My trade journal starting with GER30 short

I have issues when I watch my trades. I dont have the mental strength yet to leave my trades to reach target. When Im away from the trade my thoughts are that I should be managing the trade. When I’m looking at the trade my thoughts are that I shouldn’t be slave to the tick. Clearly this is a mental conflict that I need to address to become a capable competent trader.

So in this instance why did I exit early?

  1. A few past trades move nicely into profit and then retraced to breakeven. Recency bias…I am using a past event to influence a current event. Very poor approach.

  2. ‘No one ever went broke taking profit’. I hate this saying yet I just did it! This kind of approach will make me a breakeven mediocre trader no better than all the other floundering wannabies.

I know I will feel miserable if price reaches my target and will feel better if price rallies up. Do you see the problem? Emotions, why should I ‘feel’ anything for the trade?
You might say good result but the issue is not that the trade won it is my mindset that is worrying. If I get into the habit of cutting trades… well then I have no boundaries.

Anyway just a bad day probably lack of sleep or something. Heres my chart:


This is an often quoted saying - and in my opinion one of the most damaging that one could ever follow! Every trader knows and accepts that they will both lose and win on trades. The whole key about being a successful trader is the management of risk/reward such that one’s profits exceed one’s losses. If they don’t, then you will lose overall - it is as simple as that!! … but what does this phrase “No one ever went broke taking profit” encourage you to do? To take a quick profit whenever you see one!..and what does that do to your overall risk/reward calculations? It destroys it entirely! The actual act of taking a profit does not destroy you, but the act of taking profits that are smaller than your stoploss criteria certainly will in the long run.

This is typical and totally understandable - and is entirely due to the fact that you are concentrating on the pips and not the trade and because they are [B]your [/B]pips and not someone else’s!

But think about our previous discussions here, we already established that intuitive feel for the next move is often wrong, so why exit purely on your own feel? If you enter a trade purely based on a technical assessment then surely, if your risk/reward is ok, you should also set your exit criteria on a similarly technical assessment, i.e. at what level is your original technical assessment invalidated andtherefore reason to quit the trade. The principle of exiting the trade based on a change in technical assessment completely takes away the emotional aspect whether you follow the trade or leave it as a “set and forget”.

One exercise here might help you in time. Try documenting all your trades according to whether you exit on a rules basis or personal feel and whenever you do base it on intuition [B]also [/B]mark whether the decision turned out to be right or wrong.

I did this analysis on my trades (I suffer from the same tendency to quit trades based on my own intuitive “feel” - sometimes it is right and sometimes wrong) and I was totally surprised to find after a few months that I would have actually been better off overall always leaving my trades to exit on technical grounds than my own intuition (again, a very humbling experience!).

It is always difficult to keep in mind that trading is not about any individual trade, it is about the overall performance across all trades. One needs to be systematic in this respect and allow your trades to reach their targets when they are right and also accept that they will sometimes go wrong but, when they do,they will be closed within an acceptable amount of loss.

Ive just realised from your feedback why this went from a technical entry to an intuitive exit. Because I did not logically set my target, I simply said 4r sounds nice and its slightly above a major swing level. so it was a ‘Good entry and I hope to reach my target’. haha I see now how the exit plan is just as important as entry. Ive been so focused on good entries and trying to get onto an early trend that Im not managing the trade properly.

Good idea, I will add this to my analysis.

That is interesting. I have noticed similar with my ideas, I dont know the stats but I would say more than not the target is reached.

If targets are in proper logical positions then the idea should never resort to intuition.

Thanks Manxx.

I dont trade patterns however this one jumped out at me.
Bullish continuation flag pattern. Im going to try it out, when price nears the bottom of that flag I’m going long.


Here is an example of an impulsive trade. Ive been feeling impatient this week.

  1. I had a level identified.
  2. Price broke it.
  3. I jumped in without waiting for my pullback.
  4. Market closes
  5. Market opens with a gap down.
  6. Trade knocked out for 15 pips… to the pip! Had my stop been 1 pip lower I would still be in this suckerfool!
  7. Price immediately starts going up from my knockout!
  8. Damn you…DAAAAMMMNNN YOOOOOOUUU! 1 pip!
  9. Enter again. Price has bounced off my level and its going long, MA’s confirm this.
  10. Trade hits target.


Wow. Today was brutal for me. Probably one of my worst trading days ever.
I strayed off the path and got savaged. Everything went against me.
Uncanny how you can be slightly off sync and you get eaten alive.
Break one rule - you lose.
Not concentrating - you lose.
Try something different - you lose.

Learnt something though. Have a daily or weekly loss limit. When that is breached step the f*** away from your computer and go do something else.

GBPJPY. Broke and pulled back on the 23% fib level. I had a long planned. Took it and caught the biggest and fastest price tank Ive ever seen. First chart shows the daily with fib levels. That hammer you see was a clean break and retest on the lower time frame.




And then this one I can cry about. I set my loss level. Price surged down. I closed early and as I closed price shot the other way for the +1000 pips that I was after. If I had just left it.


Gold trade today. Wish I had put in a bigger target.

Reason for the trade: Bounce break and then a pullback for a short.
Day chart looked like an obvious reversal point at 1309 but 1290 looked like a position that everyone and their dog would have their stops placed.

Stop hunting at its most obvious.


As much as I dont enjoy trading anything to do with the pound (statistics show its my worst performing currency) I quite like the look of this potential setup on 4 hour. If you cant see the chart clearly then if price rallys back to 1.2828 level Ill be looking for short opportunities.

