"last trade of the day was a particular sickener" I don't understand your chart, that looks like a pretty nice profit to me....?
Light green is long. Blues are always exits. I got long on a porential breakout, it stopped me out more or less to the pip, and then zoomed up without me. Made some back since on a short. Not an awful day. DB - A tendency for price to reverse around certain price action 'setups'
Interesting. Most people suggested that they were too big! Thanks for commenting. Interesting thought on breakouts. Certainly goes against most advice that i've heard. Thanks.
With my eyes. A visual 'pattern' leading to a change of direction by at least 1.5x as many points as the stop required. And then going though charts manually, bar-by-bar
That may be part of the problem, since the market doesn't care about your stops, and basing your strategy on something which hinges on an irrelevancy is very likely to lead to inconsistent and unsatisfactory results. At the very least, one's strategy ought to provide guidance with regard to distinguishing up from down and trending from ranging. Yours clearly does not do that. Therefore I suggest you stop and reassess your approach to the market and to trading. Given that you've been at this for three years, you really ought to have had it by now.
Also tried my hand at the NQ today. Must have been my lucky day, as I made on that too. Up 4 points after 7 trades.