Here’s a frustrating update. Both trade I had get stopped out late last week ended up going in my favor by the end of the day Friday. AUD/USD dropped significantly to end the day and GBP/JPY turned around to create a pin bar right at my support. It is frustrating to see your decisions validated only after losing money on the trades. Guess I needed to hang in there a bit longer and give them space to breathe. Oh well. I am moving forward to the new week with a clear head.
I set up a pending order on GBP/JPY and am now long in the trade again.
I did in fact get the bounce I was looking fro from GBP/CAD. It took an extra 2 days of waiting, but eventually this went on to hit my profit target right at 2.02. I did tighten my stop loss, but not all the way to break even. I noticed a smaller uptrend on the hourly chart so I gave it enough room to breathe for the 2 day period. On day 3 price spiked after it broke a key resistance level and shot right on through to my level.
Had a short position trigger on the AUD/CAD over night. I tried to play the 2 day retrace back to the 94.00 level. Price dropped low enough to open my position, but quickly rallied against my position. I manually closed the trade this morning taking a half percent loss.
I entered 2 positions this evening. One is NZD/JPY and the other is NZD/USD. I didn’t intend to enter both trades but because both were base NZD pairs they fired off about the same time. They both formed pin bars at a price flip level and you can see that both charts look similar to one another. I have already moved to break even on both trades to eliminate my risk. I will hold the trades through the night and watch to see how they progress.
MY NZD/USD trade stopped out at break even overnight last night. The NZD/JPY trade is still live and going strong. I have left my stop loss just above break even, but I have decided to extend my profit target and let this trade run for a bit. I think the trade is in an uptrend and has a lot of potential for the longer term outlook. I will be holding this trade longer than normal and I will be willing to hold onto this trade through the weekend if necessary. My profit target is set to 83.000, the recent high from a month ago. There will be resistance as it passes through the 81.00 and 82.00 levels undoubtedly. I plan on giving this trade space to work, and I am risk free at this point.
Had a long order on the USD/CAD open over night. Have a pin bar back to support in an uptrend that I previously identified. Looking at it now I failed to see that it did not close within the previous bar so it does not actually fit in as a true pin bar. Fortunately, the trade has still moved in my direction and is positive for me at this point. I have reduced my risk to the daily lows and I will look to move to break even if the trade progresses favorably. I will not be holding this trade long term and will look to close this one prior to market close for the weekend.
Another Frustrating loss this morning. It seems I am still failing to find the balance between letting my trades breathe and limiting my risk. I moved up my stop loss quickly here but not all the way to break even, and the trade was stopped out. I took a half percent loss. Price rallied soon after stopping me out and now is beyond my entry point and headed towards my profit target. It’s tough to watch a trade close and lose money only to turn around. I should be sitting on a decent winner, but instead I have another loss.
I have to figure out how to let these trades run and stop micromanaging or at least get out at break even given the opportunity. This continues to be my most common struggle.
I made a big mistake. Probably a few. I had multiple orders set up with the intention of closing them as soon as one opened. Well then I fell asleep and all of them triggered. They all lost. Then I tried to make it up the next day. I mismanaged a trade and should have gotten out before I did. Lost. I am pretty mad at myself and I just think I haven’t been thinking straight these past few days. I had to pull an all nighter for work and was trading shorter term charts at a time when I usually sleep. I have definitely let my emotions get the best of me. I am taking the next few days off and won’t be trading again this month. Thanksgiving is coming at a good time to help me get out of my own way.
Just found out about your thread and I will definetely keep an eye on it. I also want to wish you the best on your journey and thank you for sharing your progression.
