$500 Account Challenge Thursday 12/21/2023
This has definitely been a rough week so far. I botched a USDCAD trade because I can’t read. I had early exits on trades on CADJPY, AUDJPY, NZDJPY because of sheer frustration and impatience. While those trades are playing out as analyzed, I just had enough of the super slow price movement. I mentioned these JPY pairs in this journal and I wish someone would have said that I would need the patience of Job to trade them. The drawdown wasn’t a killer but I don’t like holding in drawdown overnight.
AUDJPY
CADJPY
NZDJPY
I got knocked out of CADJPY in the middle of the Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after my Breakeven EA moved my stop loss after I was 20 pips in profit, then price retraced and I woke up to a closed trade. AUDJPY did the same Wednesday morning. Then I was left with NZDJPY, a combo of two currencies that I’m not a fan of but the setup was consistent with what I saw across most of the JPY pairs. NZDJPY kept me in consolidation and drawdown almost the entire trade and it was infuriating. It wasn’t worth the frustration, so as soon as it went back into profit I closed the trade and then closed the chart window on that pair. I was confident in the analysis and could have let it run, but I was too scorned and I didn’t feel the trade was worth occupying space in my head.
My next trade yesterday was also a mistake (hey I’m not perfect). On EURAUD 15Min, I thought I saw a familiar setup and it did meet all the criteria except that in my haste, I didn’t do proper analysis.
This was an ordinary and clean supply setup that looked almost normal. I was concerned about the equal highs (liquidity) above the zone but I would wait for confirmation to enter. It came in a perfect evening star pattern so I entered.
Now I have to walk through this process of post-entry clarity. After hitting the button my vision became much clearer.
Once price violated my zone, I realized that the path shown in the black arrow was not the real setup and I thought that the red arrow was setup on further analysis, which would have been a break and retest that had confluence with my corrected fib.
And unfortunately my vision became even clearer upon further review after I was already in the trade. I didn’t zoom out or go to a higher time frame to see the big picture. The market range of the black and red arrows were just the tip of the iceberg. The blue arrow was the correct setup and market range which meant that I entered this trade selling at a discount.
This was me fighting the tongue (black arrow setup) and missing the whole Alaskan Bullworm (blue arrow setup)
So I was stuck wondering if I should abandon the trade (if it really is a bullish setup) or try to salvage the trade (if I was right about selling). The new analysis still supported selling, so I moved my stop loss (shame on me, I know) to accommodate the correct analysis and entry zone and removed my take profit levels and installed an EA that can move my SL to breakeven and also trail my stops. The EA used on CADJPY and AUDJPY didn’t trail the stop loss.
EURAUD exit point.
The trailing stop knocked me out at breakeven or rather 2 pips in profit per the settings after price retraced. I considered getting back in, but I want to avoid compounding the original bad analysis. Besides I got out with more pips than I showed up with. I won’t say that I won’t get back in on a decent pull back but I may put myself on a cooling off timeout for the rest of the week or year and just enjoy the holidays. I’m going to have to take a serious look at my settings for this trailing stop EA, I may need breakeven setting that are based on market structure and not pips, if such an EA exists.
My Thoughts
As I watched myself make a rookie mistake with an incomplete analysis of EURAUD, I started to think about what I’m doing with this challenge. After a long layoff from trading, it’s skill rebuilding and confidence rebuilding.
What worries me about this challenge is that I hope that I am not getting more focused on the win rate than the process. The EURAUD trade made me question myself on that point. Was I salvaging a very bad entry on a correct trade or was I protecting my win rate? I had justification to keep the trade after thorough analysis, but it wasn’t lost on me that closing the trade in drawdown would be my first loss in December. I’m human and I’m self-conscious about my trading, especially with allowing myself to be vulnerable to scrutiny.
I’m wondering if doing this challenge and the extra pressure to perform are counter-productive. I may be a better trader if I focused 100% of my energy on the charts and not documenting the process. I’m conflicted about whether to continue documenting the challenge or setting an endpoint so I can focus on treating my trading like a business instead of performing these small account parlor tricks.
To any new traders reading my journal:
This is the reality of trading, every trade isn’t going to go perfectly. You will miss trades, you will mismanage trades, you will be so frustrated with a trade that as soon as practical you’ll close it just to get it off your mind. The gurus don’t tell you this, while they are selling you a dream. They only show you the days when the profits are big and the MT4 screen is all blue.
Trading isn’t a battle with the markets, it’s a battle with yourself. Throughout this challenge it’s never been the market giving me problems, it always been me giving myself problems in the market. It’s not something that you can fix with a new strategy. My strategy and analysis are solid, and yet I still have underperforming trades.
There are no excuses to made. When I win it is because of me. When I lose it is because of me. I consider these underperforming trades as losses and definitely losses of revenue.
Update stats for 12/21/2023
Positions: 9 (50 total)
Wins: 9 (48 total)
Losses: 0 (2 total)
Pips: + 26.6 (294.8 total)
P/L: + $1.76 ($211.06 total)
Balance: $711.06
