Welcome to my blog. This is where I share my thoughts on various financial markets, and show you the actual investments and trades that I make. Today, I made a trade in the Forex pair Pound-Yen. Read on to see how this trade went.
I looked at EUR/JPY based on the RSW chart that I had from when I was with the prop firm. That chart looked pretty good as a high base breakout — though the base on the 15 minute chart wasn’t the prettiest. I ran the numbers and had less than a 2 R:R, so I moved on. It was the 2nd highest in volume, though, and GBP/JPY was the highest, so I looked at that.
GBP/JPY Long
Expected Entry – Market Order Stop Level – 184.775 Target – 185.5 R:R – ~2
Pound-Yen looked similar to Euro-Yen — on a definite upward trajectory and was making a bit of a base/stall on the 1h/15 minute charts. When I looked at this, price was breaking the highs of a cleaner base, and I wanted to get in. I picked a target, and set my stop below the lows of the base and ran the numbers with a market order — price was moving and I didn’t want to miss out.
Entry – 185.016
With a market order, price was fluctuating around 1.9 – 2.1R, so I just pulled the trigger and got in to the trade. I’m monitoring now, so we’ll see how it plays out.
I cancelled my take-profit as this was pushing up quite strong. I’m sitting here monitoring, so I can manually exit the trade — following my rules of trailing my stop along the second-most-recent SAR dot on the 15 minute chart. This would have made ~44 pips if I had left my take-profit, so let’s see what it ends up being.
Exit – 185.315
Price eventually stalled out, and during that stall it pulled back enough to stop me out of the trade. I ended up making 30 pips as opposed to the ~44 I could have made if I left my take-profit order out there. On one hand, I left money on the table and I didn’t necessarily have to; but on the other hand, if price was stronger than I expected, I would have left money on the table in that instance.
One’s an actual and the other is an example, though, so I probably shouldn’t have removed my TP — especially given the fact that price was already overbought. Maybe in the future I’ll stop trading with take profits entirely, like I used to, but until then, I should leave them when & where I have them.
Conclusion
Even when I first started trading with TPs, I said I’d think about not using them when it’s been proven that I’m leaving money on the table due to price pushing significantly past that level. I haven’t gotten to that point yet, so I should have left it alone.
Live an learn, though. This was a great 30 pip win, so I can’t be upset. I fudged my rules a bit, but I recognized something I like and I took the trade without fear. Another reason to be happy about this trade.
There’s a couple of negatives. Namely, I didn’t do a full analysis, and this was a breakout trade which I’ve been trying to avoid. However, the trade worked out so I can’t complain. I also don’t think I made too many mental mistakes with this trade, either. I didn’t take it because I felt it should do anything; I saw something and wanted to get in. That’s where I want to be when trading, and that’s where I was here.
Time to move on and find more great opportunities!
Thanks for reading. What did you think about this trade? Let me know in the comments. If you’ve taken any trades that I missed, let me know about those in the comments as well. I’m going to try to take this feeling into trading tomorrow and hopefully make more money, so stay tuned for that!