First of all, I need to make sure that I’m logged in to Oanda on my phone. I’m doing another manual OCO order, so I’ll to cancel one order when the other triggers, but I’m going out tonight. It’s dangerous, but I’m taking a stab at it.

Price looked to be rolling to the upside, but that was after a pretty sharp down-move. Price could be retesting here before it heads to the downside, or it could be regaining the strength it seemed to have for the month prior to the drop. There’s been a pretty tight 4 hour base, so I put both a buy and a sell order around the base; with the long entry being my short stop and vice versa.

Like I said, I’m going to be doing my best to keep a close eye on this one. Maybe I’ll set a recurring timer or something on my watch, something to remind me to check periodically incase the notifications don’t come through. We’ll see. For now, the orders are out and fingers crossed it works out well.

Entry – 164.011

4:22 pm

Freaking slippage. The short order filled, but it filled about 3 pips below where I  wanted to; and on top of that, on the chart the candle didn’t even push to that level. Didn’t even do so enough to trigger the alert on the line I drew. And yet, the order still filled. Below that. Oh well, that’s slippage that’s trading. It looks weak; hopefully I made the right call.

After my entry triggered, price did eventually actually push through my entry price, but not very far. About 5 pips of profit is all this got before it started rallying. I kept an eye on my phone throughout the night; ensuing I was ready when/if I needed to make a move, but I never got any notifications.

I checked the chart one more time before I wound down for the night and saw that price was sitting just above my entry. Not great, but still had the potential to push down.

Exit – 164.251

This morning I woke up and didn’t see any notifications, so I was hopeful. I checked the chart to discover that price had in fact pushed decently through my stop loss.

Since I didn’t get the notification, I panicked — wondering if I accidentally cancelled my stop when I canceled the buy order. But that wasn’t the case. My stop was hit normally for a full loss; and I didn’t accidentally lose a lot more than I originally planned.

That was a minor sigh of relief in an overall disappointing trade. I didn’t really have a plan, or really a great outlook. I saw something and thought it had the potential to break in either direction; and it turned out to not break at all. Can’t even say I mistimed this one.

Conclusion

I don’t hate the process I’ve been in of simply looking at charts and putting out orders where I see fit; rather than doing a full pre-trade analysis. I just need to tweak it a little bit. I’m going to start earlier, and I’m going to take a few trades in a practice account.

I don’t start playing basketball without warming up and stretching and I don’t play golf without hitting the range first (or at the very least taking a couple practice swings), and I need to approach trading the same way. Knock the rust off each morning, then proceed once I’m warm and in the zone.

I’m still experimenting with time-frames; and I think if I’m trading before the US market opens and only plan to trade a couple hours into it (and be completely done when I’m done, rather than holding while I do other things and hope) then I think I want to focus on the 5 min. chart. I’ve had some problems with it later in the day, hopefully things work out if I start earlier.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned to see how my new process plays out, and if I can overcome the struggles I’ve been having for a while. And if you’ve got any advice or words of encouragement, let me know in the comments!

The post Another OCO Order | EUR/JPY Short Forex Trade | March 25, 2024 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

Once again, I’m not really doing an analysis and am instead just looking through charts and putting out orders where I see fit. The first thing I see this morning is actually the first chart that I looked at. It’s Euro-Dollar, and it looks pretty bearish. This morning, price has been on a decent rally (looking at the 15 minute chart) but if I zoom out to the 4 hour, the rally doesn’t look that strong and looks like it’s well within the overall bearish pattern.

That said, though, there does appear to be a bit more upside here, so I put in a sell limit order at the lows of the key area  I’m trading around and my stop at the highs. I’ve said in the past that I want to try this type of trade more often, so I’m glad I’m giving it a shot here.

Rather than waiting for the break into the direction I’m trading (and thus decreasing my profit potential because my entries are closer to my target), I’m trying to get in at the initial retest of the previous key area. If price breaks that key area meaningfully, I have my stop at the highs of that range. But if it’s a simple retest, I want to be in earlier rather than later of course.

On top of that, I’m still playing the probabilities. I just think, regardless of the difference in the probabilities of this working out vs waiting for the break, this strategy offers me much better R:Rs. And, truthfully, I don’t know if this strategy has less of a probability to work out than waiting for the break. I shouldn’t be afraid of this type of trade (like I am sometimes) and I should seek it out more often. No matter what happens with this one.

