Got two trade updates. One of which I’m definitely not proud of. 
I thought my days of losing a good chunk of my account was over (this one was about 2.5%) but it happened again thanks to NOT SETTING STOP LOSSES. I literally could have only lost $2 if only I had put a stop loss in.
I’ve reflected and thought about why I didn’t set a stop loss for this particular trade. And it’s not because I was afraid of losing money or greed or whatever… it was sheer LAZINESS. It was me putting a trade on, being too confident that it’ll move the way I’m expecting it to and being too lazy to put in a stop loss. Absolutely zero excuses for still doing this especially since I’ve been at this for a while now.
How do I ensure I won’t do this again? I can’t but I really need to try harder.
P.S. Account is back up to $408 thanks to the winning AUD/USD trade.
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What if you teach yourself negative association? For example, you buy a bag of spicy buffalo wings and leave them in the freezer. If you trade without a stop loss, then you have to eat a bowl of spicy buffalo wings. haha
I don’t know. That was the first thought that came to my head. This is assuming that you can’t handle spicy food. If you love spicy food, then it’s a reward, not a punishment, and the whole idea has lost its meaning. haha
This is absolutely the case for me lol.
I do like that method though. But maybe more like reward withdrawal. Aka if I put a trade in without a stop loss, I can’t eat my weekly ice cream. Keeps me healthy AND following my trading rules! That of course sounds way better in my head than in reality. 
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Be positive! You can do it. Discipline isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Think about how it will improve your trading if you can get in the habit of placing stops!
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Happy to report that I placed a trade today and immediately put a stop loss! Hallelujah! It was so tempting to leave it even though I had set a “visual” stop loss on TradingView but I did it anyway. And guess what, it actually worked out! #stoplossftw
This is the trade from Chart Art:
The red line is where my initial stop loss was, green as my initial take profit level. As this pair moved up (I was watching it a ltitle more closely because of FOMC), I adjusted my stop loss accordingly. The yellow line was my final stop loss change and where I ended up closing my trade.
I made $4.30 which makes my account now at $413.07.
I think this is the highest this account has ever gotten!!!
Up 18% from this year and up 37% overall just from following Chart Art trades since last year. NOT BAD.
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Great job! Keep doing what you’re doing!
Couldn’t decide so i just post them all.
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Sigh. You’re right, I haven’t been trading. I actually lost a few trades and then told myself I’ll pause but haven’t gone back to it yet. THIS WEEK CHANGES!
Thank you so much for following up, I appreciate it!
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Hmm posting back to say I have reviewed my previous trades and now understand why I have not been so actively trading. And that is because I’ve had a series of losses despite not trading consecutively. The trades are a bit far apart from each other and I think it’s largely because I’m moving closer and closer to going below $400 which was a big milestone for me.
I had two trades recently and they both lost too putting me now at $399.78. This sucks. I’d hate to go back to where I came from!
I suppose this is what they mean when they say traders become afraid of losing their “hard-earned” gains. I put that word in quotation marks because I know far more people who’ve had to work 100x harder for $100.
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I didn’t get to log about 4 trades, I’ll just include those in the spreadsheet when I summarize.
But, I did take this trade last week:
It didn’t work out but thankfully, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this entire journey, it’s the importance of stop losses. I lost about $3.50 on this one.
It’s only Tuesday, there’s more time to place trades this week!
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Currently in a EUR/GBP sell trade based on this post:
Set a tight stop loss. We’ll find out tomorrow morning! Used this in combination with marketmilk.
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Got stopped out of this one. Thank goodness for that tight stop loss.
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Been constantly getting hit by SLs lately. I’m on my 10th losing trade it’s insane. Account is now down to $389.
My picks from their trade ideas have been terrible 
I’m going to keep trying for the next 5 trades and then switch gears if nothing changes.
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Ouch. I know how this feels. This screenshot is from december 2022:
At this time I was very close to quit trading for good. I am very happy that I didn’t.
It is very good, that you respected your SL ten times in a row - with a real account. That shows a lot of discipline.
Remember that you are only following Chart Art Signals. Take this new acquired and battle tested discipline and carry it over to a strategy with better odds. @tommor 's trend following strategy for example. He has written enough lately, about how he enters in trends and how he adds to his position, that one could create a similar strategy. I think his trading style would suit you quite well.
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I’m wondering about their trade selections. Take what I say with a grain of salt, because I don’t follow their chart art. I’m not sure if their chart art trades follow one strategy.
I’m looking at the trade from your post and it’s based on an SMA crossover. I say backtest the MA crossover.
Go to your timeframe, and mark EVERY SINGLE crossover, and see if it results in a profit or a loss.
Look at 20 trades and see how much you profited and how much you lost. This will tell you if the strategy is valid or not.
Does it need something else? Maybe. Backtest it again. See what happens.
Yeah I think I’m ready honestly. But I told myself I’ll give it 5 more trades. And if it doesn’t work out then yeah it’s time. When I wanted to do my own thing, I was still profitable and I remember it was @dushimes who said, why change if it’s working or somethign like that lol so I was like that is true! So I’ll stick with it for a little bit. At least I have a solid idea that I’m going to switch after 5 more meh trades. 
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I like their posts sometimes because it also takes into consideration fundemental factors (which I don’t understand a whole lot of). My picks from their trades so far have been off but I think that’s largely because I’m doing economic events (I know I know).
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Nope. Just going on record that I was on a 12-losing trade streak. I mean technically 11 but the winning trade was so tiny I’m not even including it. I think I will revisit this trade idea here but for now I would like to do my own thing and see how that works out.
My account so far is now at a painful $307 (a reminder that I started at $300 with a high watermark of $400) thanks to the series of losses AND a huge loss because of one trade where I deliberately did NOT use a stop loss. I’d like to restart with some actual rules I will follow even for just a month and see where that takes me.
Towards the end of this trade idea following journey, I ended up not following my own rules and willy nilly entering trades instead of doing my own work too. It sucks because I was doing so well and I wanted to prove everyone this works but I’m only human and got lazy but mostly greedy. 
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