Today was kinda easy. Not much to do. Most of my trades are still in trending phase, and I just have to leave them alone for now.
There were several SLs I wanted to move to BE, but felt it was a little too soon. So, I just left them alone.
I have one position that I got in at a great price. It’s ranging at the moment. I wanted to close for some decent profit, but my goal is to hold until it starts trending again.
I told myself not to sacrifice a good entry for small profits. I’m trying to stick to my guns here. I reeeeeally want to close and get those profits because price is gonna come back to my entry, possibly.
But I don’t know if I’ll get the same entry. That’s why it’s worth holding for now, even though I may have to watch my profit dwindle for now.
The goal is to hold it longer because once it breaks out of the consolidation, I’ll wish I kept my original position.
I’m seeing a couple trades that I should have taken but seemed to have missed yesterday.
Time to come clean. I was on the phone with a friend. It was a friend I hadn’t spoken to in a while. I don’t keep many friends. The friends that I have, I’ve known them for 10+ years. On a regular basis, I only speak with about 3 people. I have no interest in a wide social circle.
So, when they call, I feel bad for not taking the call. There have been times that I’ve needed to cut the call short because I was studying charts or in the middle of trading.
But not much seemed to be going on in the markets, so I was on the phone for a while yesterday. Well, it proved to be more distraction than I can handle.
I’m not saying that I would have caught those trades if I wasn’t on the phone, but I can’t say that the call had nothing to do with it, either.
Perhaps it best to have a no-phone policy during trading time. Texting is ok, because it’s not so mentally demanding. But calls, no. Unless it’s really important.
This morning was annoying. Long story short: I opened some trades that were ok, then price was inching towards my SL, so I closed and switched from sell to buy.
Then, later I checked on my trades, only to find out that price was bouncing near my SL, then reversed in my favor!
The bad news is that I totally ruined the trades. The good news is that I was right! My thinking was right! That’s great news.
I just have to work on trusting my strategy more, and stop switching between buy/sell.
I just had a thought. I have to have so much confidence in my strategy that I have to blindly follow it with the ASSUMPTION that profits will just fall in my hands. Even if I’m wrong 2x (maybe even 4x according to my strategy), I have to keep going because the strategy says it will pay off.
Every single trade that I place. I can’t place a trade and think I’m wrong. I have to place the trade and leave it until it gets stopped out. That’s the scary part.
To be frank, if the strategy successfully backtested, and the profits aren’t stacking up, the problem is me. I have to follow the strategy.
It’ll sound weird to word it this way, but I almost have to have an arrogance to compensate for my doubt. Not an arrogance meaning that I should throw money at any one trade.
I mean arrogance that the strategy will work. If I see a signal, just take it. Have faith/arrogance/confidence that the strategy will do the work.
I’m taking a look at my JPY trades. I see that I missed a couple signals that would explain the bullish candles. However, the candles are not closed and there are a few hours left before market close.
I did feel the impulse to close and jump in on those open bull candles.
But just a couple days ago I was writing here that I wouldn’t do that anymore. No more switching buy/sell/buy. Each trade should be strategic. It should be based on a signal of what’s coming; not what I’m missing out on.
It hurts, but I have to allow those trades to get stopped out. I feel pretty frustrated that I missed that signal. Just something I overlooked because JPY pairs recently had a long bullish wick which threw me off.
As usual, it’s ok. There’ll be more trades coming soon. Just be patient.
Doing my work here, and I came across a consolidation area that has some confusing signals.
I’m wondering which way would price go, and which way would make sense. I had to stop myself right there. I had to remind myself, ¨I’m not in control. I’m just a passenger along for the ride.¨
My strategy says to just follow the latest signal, as opposed to only setting up straddle orders. I feel a little scared to miss out on the break out, but I have to be patient. My strategy says there are always signals. I just have to be patient, like a surfer. Just wait for the next wave.
I had a short entry signal, and I took it. Then, later in the day, I checked and the candle was bullish. I was wrong.
I really wanted to open a long position. But I told myself that I wasn’t doing that anymore. I’m not switching like that. ESPECIALLY when the candle is open in the middle of the day.
Well, I just checked now, and the same candle turned bearish again. I feel good that I followed a lesson I learned and it actually saved me from a loss. Sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way, but this time it did.
I just finished my work. My last few trades I had to check on my phone. The platform was acting weird on my laptop. Prices were frozen and I couldn’t adjust any SLs.
I was only moving my SLs to BE, so no big deal. I hadn’t used the app in a while. I had almost forgotten that I had to ween myself off from constantly checking it.
Anyway, I spent most of my trading time focusing on studying. If I’m going to get some of these studies done, I’m gonna have to cut back on my actual trading time.
I studied a consolidation zone, which is nice, but I really wanna start analyzing which signals I should AVOID. I’m not sure how to go about that. Do I add details to my diagram, or create a new section?
Perhaps adding steps to my diagram is better. It’s more comprehensive this way. We’ll see.
