No quite as bad as Friday but pretty much the same thing, and due to Friday's big move and retrace, I bailed out today when staying in would have been more profitable. I haven't had time even to read @Cashish's message - hopefully it'll help make sense of it.

So, easy pull-back entry, easy target but savage retrace after narrowly failing to hit the target - and then actually hitting it - after an evil false reversal with a doji suckered me into putting my stop just above it.

Hi @Cashish - thanks for posting and I am reading it - there are too many points to raise for me to reply properly right now but I've not used .0050 levels - I shall watch them closely now though. Mainly though I find the swings through the Asian session are never as clear as they were in the Friday Asian session. That was strange, it looked like Thursday had never stopped trading. Because of that general feeling, I guess I should have paid more attention to the swings. More often the Asian session is less readable, and I find the swings I see on the chart from the Asian session don't necessarily help so much in that way. But I guess what you are saying is to look back further.

Just a bad trade today. Got in to a move after a decent setup, but hesitated. I thought I was looking for confirmation, but since that isn't in my trading strategy, I guess I was just scared. Pretty pathetic really. Not nice to think about all day but probably useful.

So bad entry lead straight into a bad exit, but I guess I would have ended up down just as many points if I'd traded according to plan. Obviously that would have felt much better though.

The only trade that would have made money here would have been an entry with set-n-forget target & stops. Since the target was so close, theoretically that was an option. The price action was all over the place, but I could have exited for that reason just as well.

Adamus 

Hi @Cashish . But I guess what you are saying is to look back further.

At the most basic level, I believe, all we do as traders is; Identify non-random patterns and exploit them. I'm posting another chart with "00's and 50's" highlighted. I operate under the notion that when the market approaches or trades on these levels there is a high probability that prices will rotate around these numbers. I also believe price will rotate within upper and lower boundaries of these "whole" numbers. I'm suggesting to look back over a period of time and study this price rotation yourself. I find the probabilities of price moving from the outer boundaries back to the whole number non-random. To exploit this rotation of price, a trader would buy at the lower limit with the expectation of price rotating back UP to the whole number OR continuing UP to the upper boundary. The reverse, of course when selling at the upper boundary. There is risk involved in trading, and I find this a good tool for controlling risk. In your post this evening, IF, I understood you correctly, you called that red down bar a break out (failed) bar. I personally wouldn't consider any bar a "break out" bar if it is totally contained within these levels I just described, but that's my opinion. The risk obviously is buying below the whole number and having the market continue lower OR selling above the whole number and having the market continue higher. This risk can be minimized if you have a well defined area where you believe the market is headed, identifying the strength of the trend is also helpful. One last comment, IMO if I take a trade within the normal rotation area around a whole number I have to AT LEST have my stop OUTSIDE this area. If I really want to short this market "right now" at 1.2688, then, IMO the safest and most logical place for a stop would HAVE TO BE ABOVE the whole number at 1.2714/16 to avoid being stopped out during a continuation of another rotation cycle. If not then I run the risk of being stopped out again and again with tight stops sitting within the normal rotation area if the expected move doesn't occur when I THINK IT SHOULD. I hope this makes sense.

Losing trade but disciplined - just an error of judgement about staying out or not. Played the setup OK, had the stop well positioned, stopped myself worrying about it as it lost.

I think the worry and mental energy I put into watching trades is what ruined my all-day trading when I did more than just one trade. I have to maintain a zen-like detachment from the profit or loss of the trade and take it as it comes, just one more result, all building up into what really matters - the long term result. Consistency.

No trade today. Action started too late for me.

Friday's action - no setup in time allowed.

No trade.

Almost the same action as yesterday.

Didn't do my psych prep work - it showed. 3 mistakes - or better said, 3 chances not to lose, but I scorned them all.

I knew before I started that I was worried about not getting enough opportunities to trade. Didn't do any psych prep, laid myself open to messing up.

Then when I took the low probability setup, instead of taking the first target as a scalp, I held on for the big one and even when it went into the red and then dipped back into profit again, though I realised I had the opportunity to exit at B/E and staying in the trade was pure 50/50 with no obvious edge my way, I stayed in for the big one again.

Shame there's not a better way to drill this into my thick skull. No, I'm being unfair - the psych prep work is ok. I just have to do it. Getting in to a bad habit of getting up 10 mins late and rushing the pre-trade work.

No trade today. Nothing happened until gone 8:00 when I was long gone.