The order’s out there, though, and price is approaching my entry, so we’ll see what happens.

Entry – 1.08601

It didn’t take long. Only a couple minutes after typing the above passed when I got triggered in to this trade. Now we wait and see.

Exit – 1.087

After triggering my entry, price moved sideways for a bit, then made a push in my favor. That push only got to about 60% of 1R, though, so I didn’t move my stop.

That was the lowest price got, and from there rallied up close to my stop. It didn’t trigger right away, price hovered between my entry and stop for the rest of the day, until about 10pm when it finally pushed up enough to hit my stop loss.

IDK what to do. Overnight (only a couple hours after hitting my stop), price ultimately pushed down hard and hit my target. I was just early again. I have to take it more seriously, I need to be more consistent, and I think I need to start earlier each morning. I’m not sure how that’s going to work on WeWork days (I don’t want to start trading; stop for an hour to get ready and leave and get to the office just to pick it back up — I want to stay in the moment), but I kind of want to start trading before 7:30. Maybe get a few practice trades in just to get the ball rolling, then dive in to charts and trade.

Not sure how, though, but I’m continuing to push. Something’s gotta give.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more trades.

The post Early Entry With a Limit Order | EUR/USD Short Forex Trade | March 19, 2024 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

When I did my analysis this morning, this was one of the pairs I liked. Check that out for a bit more context. I had already ran my numbers, and the next resistance area was too close of a target. I expected this to push through that area and continue it’s uptrend anyway, so I used the Fibonacci retracement levels to pick my target.

It’s been a couple of hours since I set this entry order. Price pulled back and has somewhat started to push back up, and on the longer time frames looks still like a bull pullback. Maybe even a reverse head-and-shoulders. It’s now 3:35, and I’ve changed the stop to a trailing one and am continuing to let it ride. I’m going to check again before bed (if it hasn’t triggered by then) and maybe cancel it, but as of now, I’m letting it go.

Entry – 1.70355

I was working on updating my P/L doc when I got the notification that my trade triggered — around 4:30. Looking at it, the spreads increased dramatically (up to 12+), and the candle that my trade triggered on didn’t even visually get up to my entry level. I don’t love trading around high spreads, but I don’t know what to do right now.

Regardless, I already had this set with a trailing stop, so I’m going to just leave it alone and see what happens. There were a lot of positives before this trade, it’s now just a matter of whether I held on to the idea for too long. We’ll see. I’ll update when the trade closes.

Exit – 1.69925

I went about my day, and shortly before bed it occurred to me that I never got any notification’s about this trade. With a trailing stop, I thought that was a great sign — that price had been pushing up, but maybe stalled recently so it hadn’t quite reached my target, and hadn’t pulled back enough that it stopped me out.

I looked at the chart on my phone and saw that I was way wrong. Price was significantly against me, and was lower than my expected exit. I’m not sure what happened, other than slippage; but price closed 12 pips lower than my stop which is a lot. I know the spread was high, but I baked that in to my stop loss initially. Something must have changed when I changed my stop to a trailing one. I didn’t look closely, I just changed it and set it. So, maybe it was just a lack of paying attention. I don’t know.

I don’t love using trailing stops, so I should get away from using them at all. If I’m thinking about holding overnight, maybe I just resolve to maybe check in the middle of the night? I don’t think that’s something that will make me more successful so I don’t want to do that. At the very least, I should re-analyze the trade, make sure it’s really still viable, and be 100% sure that my numbers are correct before I let things ride.

Conclusion

Honestly, it’s these types of trades that make me want to just completely give up on this — it feels like I can’t win. But that’s not the way to be successful. I’ve got to keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other. I see a light, I just have to keep working toward it.

A big thing I need to work on is only trading when I plan to trade, and leaving the charts alone when I’m not. I shouldn’t be holding on to trade ideas for hours, through periods of high spreads, and risking holding overnight. That said, I do it because, otherwise, I might not get into trades; and I’m trying to get into more trades, not less.

I need to make sure they’re quality trades, and I’m making sure my risk management is perfect. I think I need to work harder at finding trades each morning, and not clinging to the initial things that I see. I’m not going to lie, that’s easier said than done. But if that’s what it takes, then that’s what I have to do.

Thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments if you have any pieces of advice or words of encouragement. And stay tuned for more analysis and Forex trades.

