Trading journal

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
426

I’m doing something that I wanted to do a long time ago but never did.

I’m making a list of all the trades that I want to make, and comparing each one.

I noted which trades inherently have more uncertainty. They could bounce here or could bounce that.

I seperated those.

Then I noted which ones have the highest R:R potential. Those are the ones I’ll be trading for sure.

I eliminated the one with the lowest R:R. I just eyeballed it. Short distance, medium, and likely a long swing.
I’ll be taking the medium distance, and the long swing trades.

But ONLY the ones that don’t have any visible uncertainty.

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427

I’ve been going over the charts and reviewing which trades to take. It took all day. As soon as markets started opening, I got to work.

I walked away from quite a few trades today. It was difficult, but it got easier each time.

One pair was dancing around a S/R line and I was almost about to place a trade based on an open candle. Nope. Not doing that.

I’ll come back to it later.

It’s funny how we all come to forex looking for instant money. As soon as you understand how you can profit from prices going up and down, and the trends look so obvious…

Well, as for me, I thought it was about to start raining money. I’m no different from other in the sense that I do have some desperation. And it’s been killing my trading because my desperation convinced me that I should take trades that I actually should be avoiding.

Those losses cost me. I realised over the past few weeks how often I’ve been taking bad setups.

But today, I walked away from more trades then ever before.

Today was the first day I was so desperate that I was willing not to be desperate.

Money can’t be the focus, because focusing on money instead of trading properly will make you trade wrecklessly and take bad trades.

Walking away from trades at first can leave a bad taste in your mouth. But definitely not as bad as losing money due to wreckless and spontaneous trading.

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428

I finished my trading in about 5 hours. Not bad.

I placed an order or two, but that was it. I didn’t place any trades today, which is weird.

But it feels good at the same. I walked away from some tempting setups.

I’m avoiding trading mini channels within a larger channel. If the movements are really small, I’ll wait until it hits S/R of the larger channel.

Walking away from trades gets a little easier each time. But there’s still a voice in my head saying “what if?”

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429

This morning I finished in about 3.5 hours. Good time.

I took a small risk and took a trade that I really shouldn’t have taken. I jumped out of a trade earlier this week, and now I regret jumping out. So, I tried to jump back in.

You can imagine how that ended: stopped out. I wanted to place an order but I decided to just walk away.

430

I wasn’t happy about that stupid trade I did.

I jumped in when it wasn’t safe. I took a chance and it wasn’t a good entry.

It was desperation rearing it’s ugly head. So I put myself in the cold shower.

431

I took some losses the last two days.

The market didn’t go in my direction, even though I had entry signals.

So, I don’t feel bad about those losses. There were two that I probably could have skipped.

I’m following my strategy more, and walking away from more trades.

I’m losing, but I’m losing less compared to previous months. If I had a proper entry signal but the market went the other way, I can live with that mistake.

But I also see how I could have taken the other side of the trade on another account. That’s something I want to do more of when pairs start consolidating. That’s where I got chewed up a bit.

Still learning and I’m excited!

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432

There were some trades that become clear only afterward. By then, the entry is a bit on the late side.

I think I didn’t take some of those trades when I should have because the fear of losing/being wrong kept me from seeing the possible set up.

It’s ok to be wrong if you have a trading signal.

I think it’s ok to be wrong twice. After the third time, yeah…just wait.

But each time, it has to be a real signal. Not what I want to happen, but what the candles are telling me.

I would have had some beautiful entries.

Of course, you can’t dwell in the past. Just move on.

One mistake I made. There was a support bounce I was waiting for. It was an upward channel. I placed an order, but never moved it up to follow the support trend line. I ended up missing a PERFECT support bounce because I forgot to move up my limit order. Price missed my entry by a hair!

I’ll have to remember that.

433

I’ve been shorting AUD/USD for a week or so. It was almost at the support line, so close. But then I started seeing a little green candle.

Too much of a green candle. Sure, it could continue bearish on Monday. But it might not.

I decided to just close the trade. Closing is harder than opening a trade. Fear of leaving money on the table is probably the culprit.

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434

I finished my trading. Some losses, but it’s ok. They’re small and reasonable. Sometimes, the market goes where you don’t want it to. I’m not really a fan of trading breakouts. They’re choppy for one. Two, I usually have no idea where the price could go.

I’m trying to get better at getting in before the breakout even happens.

I’ve said that a few times already….

