I had a short position trigger on the AUD/NZD last night. I entered based on the pin bar in the frame. Price has been in a small downtrend for a few months and the 1.1100 has acted as a price flip level in the past so this provided me a good place to enter. I am worried about the support at 1.0900 so I want to manage this trade closely and be out before this has the opportunity to turn on me. I have reduced my risk from 1% to about .5% just above the current high on today’s bar.
This is a 4 hour chart just to show a better progress of the trade. I got out of this trade at 9:00 AM when the 4hr bar failed to close below the 1.1000 level. Price had initially cruised right through it but the buying momentum rallied back above the level. I wanted to lock in the gain so i got out of the trade. Price did move back through the level temporarily but as you can see rocketed up at the opening of the Australian market.
had a short on the CAD/JPY open last night. Took the pin bar right from the 92.00 resistance level. This trade has gone against me pretty much from the start unfortunately. Price dipped 5 pips below my entry point and then reversed right back against me. I am holding this and seeing how price reacts today as it rejected the 92.00 level again. In the future if i see a trade go against me this quickly I think it will be better to simply close it out as soon as I see it happen.
Daily
Hourly
I am still holding this trade after a week. I think I should have gotten out by now, but I feel I am now committed to letting this react at the 92.00 level again. On the daily you can see that this trade has been indecisive for the last 5 days just hovering around the same price. As mentioned before I felt like it would have been smart to get out immediately. I held on and let it continue a short term downtrend as you can see on the hourly. I had 2 opportunities to get out at break even and even for a small profit that I passed up. I convinced myself that the down trend would continue and I would be able to return to even higher profits. I think my problem here is that I held on to the hope that my initial idea was right and the trade would eventually go my way. Now I think it’s likely that I take a full 1% loss. I will still hold and watch the reaction at the key resistance level, but moving forward I will be making a stronger effort to be out of bad trades much quicker.
I broke one of my rules last week and I am a bit upset with myself over it. I took the pin bar below on the GBP/JPY while was still holding the CAD/JPY trade from my last post. I am supposed to only be in one active trade at a time to help my management of the trades. At the time of entering I thought the second trade confirmed my reasons for being in the first trade and I thought I would be able to make up my losses. The GBP/JPY trade went against me pretty quickly and it was tough to handle. It eventually went on to be a decent winner, but I got out at break even. I realized my mistake pretty quickly so when I had the chance to get out I did so. Luckily I this lesson didn’t cost me anything since I was able to watch the trade go back to positive. I was also reinforced why I want to limit holding multiple open positions. Having 2 open trades that are both winning is easy, but having 2 open positions that are both losing is a nightmare. Sitting with double the account exposure is tough to handle and just hoping that either one will turn feels bad.
I think an even bigger take away for me is why getting out of the bad trade early is so important. I am still holding the CAD/JPY trade and have been for 7 trading days now. I think holding the trade and watching it be negative for so long has been stressful for me over that time period. There is also the opportunity cost of me missing other profitable trades that I don’t see because I am only looking at my one trade. I would have been able to have the GBP/JPY as a winner for example most likely.
Trying to take some positives away from this as well. I clearly put my stop loss at a strong resistance level because it has now been tested twice and held up well. So my entry was at least at a good level. The trade has come back closer to a break even point for me and I can still get out with only a small loss. I actually tried to do this on Friday, but I got home from work a few minutes too late and markets closed before I could close out the trade. I will likely get out of my position here when markets re-open and start the week fresh.
Looking at the trade now it appears there is a right triangle reversal building and it may be a good idea to take a limit buy entry above the 92.00 level on the CAD/JPY.
Manually closed the CAD/JPY trade at the opening of the markets on Sunday for a 40 pip loss. Turned out to be a good move as price is currently rising. Now I can move on to other trades.
Had a limit order enter this morning short on the EUR/USD. This 2 day pin bar from last week should take the price down from the 1.1400 level.
Quick update to this trade. I have moved my stop loss up fairly aggressively to the most recent highs of the day. Should this trade turn around on me quickly I have a small profit locked in and will get out with a victory. My profit target remains at the recent lows near the 1.1000 level
closed out of this trade about 15 pips shy of my profit target. The trading day was over and decided that I no longer wanted to watch the pair so closely. It could continue through the support or it could bounce, but for me I’m happy with the profit I already got out of this one.
Back in on the EUR/USD. It indeed bounced from that 1.1100 support level and gave me the entry signal. Had a pending order just beyond the high point of the 2 bar pin reversal. I think the trend may have turned downward so I want to be especially risk averse on this trade. I have already reduced my risk to the current bar low and will be looking to move to break even at some point today. currently looking at 25 pips up on the trade. Will update as this progresses.
As suspected there was a decent amount of downtrend pressure for this trade. I was fairly aggressive in moving my stop loss and before heading to lunch was able to lock in about a 20 pip gain. of course during lunch this trade turned around quickly and triggered the stop. It could have potentially been a 70 pip winner, but I didn’t expect price to turn as soon as it did. Either way my risk aversion kept this trade a winner rather than a loser.