The post Held On too Long… Again | GBP/CAD Long Forex Trade | January 9, 2024 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

Entry – 96.73

It took a little bit of time, but close to an hour after setting my orders, price pushed up and triggered my entry in to the trade.

Exit – 96.646

This is so frustrating. Price was strong for a few hours after my entry got triggered, reaching about 8 pips in profit. It made a small pullback from there, and things still looked good. I was done working for the day, and had already had a trailing stop set so I wasn’t looking at the chart; but in the afternoon, I got a notification that my stop loss had been triggered.

I opened the chart to see what happened, and the pullback wasn’t that deep. With a trailing stop set, slippage came in and my stop was triggered despite price not really ever dropping down that low. Hell, the candle that this trade closed on didn’t even wick down to my closing price…

Even worse, a couple hours after triggering my exit, price pushed back up into profit; ultimately getting within 9 pips of my take-profit. This should’ve been a win. If I didn’t use a trailing stop, and I actively managed this trade, I would have at the very least broken even, I think. I don’t love using the trailing stop, but sometimes I’m not going to be at the computer, so I have to.

And, truthfully, there’s nothing that says it was definitely the trailing stop that was the reason I was stopped out early. If I had been adjusting my stop manually, that still could have happened. Who knows. I just know that I want to actively manage my trades more often, and use a trailing stop as a last resort.

Again, back when I was at my most successful with the prop firm, I didn’t use trailing stops, I just checked the charts periodically (even overnight sometimes), so maybe I get back to that practice.

Either way, it wasn’t a full loss, and my analysis and direction were good, so I can’t be too upset about the trade itself, I’m just upset about the result. Moving on.

Thanks for reading! Has slippage ever ruined a trade for you? Let me know about it in the comments. And stay tuned for more Forex market trades and analysis!

The post Dreaded Slippage | AUD/JPY Long Forex Trade | November 7, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

Looking at the baskets the morning I took this trade, CAD had been strong for several weeks and looked like it was ready to break through a pretty strong resistance area. Yen had recently broken the lows of the range it had been in since June, and looked very weak. From an RSW perspective, this looked like a great pair to trade.

When I go to this chart, conditions looked really good. Price had made a push up through a resistance area on the daily chart, and appeared to be basing a bit on the 2 hour chart. The base also occurred near a resistance area from mid-September; so another break to the upside looked like a great sign of strength to me. There were no signs of price being extended, either.

Entry – 110.59

I set my entry order to trigger a couple pips above the most recent highs that were created before the pullback that started the base, and my stop a couple of pips below those lows. The highs price reached were the highest it had been for several years, so I had a hard time finding a target.

I knew my risk was 31 pips, so initially, I just doubled that to see where that would put my target. That level (111.21) was roughly at a key area that formed back in 2007, the last time this pair’s price was this high. I liked that level, so I left that as my target, giving my trade an exact 2 R:R.

Exit – 110.277

It took a few hours for my trade to trigger, which, maybe should be my first indication that the trade isn’t going to be worth it. When price makes moves, it typically does so quickly, so maybe letting my orders sit for so long is a bad idea. On the other hand, though, there’s really no telling when the strong move is going to happen, and I’m playing the probabilities, so actually, that shouldn’t bother me too much.

Anyway, later in the afternoon, a few hours after setting my entry order, price made a push up that triggered my entry in to the trade. About 9 pips is the most profit this trade ever gained before price started reversing.

The reversal was sustained, unfortunately, and around 3 A.M., price made it down to my stop-loss.

Conclusion

I’m honestly not sure what to say about this trade. I can’t see any glaring mistakes that I made. That said, I haven’t been able to see mistakes with most of my trades and yet they still end up losers most of the time. I realize it’s to be expected, but the big winner, or, hell, even the small winners haven’t happened yet.

Makes me wonder if my strategy is even viable. I guess on one hand I have been taking trades that are closer to being overbought/sold than not. Obviously I want the RSI to be above 50, but I’m often setting my entries at levels where the RSI is nearing or just crossing the overbought/oversold levels.

On the other hand, though (especially looking at CAD/JPY), I’m often right about the direction price will move. ~3 trading days after being stopped out of this trade, price made it up to my target. And going back a couple of weeks, if I had just opened my first trade in this pair without a stop or target, I could have made 245 pips from entry to peak price. Instead, I have three losses.