Anyway, I don’t have many opportunities for new trades at the moment.

So, instead of forcing it, I’m just not walk away. I went thru my list of pairs, and that’s it. No more. No need.

I look at charts and I think, “oh man, I should have traded this and that.”

But they’re all bad trades that could have gone in any direction. I’m avoiding that game. I think now is my “sitting on the sideline” time.

So, I’m done. I think I’m gonna switch to the demo charts amd take a look at some older charts.

Oh! One trade that was annoying was EUR/GBP. On D1 it in a channel. I’ve been long. It was 3/4 up in the channel. Then it reversed hard and hit my SL set at BE. But it bounced my SL, then turned bullish again. What the hell??

But, I protected my money by leaving my SL at BE.

BE is better than losing. That’s the market for you.

435

I finished my trading in about 3 hours. Not bad.

I opened one trade, then changed my mind. Some other trades I was going back and forth about opening, but decided not to because I realised they’re the kinds of trades I shouldn’t be taking. They’re tempting, but they don’t fit my strategy.

I’m short USD/CHF right now on my smaller account. I wanted to add to it, but decided no.

So, today is the first time I didn’t open and keep any new positions.

It’s difficult and frustrating. One trade bounced a trend line, but on W1 it’s in the middle of a channel. Anything can happen in between support and resistance. So, I walked away from that. I had to tell myself “I’m not desperate.” Desperation will tell you “well, what if price moves in your favor?”

Hope is not a strategy.

Now is my time to just wait on the sidelines and let my current trades run.

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436

It’s so strange. My brain is wanting to take trades, and isn’t considering the risk. My greed is self-sabotaging.

But by not trading, I’m saving money because I’m not losing money with bad trades.

437

Well, I have a question. What was the best trade you have ever made?

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438

My best trade is nothing special. They’re all equally unimpressive.

I haven’t made a perfect trade yet.
That would be something worth telling: catching a swing from start to end on D1. I’m getting there.

However, my most significant trade was a EUR/USD trade in which I lost 20% of my account. One trade.

I was sooo sure it was gonna go up that I was literally throwing money at it.

And it turned bearish. It turns out I was buying at the top! Haha

That was the trade that humbled me. I started turning things around from that trade on.

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439

I was doing some journaling today. It was pretty annoying.

Annoying because there were several trades that reversed. Some of them, may go in my direction still. Just not yet.

I’m ok with some of these losses because there were valid entries. It’s just that price isn’t ready to go in my direction yet.

I plan to keep a close eye and watch for reversal signals.

440

Hi @dushimes,
We are often guilty of concentrating most of our efforts on whether we got the entry correct. In my most recent plan, I concentrate on whether I have my in-trade management plan complete, and whether the trades are stacking up to what my plan was.

Obvious to state this, but more difficult to follow it and continuously assess whether it is better to let the stop loss stay where it is and wait out the trade, or to cut it short, and reduce the loss at whatever that is, being less of a loss than it would have been.

So for me, trading on daily, I ask myself (once per day), are the initial setup and entry criteria still valid? If I were not in this trade already, would I have taken the decision today that I took when I entered the trade? If the answer is no, in theory, I should exit the trade before it reaches stop loss. In practice I get out of some of them, but stay in others. This is a self-admission that I have not 100% adopted my written plan, and I use that journal opportunity to write whether I stuck with plan, or did not. Subsequently, on later analysis, and with the hindsight of knowing how the trade ended, I can then quantify whether on balance, I would have been better off sticking 100% to planned trade management or not. If yes, I don’t change the details of the trade mgmt plan. If I would have been better off by deciding to stay in the trade, I then start to question whether the trade management plan is correct.

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441

I noticed that I’m breaking my own chain of command.

I didn’t realise this before. Basically, I have a checklist for W1 and a checklist for D1.

If I see a good set up on W1, then that pair gets a check. That gives me clearance to trade that pair on D1 for entry.

However, I’ve been scanning D1 charts and trading pairs that never got clearance on W1.

I have to stick to pairs that I said I will trade for that week.

This contributes to taking bad trades, as well as closing winning trades too early.

Another thing I noticed is that it’s time to rotate my music playlist. Listening to the same songs over and over gets a bit boring…

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442

I realised a fault I have in my trading.

I still have some desperation.

When I see a so-so set up I should be thinking “I can’t afford to take this questionable trade.”

However, my attitude often is “I can’t afford to miss this questionable trade that could be a winner.”

