Post analysis on a trade today. Entered and walked away, left it to get to target.
Very nice trade. 
(Interesting how people have lots of different names for very similar bar patterns, isn’t it? One person’s “bounce, break, rally” is more or less another person’s “Ross Hook breakout with subsequent Slaughterbeck entry”.)
Had to google that :33: looks complicated :34:
Only the wording … I suspect it’s basically part of what you’re already doing, or at least based on the same principles of price action. Keep them coming … 
Stupid.
The badass line is the 1300 phsych level.
Hmmm, well I would not personally use the word “stupid” to describe this, but I think I would need to seriously ask myself what was my motive for entering such a trade!
Firstly, it did not fit your method rules?
Secondly, the candle you entered on was totally insignificant in isolation, a very small body within the previous candle’s range and not even taking out the low from a few candles earlier?
So, my reason for responding here is to ask you to ask yourself what basis this trade was entered on:
- Was my chart telling me what the majority of other participants was doing, or
- Was I trading my own view of what I think is likely to happen next?
If the answer is no.2 then one has to ask oneself "is my own, personal, individual, opinion more accurate than the visible evidence on my chart of what the majority of participants are actually doing?
It is very hard to avoid forming a personal view and trading it. It usually happens because when we look analytically at our historical charts there is nothing moving and we focus only on the lines - but when we then look at the current live chart we can become totally engrossed in the pricing moving in front of us and just assume where it is going next. This is being entirely human, not stupid!
It is maybe healthy before entering any trade to ask oneself. Is this just my view or the trader-majority view as demonstrated by my charts? (which of these is more relevant to where the price goes next?)
I tend to pre-empt where the price is going next all the time and that is why i always need some form of indicator to tell me if I am being, as you put it, “stupid” - or in this case, simply premature.
I reconstructed your same chart again with the same few indicators as before and it tells a different picture. I don’t think you would have entered as you did in that mauve circle - but a few hours later you could have entered at pretty much the same level after a bounce off an identifiable range - and seen follow-through. In this case, not much, but it would have avoided a loss.
No it didnt and thats why Im confused as to why I entered this. At the time I was basing this on my personal view that GBP is going to continue shorter. So 95% bias and 5% technical (I did wait for a slight pullback :35: )
Definately took it for the wrong reason. Number 2.
Nope. And I need to be aware of this the next time I consider a trade.
Exactly Manxx. Premature is the right word. I had a nice trade prior to this one so was overconfident. The thing to remember is I must wait for my formations to complete - Bounce, break,pullback. This trade was still on the bounce so it was down to poor discipline.
Yup. Looking at your chart it seems so obvious. Interesting that you have those arrows on the MA cross, I use the same indicator which I found off fxcodebase. awesome website.
Thanks for your thoughts
This, I fully believe, is one of the [U]real key reasons[/U] why people do not [I]consistently [/I]succeed in forex trading, especially when using short-term time frames of 1H or less. You had a view and yet you only allowed a breathing space of some 25 pips for your stop to prove you were “wrong” - which in this case you were not, even though you got stopped out! Today’s move is in fact going just as you anticipated! From a risk/reward perspective this was an entirely sensible level for a stop, but can we really rely so much on our own intuition concerning price follow-through? And this is not just a question of a 25 pip loss. If the alternatives are a stop of -25 or a target of +50 pips then this means a difference of 75 pips in your account depending on the outcome! This is critical to the long-term profitability of your account, not to mention your psychological confidence in your trading.
So what can we learn from this? This is such a typical issue - the accurate timing of entries - and, at least in my humble opinion, the key reason why we should always read our charts and only act on them (why else do we have them?).
If you have taken that indicator from fxcodebase does that mean you are using FXCM Marketscope 2 for your platform? It looks like FXCM in the bottom-right of your charts. If so, then there is a very interesting little [I]fun[/I] exercise there that you can carry out which just might cure your intuitive trading instincts for good! I have done it now quite many times and even though I have traded for some years now it still humbled me incredibly to go through it.
