I haven't posted for a few days as I took a trading break following a break down in my MM, I needed to revisit my trading plan + discipline.
I also got hit by the initial reversal in GBPUSD, should not have been an issue at all as I held a good level but instead of following my trade plan and executing my mental stop I instead caught myself revenge trading against the momentum. I closed out at the end of the day but it was a nasty revisit to darker times.
New system for me is to risk 2x1%, one trade is max 1% for a target of 1% the other trade has its risk squared off on hitting the target and will be allowed to run until PASR says otherwise. I am also now moving away from mental stops for a while and using a hard stop to ensure my risk is locked down. This should help me with two discipline issues.
1.) Feeling I left a move too early (which triggered bad analysis + jumping back in too early).
2.) Worrying about losing my initial gains in a move (which triggered intraday trades).
I tried this on my post #6239 today and it worked out well for my mental state. For the first time I was not checking back intraday to see if I needed to take profit, etc, etc.
I will also now track my winning trade percentage and focus on taking as few trades as possible to keep the percentage high. I was not focused on how this fed back into my risk management.
Reviewing my trade journal after my slip I noted my issue was not my analysis, had I followed the trades from my analysis I would have had an amazing month, I just did not either execute my trade ideas or/and made an intraday blunder. Hopefully the new MM system should close these discipline issues off.
I guess this feeds back to demo trading, the analysis side for me is very easy/fun...the hard work is training my mental muscles to execute the plan given the stress of money on the line. Trade journaling (by hand - about to start a blog) and having a written trade plan (which will continue to develop as I follow the path) is helping me a great deal here.
Comments + criticism welcome...
I also got hit by the initial reversal in GBPUSD, should not have been an issue at all as I held a good level but instead of following my trade plan and executing my mental stop I instead caught myself revenge trading against the momentum. I closed out at the end of the day but it was a nasty revisit to darker times.
New system for me is to risk 2x1%, one trade is max 1% for a target of 1% the other trade has its risk squared off on hitting the target and will be allowed to run until PASR says otherwise. I am also now moving away from mental stops for a while and using a hard stop to ensure my risk is locked down. This should help me with two discipline issues.
1.) Feeling I left a move too early (which triggered bad analysis + jumping back in too early).
2.) Worrying about losing my initial gains in a move (which triggered intraday trades).
I tried this on my post #6239 today and it worked out well for my mental state. For the first time I was not checking back intraday to see if I needed to take profit, etc, etc.
I will also now track my winning trade percentage and focus on taking as few trades as possible to keep the percentage high. I was not focused on how this fed back into my risk management.
Reviewing my trade journal after my slip I noted my issue was not my analysis, had I followed the trades from my analysis I would have had an amazing month, I just did not either execute my trade ideas or/and made an intraday blunder. Hopefully the new MM system should close these discipline issues off.
I guess this feeds back to demo trading, the analysis side for me is very easy/fun...the hard work is training my mental muscles to execute the plan given the stress of money on the line. Trade journaling (by hand - about to start a blog) and having a written trade plan (which will continue to develop as I follow the path) is helping me a great deal here.
Comments + criticism welcome...
Hope is not a trading strategy
. Thank you!