That’s the attitude that costs me.

I have a few trades doing well, and meanwhile I have bad trades eating up my account. It makes no sense.

I’m gonna have to keep going forward and keep walking away from trades.

I’m realising that it’s a process. Weening yourself off from bad habits is a process of undoing the way you think. You slowly dismantle it. Like disconnecting one wire at a time.

Perhaps quitting overnight could create gaps and leave some old habits active.

I’m gonna keep going and getting better. One step at a time. No quitting.

I can see the light.

443

Yeah, I can see that I’m starting to deviate from my plan. So, time to make some changes to my checklist.

But a checklist is only as good as my values. You can lie to yourself about sticking to your strategy.

I wrote it in a post just above, but when I see a questionable set up, I have to switch my attitude to “I can’t afford to take this kind of so-so trade.”

This will be key for me. Thinking “this so-so trade could be a winner” isn’t a good strategy.

Even if it is a winner, it’s profitable but dismantles the strategy because it reinforces impulsive trading.

And impulsive trading, in the long run, isn’t profitable.

444

Hi,
Below is an example of not sticking to my plan, but giving myself a rationale to justify my actions.

On 18Nov21 I found a sh__coin opportunity - only the second one I had managed to identify since I started this strategy of sh__coin allocation back in April. The strategy says "buy a sh__coin with up to 10% of the crypto portfolio value (nominally 1% per sh__coin with an objective of having 10 of them within the first year). Hold until the price doubles, sell half of them, and keep the rest for “a very long time” with the expectation that they may eventually grow to their potential of 10X, 100X, 1,000X. The only “trade” part of this strategy was to “sell half when they double”.

So by 21Nov21 (three days later) I had identified my third sh__coin opportunity and did not want to impact the rest of my crypto portfolio by selling out any other component. At this stage, the POWR sh__coin had moved 50% in my favour. So I thought to myself "are you going to stick to your plan just because you invented “sell half of it when it doubles”, or are you going to sell half now and take a 50% profit instead of a 100% profit? I decided on, and journalled the latter. Having bought at $0.63 I sold half at $0.94 just 3 days later, and took the proceeds and bought some ONE - my third sh__coin identified.

My first sh__coin bought back in May is about half its bought value, so I am going to have to be very patient with that one (or acknowledge it will most likely tank to zero), but a 50% gain in 3 days is not something to pass up, especially if you have another trade lined up that is shouting out at you to BUY, BUY, BUY. POWR is back down to $0.74 today, so I am glad I took the decision to exit that trade. Now I wait and if it tanks I buy more.

Now about the journal. I had this a year ago, and simplified it, but I am thinking of bringing it back into my plan. It is not optimal to think of “selling half when it doubles”. That is just lazy. There is no time value of the decision. Now I am reverting back to the predecessor plan element that was never quantified - just qualified. And that is “at what time after the decision event is it worthwhile to sell?” Let’s say that when I identify a potential sh__coin, I think it may double within 3 months. So on a linear basis, I should be happy with +50% in six weeks. But when that happens in 3 days, it would not be too clever to wait until it doubles to take any profit, because if I have no history with that currency, or cannot see choppy past behaviour, it may never, ever double. I did this last year with XRP on two separate occasions, and have done it with CRO now a total of three times, and am very happy with the end results. My crypto trading plan is “in formation” rather than complete, and it is very exciting to see such opportunities opening up.

Bear in mind that this is a crypto plan, not a Forex plan, and I do not use any leverage, nor any stop losses in my crypto plan. The underlying “currencies” are volatile enough without needing leverage to make profits. And even if I wanted to set a stop loss there is nothing preventing me doing that. It is just that the “absolute loss of value with a stop loss” still does not sit easily with my psychology, and although I am comfortable taking the entry decisions, I am still not comfortable applying either leverage or stop losses to crypto trading. It is a new area for me, and so far much more “peaceful” than leveraged Forex trading.

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445

It’s funny because I recently had a trade like this. It was in a channel, bounced support, and I let it ride,

It got 3/4 of the way up to resistance. Then it lost momentum and reversed. I learned in the past to never ratchet your SL up in a channel—just ride it out and let the trade work itself out. I moved my SL just slightly above BE.

Price came down and hit my SL. I had a nice profit and watched it dwindle to a couple dollars.

But hey, that’s the game. Let the idea play out.

At least I didn’t lose money, so it was ok.

How do you know when to move your SL in your strategy @Mondeoman?