Stopped out. Price had broken a 15 min trendline. I still placed a long trade. I saw it and went long anyway.
Some nice scalps upwards coming into play again for the EUR. Wait for confirmation of signals, of course - don't catch a falling knife and make a "bet" on the bottom before having some certainty. The overall market uncertainty and novelty of the news, fallout and long-term effects still - there will be some strong volatility going forwards. I wouldn't place scalps short because of my conviction that the underlying strengths are there in favour of the EUR over the USD, and that JPY will suffer some intervention and signals from Japan. Timing is everything for scalping in this volatile conditions, and if you miss the "wave" then you better abstain, because if not you will be whiplashed and stopped out. Medium term trades based on technicals seems very difficult in this erratic market - but then I'm not a technical trader. Some tout the strengthening of USD and JPY as "flight to security", but then they are mislabelling technical effects of repatriation. Is repatriation a "flight to security" - well, maybe - but certainly not the belief that the currencies of USD or JPY are fundamentally any stronger - which is a gross misrepresentation. The JPY is certainly strong, but the balance of exporters and trade will weigh in.
Just like my previous post ... timing is everything, and I think scalping beats any other strategy in these market conditions.
Simple answer: wait for the confirmation of a reversal, and catch the end of it. Then get progressively better. In short: reduce the risk of your strategy and match it to your understanding of markets - your predictive results. If you don't "get" the markets, then observe or take some time off getting other impulses to improve your understanding. Sometimes there are market belief biases that need "correcting" or balancing. Remember, markets are largely situational, circumstantial - but there are also "undercurrents." Try to get the big picture, as well as understanding the fluctuating goals, ambitions of markets. If you don't see the motives or "currents", how are you to catch the waves scalping?
I just got back in after 4-5 months off. Not full-time, but my new schedule allows more flexibility to trade. I'm only moving 50 units per trade until I'm more confident.
I've noticed you trade with close by SL & TP levels. I for one am not able to trade with such short stop levels and noticed that my trading improved when I focused on larger moves. Have you tried trading bigger moves (100 SL / 200 TP)?
Like Gringinho says, buttoms are very hard to predict. I've made the error of selecting wrong bottoms many times before. A good thing to do before you enter is always ask yourself: Is momentum against me? Never enter a trade with momentum against you (my current trade is somewhat risky in that sense). It's much easier to profit from just following momentum than to pick a bottom. So far for the advice from the novice trader, Gringinho is the real forex master as you can tell
I've noticed you trade with close by SL & TP levels. I for one am not able to trade with such short stop levels and noticed that my trading improved when I focused on larger moves. Have you tried trading bigger moves (100 SL / 200 TP)? I did, previously. I had very little feel for long term direction, or so it seemed. Currently I'm using a 5 min. and 15 min. chart. Candles, with a slow stoch set at 14,3. I drill down from the hourly charts, sometimes down to a 1 min. Using my GIANT trade size, I pulled 14 cents (USD) from the market today!