I looked at 9 pairs this morning, and maybe I was a bit overwhelmed and made the wrong choice. Maybe I was nervous about missing something big that I didn’t take my time to analyze. What’s funny is, I took the time to compare AUD vs NZD to see which was stronger when taking the trade in my practice account, but I didn’t do as much here. I need to figure out why that is and what I can do about it.
Anyway, JPY was on a tear to the downside and though it looked a bit extended, it was early in the day and if it were to push further I didn’t want to miss it. AUD on the other hand was pushing up and was near some resistance in it’s basket. When I got to this, it was pushing up as I expected, but on the 1h chart, there was a nice pullback that formed. I put my entry orders a little outside the highs, hoping that if it triggered there, it’d be a more meaningful break.
Entry – 80.462
| Entry Order Level |
|---|
| 80.462 |
| Stop Loss Level |
| 80.20 |
| Target Level |
| 80.984 |
Exit – 80.196
Price pushed up a bit, then pushed back down and mostly based between my entry and stop after I entered the trade. It pushed up a couple of times, giving me hope, but not much and fairly quickly retreated back to within the range. I went to bed down a bit in the trade, but hoping it would pop overnight — I checked Equity futures and they were strong, so I expected another risk-on day.
I woke up in the middle of the night twice and checked this trade. The first time, I was still down and still within the range, but still in the trade. The next time, I saw that I was just stopped out — price pushed down enough to stop me out, and that was roughly the lowest it got.
It’s funny, too, when I placed the trade, a small part of me thought that my stop was too tight but A) I wanted the R:R and B) it wouldn’t matter if I was correct. Looking at the chart now, though (approx. 12 hrs. after being stopped out) if I had placed my stop another 10 pips below — which was my initial stop level (poor R:R) — I’d still be in the trade and up a little right now.
It’s tough to say whether I made the right decision or not, though, given the fact that R:R is quite important, but I know I could’ve done more comparisons between currencies (especially when I looked at 9 pairs) to maybe get a better trade opportunity. 2 trades in 2021 and I’m down about $30, I can live with that. Live and learn and keep working.