Any thoughts?


Two attempts on the Nikkei index. First one was stopped out because I did not set my stop according to the ‘ASK’ setting. I set it on the ‘BID’ which looked like a logical level but it was breached easily. I re-entered with the correct settings and almost reached target before getting tapped out. Got within 20 pips before price pulled back and closed me out for 46.


EURGBP was a simple bounce, break, pullback for a long. On an uptrend. Fortunately for this trade an overnight move caused stop to be reached easily.


Happy with both trades as they were good execution of my rules.

Been looking into SR levels with moving averages. I have a good feeling about it.
SR levels, price action, moving averages, basic macros fundamentals…very powerful way to trade I believe.


Good trade.

Can’t disagree with your approach:

1H E/U so far this Oct:


Looks good Manxx, have you taken some of those?
The only one I dont understand is the 3rd circle. Is that a long on a pullback after the break?

Yes, this is the core of my trading direction. But, as a day trader, I select my actual entries (and some exits) from a 15m chart. For example, with the last circle (yesterday) I sold and bought back on the first touch of the daily pivot for 10 pips and then resold when it bounced back to the ribbon with a 10 pip stop. If it would have then subsequently triggered the stop I would have lost nothing, but it didn’t it just carried on down all day for a nice stress-free intraday trade while I spent a lovely day in the sunshine raking the autumn leaves - that’s how I like it :smiley:

The third circle is exactly what you say, a pullback. One of the “rules” of the ribbon method is to wait for a (approx) 50% pullback if the signal is given by a long candle, as in this case. Which is very similar to your own approach to entries on/after pullbacks.

I was also outside, sitting on the grass enjoying the warm sun before the mother of all clouds appeared accompanied by arctic winds… causing a hasty retreat back into the house. You have to make the most of the sun every opportunity you get here in England.

Something Im doing now which I see you do, is getting more info on market structure into my view rather than focusing on individual candles. I found that when analysing previous trades some of the entries and exits looked good but the context was not apparent because the chart was too zoomed into current action. Little things make such a big difference.

2 trades this week which I cut early. I was hoping for trend continuation however price entered range (which it does after a move). I exited the mexican because fed members are talking today and also I dont like being in trades longer than 2 days. Also today is FOMC minutes, and something to do with treasury 10 year yield data (not sure but it sounds like a market mover).

Mexican looked like it was going down to my next day level but alas… I got out before fed talk completely ****s the trade idea up.


Same with gold. moving sideways. If price gets stuck in a range, Im out.


Manxx do you enter on the open of the 3rd candle after the break? So your 1st candle was a big surge through the MA, 2nd candle pullback approx 50%, then do you go long on the open of that 3rd candle? I ask because there is a dotted resistance line slightly above your entry, so in that trade you would be trading into resistance. Do you you put greater importance on MA than S/R levels?

My stats so far:
Win rate - 51%
ROI +10%
Best performers: Gold, DAX, Nikkei, SPX500, GBPJPY
Worst performers: USDZAR,USDCAD,GBPUSD,AUDJPY (GBPUSD biggest loser)
Best trading time: US session
Good trades: 57% (followed my rules)
Bad trades: 42% (brain explosion trades)

My biggest weaknesses:
1.Stops too wide
2. Losing a trade after it was profitable
3. Not being consistent enough
4. Holding onto losers

My strengths:

  1. Good post trade analysis
  2. Not afraid to confront myself anymore and address personal dysfunctions
  3. Realised just how meaningless each individual trade is.
  4. Don’t hold losing trades anymore
  5. Losses don’t hurt emotionally anymore because I believe in my method

My takeway from this is that out of all my trades I have done well. There were only a handful of trades that totally wiped out all my gains and these were due to big stops and holding onto losers for too long. Had I cut those trades early for acceptable losses I would have had a significantly different ROI. If I reduce bad trades (impatience, not following my rules etc…)by 30% I will increase my win rate to 66%. Thanks to my personal analysis I have been able to identify where my weaknesses are and I can put a stop to the bad habits. I believe that I am going to be one of the very few people that makes a success out of trading.

A very tough lesson that clicked with me is just how difficult it is to sit on my hands and not trade after I have missed a move. My impulsiveness caused many a bad trade but thanks to post analysis I looked at some of the entries and was like WTF? I also try not to look at the charts with a predictive mindset anymore. The key is to be constantly monitoring yourself for signs of poor decision making.

What do your stats indicate?

Reading your posts here, and especially the one just above, I believe that, too.

I agree that out of all your trades you’ve done well, and especially because you say “Had I cut those trades early for acceptable losses I would have had a significantly different ROI”, which sounds very well observed and judged.

Thank you so much Lexys :slight_smile:

I havent posted my trades here in a while however I have made a small addition to my charts and perhaps my method will help someone that has a similar trading style to me.
I have added moving averages to help me be stricter with my trading decisions. They really eliminate a lot of processing that my mind does when observing price. They are not used as the trigger for trades but purely as an indication to confirm the direction of my intended trade. Ive seen good progress with this method and I feel very confident of it. It is so simple yet so effective. I am extremely strict with stops and targets now, I do not move stops once they are set, and I try and make sure that when I enter a trade I have a good stop placement.

For shorts:
Price must have just broken below the moving averages.
Price must be moving away from a level that I have identified.
I dont look for single candle setups anymore, I look at collective candle structure.

For longs:
Opposite of shorts.

Here is a trade I entered today with this method.