Thank you potato for sharing my world. I have so stunk these last few weeks and there have been fabulous moves in pips. I, too, get nickled and dimed to death using stop losses. There has to be a wiser choice for entering a trade…starting to tinker with indicators to see if a correlation exists somewhere in this chaos. Just keep plowing forward and experiment with different angles. Keep on pippin’.
here’s a free article link, about why it’s usually best to not move your stop loss…thought it might be helpful. hang in there! i think every trader goes through this frustrating period, i know i did…it’s why i took a long break from trading. but when i came back, i had new perspective and patience. good luck
[QUOTE=“poopoopotato;734237”] Another Frustrating loss this morning. It seems I am still failing to find the balance between letting my trades breathe and limiting my risk. I moved up my stop loss quickly here but not all the way to break even, and the trade was stopped out. I took a half percent loss. Price rallied soon after stopping me out and now is beyond my entry point and headed towards my profit target. It’s tough to watch a trade close and lose money only to turn around. I should be sitting on a decent winner, but instead I have another loss. I have to figure out how to let these trades run and stop micromanaging or at least get out at break even given the opportunity. This continues to be my most common struggle.[/QUOTE]
Hey,
A little tip on trade Daily chart pinbars.
When you see a Pinbar on the Daily chart in the direction of the trend, plot your fibs from the top of the pinbar to the bottom of the wick.
Basically the whole Pinbar or the day’s high and low.
Set an order to buy/sell when price retraces to the 50% level.
It almost always triggers and you can see it did the same thing on this trade before it short up.
The retrace is buyers or sellers getting a better price to enter into the impending move.
Try it out and see for yourself.
It’ll wades your stop loss too cause your entry is way more refined doing it this way.
I’m back to trading after taking a few days off for the Thanksgiving Holiday. I have a clear head and a positive outlook and I feel like I am in a good place to take successful trades again. I have taken 3 actually since my last post and all 3 were positive for small gains. A few people posted here and it was nice to see the encouragement so thank you to all of you who follow along with me here. MissLexy posted an article that I found to be pretty helpful and changed my outlook a bit. I am going to get more conservative on how I manage my trades and when I move stop losses. I think the article was pretty accurate on describing why I moved my stop loss and what it meant for the trade. In the past I have moved my stop aggressively to reduce my risk, but I think this was mostly motivated by fear and not logical thinking. My new process is simple:
Whenever I think it is time to move my stop loss(break even or otherwise) stop to think about why you want to move it. If the reason is because I am afraid the trade will turn and lose my profits I will simply close the trade and take what I have. I shouldn’t be in a trade if I am afraid of losing the money I have on the line anyway.
I’ve been managing my trades so far this past week and I have 3 winners. My guess is that I will end up with more winning trades, but they will all be much smaller. I think most of my past trades that broke even would have been small gainers as well. My one concern is that my losses could be larger because I won’t be moving my stop loss as much, however I anticipate that I will be closing trades manually for small losses also.
I’ll start posting more charts again soon. Here’s to turning it around for December.
First trade back on here was not a good one. I took the pin bar/engulfing bar second from the most recent. Price dipped just low enough to enter me into a trade over night and then shot quickly to my stop loss in the morning. I could have gotten out first thing in the morning for a small loss but I decided to let it play out further. Next thing I knew I got a stop loss notification.
I realized also that this was an AUD/JPY trade which a while back I had removed from my trading list. It seems to be my nemesis as I have never had a single winning trade on this pair. I must have added it or switched to defaults a while back to get it back on my watch list. I am going to remove it again to avoid it at least until I am consistently making gains.
I had a long entry trigger on the EUR/GBP this morning. I made the play based on the pin bar formed right at the .7200 level. It looked like a correction in a larger uptrend. I entered right around the blue line and got out pretty close to the top actually at the red line. I decided around 9:00 AM EST that I no longer wanted to watch and manage the trade and I was happy with the profits I had so I manually closed the trade. I turned out to be great timing because price never reached that level again for the day. This trade put me back positive for the month and I consider it a total success.
I had a short on the NZD/JPY trigger this morning. I made a play on the 2 day pin bar right at the 83.000 level. I thought it may be a good reversal signal. The trade didn’t make a strong move in either direction while I had it open and I decided to close it and not wait around for it to move against me. I closed the trade just above break even for the tiniest of gains. Price did continue to fall for a bit but met strong resistance and quickly turned around. I’m happy to be out of the trade at break even and not at a loss.
