Right, right. That’s a good idea. I had a plan like that, but unfortunately, it causes me to miss a lot of trades that bounce after the first sign! What a headache! haha
1 Like
Yesterday was complicated. I was preparing a chart with corrections, and I spent hours on it. There was a retracement, then a pullback in the retracement, blah blah blah.
What made it difficult was that it was one of those rare trades that just don’t fit my strategy. I went back and forth about how I should trade it. I’m trying to be consistent in my approach so I can’t just do whatever I want.
It was a real pain. There was one trade in that set up that was profitable, but it looked a bit iffy.
The whole thing was weird. My point is that there are trades that my strategy doesn’t work for. And that’s ok. As long as I’m managing my risk, and not switching buy to sell to buy to sell over and over and chasing price, I’ll be fine.
1 Like
I just finished my trading and I have just a few decent trades running. There’s no entries for me at the moment.
That’s fine, but it makes me a little anxious. I want to trade. I want to make money. What can I do? Where can I jump in? There’s gotta be something I can do; someplace I can jump in.
These are the questions bouncing around in my head. I really can’t entertain them. I draw my S/R and I have to wait. I’m dying to jump in and make some money. But that’s desperation–not strategy.
Forcing trades is nothing but a fast way to lose money. Just because you force a trade and it worked once or twice, that doesn’t mean you should keep doing it. And jumping in on a swing during a trend is different from jumping in on a trend that is doing its random walk. That’s the equivalent of trying to grab coins bouncing around in a blender. I don’t like that feeling at all.
The best thing for me to do now, is just go eat some food. Relax my brain for a little while, then go back to studying charts.
2 Likes
I was starting to get worried. I’m working on some charts and I’m having the same problem I had yesterday: no idea of how to apply my strategy to this chart the same way I did to the other charts.
I took a step back and realized that I don’t have to catch every little price fluctuation. And I don’t have to have a crystal ball either. It’s ok to have 2-3 losses if price keeps pushing S/R, and it’s true next direction is yet unclear.
The important thing is that when the TRUE signal appears, that I’m ready for it. The true sign is where the big swing is gonna be. That is where my focus should be.
1 Like
Hope you got to eat well and had lots of rest before going back to your charts, dushimes! 
1 Like
Coming back to the charts after a meal and a nap:
I learned a nice lesson from the difficult charts the last two days. This lesson helps me confront the uncertainty of live markets. When practicing or analysing charts, the answers are all laid out for me.
Of course, live is different. Even if I wanted to cheat and look ahead, I can’t.
I learned that uncertainty is fine. If price is going bearish, then starts doing something weird, I should treat it as bearish until PROVEN otherwise.
This lets me know that just because I don’t see a sign of what I should do, that doesn’t mean that I’m missing something.
Usually, I just assume the latest candle is a sign, and I force the trade. Nope. I just have to keep being patient.
But it’s hard to be patient when you’re not confident what exactly you’re waiting for. If you don’t know what you’re waiting for, anything can qualify as a sign. That’s where I’ll start chasing price and my boat starts taking on water. I’ll have some decent profits from a couple trades, meanwhile, I’m killing my balance with multiple forced trades.
After so many consecutive losses, I decide to wait, wait, wait. I see a sign, and by then, I’m paralyzed from the fear of loss, and I DON’T take the signal. The next day…boom! price goes crazy leaving a huge candle behind.
I’m progressing in the aspect of reading the chart. I’m not where I wanna be, but I’m advancing. However, none of that matters until I can get more confident in my choices.
No research, trading app, news source, peer support, TA, or indicator will make you click that button when you submit to doubt. Steve369 is right when he talks about a detached mindset. For me, a detached mindset means you’re not trading for money. You’re trading to execute your strategy correctly.
If you’re following your strategy properly, the money will take care of itself. Emotional decisions will never produce consistent profits. Only a tested strategy can do that.
1 Like
I’m putting a lot of time into studying and practicing trading. Deep down, I’m actually a lazy person.
It seems I have a short attention span. Looking at charts and preparing charts is mentally exhausting.
Every 7-10 minutes, I take a mini 1-2 minute break and goof around online or get up from my chair.
1 Like
I traded a particular setup by placing an order. Price missed my order by a few pips. It was so close.
This is a small victory. I didn’t profit, but my idea of placing the order was correct. Appreciating small advances, even though they are actually failures, can be constructive and good for moral.
1 Like
Did you burn your account?
1 Like
haha. It’s a reference to ¨burn the ships¨. I’m not sure of the details. But, basically, there was a conquerer who travelled with his crew via ships to a new land.
Upon landing, the captain knew they had to go to war with the inhabitants. To keep his crew from getting weak in the knees and wanting to turn back and go home, he ordered his men to burn the ships. No way home. He created the option of either conquer the land or die.