It really feel like the brokerage is hunting stop-losses, but I can only control what I can control. Technically this was the first trade in a “new” strategy — where I’m taking trades on longer-term time-frames to (hopefully) avoid getting stopped out like this. I need to get a couple more under my belt before I can really decide whether or not I should stick with it. The downside with that being that I take less trades with this strategy, so it’s going to take that much longer.

I’m trying to figure out times where I can consistently do more research and educate myself further so I can get back to profitability. Maybe I’ll come up with another, better, strategy before proving out this one. Time will tell. In the meantime, all I can do is just keep swimming.

Thanks for reading! Let me know, in the comments below, what you thought about this trade. And stay tuned for more Forex market analysis and trades.

The post Longer-Term Outlook | CAD/JPY Long Forex Trade | September 25, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

This one stung quite a bit in the moment. It still does, but not as bad given the fact that all AUD and NZD pairs reversed HARD over the several hours after my exit was triggered.

AUD’s price had been steadily rising for about a month, and this morning, had broken a key level that had been both support and resistance in the past. There’s been a lot of chop in AUD in the past, and the range it had just broken in to was no different, but it still looked strong to me.

JPY on the other hand, had finally broken the lows of the range it had been in for a long time. It looked to me like it was finally about to make a significant push down, since the support area was so strong. I had several individual pairs picked out based on the baskets — more than I would typically like — but when I ran the numbers, none of them had strong enough R:R’s.

Entry

I ended up picking a stop level within the middle of the base, rather than below the lows because A) a minor key area had formed and B) I needed a higher stop level to get a halfway-decent R:R. I think I was just anxious to trade and get something in for the week because my R:R was only ~1.8, but I put in an entry order anyway.

Exit

Price, really, only pushed up enough to trigger my entry, then over the next couple of hours steadily pushed down and hit my stop loss.

After triggering my exit, price continued down hard, losing over 150 pips in the next 20 hours. So, this was probably a bad trade.

I can actually see several mistakes I made: Trading into chop, not having a strong enough R:R, fudging my stop level a bit to force a “good” R:R, trading a heavily overbought pair and not paying attention to news events (which had to have affected this with how hard it, and other AUD and NZD pairs dropped).

I felt like I hadn’t done enough over the past week, traveling a lot, so I wanted to make sure to do something today. In my pursuit of doing something I didn’t focus, didn’t prepare, and took a bad trade. These are the mistakes I can’t make, and I need to be better going forward. I know I will.

This business is hard! Let me know in the comments what you thought about this trade, or if you were able to catch any pips somewhere else today. And, as always, stay tuned for more trading and market analysis.

The post Forced Trade | AUD/JPY Long Forex Trade | September 20, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

I wanted to take this down even though the trade hasn’t triggered at this point. This might not have been the smartest move since I didn’t do a full analysis this morning. I just looked at the charts I had pulled out on Tuesday and went with that.

I picked a pair that I had already determined the direction on, the trend was up. Price was close to breaking out and wasn’t overbought and it appeared to be completing a bull pullback. I’m in San Diego, so I did an abridged workday, but for all of these reasons it wasn’t a bad trade.

That said though, since I didn’t go through my whole process, I’m wondering if was a good trade. I can’t act with fear, and I liked it enough to set an order, so I’m going to leave it with confidence (unless, of course, price reverses hard and makes the pattern no longer viable).

Entry

I liked the potential of the breakout, but with my target, putting my stop below the lows of the pullback would have given me a terrible R:R. I thought the resistance area that was broken was strong, though, and that there’d be a sustained rally on the next push up, so I found a “better” stop level. Price made a minor key area before the pullback, which is where I put my stop.

Exit

Price largely danced around my entry after triggering me in to the trade, but never made the strong push up I was expecting. Eventually, price reversed and pushed down just enough to hit my stop, which moved a couple pips above my original stop level.

I liked the overall direction, I liked the potential on the break, I liked the pattern and nothing seemed extended or overbought so I’m not sure how “bad” of a trade this was. Sure, I didn’t do my full routine, which I need to be more consistent about doing. But technically, it wasn’t a bad trade. Looking today, too, if I hadn’t been out of town and using a trailing stop, this would have been at least a break-even trade because price made another, stronger push up after triggering my exit.

