Here's one that gave me a hard time... 1-hr EUR/USD Was looking to go long in the circled area. Got triggered in long but there was no follow thru and the next bar closed down leaving an upper shadow. Thought about exiting then and there but decided to keep holding. My stop was hit on the next bar and I reversed to short. That worked for a while before price sharply spiked higher, stopping me out again (big green doji-like bar). I thought about going long but was unsure... where to put my stop? The green bar then proceeded to close right on the lower channel line so it was still being respected, and for all I knew it would head back down again. So I wasn't ready to go long there. After the next bar closed up, and back inside the channel, I wanted to go long but didn't like the size of the stop I'd need. I figured I'd have to put it below the low of the big doji and that seemed too much. So ended up passing on it and you can see what happened. The idea to go long "worked" but all I got out of it was two losses.
with all due respect, it still appears that you have not had your trading plan finalized and customized to your own research, analysis and satisfaction yet. this is not to criticise you but to encourage you to perhaps adopt general stop which is to set stop one, two or three tics above last bar when taking a short position and vice versa when taking a long position. anyway, that is how, many would set their stop. and there is no if or but about it. if it is hit, so let it be. and we move on to the next signal and next trade, which we most often encourage ourselves by saying.... there is a better trade down the road.... hope you would consider adopting such similar stop into your trading plan and try it out. it might work, and if it does, then adopt it permanently. if not, email me and scold me for free. lol nakachaletatgmaildotcom
Here's my brilliant *cough* hindsight analysis. Actually, I don't think the long is a bad idea, maybe not the best, but not the worst either (I'm sure a couple of my trades today qualified as much worse!). From a bullish perspective, we were on the longer term channel line, there was a triple-bottom put in earlier (see 5m), and the breakout was on decent volume. It's worth a shot at least, you could reason. The bearish side of the picture though, is that the prior two 60m candles are quite bearish (the ones ending 6 and 7am ET). Just look at the 5m, and how quickly price went down twice. There's not really a lot of strength demonstrated, particularly here right before you took the long, and the prior highs are all progressively lower. Furthermore, the buying strength was weak (notice volume if you want to look at that). Lastly, the parallel channel line (the one on top) did not reach the channel on the 3rd attempt. This is the 3rd touch of the lower line, and given that the 3rd touch of the upper line didn't quite make it, it is not as strong of a long. But again, the problem is not really with the long IMO, it's the short. The short is worth a shot, but where did you think it would go? We seem to be in quite a decent up trend for the week. We're in a bullish channel, and notice the red line I drew on the chart. Prior resistance, broken through, and established as support on Thursday. Furthermore, it's just above the nice round number 1.4400 (at least on my 6E chart, not sure about spot price), and you know how those currency traders (and all of them really) love round numbers. So, when it tested down to that support and cracked it and the 5m and 15m could not close below it, that's a bullish sign to me. Good place to think about stop to breakeven or taking profits. Finally, that low area was ISM news. Best not to trade around news with these kinds of trades, IMO. The danger with using only channels is that you may miss obvious support, such as the kind you hit when you were short. I know this crap is hard, really hard, in real time, and this is my best attempt post-trade, which is about as easy as armchair quarterbacking--no skin in the game, with the results already there. It's like a post-game analysis--so easy from the booth, not so much from the field.
target entry price? profit target #1? profit target #2? maybe, profit target #3? stop loss ? trailing stop ? if you like to trade profitably, you need to work out a private checklist where all these hopefully will be worked out before placing your trade, so you would know just about exactly where your hope and your dream are going to be.... however, should the trade does not go your way, you would know what your sustained loss would most likely be, too? just to go short without other qualifying factors would earn you headache and heartache and money ache as well.... cheers....
Just annotated the short entry by red arrow and the exit green arrow based on what he/she said. First trying to understand the concept then I can add the extras, perhaps they are provided for us in the future. Just practicing here.
Thanks for the pic Josh. I did that one on replay, so that's why I spaced on the ISM report! I should have at least moved my stop to breakeven when price hit the previously confirmed R becomes S level, but I just didn't see it for whatever reason. Currently short again on the 1 hr chart. Should be obvious where so I won't put up a chart.
for all trendline artists: wanna help me draw the trendline and tell me which direction to take, pls?