Lost 41 ticks.
The first trade I clearly should not have entered. I watched the beginning of the move up from 6:34 and didn't take that trade because price had ranged for about an hour and this time of day sometimes a 5 min candle barely moves. I was wrong on both of those. Also, I wasn't sure the trend up would continue. It was pretty strong on the 1 hour charts, maybe the move was over. So I watched it break the high of the day and thought I should trust the momentum of the trend to keep going...so I bought it, right at the highs. I think that trade broke every rule I have.
The 2nd trade I was really proud of....I went long again, but had waited until it made a nice low. It went into some profit, and I could have closed and made back most of the losses from the first trade. But no, I wanted to hold on and see if the trend up would continue. Price seemed to get stuck and started coming back down. I even waited patiently through that for a while, but after it kept getting rejected at every attempt to go higher it made a quick drop and I got out for 2 ticks. It was the spread that took me out....the candle didn't even drop to my exit. Then price turned around and headed back up.
The 3rd trade was OK....it also went in my favor for 11 ticks before turning around. I only went short there because of the lower high made from my last trade....lower high should mean lower low....but I guess not when there's a strong trend up.
The 4th trade....that was more of a reaction to price moving quickly, a bad habit I'm trying to break. There wasn't any analysis behind the trade.
The 5th trade I gave up trading my regular plan and wanted to just trade a small timeframe for a few ticks. I got 3 ticks after risking 6 in a drawdown. Not really what I want to be doing either.
The 6th trade I went back to my plan....only I kind of didn't....once again, saw something that looked like a trade set up, but because I hadn't been thinking through the "analysis" of the trade, but watching a smaller time frame, this trade went against the trend, something my plan says I'm not suppose to do.
Lost 3 trades and so stopped for the day.
At this point, it doesn't look like I've made any progress in the last month. HOWEVER, I have a clearer system of rules and only 1 trade today met those rules. If I'm gonna make this work, I can't keep making trades that aren't in my rules. Why didn't I follow my rules today? Because I felt very frustrated from watching price movement that I wasn't a part of and knowing that to take a retracement into a trend was going to mean I'd be staring at my screen for maybe another hour or 2 to find the right set up later in the day....and by that time price would probably have already reversed or be ranging.
So, there's my problem in a nutshell. I don't like to miss out on price movement. I don't like to be patient for hours before getting a higher probability set up. And I guess if I were too add a 3rd problem, it's that I want to be at breakeven when a trade is in profit and that just doesn't work well with the 6E. I ALWAYS get stopped out of my good trades at BE.
And, a 4th area I'll need to deal with, eventually, is that my stop losses are way too big. Well, I'm leaving them like they are for now, because I want to know in the future that all these struggles I'm having aren't due to stop losses placed too tightly, they are due to not patiently waiting for my setup.
Starting tomorrow: I will try to only take trades that follow my basic setup. I will try to be OK with missing out of trending action if my set up wasn't clear enough to enter. I will try to remember that only a few well taken trades in a week are all that I really need. The losing trades that don't follow the rules are going to ruin everything.
The first trade I clearly should not have entered. I watched the beginning of the move up from 6:34 and didn't take that trade because price had ranged for about an hour and this time of day sometimes a 5 min candle barely moves. I was wrong on both of those. Also, I wasn't sure the trend up would continue. It was pretty strong on the 1 hour charts, maybe the move was over. So I watched it break the high of the day and thought I should trust the momentum of the trend to keep going...so I bought it, right at the highs. I think that trade broke every rule I have.
The 2nd trade I was really proud of....I went long again, but had waited until it made a nice low. It went into some profit, and I could have closed and made back most of the losses from the first trade. But no, I wanted to hold on and see if the trend up would continue. Price seemed to get stuck and started coming back down. I even waited patiently through that for a while, but after it kept getting rejected at every attempt to go higher it made a quick drop and I got out for 2 ticks. It was the spread that took me out....the candle didn't even drop to my exit. Then price turned around and headed back up.
The 3rd trade was OK....it also went in my favor for 11 ticks before turning around. I only went short there because of the lower high made from my last trade....lower high should mean lower low....but I guess not when there's a strong trend up.
The 4th trade....that was more of a reaction to price moving quickly, a bad habit I'm trying to break. There wasn't any analysis behind the trade.
The 5th trade I gave up trading my regular plan and wanted to just trade a small timeframe for a few ticks. I got 3 ticks after risking 6 in a drawdown. Not really what I want to be doing either.
The 6th trade I went back to my plan....only I kind of didn't....once again, saw something that looked like a trade set up, but because I hadn't been thinking through the "analysis" of the trade, but watching a smaller time frame, this trade went against the trend, something my plan says I'm not suppose to do.
Lost 3 trades and so stopped for the day.
At this point, it doesn't look like I've made any progress in the last month. HOWEVER, I have a clearer system of rules and only 1 trade today met those rules. If I'm gonna make this work, I can't keep making trades that aren't in my rules. Why didn't I follow my rules today? Because I felt very frustrated from watching price movement that I wasn't a part of and knowing that to take a retracement into a trend was going to mean I'd be staring at my screen for maybe another hour or 2 to find the right set up later in the day....and by that time price would probably have already reversed or be ranging.
So, there's my problem in a nutshell. I don't like to miss out on price movement. I don't like to be patient for hours before getting a higher probability set up. And I guess if I were too add a 3rd problem, it's that I want to be at breakeven when a trade is in profit and that just doesn't work well with the 6E. I ALWAYS get stopped out of my good trades at BE.
And, a 4th area I'll need to deal with, eventually, is that my stop losses are way too big. Well, I'm leaving them like they are for now, because I want to know in the future that all these struggles I'm having aren't due to stop losses placed too tightly, they are due to not patiently waiting for my setup.
Starting tomorrow: I will try to only take trades that follow my basic setup. I will try to be OK with missing out of trending action if my set up wasn't clear enough to enter. I will try to remember that only a few well taken trades in a week are all that I really need. The losing trades that don't follow the rules are going to ruin everything.
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Now I feel better about losing a trading day.
