Maintaining Self Discipline
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I'm having a really hard time with the emotional side of taking only 3 trades a day.
My plan was to wait a bit after the open to see if it seemed like price would break lower or higher. I had a lot of timeframes up but my eyes were watching a very small timeframe and I "reacted" instead of thinking through my entry and got in on the FIRST 1 minute candle at the open 8:30 am CT....which I know is risky and shouldn't do and immediately regretted it. Got out with -1 tick, and there went one trade. So, I decided I'd watch price for a while, maybe an hour or so and spread out my trades. I marked the chart a few times of where I'd like to get in, and then I had the very strong impression that price was going to drop and thought I saw a place where it was a good entry and decided I might as well take it. So I did....and regretted taking this one immediately after as well. It did go in my favor a small amount and I thought about closing it because I no longer liked the trade as much, but then I remembered if I close it, I can't trade again for a VERY LONG time...so I stayed in and watched it turn around and go against me. I finally closed it manually just a little bit before it would have reached it's stop loss.
Then I stuck was with being down to only 1 trade left and it was only 11 minutes after the open. I knew it was better to watch charts for a while without trading. That's probably what all the great traders do, but it's difficult for me for some reason. But then, 3 minutes later, on the 15 minute chart, I thought I saw that price had made a test of the lows and was going to go up. So I decided to "risk all" and get in. I gave it a 136 tick stop loss, because I really didn't want to get stopped out again and thought this one really had potential to go somewhere. As it neared my 1:1 risk to reward area I weighed out whether it was better to get out and be done for the day with some profit or hold on for a larger move but risking that price could retrace and take out my stop loss before going up or it could reverse trend and head back down and so I opted for the safer route: exit and be done for the day. I think if I'd had more trades left I might have taken a risk to let it keep going.
Things to work through:
I tend to give my last trade of the day a very large stop loss. This is dangerous. I need to be aware of this tendency and come up with a plan to prevent unreasonable risk.
I need to do a much better job of thinking through my trades and not taking a trade based on reacting to a small price movement. Stop looking at smaller timeframes.
Recognize that with only being allowed 3 trades my emotions are strongly influencing my trading decisions.
What I did well: I spent over an hour analyzing charts during the premarket and that helped me to get a better feel overall for where price could go.
Made 123 ticks
My plan was to wait a bit after the open to see if it seemed like price would break lower or higher. I had a lot of timeframes up but my eyes were watching a very small timeframe and I "reacted" instead of thinking through my entry and got in on the FIRST 1 minute candle at the open 8:30 am CT....which I know is risky and shouldn't do and immediately regretted it. Got out with -1 tick, and there went one trade. So, I decided I'd watch price for a while, maybe an hour or so and spread out my trades. I marked the chart a few times of where I'd like to get in, and then I had the very strong impression that price was going to drop and thought I saw a place where it was a good entry and decided I might as well take it. So I did....and regretted taking this one immediately after as well. It did go in my favor a small amount and I thought about closing it because I no longer liked the trade as much, but then I remembered if I close it, I can't trade again for a VERY LONG time...so I stayed in and watched it turn around and go against me. I finally closed it manually just a little bit before it would have reached it's stop loss.
Then I stuck was with being down to only 1 trade left and it was only 11 minutes after the open. I knew it was better to watch charts for a while without trading. That's probably what all the great traders do, but it's difficult for me for some reason. But then, 3 minutes later, on the 15 minute chart, I thought I saw that price had made a test of the lows and was going to go up. So I decided to "risk all" and get in. I gave it a 136 tick stop loss, because I really didn't want to get stopped out again and thought this one really had potential to go somewhere. As it neared my 1:1 risk to reward area I weighed out whether it was better to get out and be done for the day with some profit or hold on for a larger move but risking that price could retrace and take out my stop loss before going up or it could reverse trend and head back down and so I opted for the safer route: exit and be done for the day. I think if I'd had more trades left I might have taken a risk to let it keep going.
Things to work through:
I tend to give my last trade of the day a very large stop loss. This is dangerous. I need to be aware of this tendency and come up with a plan to prevent unreasonable risk.
I need to do a much better job of thinking through my trades and not taking a trade based on reacting to a small price movement. Stop looking at smaller timeframes.
Recognize that with only being allowed 3 trades my emotions are strongly influencing my trading decisions.
What I did well: I spent over an hour analyzing charts during the premarket and that helped me to get a better feel overall for where price could go.
Made 123 ticks
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Since I had stopped trading so early in the session today I decided to continue to watch price action and not trade...and I didn't trade anymore. I placed a few marks of where I would like to have taken a trade and some worked and some didn't, but it was better than I imagined it would be to watch charts and not trade. I was able to focus on doing more analysis rather intensely watching candlesticks wondering if a set up was forming. It helped, I think, to simply watch the bigger picture of what price was doing...which was slowly turning after a large move up.
I'm quitting early for the day....because I took one trade and I'm happy with it and don't want to risk giving anything back, even though it looks like a strong trending up day that I'll be missing out of. I'll continue to do what I did yesterday and stay engaged with the charts and mark areas where I would like to take a trade to see if they worked or not. I try to focus on one thing to improve each day and today it will be to get used to watching charts and not trading them.
It is really hard to trade with one contract. When closing this I was really wishing I had traded 2 contracts so I could close one and leave the other one on, and maybe someday I'll go back to trading more contracts, but during losing streaks it's really nice to have one one contract I can lose and I need to stick with one right now.
Made 174 ticks.
It is really hard to trade with one contract. When closing this I was really wishing I had traded 2 contracts so I could close one and leave the other one on, and maybe someday I'll go back to trading more contracts, but during losing streaks it's really nice to have one one contract I can lose and I need to stick with one right now.