I am talking about the new Simulation Mode under the Trading Station “system” menu. Try setting up a run for, say, GBPUSD 1H with just a blank chart with no lines or indicators whatsoever. Then run the simulator at full speed and watch the bars form and try to anticipate, as you watch, what will happen next. It is a real eye-opener! At least for me, my purely intuitive guess accuracy was probably less than about 5% of the time! 
(and if you do the same run on a 15m TF it is even more wild!)
The point of this liitle exercise is not to say that you cannot have a right view or that you should not even try to have a view, the point is to emphasise the imperativeness of leaning on your chart analysis to confirm your view before acting. There is so much noise and clutter in near-term price movements that an otherwise sensible stoploss of 25 pips is totally vulnerable to erratic, meaningless price deviations.
Try it, tell me what you think! 
Yes I am using Marketscope2.
Ok so I tried what you suggested and did not enjoy it at all. Its just impossible to predict whats going to happen. Even just guessing I was wrong more times than I was right. I’m feeling quite frustrated now haha.
I see your point. This is a good exercise to do. When you’re not following a plan you are simply guessing and that leads to losses and frustration. Thanks Manxx.
Phew! I am really glad you said that! I was really worried that you would come back and say that you found it dead easy to anticipate the next moves! - in which case I would have had to consider packing up my charts and taking up playing dominoes instead!
It is indeed truly humbling and revealing - and very beneficial- to watch the market unfolding in a speeded up version like that - the erratic, almost chaotic, nature of price in motion, around its underlying trend, explains many comments that appear on this site regularly, such as: “why is it that every time I enter a trade the price immediately goes against me? Do brokers manipulate their prices?”
You can take some cool comfort from the fact that this chaotic, seemingly random, movement of price in the short-term underlines the professional common sense in your approach in waiting for pull-backs - they nearly always occur…
I think you are doing just great!
I have issues when I watch my trades. I dont have the mental strength yet to leave my trades to reach target. When Im away from the trade my thoughts are that I should be managing the trade. When I’m looking at the trade my thoughts are that I shouldn’t be slave to the tick. Clearly this is a mental conflict that I need to address to become a capable competent trader.
So in this instance why did I exit early?
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A few past trades move nicely into profit and then retraced to breakeven. Recency bias…I am using a past event to influence a current event. Very poor approach.
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‘No one ever went broke taking profit’. I hate this saying yet I just did it! This kind of approach will make me a breakeven mediocre trader no better than all the other floundering wannabies.
I know I will feel miserable if price reaches my target and will feel better if price rallies up. Do you see the problem? Emotions, why should I ‘feel’ anything for the trade?
You might say good result but the issue is not that the trade won it is my mindset that is worrying. If I get into the habit of cutting trades… well then I have no boundaries.
Anyway just a bad day probably lack of sleep or something. Heres my chart:
This is an often quoted saying - and in my opinion one of the most damaging that one could ever follow! Every trader knows and accepts that they will both lose and win on trades. The whole key about being a successful trader is the management of risk/reward such that one’s profits exceed one’s losses. If they don’t, then you will lose overall - it is as simple as that!! … but what does this phrase “No one ever went broke taking profit” encourage you to do? To take a quick profit whenever you see one!..and what does that do to your overall risk/reward calculations? It destroys it entirely! The actual act of taking a profit does not destroy you, but the act of taking profits that are smaller than your stoploss criteria certainly will in the long run.
This is typical and totally understandable - and is entirely due to the fact that you are concentrating on the pips and not the trade and because they are [B]your [/B]pips and not someone else’s!
But think about our previous discussions here, we already established that intuitive feel for the next move is often wrong, so why exit purely on your own feel? If you enter a trade purely based on a technical assessment then surely, if your risk/reward is ok, you should also set your exit criteria on a similarly technical assessment, i.e. at what level is your original technical assessment invalidated andtherefore reason to quit the trade. The principle of exiting the trade based on a change in technical assessment completely takes away the emotional aspect whether you follow the trade or leave it as a “set and forget”.