On one hand, I think I need to make sure I’m doing all of the things I need to do before trading, to put myself in the best position to win. On the other hand, though, I often feel like I take things too seriously sometimes, and overthink things.  And on some weird mutant third hand, I specifically got in to this business so that I could work on vacation and not miss a beat, no matter where I am.

Another negative (with hindsight being what it is): I probably shouldn’t have had this pair picked out in the first place. I recently analyzed the previous trade I had in this pair, and realized that I wasn’t super bearish in JPY, I had just chosen it at the time because I didn’t see anything else I liked. When I got to the pair again for this trade, that never occurred to me.

I still feel like I’m working toward more consistency with my trading and my routines & habits; and with that in mind, there are some positives here.

I need to realize that, while patterns are important, they’re not the only thing I’m trading. I’m trading support and resistance areas, volume, news events, sentiments etc.

Clearly, as I mentioned, I overthink things. I can barely journal this trade without overthinking whether or not it was a “good trade”. Maybe it was simply one of the more-than-half of my trades that will end up as losers and I just need to move on. Regardless, that’s what I’m doing.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought about this trade and if you’ve been able to catch some pips in CAD/JPY. And stay tuned for more Forex trades and analysis.

The post Vacation Trade | CAD/JPY Long Forex Trade | September 14, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

I took this trade on a Tuesday before leaving for about a week. I went to San Diego for a few days, then spent some time with family in Michigan and didn’t get back until Tuesday. Wednesday, I wasn’t able to get a lot of work done due to some personal reasons, so I’m not journaling this trade until the following Friday (the 22nd).

The morning I took this trade, I liked CAD a lot. It had broken the highs of the range it had been trading in for several weeks, and was making a bit of a base. The breakout looked confirmed, so I wanted to get in. On the other hand, JPY wasn’t high on my list — it had been range-bound for a while prior to this trade, and price was sitting in the middle of the range. There was a key level in the middle of that range, though, so I was cautiously bearish.

Order

After going through the pairs I liked based on the baskets, I didn’t see much that I really wanted to trade. So, I checked a couple of things vs JPY just in case, which is how I came across CAD/JPY. Price here looked similar to CAD’s basket, as it had broken a pretty strong resistance area. There was a relatively strong push out of that area, followed by a slight pullback, which looked like a great pattern to trade in to. I set the entry order, around 10:30am, and waited for it to trigger.

Entry

Price didn’t make another push up as quickly as I’d hoped/anticipated, but it didn’t make a strong push down either, so I held on. I checked the chart several times throughout the day, and while the base was no longer in play, there was a pullback/retest that had formed, and the long play still looked viable.

Near the close of the US market, I decided I still liked the pattern, so I switched the stop to a trailing one, and left it alone for the night. I got the notification around 8 that my trade had triggered, and went to bed hoping for the best.

Exit

I didn’t see any of this happen, as I left the trade to work overnight. But after triggering my entry, price only managed to make a small push into profit before reversing pretty strong to stop me out. With the trailing stop, my exit wasn’t technically a full loss, but it was pretty close.

Maybe price was extended here, and I missed the move. That’s really the only thing I can see that would qualify as a mistake. While I’ve seen plenty of instances where price has remained in overbought (and oversold) areas for a sustained amount of time, I do technically use the RSI to try not to trade extended moves. I guess the other mistake was trading JPY when it was in the middle of a range, instead of reversing off of the highs (or breaking out itself).

Conclusion

Now that I’ve typed it out, I’m seeing that maybe this wasn’t a great trade. I need to be a bit more cognizant of extended moves and the RSI; and be better about not getting in to trades if it looks like the move is over.

I also don’t love that I traded JPY when overall it was in the middle of a range. But at the same time, baskets are averages, and are influenced by individual charts. It’s the individual charts that I actually take trades on, so if the movement and pattern is there, I can’t be that upset. Obviously I’ll look for my “primary” pairs first, but I don’t see too much harm in stepping a little outside of what the baskets are showing me.

Overall, if I had to grade this trade, I’d give it a C. I liked the pair for a lot of reasons, but ended up being a little bit impatient with my entry. Looking today, though, I was right about this pair as it’s pushed well above my target. Timing is everything.

Thanks for reading! What did you think about this trade? Were you able to catch any profits in this pair or any others? Let me know in the comments below. And stay tuned for more Forex trades and analysis.

