Last week (04/13-04/19)
7 trades (slow week, too much tariff news)
Won 6 out of 7,
86% win rate.
+1.26
135 pips
TP hits: 5
SL hits: 1
Manual Close winners: 1
Manual Close losers: 0
Avg Win: 22.88
Avg Loss: -1.90
No big losers, so that’s great. Small 2 pip loss. A lot of my trades are in the red, lots of USD and yen long stuff. That’s finally starting to come around!
Hopefully in lasts into this week since my trade volume has been down.
Approximately, how long do your trades last?
It’s a mix.
Just for this year, 253 trades, myfxbook is saying the avg is 2 days. My losers are definitely skewing the data, because I kept some positions open even in the red for way too long, couple weeks and months
I just checked my trade history, 253 trades
| Trades | Duration | % |
|---|---|---|
| 86 | Under 1hr | 34 |
| 40 | 1-3 hr | 16 |
| 25 | 3-5 hr | 10 |
| 19 | 5-7 hr | 7.5 |
| 19 | 7-14 hr | 7.5 |
| 16 | 14-24 hr | 6 |
| 23 | 1-3 d | 9 |
| 8 | 4-7 d | 3 |
| 7 | 8-14 d | 3 |
| 5 | 15-30 d | 2 |
| 5 | Over 1 mth | 2 |
.
So it can range from less than 1 hr to over 30 days. Right?
But the majority are under one hour.
So the ones that go over a day are stragglers that you let run for too long?
Wait…how is it possible to close most trades in under one hour, but some trades were open for a month?
That’s a huge gap!
Yea my problem is always been cutting losers. A couple trades in that basket are trades that moved against me so fast by the time I realized how fast they moved, the unrealized losses were huge. Annnnnnnd, I didn’t want to close the trades HOPING they would turn around. So I was scaling out of them when possible
I checked those 5 trades. Here’s the data:
So more losers than winners. Some BIG losers in there actually. But the actual dollars lost compared to account size and risk per trade is fine.
Yup agree with you and this post 100%.
This is my trap. Does it help me that I know that? Or not really because it need to do something about it not just think about it? I don’t know. Maybe that I’m aware is a start.
The 6 trades over 16 days long were all opened last year, just 1 this year. So that’s progress, right!?
You see - this is the big advantage, that suits me - being a 5min/1min trader I can tell very quickly whether I’m right or wrong.
Unless you are a long term investor, holding losing trades for days must be mental agony. It would be for me anyway.
It all depends on personality, I think. I’m a long term trader. Trades can last anywhere from two weeks (seldom) to three months.
I’ve seen a few back trades where a position is held for three months, only to get stopped out. That’s not fun.
But the strategy suits me—deep down I’m a lazy person.
My strategy only requires checking a chart for one to two minutes everyday.
That’s not a lot of work.
If I have nine trades running and there are no exit signs, my trading can be finished in 15 minutes, because there’s nothing for me to do.
But taking one trade every two months or so is a test of patience. My goodness. But swing trading frees up so much time. That’s why I like it.
But the profits are not everyday—or even every week. That’s a big challenge.
Guess whatever floats your 
Haha
Yeah, I’d lose my mind trading M5. That’s way too much action for me!
I’m glad there’s so many options available.
It can be. But I’m getting better with the emotional stuff. Kinda! At the end of the day, it’s just money. There one minute, gone the next.
Wow, yea that sucks big time!
I do best when I’m watching the charts and really I think my worst trades are the overnight ones.
For me, the appeal of swing trading is how little screen time is needed.
For you, what’s the appeal of day trading?
The flexibility of trading when you want?
The daily profits?
I think I’m just not patient enough to see trades last so long. Probably my brain is fried from social media so now I need some kind of trade closure. It’s also the feedback. It’s not instant, but it’s so much quicker than waiting to see what happens over say a month or two. I also see like real-time response to market news on the lower timeframes, and see different levels I’ve drawn out hit quickly in minutes and hours, back and forth.
I mean day trading works for me since I’m at the computer anyway for lots of the day.
So what do you look for to exit a trade early or scale out? Like how do you invalidate your trade? Is it just hitting your SL and that’s it. Or do you sometimes exit earlier than a TP or SL?
Last week (04/20-04/26)
22 trades
Won 19 out of 22,
86% win rate.
+2.24
251.2 pips
TP hits: 3
SL hits: 1
Manual Close winners: 16
Manual Close losers: 2
Avg Win: 25.26
Avg Loss: -76.27
So I had a 174 pip loser! A 52.5 pip loser and a 2.3 pip loser. Overall, it’s a small amount of losers, but that 174 loser was big!
That was last Monday and I was worried about price dropping further than the 175. Looking back if I had stayed in the trade another 24 hours, I could have been in profit, but the tariff market was moving crazy and USDJPY. maybe would have broke deeper below 141.
Scaling in only. And wait for a S/R bounce.
However, the exit for one trade, is the entry for the next. Well, ideally, that’s how it works.
It’s not easy.
Yup. Just wait for price to hit my SL. If not, price will start trending.
I used to set TPs, at the very beginning. But not anymore. I have to wait and see what the market gives me. It could be three weeks or two months.
The hard part is waiting. There are so many opportunities to misinterpret the candles.
The strategy works for me, but I have trouble following it. So, I’m practicing and studying charts.
