Great question. This is an area where backtesting programs can be really helpful. You can play around with stops, etc and see the effect on PnL, drawdown, etc.
Same here. In your case, you sold at support....not usually a good idea. However, it broke and of course turned then into a beautiful trade. Many times it will reverse at a support level.
I'm sure you know specifically why you took that Short at that red arrow and why you specifically placed your initial stop loss protection at that blue arrow. In addition, you know why you exited that trade at the green arrow. My point, does that trade (entry, stop, exit) present something that you typically look for in a trade. If so, you gotta keep stats on it so that you'll know the probabilities when that setup shows up again. You say you track PnL per trade...that's a stats too. Simply, keep stats on the PnL per trade. wrbtrader
example, blue line was resistance line on higher time frame, price kept hitting that line and gave me time to enter. After I finished the trade I keep watching the line to get confirmation of what did was correct in order to pan for the next trade.
I don't understand why you had to go to a higher time-frame. The chart's time-frame seems to indicate the same resistance line.....maybe a little higher.
Well, today was a stellar day for me. After 2 hours of trading, up $820.....and quit for the day. Hit my goal of 40% perfect trades as well. Boy, I wish I could do this every day. Was today about ME or the MARKET CONDITIONS ? Only time will tell.
syswizard, I love results, excellent work. Great trades. It's always about you. Market conditions come and go, what counts is you took advantage of market conditions and made money. You didn't hesitate , get scared, lose focus or overthink. You traded with cofidence when the opportunity presented it self. And it only took 21 minutes. Well done. I like your journal documentation, do you mind sharing what software you are using?
Well, 21 minutes in the market, but 2 hours elapsed time....8:31 am - 10:39 am. Thanks for the encouragement. Re: Journal documentation....the report comes from Multicharts....the graph comes from the TradeTracker software which is custom built by me. It audits every trade. It's a tremendous benefit I think....helps me to focus on my weak areas and bad trade tendencies. I still have this "short bias" problem so in this rip roaring market, I keep selling into support...which would be the pullbacks. However, crazy as it seems, I have a bigger net profit in short trades than long trades today. That's because the market was consolidating this morning before ripping higher this afternoon.
It's a trick to avoid tunnel vision when in a trade, if the trade goes against me I can tell myself a big move in lower TF is just tiny move in higher TF.