The post Pre-Vacation Trade | CAD/JPY Long Forex Trade | September 12, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

Going through RSW this morning, I saw a couple things I liked short, but nothing I really liked long. USD was near it’s recent highs, though, so it was the best candidate to me. Plus, I figured individual charts might look a little better than the basket.

When I got to this chart, price had made a strong push down, and was in the process of rallying. The push down didn’t put price into oversold territory yet, and the pattern looked like a great bear rally to me. I zoomed out to the 4 hour chart and found a target, and when I ran the numbers — entry below the lows before the rally, and my stop above the highs of the rally — I had a nearly 2 R:R so I set the entry order.

Entry

I adjusted my stop to a trailing stop, and left it alone for the night.

Exit

Since I left the trade alone for the night, I didn’t see how it played out until the next morning. The first thing I checked was whether or not I won. I Found my actual entry and exit prices and saw that it essentially broke even — technically closed slightly in profit.

I checked the chart and, around 1:00am price started pushing down strong, and just before 2, hit my entry. From there, price made a strong push down, a little past 1R, and then rallied. If I had been watching, I’d almost call that a basing move. That rally, though, pushed up enough to hit my trailing stop.

From there, price made another push down, but didn’t quite get to my target and as of this writing a day later, still hasn’t.

Overall, I think this was a fine trade. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the order open for as long as I did — it wasn’t intended to be an overnight trade; I expected to get in earlier — but other than that it was largely within my parameters.

I guess, if I was looking at this pair around the time it actually triggered, I probably wouldn’t have put in an entry order based on that pattern. So maybe for that reason it wasn’t a great trade. But as a swing trader, I don’t always expect the moves I’m anticipating to happen immediately.

I’m trying to be better about only trading well-defined patterns — and by the time this triggered, it was no longer well-defined — so for that reason, maybe it wasn’t a great trade. I guess this is just part of the ~60% of trades that end up being inconsequential. I’m continuing to trade regularly, too, and that’s definitely a positive. Nothing to do now but to keep looking for opportunities and continue to be a better, more confident trader.

Thanks for reading! Did you see something I didn’t here? Let me know in the comments. Or, if you found another trade today that worked out better. As always, stay tuned for more Forex Market Trades and Analysis.

The post Overnight Break Even Trade | GBP/USD Forex Trade | September 6, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.

When I got to this chart, price was in a clear up-trend. And at the time, was stalled at a resistance area that held up all month. On the hourly chart, I could argue both a high-base and a bull pullback. When I initially saw this, it was more in a pullback pattern, but by the time it triggered, it looked more like a base.

Entry

After eating lunch I had some errands to run, so I checked in on this trade. While price hadn’t hit 1R yet, I was significantly in profit. This brought me to a bit of a crossroads. I decided to lock in profits, so I moved my stop to break even, but I was trying to figure out whether or not to switch it to a trailing stop. On one hand, the trailing stop had the potential to lock in more profits, but on the other hand, my initial risk level was 41 pips away, and at the time the break even level was only 25 pips away.

Exit

Ultimately, I decided to just leave it as a regular stop and check in on it later. Unfortunately, though, my errands took longer than expected; and by the time I got back to the charts, price had pulled back and stopped me out exactly at my entry for a break-even trade.

In Hindsight, had I been actively managing the trade, I probably would’ve moved my stop up with the SAR and been able to lock in a little bit of profit. Using a trailing stop probably would’ve resulted in a bit of a profit as well.

Thinking about the circumstances now, the SAR would’ve probably been fewer than my initial risk level as well, but I would’ve moved my stop there. So why the hesitation with the trailing stop? I guess I was afraid of price only pulling back enough to stop me out and then making a strong run.

I should have use a trailing stop, though, the more I think about it. The goal is to lock in profits as price moves in my direction, and more often than not, when price reverses that much, the run is over. I also, like with using a take profit order, can adjust my strategy if I find that I’m leaving money on the table. So far, though, using a trailing stop has been the more profitable option.

Thanks for reading! What do you think about this trade? Would you have managed it differently? Let me know in the comments. Or if you did catch some pips today, let me know where. And stay tuned for more market analysis and Forex trades.

The post This Could Have Been Managed Better | EUR/JPY Forex Trade | August 30, 2023 appeared first on Anthony Bradley's Trading Journal.