Welcome to my trading blog where I do my best to give an unfiltered look at what it’s like to be a trader day to day. Trading, when you’re up, is great. But when you’re down, it can really drag you down. Statistics show that no matter how good of a trader you are (how high your winning percentages are or your rate of return is), you’re virtually guaranteed a period of consecutive losses. Likely multiple. If you’re able to handle those drawdowns with confidence, and push through, you’re likely to have success as a trader; and maybe that’s my problem.
I’m not sure I’ve ever fully regained the confidence I had in my trading since I was shaken out in 2020, and now times when I have multiple losses in a row tend to discourage me from trading entirely. I’ve had some struggles over the past week or so, and this morning, I’m struggling a bit more than usual.
I tried to shake myself out of it earlier today by trying to meditate before I got out of bed, but I’m out of practice, so it didn’t really have the desired effect. I need to get back into doing that daily, but that’s neither here nor there.
All I can do is get to work, and hope that the discipline leads to motivation, so let’s dive in.
There’s AUD news this morning, but none of the pairs I’m trading are AUD crosses, so I should be fine there. I’m still trying my 1min/5min chart, day-trading strategy on more liquid pairs (which, unfortunately, all happen to be USD pairs). In the back of my mind, I’m considering going back to trading how I did with Maverick — starting on the daily chart and taking trades on the 1h chart; dropping down to the 15 min. only sometimes — but with that strategy I found myself waking up in the middle of the night checking charts, which isn’t something I want to do.
I thought about trying it, and just exiting trades before going to bed, but I feel like with my lifestyle since Covid started, that’s a bad idea.. I could add a trailing stop near the end of my workday and see how that plays out…. Idk…. I’d like to practice the strategy for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t figure out a way to live trade and practice trade at roughly the same time.
Wow, I feel like I’m chock full of excuses and negativity this morning. Let’s regroup. I know what I’m looking for. I know chart patterns and indicators, and I know that I know them. I’ve got 4 pairs to look at this morning, and I need to be patient and look for great opportunities. Here’s to that.
USD/JPY – Short
First off, USD/JPY looks interesting. Price had made a push down, and when I started looking at this, was essentially basing. It wasn’t the prettiest base, and it was kind of long, but it was a base. I considered trading it, but price pushed down as I was figuring out my target level, so I missed it. I looked at the other charts for a bit and then came back to this one, and it was on a rally. It looked like a great retest pattern, and I wanted to try something I always think about but rarely do, and that’s set a limit order to sell at the retest, with my stop loss at the resistance area above.
I did so, and price quickly triggered me in to the trade. It wasn’t a retest, though, it was a full rally, potentially even a reversal move, as it pushed up, stopped me out within a few seconds and continued up. This has taken out a fairly strong resistance area and looks like a power reversal, so I might take a stab at this Long, now.
USD/JPY – Long
I did. It had a small one-candle sideways move, then pushed up again. I set an entry order at a break of that resistance area, and a stop below the low it made on the small stall. It was a 4 pip stop, so I somewhat arbitrarily picked a 12 pip profit target. It pushed up and triggered me in to the trade, so I’m monitoring now. I’ll get aggressive when it gets closer to 2R rather than the 3 where I set my TP. Price remained strong, pushed up to .6R, where I moved my stop to break even, then shortly after pushing through my take profit, for a nice win!
GBP/USD rolled over at the open this morning, and just dropped from there. I saw it a bit earlier, but I didn’t see anything that looked like an entry opportunity. After my USD/JPY trade, I was looking through the charts again, and came across this one. Price pushed through a support area that was created much earlier this morning, prior to the open, and rallied to the highs of that same range. Since price pushed through that support area earlier, I put an entry order at the break of the lows, with my stop at the support area. Price made a push down, but is continuing to fail at that key area. If it doesn’t make a strong push down in the next candle, I think I’ll have to cancel this order.
USD/CAD – Short
I set an order in USD/CAD that triggered my entry and exit all before I had a chance to get any of my thoughts down. Price has been weak over the last 15 min. (I’m on a 1m chart), and looked like it was reversing to the down side — and I was looking for a stall/rally to short in to. Price made that stall, pushing up a bit for one candle. That was around a key area from earlier this morning, too, so it looked like a good area to short in to.
I put my entry at the break of the low of that 1 up-candle and my stop at the highs of it. With the 3 pip stop, the next support area 6 pips away looked in play, so I set the order. Like I said, though, this wasn’t the right play, as price continued up and stopped me out pretty immediately.
Thanks for reading! Let me know how you’ve performed today in the comments below. And if you have any thoughts to share with me, or have any questions, leave those below too. Stay tuned for more trades and trading analyses.