about right. I might have been able to get in sooner, but that had more risk, I think. I could have and maybe should have trailed it. I simply got out when I decided it was enough. Part of that was because price didn't jump super high right away, as it sometimes does and I figured it could easily take out my stoploss, so played it safe and closed with an amount I'm happy about. So, maybe that will be my rule. If price is moving super fast, I can lock in profits and still trail. If it's moving slowing, might be best to take profits before it gets the chance to retrace. So, if I make this a new rule and put it in my trading plan, then I guess I trailed it correctly after all.
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