I had glanced at the baskets on Wednesday night to see how things moved; GBP remained a strong short candidate, to my eye, and AUD had officially looked like a good Long play (whereas on Monday, I was cautiously long). When I got to this chart, it had been in a bit of a low base on the daily chart, but was pushing down this morning. It was pushing down quite strong, as a matter of fact, so strong that I didn’t see a great entry. I kept my eye on it, though, and eventually saw a rally that I thought I could short in to.
9/6
It’s now the 6th and I’m just now getting (back) to actually journaling this trade. The first takeaway that I now have is that I think I need to journal my trades the same day that I take them. After lunch, maybe a couple of hours later, but even a few days past and I forget the exact thought process and mindset that I had to take the trade in the first place — especially with my … lifestyle … so that’s first steps, starting today. I also should probably be better at journaling my trades before I smoke, but that’s an entirely different conversation.
Back to journaling this trade. I started on that tirade because I don’t remember exactly my thought process when I made this trade so, once again, I have to essentially re-analyze the market at the time to see what I probably thought.
I did an analysis on Monday this week and remember there were few pairs available — and actually now that I think about it, there was a trade where price was running and I waited for a pause of sorts to short in to and I think this was that trade. Looking at the daily chart, price was pushing down, had recently (within the last week or so) broke a fairly major support area and was basing around that support area. The recent highs were the lows of that support area, so I (think) I looked to short off of the highs of the recent base.
Entry – 1.69419
This wasn’t the trade where price was running, but, on the minute chart, price did push down, made a new swing low and was basing for a few candles. The R:R wasn’t the best, but it was a clear pattern — and I have this feeling/thought that targets within 20 pips makes more sense/is more attainable — so I set an entry order. I don’t know if that’s based in reality or if that’s holding me back, but it’s something I think/feel often. I do my best to follow my rules, though, and trust the numbers/patterns as I see them.
Exit – 1.69458
Price pushed down pretty quickly after triggering my trade, and with my trailing stop, it pulled my stop to about half of a loss. Within a couple of minutes price pushed back up enough to hit my trailing stop, but unfortunately right after, it pushed down significantly through my target. I had been using a trailing stop because I didn’t want to actively manage the trades — I wanted to either stop out at a small profit/loss or full profit automatically.
But, if I follow my rules from when I was swing trading (namely, waiting until my trade hits 1R then manually moving my stop to break even, then manually trailing my stop along the SAR) then actively managing makes more sense. I just have to make sure I’m there and paying attention (as I did today, but that’s for later).
