My biggest problem as a trader is my lack if rigidity. I have a system that seems to be both profitable and simple. It’s fairly straight forward with stated rules, but also allows a touch of discretion to allow for that “guy feeling” aspect.
My problem is I take that discretion too far, sometimes as far as opening long positions when my system says short.
So I’ve decided, to counteract that, I will be posting trades here every time I enter a position, stating the open price and why the trade was taken, whether it was a market entry or a pending order. And then coming back at conclusion to add results.
Feel free to follow me on this journey. I’ll try to answer any questions to the best of my ability, but mostly this is for me. I’ve tried carrying a journal, but that didn’t work. Hopefully this will.
I set a pending long order at .71449 on the AUDUSD.
I took this trade because my system told me to. The discretionary part let me decide to take the trade straight away, or set an order lower than the price.
I chose the order, because since I’m using a crossover system it performs best in trending markets, and price has been range bound for a day and a half.
While writing this the price fell, fairly aggressively on the timeframe I’m using and so has already been executed. I look forward to the results.
Edit: while waiting for the trade to do something, it gave two sell signals. I left both of them because they were fairly weak, and the but came first.
First profit target hit. Closed a third.
Second profit target hit, closed another third.
The final third is now open and running until a sell signal presents itself.
Potential New trade!
I put in a pending order, still on the AUDUSD (they all will be) this time short at 0.71549
The last trade worked a treat.
1/3 at 0.71495 (+4.6)
2/3 at 0.71545 (+9.6)
3/3 should have closed at 0.71555, but while deciding what to do with the short order (immediate or pending) price got away from me, so I instead set a TP at the same price as the pending short, with a SL at break even. (+10/0)
Price got as high as .71680 (+20.1). Might need to find a better way to close the final third. But for now it will do.
Wish I had have just done market execution, instead of a pending order.
It was silly not to. Price was pretty close to the order anyway, and the cross happened on one of my favourite candles. (Not sure what it’s called, or if it even has a name. Looks like a hanging man but the market is different to a hanging man when it happens)
Anyway, I went to bed so cancelled the pending order (can’t watch it while I’m asleep) if I had have taken it straight away, instead of the order, it would have hit 1st and 2nd. And the final stage would have been open for almost 100 pips.
On another unfortunate note, sometimes I really wish I could code Ea’s. When the above trade would have closed out, another presented itself. About an hour before I woke up. And it’s already hit 1st and 2nd.
But, no point lamenting. Discretion will help you sometimes, and you can’t be around for every trade. Market closes soon, so there won’t be anymore trades till next week. I’ll be back then.
Another sell signal came in less than an hour into the start of the week.
The AUDUSD gapped in a big way, so when I saw the order I put in a pending back at the value of the cross.
The market reversed across the gap and picked up the order, now we wait and see if it will now continue back down.
Order: 0.70395
Targets:
First: 0.70345 (0.70349 - +4.6)
Second: 0.70295
Third left open for a buy signal.
I’ll come back and edit when and if those targets are hit.
Edit: the perils of manual trading on a short timeframe… Price moved to the right place, but before I could input the close order it bounced to just out of our target. Still, close enough is often good enough, and I’ll still count it as a win for now. Onwards to target 2.
Got nice and busy at work, so didn’t get any more trading done yesterday.
There were some nice ones that I missed. A few first target trades, two second target and a full target trade. But again, you can’t watch the market 24/7.
I’ve decided, because of what happened on the first trade, to make the final target 20pips or an opposite signal, whichever comes first. We’ll see how that goes.
As for yesterday’s trade, it was stopped out at break even, so it was just the one 4.6 pip win. Hopefully today I get more screen time.
Pretty light day of trading today. Two trades that both hit first target. One long, one short. Both uh it first target and reversed.
This whole thing is about getting more discipline, and also refining my system. This is the second time now that I’ve missed a trade because I already had another in the opposite direction. I’m going to keep an eye on it, but it seems like a first target trade is possible on the opposite direction of an already active trade. Something to consider for future, I guess
Edit: all up yesterday I had two first target trades and a third target trade. Whip sleeping there was another that would have resulted in a loss. I can’t see anything that would have prevented me from taking that trade either. I guess that just happens sometimes. System can’t win 100% of the time, though I was getting used to it.