1 Like
I noticed that I sometimes share losses with others and laugh about it together. We share our losses and laugh in order to hide shame. That was the case for me.
It was a way of looking for support when I felt weak after a loss. I do less of that now. If I share about a loss, it’s not about looking for support, it’s just a conversation.
I try to focus on the solution, rather than focusing on talking about the losses and feeling weak because deep down I feel powerless to stop repeating the mistakes.
1 Like
Something that’s helping me lately is drawing arrows. I often get confused about which direction the major trend is going.
Even when price is retracing in a weird confusing way, I focus on my arrow.
If the most recent signal is bullish, I have a huge arrow pointing up. Of course, opposite for bearish.
It helps prevent me from getting confused.
I did some speed trading and it went ok. I made some small errors, but still managed to profit.
I took a break from practicing trading to think about my approach to contradictory signals. If I see I reversal sign, and I go short, what do I do if I see a big bullish candle?! Aaaah!
I started reviewing some chart samples. I looked at about five charts and saw that I SHOULD take that big bull candle. But on the sixth chart, that strategy ends in a loss.
I was thinking about how to catch the move on the sixth chart. Here’s the problem: you can’t be consistent AND flexible at the same time. They’re contradictory.
If I’m flexible in my signals, I’ll get inconsistent results. There’s no two ways about it.
If I do the same thing again and again, I would catch the move for those five charts, then lose on the sixth.
Or, I can be flexible and lose the five, but profit on the sixth. You don’t need a calculator to figure that one out.
I never know what the next candle is going to be. Never. I see a sign, I take it according to my strategy, and then I have to WAIT for the market to invalidate it (hit my stop, or give a different signal).
But, if I see a sign, and don’t take it, I’ll get stopped out for the wrong reason, and I won’t catch the swing. That’s a double loss.
My goal shouldn’t be to catch every move–but to catch the ones that fit my strategy. That’s all. Asking for more will be detrimental to my profits. Guaranteed.
1 Like
Maybe you can build strategy with negative RRR? you will get better win ratio, so it could give you positive impact for your psychology in trading
1 Like
The last two days have been challenging. I’ve had trouble studying and concentrating. It feels like burnout.
My studying has slowed down, but I keep going. It’s easy to say ¨take a break´ but I don’t want to. I’m gonna keep going.
Even though, the last two days have been difficult, my trading is slowly improving. No miracles, but small steps forward. I’ve never been closer to profitability. Now is the time to push harder, not look for reasons to take a break.
1 Like
I’m studying bounce vs break set ups. I thought I had it figured out, but when I tried to type it out in a single sentence, I got stuck.
My first thought was that if I already understand it, then I don’t need to write it out in my plan.
I had to check myself. If I can’t write it out in a 2-3 bullet description, I probably don’t understand it as well as I think I do.
I’ll have to pace around a little bit and think this through.
I’m getting my thoughts together; observing my chart samples. I’m starting to see exceptions to the rule, and the strategy is getting more and more complicated.
I want to stay away from overcomplicating my ideas. Keep it simple.
Meat and potatoes, right? No soup.
I wish I could enter and exit at the perfect time. I’m staring at charts, trying to figure out how best to know when to hold/close when price reaches a S/R zone.
Will price bounce or break S/R? No one knows. I shouldn’t expect myself to know, either.
I’m trying to figure it out, and in my mind the steps are getting more and more complicated. When there are too many exceptions to the rules, it confuses me and it makes the strategy impractical.
Let’s say I jump in short at a resistance bounce, and I’m gonna ride price down to support. When price hits support, I can either close or hold. If I get a sign that price is gonna bounce support, I should close my short position, collect my profits, and go long.
If price shows strong bearish signs, well, now I have a contradictory signal and I should go short again. No big deal!
The problem starts when I start switching buy to sell to buy, chasing price. I’ve done that soooo many times. If my short gets stopped out and price looks bullish again, then bearish…
Guess what? I DON’T have to trade it! I can just draw my S/R and wait for price to break out. Not trading is also a position.
I get so caught up in trying to make money, I think that if I’m not trading, I’m wasting time and money. It’s not like that.
With airplanes, the company wants that plane cleaned, refueled, and back in the sky. If it’s on the ground, it’s wasting money.
But trading is different. Not all business analogies are applicable in trading. If I don’t trade for a week because there are no signs, that’s more profitable than forcing bad trades and losing money, hoping for one of them to be a big win. Tommor said hope is not a strategy.
All I have to focus on is the ride between support and resistance. Anything after is just a bonus. If I miss it, I miss it. There are always more trades.
2 Likes