Actually, I have lost many pips trading Forex in the past, haven't gone live with futures trading yet, so no real Ticks lost so far .
I've been preparing to take the Topsteptrader Custom Combine program for 2 months now with mixed result. I think a journal might help me to overcome some difficulties I've been facing.
I've been using a very simple method to trade Gold and sometimes DAX. I use a 30 Minutes chart to determine intraday trend, and enter on pullbacks on a 1 minute chart. I have only price and volume on my chart, no indicators.
A few problems I intend to tackle here in my journal.
1. I plan to ride the 30 minutes intraday trend for as long as I can, but more often than not, I fail to do so.
2. I get impatient when I'm in the red, and I become nervous when I'm in profit, this has hurt me in more than a few occasions.
3. when I look back on my losing days, I realise that most of them should have been winning days, if only I had made (and sticked with) the right analysis, which I should have made but for some reason didn't.
4. concentrating on making money or concentrading on making the perfect trade? some people say when you concentrate on making the perfect trade, money will take care of itself. but I haven't been able to experience this firsthand. I intend to find out about this here.
5. and a few other problems which I really hope can get resolved here with the help of big mike community.
here is my setup:
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this is my main problem, as soon as price goes against me a bit I got nervous and find all sorts of excuses to cut down my exposure. I think the root of the problem is that I don't know what is the right thing to do for situations like this. sometimes I was right to exit half of my position, sometimes I was wrong. and the market changes constantly, there are no two situations that are exactly the same for me to compare with. and even when the situations look alike, the right response for one isn't necessary right for the other. I'm really frustrated with this.
1. short 4 contracts @ 16189;
2. SL triggered @ 16204; should have waited 2 downbars before going in, could have avoided this loss ...
3. shorted 4 again @ 16191;
4. SL trigged @ 16209;
5. shorted again @ 16203;
6. SL hit again, 3 strikes, and I'm out.
7. shorted again @ 16205; it still looks like it's going down, couldn't resist another opportunity to short into it. I don't what I'm doing is right or not, but I think I've got to act on my belief.
8. oh, this really hurts, SL hit again. I'm down $2640, the combine limit for intraday drawdown is $3000. If I'm already in the combine, this would be the time to stop trading for the day. but I think I'm going to keep trading just to find out whether or not I can dig myself out of this hole.
9. long 4 contracts @ 16263; price immediately went against me, I really hate it when it happens like this.
10. exited 4 @ 16255; my bias is still long, looking to get back in as soon as I can.
11. long 4 @ 16263;
12. SL triggered @ 16244; now looking back at 30 minutes chart, it was still uptrend but there were signs of weakness alread, should have stepped aside instead. trade 11 shouldn't have happened at all.
13. long 4 @ 16271;
14. exit 4 @ 16268;
15. short 4 @ 16240;
16. last short exited @ 16260; in light of yesterday's market action, I'm going to drop my position size to 3 contracts.
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