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I know you know this, but you got lucky here in regards to being break even for the day. This kind of behavior usually results in blown accounts. Moving stops to "make more room". Come on. you know better than this. Its ok you did the other things like placing and removing orders out of fear. That happens, what you can't ever do out of fear is move a stop. Never. If you think it goes in a certain place, put it there and take the hit like a Titan QB taking a sack.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I have been trading with you almost every morning AJ, and your pre-trade analysis is usually dead on. I think you are doing fine and if you just take the trades you post in the chat box, and let them play out you will be OK. Gotta keep
First ditch the hindsight analysis and "get real" with yourself. You talked about failure to pull the trigger on a perfect setup. Step one is to evaluate that in real-time and honestly determine if it was the perfect setup, in real time, on the hard right edge.
If it was, then the next step is to identify why you did not take the trade. Was the setup part of your plan? The answer is assumed yes from above.
Do you have the utmost confidence in your plan? If you do not, then more work is needed on proving the plan to yourself. This is all about statistics and analysis of past trades taken that meet the criteria, proving to yourself in an honest and completely realistic fashion that your plan works.
Are you trading the appropriate size? If you can't pull the trigger, it often means you are uncomfortable with the amount of money at play/risk. Try reducing size in half and see if you still have this problem of pulling the trigger.
As for the rest of your day, I won't harp any more than I already did last night in the chatbox. This is all stuff you know. What you need now is reason to believe
I have recently come under fire for my view of trading bigger time frames, but I cannot in good conscious not tell you how I truly feel because it would be a disservice to myself in my goal of trying to help you. What I feel is that you seem to be sweating every tick on a really small scale (20 tick moves have made you break all your rules it would seem). My advice would be to trade a bigger time frame chart and reduce your monetary risk so that such moves don't get you so worked up You can trade a 4x bigger chart and still cut your monetary risk in half with spot forex. Don't worry about the lost revenue, worry instead about getting to a point where you can consistently follow your own rules, and control your downside.
I attempted to get a couple hours of sleep on the studio couch after my session last night, but
I just laid there thinking of trading. So, after two hours of semi-consciousness , I was up
marking up the charts.
I was waiting for the consolidation move to bleed back up to 1.30 when I simply could not keep my eyes open.
I placed a short 2998 with a small position in my Cash Spot account. I also placed an additional order at
3030 in case of an overshoot. The selling was to continue. I just couldn't stay awake to find out when.
Target was 2920
It appears the move happened within a few seconds of me leaving the room, keeping my futures account
out of the run.
The good --------
I saw the trade.
I acted on the PA, albeit on the smallest of scales. More of a swing position.
The target was well seen, just a bit short of being filled while I was sleeping.
The Bad--------------
You know.... I not going to let myself embrace any bad.
I saw the trade, I traded. I put on minimum risk and got some rest.
This was the morning I have been waiting for
I had quite the emotional adventure
I woke up for the London open at the normal Midnight time to discover that my Mac had not shutdown
after running a new PC partition diagnostic software tool. It was hung on a prompt and the Mac's fan
was cranking... hmmm.
I calmly clicked the prompt and realized it still had the entire de-frag cell to perform, so instead of
quitting the utility, I let it do it's thing and went to go make some coffee.
What is strange about this, is that I was not irritated or freaked out in the least.
In the past this may have ended my trading day - Oh No!! bad omen, now my mojo is out of wack , etc.
You see now, I am not depending on Mojo or luck, I am a trader. I know how to trade. I have an edge.
I came back with a fresh, steamy cup and rebooted the Mac after it cooled for a bit.
I pulled up the charts to see the bulls racing to one of my shorting targets I had made the evening before.
You see, I had a plan. A strategy. I was thinking Big Picture.
And I also have friends. Trading friends that help me on the battle field to keep my view straight,
for the most part, and focused on the task at hand.
My thanks go out to @Big Mike, @Xav1029 and @Devil Man for talking me through the Physch points and keeping
me calm. Man it helps me to be with others while I'm trading.. I will go crazy and make silly decisions when I'm all
alone with my mind.
...not that I didn't make some silly decisions today. The difference is, today, I knew they were silly and laughed
them off. I think I will do these things much less now.
Trade 1
A bit premature on the original short entry, but still viable...
I take 1 car off quickly at BE for no reason at all exept that a five minute bar turned against me for just a second.
I actually laughed out loud.
So... here we are with 1 car left and I resist the urge to take the profit at my normal T1 10 tick or closest SR.
I wait. I take heat with another bullish push to a HH.
I scale back in my second car. OK ... no harm, no foul... two cars - slightly better price .. perfect.
I wait and wait ......... and wait. arrrgghhhh .... I pull one off when price pulls back through BE again..
I chuckled to myself ... There is simply no reason to be taking these lots off the trade, as my friends
were quick to point out.
I held it together famously and keep the jockularity up in the chat box.
I still had one dog in the hunt and by God I was going to hold it, even if it meant a loss.
That mindset triggered something.
You hold your position until the trade is no longer valid.
At that point I moved my stop to more of an emergency postion and I suddenly felt liberated.
I was in control of the management of the trade now.
Then, at some point after the light popped on in my head, I heard the Ninja lady say "connection lost"
What the...
I was strangely calm. In the past this would have thrown me over the edge to ballistic depression.
I fiddled around for a bit but the internet just seemed frozen... It was going to take a re-boot.
My blood pressure barely rose during this whole affair and it has direct correlation to the mental
exercises I have making myself perform while in a live trade to keep calm.
You must stay calm. The second you are flustered it is game over. Turn off the computer and walk away.
I have learned there is no recovery once you "lose it".
So... I boot back up... Internet up, Ninja logs on and I'm back where I was. Sort of.
After a while I notice I have 2 cars in my price average box but only 1 listed on both the target and stop.
hmmmmm....
I was up on the trade so I just let it ride. I'm not quite sure what happened there, but it made me a bit uneasy.
So I flattened my position at the first Price target that even had a chance of bouncing - the S1 / vwap confluence.
Had this weirdness not happened I would have been in all the way to my target of 2982.
(which it did eventually hit)
So today I won big. The money is just positive reinforcement of the true win.
The win over myself and my emotions.
+40 or so ticks... ish... sorta... I will only truly know when my daily statement comes.
The Scores ---
Emotional control 9
Trade management 5 ( I am convinced that this will improve with more time under the fire of live trading)
Entry 7
Big Picture Strategy 9
Big Picture Strategy execution 5