September is not yet over but there are only 3 trading days left in the month and I couldn’t sleep any longer so I am doing a September review a few days early. I took 8 trades in total with 1 loss, 2 break evens, and 5 winners. Counting break even trades as winners that’s and 88% win rate. I have an overall gain of 1.94% right now for the month. Looking back at these stats I can’t be anything less than pleased with my performance.
The loss I took was a rough one, but I think it served as a good learning tool. I struggled holding onto that trade for over a week. I held it longer than any of my winners by far and it was pretty stressful to do so. Getting out of the trade earlier was the right move and moving forward I will try to get out of bad trades sooner.
I also broke a rule this month by opening multiple trades at one time. This one cause some extra stress when I was staring at 2 big losing trades at the same time. It reinforces for me why I should only be in one trade at a time.
I think during the month I did do a few things well. I think I had good clean entry signals and I did a good job of finding relevant support and resistance areas as well. Both of these gave me good opportunities for winning trades that lead to a good month. Also I would say my management of the trades that went to be winners was solid. I had a few trades that could have gone on to be losers had they not been so tightly watched. The risk aversion is what kept me positive this month and moving forward I will keep it the same.
Moving forward I will modify my rule set as follows. No more limit on the amount of trades in one week. The daily limit seems to be doing a good enough job of limiting my total entries and is solving the real issue of over trading for me. I will also tweak my rule of total open trades at one time to exclude trades moved to being risk free. Two losing trades was a terrible feeling, but if I have a risk free trade it should be easier to hold onto 2 trades. I will not actively seek this out, but I won’t let it stop me from trading good set-ups.
Now I will try to go back to back positive months!
Had a long entry trigger on the AUD/CHF this morning. Had a pin bar form at the bottom of the range it’s trading in. I’m a bit nervous of the bar highs and lows to the left forming possible resistance. I have already moved to break even quite aggressively to ensure I don’t take a loss here. I am considering using a trailing stop depending on how this trade progresses.
Update: Price climbed slowly throughout the morning. I decided that at noon I wanted to be out of the trade nervous that it would turn around on me. I had impeccable timing apparently because right after that the trade did in fact turn around and I would have stopped out at break even. I feel like I had luck on my side today and I’m happy to be out of the trade with a small profit.
Potato:
Your impeccable timing had nothing to do with luck. You are tuning in on the personalities of these markets. It is so important to see the price as much as you can while at work…I have the same dilemma.
Also, in the early am, it is an exceptional time to tune in with Europe and London as they do battle with their economic reports…talk about trend starters.
You are being deliberate in your approach…also known as discipline. Congrats on your positive outcome…quite the feeling. Go ahead and shake your fist at the world. For those who say you’re not permitted to be emotional…I say go to… We are human, not machines.
CHEERS on a job well done.
Tim
First trade of the month triggered while at work today. Short on the NZD/CAD. The pin bar reached just short of the .8600 level which I have marked as a good resistance level. Price was above my entry point through the early euro session but had a strong sell off at the open of the US session. The move triggered my entry and price seems to be congregating right around the entry point. most of the afternoon so i have only about 5 pips positive right now. I’ve reduced my stop loss to the high of today and will continue to watch as this trade progresses.
Forgot to update this trade. I ended up moving to break even fairly aggressively and getting stopped out there. The trade didn’t progress very far so I’ll take break even as a win.
Entered a long position on the AUD/NZD overnight. The 1.0900 level has proven to be a good support level in the past so I would expect it to continue. Price also formed a pin bar right at that level so I am expecting a good bounce. The pair seems to be range bound over the past few months as well so I am expecting price to make its way back to the top of the range.
Well it looks like i was quite wrong about this trade. After a small upward move yesterday price reversed over night and took out my stop loss. I had moved up my stop loss a small amount so it wasn’t a full loss, but it is the biggest loss I have taken in over a month for sure. I’ll analyze this a bit further later on, but for now I’m moving to the next opportunity.
Had a long order trigger on the USD/CAD this evening. Have a 2 bar pin bar setup going right to the previous support of 1.2900. Price closed on the second bar just below 1.3000, so I gave it a bit of extra space when setting my entry level ensuring it cleared that mark by a wide enough margin. I have reduced my risk in half at this point as price has started a move upwards of about 20 pips. I will continue to manually trail my stop if the trade progresses further in my favor.
I made a mistake today. I’m not sure what it is just yet though. I was stopped out of this trade for a small loss (.27%). I was fairly aggressive in reducing my risk and that is why it got hit. I don’t know if my mistake was being too aggressive or not aggressive enough. I could have walked away with 40 pips(unlikely cause i was letting it run) or at least moved to break even when up by as much. If I had gotten out of this trade at break even I would have no problems what so ever. The other side of the argument is that the trade has rebounded from the loss and I should be holding a small gain at this point. So possibly I should never have moved my stop at all and given the trade more breathing room. It seems I found that sweet spot in no mans land where I didn’t give it enough space to work, but also missed an opportunity to reduce the risk to zero or further. I’ll keep my eye on this pair to watch where the trade goes, and hopefully time will give me more clarity on my action. Moving forward I need to think harder about my stop loss decisions.