Just because something looks like a set-up, I don’t have to look at it like ¨what’s the best way to trade this?¨
That means I have no idea.
However, if I see a sign that’s very obvious and fits my strategy, I can choose a position in confidence, and set a straddle as a backup.
And when the FOMO kicks in, I just remember that there are always more trades.
This is something for me to think about more because when I have some good trades trending, my losses are setting me back further and further. What a waste.
Fomo !!! the past no longer exist s dushdimes, it’s no longer reality it’s difficult to accept especially for people abit on the Obsessive side.The mindset of successful trading is almost been blase to outcomes without been irrational like a novice ,I suppose pokers players are similar not that I’m interested in poker
The irony is that with all the good and bad trades that I’ve had. If I waited and waited, and skipped all but one good trade, I’d be waaay ahead of myself right now.
Just something for me to think about. If I just waited for a few very specific trades…trades so obvious that when you see it, there’s not much thinking to it…
If I waited for just a few of those each week, I’d be much further ahead. If I traded 3 times per week, signals that are clear as day, my balance would be much bigger.
I learned that it’s difficult to see some signals when they contradict what you’re expecting.
I missed out on some very nice big swings because of my expectations. It’s easy to say what you should have done after the fact. But when you see certain set-ups, you think one thing and you are waiting for that move to happen, and then an unexpected signal appears. You really don’t know what will happen next.
Some market moves appear random until after the trade.
A theme that seems to be running through your posts is the lack of confidence in your own strategy. You seem to be constantly in a battle between what your strategy is saying and what you personally think. You appear to follow your strategy up to the point when you actually enter your trade…and then shift your focus to just watching, following - and re-interpreting - what price is doing as it oscillates back and forth. This suggests a total lack of confidence that your strategy is going to perform.
You need to let go of your own contra-opinions and trust your strategy. But don’t take my word for it, here is what @Johnscott31, a profitable trader, has to say:
You wrote earlier:
That is not arrogance, it is commonsense! Look at it this way:
Your strategy is based entirely, 100%, on price information on your chart(s). And what is price based on? Nothing less than the majority action of all the other participants in the entire market
So your strategy is telling you what the majority of market participants are doing. Therefore, when you doubt your strategy, you are placing your own opinion against that of the majority. Do you really believe that you know better?
So if you believe your strategy works, then you must believe that it knows more than you do about what the market is doing - regardless of your own opinion.
Your strategy is telling you something. Although no one knows where the market is going next, is it certainly going where the majority pressure is pushing it. So your strategy can tell your four important things:
in which dominant direction price is moving
what is significant price movement and what is just the current “noise” (or the market breathing)
when a move has probably run out of steam
at what price the current scenario is nullified
You take a bus because you believe it is going to where you want to go. But if, every time it stops at a red traffic light, you jump off, cross the road, and take a bus in the opposite direction, you will never get there…
Much of what you write here reminds me of me for so long - I was the ultimate strategy tweaker - and I can confirm that it’s definetly a road to ruin if you don’t snap out of it.
And… occasionally even now I fall back into the habit.
Haha! I think I would be a close runner-up in that department!!!
But it is maybe not always a bad thing, I guess it depends a lot on the reasons why! For example, if one just jumps from one strategy to another every time there is a loss then it will end up really badly.
But I think personality and character are also behind this phenomena. For example, some people hate change and others actively seek it and enjoy it.
My biggest “problem” is an insatiable passion to seek and try out anything new! This means every time I read someone describing a certain approach I have to set it up on my own charts and have a look at it - maybe even try it purely from curiosity!
I constantly play with colour changes and parameter values but I don’t deviate from my core strategy. It is just a characteristic…and every weekend I clear out all the new templates that I have saved during the week!
But this is ok when it is controlled and understood. It is just part of the trading fascination, dedication and variety. It also keeps the brain cells fed and alive!
I wonder what @dushimes is going to make of all this…
Very good point. Thanks for responding and pointing out all this. And it’s true. The purpose of the strategy is to reduce most of the thinking. The thinking is in the strategy.
For example, I saw a reversal sign. I thought, ¨not yet, it’s probably gonna push bullish a little more.¨ My strategy says to take each signal, and I could be wrong 3 times, but it’s worth it. That’s in the strategy: take each signal.
Well, I didn’t take it. I missed out on a PERFECT entry, and it turned into a nice big bear swing. I wouldn’t have even been wrong ONCE! But I didn’t follow the strategy because I was scared of the loss.
So, based on your analogy, I didn’t even get on the bus…and the hot date that was waiting for me downtown had left.
By the way, I check a recent consolidation in CAD/CHF. I compared how I actually traded it with how I SHOULD have traded it. Basically, I took four extra unnecessary losses. Three of them were in the WRONG direction!
So, my eyes are a bit more open now. I just have to wait, and when I see the sign, I have to act on it. Wait, wait, wait, go!
This means every time I read someone describing a certain approach I have to set it up on my own charts and have a look at it - maybe even try it purely from curiosity! 