Perhaps a way to continue with the strategy of moving the stops to b/e and to catch a potentially big move is to do the following: suppose price retraces and closes out at b/e, when it changes direction again, then re-enter at b/e or slightly beyond the b/e point. Hopefully, this makes sense...
I always try to do that, when the original setup seems valid. Sometimes that b/e stop out is almost to the tick and then price runs away so fast it's scary to chase a re-entry. Breakout levels (whether it's a bar breakout or a pivot breakout) tend to be retested to shake out the players who entered there, so I try to get a quick re-entry when possible.
What year is 20XX anyway?? Gotta go feed the horsies, back in a few... Range or down, that is the question.
You're right... as that can be sooo frustrating... Well, as Steve Cohen said, this is a business where you simply will lose often. He said that most of his good traders only win about 55% of the time, and his best trader only wins about 60% of the time. Therefore, it's critical to have trade management that ensures the winners are larger than the loosers.
One trade today, after a bunch that I didn't take because I was being a pansy. All would have been profitable trades assuming correct trade management. I thought it was funny too because NoDoji mentioned the "one big red bar is followed by another big red bar." I was thinking the exact same thing, but I didn't take it. Decided to just continue to trade in sim for the rest of the week to start fresh on Monday. My only trade was one that made sense, but I wasn't sure whether I should wait for a second entry. I ended up getting into the trade at 83.06 on the break of the 11:45 bar. We had a big run down and at that area I had an uptrend line drawn parallel from the HH channel line. It went in my favor instantly. It seemed like it was having some trouble going up so I moved my stop quickly. Then it bounced up some more and looked like it was having trouble again so I just closed it for +5. Thinking about how I manage my trades, it hit my target exactly, but assuming I didn't get a fill, I would have still gotten out at +5 so it's a profit that I'm willing to accept. I was just playing around with my account performance screen for the month of October since I haven't taken a live trade yet. Even all of the trades I took for October would have made me slightly positive after 15 sim trades. It's starting to confirm in my mind that I don't have to worry about one single trade if I just keep plugging away finding high(er) probability trades that make sense. Counting any trade profit as profitable and any loss as a loss, my % profitable is 68.75%, but that includes trades that I've gotten stopped out at BE+1. The only thing I'm afraid of is that I think some of my trades have been trades where I just said, "let's see what happens" so that is really the only thing that kind of makes me hesitate. This was longer than I thought it would be. Now that all of the miners have been rescued I can stop watching the news causing me to stay up so late. Pretty remarkable, in my opinion. I couldn't imagine having to go through that.