One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I think the title kinda explains it all at the moment. For every good winning trade I take there are two bad losing trades. I decided it would be much better if I wrote this blog this morning after I'd had some time to think about a few things.

It's been a very poor week, -4.4% on the account from two trades. One trade on Tuesday that i've already blogged about and one trade yesterday (Thursday) that i'll talk about in a minute. If I hadn't closed them early and therefore broke my rules it would be -6%. I think that part of the strategy might need a little tweak. Yesterday got to me as well, hence writing this blog now, as opposed to yesterday. I'm now back below my initial deposit from the start of last year. This really got to me at the time. 14 months of hard work and all I have to show for it is -€63.90 / -1.27%. I'm sure many people have blown accounts in this time so perhaps I shouldn't be so hard myself. But then again, someone needs to be.

Once again, through the network of traders that i've built up around me and the VSA forum that i'm an admin on there was plenty of people at hand to chat with. It's very true, trading is a lonely game. Having that support network of likeminded people that completely understand how you're feeling at that moment in time is priceless. It was thanks again to another friend that offered some words of encouragement. It's good to be able to talk to people like that when friends and family outside of the trading world might not necessarily understand the range of emotions.

I mention range of emotions but really I have to start getting those in check. I'm still reading Trading in the Zone and learning from that all of the time.

Now, on to the trade from yesterday. Chart is only up to date as of when I closed it.

EUR/USD 5min

I entered long on that test bar with the bit of strength that I marked in the immediate background. I was well aware of the big green fib lines above me - representing the hourly highest volume bar from the previous day. I thought I could make a few pips on a visit to this area. Truth is, I really shouldn't have been longing below this area, especially with two rejections at this price already. Another thing that didn't really fit was the actual test bar I took. I prefer the low to touch the trigger, not go through it into no man's land, so I probably shouldn't have traded that test.

A friend annotated what he sees on the chart, this helped me to understand a few things further.