Tough week. Took my last loss I will allow myself to take for the week. I will really reflect over what I did wrong this week. For one I kept chasing the wave and not riding it, because of this I sold support and bought resistance each time. Had I given myself a proper amount of time between each trade, I most likely could have broken my losing spree sooner if not, reduced it. I quit reading the strategy over and over again each day which helps to implement it. And I allowed my emotions to get the better of me multiple times. In a positive note, it took me roughly 5 days to lose a little over a weekāa profit. All I can do now is take the weekend off, recover the proper trading mindset, and be ready to trade next week at the right prices.
Hope you have a good weekend and your trading is doing better!
My strategy is solid, and the reason for last weeks losses are due too primarily my trading psychology and not following the strategy. I pretty much shouldnāt have traded hardly at all last week. I was buying and selling at the wrong prices. I didnāt have the proper mind set.
I had a long weekend. I have made some positive lifestyle changes that are definitely going to help boost my trading. That being said I found a great trade in EU with proper risk reward.
Long EU at 1.21078
Stop loss : 1.2089
Take profit: 1.218
Over a 1:3 risk reward. Stay tuned
I donāt know whether you are open to adding new things to your strategy but I sometimes use a staggered entry which I think has more advantages than disadvantages.
So instead of placing a market order of, say 1 lot, I would put a series of ten limit orders with a gap of 50 or 100 points in of a tenth of a lot ā¦ This allows for a much wider stop and a better price if the trade initially goes against you. The downside is that your total order may or may not get filled.
Please ignore this if you donāt find it of value for your systemā¦ I donāt mean to interfere.
Thanks for your input. First of all I spend very little time watching the market. Last week was an exception and I think the results of last week speak for themselves. I prefer to just check up on the market here and there throughout the day so I can still be unbiased in my approach and limit any emotional input. I also work and only check the market on lunch break and thatās it while at work. If the market isnāt at a relatively significant support or resistance level, Iām not interested in placing a trade and I just stay out. When I place a market order I have to make my trading decision quickly and on three separate accounts. Iām not interested In setting up multiple limit orders and so on, I donāt have time for that, besidesā¦ what would the impact on fees be? Iām inferring higher. Not to mention market entry gets me in the market always. Nothing worse than missing a 60 pip trade because I was a little greedy on entry or wanted to be too tight on stops. Limiting stops is great, but I am coming to terms with roughly a 20 pip stop. It seems be the sweet spot right now for me.
Also I may kind of come off a little rude in my explanation but for some context, itās all part of the strategy (psychology). After I place a trade, I typically donāt check back up on it for a while. I give the market time to move and try to limit myself from second guessing myself or being sucked into the screen. After placing a trade, I immediately go do something else other than watch the market. And I am able to go to sleep comfortably. This has helped me soo much, and has eliminated a lot of stress I used to incur from trading.
Sometimes you gotta go out and live life and enjoy the world a bit and completely forget about the market. Wether you are in loss or profit. If you donāt, the market always has the advantage.
Hey, you certainly didnāt sound rude. We all have our own way of doing things and I think that is so important in forexā¦ Iām a big believer in finding the right type of trading for your personality, mine is grids and averaging etcā¦ Iām following your journey here because for the first time Iām experimenting with support and resistance myself. Iām enjoying your trade journal very much.
Thanks man. Iām not sure if you have updated your trading yet but from what I have read you do not use stop losses? I can not imagine not using them. Way to risky no matter how small your trades are. I have had success with a grid based systems before but you set yourself up for potential unlimited loss. Where you trading when the Swiss Franc devalued their currency? I was and If in a grid you would have been whipped out
First trade of the week. Loss. Caught it early and I flipped my long to a short. I donāt expect 100 pips overnight but the take profit is adjustable.
EUR/USD short
Entry: 1.20968
Stop loss: 1.222
Take profit: 1.20
Iāve found that most people shy away from grids because they donāt fully understand how to make profit from it, they tend to lock in an eternal loss or (as you have mentioned) they fear the sudden trend.
The stop loss is also the enemy of the grid but there are many, many ways to counter a total wipe out, the simplest being to withdraw profit regularlyā¦ I have a test on demo going at the moment which has made a 400% profit in 4 weeks but currently on a losing streak, I think that it will return with even more profit but in the real world I would have withdrawn a chunk by now.
Inspired by your journal, Iāve gone very traditional for my testing this week and am doing s&r WITH stop losses.
I would doubt that Iāll ever be converted to using stops in my trading, they are the reason most traders failā¦ Iām convinced that if people stop using them they would find that there strategy would be more profitable.
Trading updateā¦ I am still in the same position from my last post. Iām holding this position probably through the night and into tomorrow. I took a step back in my approach and am looking at the daily now as well as the 4hr and 1hr. Euro is trending up and I feel comfortable not worrying about the market and letting it run for the next day or two. I think I have been in this trade for over a day already and have not been stopped out, rather I have pretty much always been in profit. The 1.22200 level is where we are headed and is achievable if momentum continues.
Onto your post about stop losses. I think it is critical to have one based off experience alone. Can you imagine how many pips I would have lost last week with my 6 or so losing trades had I not used one? I would have wrecked all three accounts and would be sitting at least 50% account balance If that. Stops are the best and most used tool any trader has in his bag. Didnāt set a take profit? No problem you can take profit any time you want. Didnāt set a stop loss and the market takes a severe move against you?? Tough luck, the broker will force you to take your loss via margin call. You are trading grid which is completely different yet the same applies to you as does to me. Even a small .001% account balance trade can blow up against you especially if you have many of them set up in a grid. I understand you say you like to withdrawal cash to offset this risk. We can have more discussion on this later. Iām headed out to the lake for some fishing on my day off. Weather is nice here so I gotta enjoy it.
Hope you enjoying your day, sounds peacefulā¦ Where are you based ?
You already know my opinion on stop losses but in regard to your comment about wiping out your account if you hadnāt used them ā¦ I believe that if a few stray orders can do that then the position size is too big. If you look at last weekās orders, how many sells vs buys ?.. Had they been smaller and left alone would you have made more profit ?
Anyway, Iām looking forward to the next installment.
My wife is using my computer right now so I will do my last week, weekly recap in a bit. I am using large position sizes with roughly twenty pip stops. Iām using roughly 2/3 of my original account balanceās margin as my initial trade size.
So when I do the math on my 5k demo account thatās roughly 130000 units (thatās what I chose). Each pip is worth $13 so that means an average 20 pip loss costs me $260 dollars. If I take 60 pips I profit $780. $260/5000 = 5.2% loss. I try to cut this loss down to 2.5% and get out when I am down ten pips If I know I am wrong.
I keep that trade size until I double the account balance. Then I double the trade size. Since my usual target is 60 to 100 pips I can typically lose 3 out of four trades if I hit my take profit. So I do not have to win the majority of trades to profit, I just need the market to move and I need to be right at least 33% of the time.
Anyhow I just closed that EU long. Euro is trending down. I decided to short, have been feeling a red flag about euro going long all morning. Finally acted on getting out of it moments ago.
Nice risk to reward on this trade.
Entry: 1.21173
Stop loss: 1.21358
Target: 1.2045