One exercise here might help you in time. Try documenting all your trades according to whether you exit on a rules basis or personal feel and whenever you do base it on intuition [B]also [/B]mark whether the decision turned out to be right or wrong.
I did this analysis on my trades (I suffer from the same tendency to quit trades based on my own intuitive “feel” - sometimes it is right and sometimes wrong) and I was totally surprised to find after a few months that I would have actually been better off overall always leaving my trades to exit on technical grounds than my own intuition (again, a very humbling experience!).
It is always difficult to keep in mind that trading is not about any individual trade, it is about the overall performance across all trades. One needs to be systematic in this respect and allow your trades to reach their targets when they are right and also accept that they will sometimes go wrong but, when they do,they will be closed within an acceptable amount of loss.
Ive just realised from your feedback why this went from a technical entry to an intuitive exit. Because I did not logically set my target, I simply said 4r sounds nice and its slightly above a major swing level. so it was a ‘Good entry and I hope to reach my target’. haha I see now how the exit plan is just as important as entry. Ive been so focused on good entries and trying to get onto an early trend that Im not managing the trade properly.
Good idea, I will add this to my analysis.
That is interesting. I have noticed similar with my ideas, I dont know the stats but I would say more than not the target is reached.
If targets are in proper logical positions then the idea should never resort to intuition.
Thanks Manxx.
I dont trade patterns however this one jumped out at me.
Bullish continuation flag pattern. Im going to try it out, when price nears the bottom of that flag I’m going long.
Here is an example of an impulsive trade. Ive been feeling impatient this week.
- I had a level identified.
- Price broke it.
- I jumped in without waiting for my pullback.
- Market closes
- Market opens with a gap down.
- Trade knocked out for 15 pips… to the pip! Had my stop been 1 pip lower I would still be in this suckerfool!
- Price immediately starts going up from my knockout!
- Damn you…DAAAAMMMNNN YOOOOOOUUU! 1 pip!
- Enter again. Price has bounced off my level and its going long, MA’s confirm this.
- Trade hits target.
Wow. Today was brutal for me. Probably one of my worst trading days ever.
I strayed off the path and got savaged. Everything went against me.
Uncanny how you can be slightly off sync and you get eaten alive.
Break one rule - you lose.
Not concentrating - you lose.
Try something different - you lose.
Learnt something though. Have a daily or weekly loss limit. When that is breached step the f*** away from your computer and go do something else.
GBPJPY. Broke and pulled back on the 23% fib level. I had a long planned. Took it and caught the biggest and fastest price tank Ive ever seen. First chart shows the daily with fib levels. That hammer you see was a clean break and retest on the lower time frame.
And then this one I can cry about. I set my loss level. Price surged down. I closed early and as I closed price shot the other way for the +1000 pips that I was after. If I had just left it.
Gold trade today. Wish I had put in a bigger target.
Reason for the trade: Bounce break and then a pullback for a short.
Day chart looked like an obvious reversal point at 1309 but 1290 looked like a position that everyone and their dog would have their stops placed.
Stop hunting at its most obvious.
As much as I dont enjoy trading anything to do with the pound (statistics show its my worst performing currency) I quite like the look of this potential setup on 4 hour. If you cant see the chart clearly then if price rallys back to 1.2828 level Ill be looking for short opportunities.
Any thoughts?
Two attempts on the Nikkei index. First one was stopped out because I did not set my stop according to the ‘ASK’ setting. I set it on the ‘BID’ which looked like a logical level but it was breached easily. I re-entered with the correct settings and almost reached target before getting tapped out. Got within 20 pips before price pulled back and closed me out for 46.
EURGBP was a simple bounce, break, pullback for a long. On an uptrend. Fortunately for this trade an overnight move caused stop to be reached easily.
Happy with both trades as they were good execution of my rules.
