No live trades today. I worked on seeing how tight of a stop loss I can get away with and tried using it with trailing to BE or jumping to BE at various profit levels. Came away with more respect for the need for larger stop losses....and how important finding a trade location where it's likely to move and getting the direction right are more important than trying to get to BE quickly. I also tried my other 2 ideas some and they were hard to work with, but still something I might try again when I'm a better trader. I'm glad I tried all of it in demo first. Things seem easier in my mind and when looking at still charts than when trading live.
Markets are random, stops being hit will be impacted by this same behavior? How will you differentiate one entry from another, if volume and price is in flux?
Want to post a DEMO trade for 33 ticks I just made, since I just closed it and have a little bit of time before the market open. This trade felt very wrong to take, because price was at yesterday's high, and I was getting in late. But I do have rules that I followed, and so decided to try it anyway.
In theory yes, but if your directional is off, your stops would be in or near turning(noise) points, Markets are like giant ships, they need to go backwards first before they can move forwards or position themselves to go forward.
Yep. I still have a hard time waiting for the pullback or like the trade above, getting in but putting the stop loss far enough away to let it work.
When price is in forward motion or in chop, you desire a pullback to get long? If your intent on waiting for price to come back, than why are you not looking for sell points?
I just don't like buying at the very highs. Price will sometimes take a little breather and that's where I try to get in, but still keeping with the trend direction.
I blew it today. I don't know what I'd be like if I didn't have a journal to report to, because this helps me to focus on finding what needs to be improved on and working on it. So, here's the problem: revenge trading took over again. It's been a really long time since the last time, but it happened very suddenly and I lost all sense of how to trade and stopped looking for set ups. I reacted and then I recognized it, decided to be done for the day....but as I was closing my charts, thought I saw price was actually going to do something....drop....and so got in....and it did. I made back my money and made a little extra. Then I thought I saw the "big one" ...what if this was the big drop where the bottom falls off and I miss it simply because I am only suppose to take one trade a day....clearly, I was not thinking straight, because I didn't care about set ups or following my rules. I got in...and price reversed....Thankfully when it was at negative 38 ticks (so down 29 ticks for the day) I decided to just take the loss.....I had even moved my stop loss back to around -50 ticks, which I NEVER do....to give it a lot of room.....this day could have ended a lot worse....because I gave it the opportunity to potentially end badly. Should have stuck with my plan. There are many things I don't like about trading. But the potential I have to undo everything in a few minutes of time is the scariest thing of all. I've known that. I've tried to build safeguards against that, with rules. But I am prone to not care about rules when in revenge trading mode. So, what will I do about it? I need to stop trading live for a while. I hate writing that, but I have to. I really don't know my set ups very well. I keep changing things. If I have confidence that I can read the market and trade well, then...surprisingly, I will be less likely to revenge trade. It will be easier to take a loss and say I can do better next time. Instead, I took a loss and thought if I don't catch a move to make it back, I might never make it back. Which is completely irrational...if I can't trade well, why would I want to trade more? So, I won't trade live again for at least this week, and won't start again until I am positive in demo for ???? I guess I should make a plan for this. I should have 3 positive days in a row in demo, not counting today, before trading live again. And the other thing I have to do before trading live is finish going through a book I have on self-discipline and watch at least 2 of Brett Steenbarger's videos. I'm writing it here so that, hopefully, I'll have the discipline to follow through on this, and write back on here that I did these things before my next live trade. If I have a rule to only take one trade a day live and have a stop loss limit.....I HAVE TO STICK WITH IT. If there is one thing to be thankful for after today, it's that I am now aware that I am still struggling with revenge trading and that it can overtake me instantly. Not making excuses, but I was kind of caught off guard because it's been such a long time since I've experienced it. In fact, the last time I remember was a day last Spring which led to quitting the NQ for a few months. I felt like it moves too fast for me to overcome my tendency to revenge trade, so moved to a slow moving instrument, which led to finding out that I don't trade slow moving instruments very well. Not going to switch instruments again, but when/if I get profitable on the NQ I might try something else that is slower, if it is reliable.