Made 174 ticks.
I should make a habit of writing in here why I exited a trade.
Today I exited because I was relieved I had made so much demo profit. Technically, there wasn't a good reason to exit. It still had a little more to go before reaching the previous high and wasn't showing signs of stopping. If I keep getting large trades like this I'll have to be more careful to stay in the trade by trailing it and following my plan for closing trades.
Today I exited because I was relieved I had made so much demo profit. Technically, there wasn't a good reason to exit. It still had a little more to go before reaching the previous high and wasn't showing signs of stopping. If I keep getting large trades like this I'll have to be more careful to stay in the trade by trailing it and following my plan for closing trades.
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I should also always record the stop loss size I used for each trade.
Today's trade had 85 ticks as a stop loss, although I am "managing" stops and targets now so I might have closed it early had price turned around.
Today's trade had 85 ticks as a stop loss, although I am "managing" stops and targets now so I might have closed it early had price turned around.
Well, I had a losing day today. I was wondering if that would happen after 2 positive days in a row this week and tried my best to trade cautiously...so much that I didn't take any trades around the open. Once I did take a trade, I used up my 3 trades quickly, although I did remember to space them out at least 5 minutes apart.
The first 2 trades I took would have made a little profit, if I had just stayed in them. The first one had the potential to go to 120 ticks and the second one had the potential to go to 65 ticks, but I closed both around BE. The first one I moved to BE+5 early in the trade because price didn't shoot up as I hoped it would, and I was also having a hard time reading the chart and didn't feel that confident about the trade. The second trade I closed because just after getting into the trade I noticed there were contradicting signals for up and down movement and was happy to get out at +1 ticks, even though it did continue in my favor a little.
The third trade was the one I wish I had closed early because it never went into profit and I totally read the chart wrong. That happens a lot when price trades in a triangle. I think I see a great set up to go short or long, price seems to race to get to that point, sometimes, only to suddenly reverse because it's ranging, not trending.
I was worried that now that I have been using large stop losses (40 to 100+ ticks) that with 3 trades I could lose all my profits for the week in just one day. The real challenge for me will be to stick with only 3 trades AND only reasonable loss sizes when all 3 trades end up losers. I've been thinking that since my best days seem to be around 80 to 100 ticks I should really try to keep the net losses for each day in that range. I'm not sure how I can do that and that's part of the challenge of learning to only take 3 trades a day.
First 2 trades started with a 40 tick stop loss and last one I started with 68 ticks and didn't adjust it...(almost did...maybe with time I'll be a little quicker to just get out of a losing trade even if it is the last trade of the day.)
Lost 62 ticks today.
The first 2 trades I took would have made a little profit, if I had just stayed in them. The first one had the potential to go to 120 ticks and the second one had the potential to go to 65 ticks, but I closed both around BE. The first one I moved to BE+5 early in the trade because price didn't shoot up as I hoped it would, and I was also having a hard time reading the chart and didn't feel that confident about the trade. The second trade I closed because just after getting into the trade I noticed there were contradicting signals for up and down movement and was happy to get out at +1 ticks, even though it did continue in my favor a little.
The third trade was the one I wish I had closed early because it never went into profit and I totally read the chart wrong. That happens a lot when price trades in a triangle. I think I see a great set up to go short or long, price seems to race to get to that point, sometimes, only to suddenly reverse because it's ranging, not trending.
I was worried that now that I have been using large stop losses (40 to 100+ ticks) that with 3 trades I could lose all my profits for the week in just one day. The real challenge for me will be to stick with only 3 trades AND only reasonable loss sizes when all 3 trades end up losers. I've been thinking that since my best days seem to be around 80 to 100 ticks I should really try to keep the net losses for each day in that range. I'm not sure how I can do that and that's part of the challenge of learning to only take 3 trades a day.
First 2 trades started with a 40 tick stop loss and last one I started with 68 ticks and didn't adjust it...(almost did...maybe with time I'll be a little quicker to just get out of a losing trade even if it is the last trade of the day.)
Lost 62 ticks today.
It seems like whenever I'm down to my last trade allowed for the day that I am willing to take on more risk than usual and I think I tend to use poor judgment in selecting trades too--seems I take them based on how I think they should play our rather than careful selection. So, for now, I think I'll make my last trade of the day a scalp trade, using 30 ticks stop loss and a 60 tick target because I was somewhat positive with those. And by doing that, I will allow myself to manage the stop loss and target as well so that it's basically just another trade with any size potential profit, but I'm limiting the loss to 30 ticks. The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. If the first 2 trades are losers, it limits my desire to revenge trade and hold a losing trade for too long. If I have mixed results from the first 2 trades I have a non-risky way to make the net loss or gain slightly better. And if I have nice profits from my first 2 trades then I know I won't lose much with only a 30 tick stop loss if I do take a third trade. Also, it makes sense to have the last trade with a smaller stop loss than the first couple because I need a larger stop loss for the more volatile time of the morning, but 30 ticks should be OK most days after the first hour. It's worth a try to see how it goes.
Lost 44 demo ticks today. For the last trade, I planned to adjust the stop loss to 30 ticks after entering the trade, but the trade went against me quickly and I froze. I'll need to remember to change the stop loss setting to 30 ticks immediately after closing the 2nd trade of the day.
I finished up by 155 ticks for the week. Add to that last week's 300 ticks (in this account) and I'm up 455 ticks.
I finished up by 155 ticks for the week. Add to that last week's 300 ticks (in this account) and I'm up 455 ticks.
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