Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Unprepared for a down side

If I'm going in the trade based on momentum I shouldn't let it slide against me so much. That's being unprepared for a down side. Having just the widest stop isn't that good as a strategy. It was fun to watch how 730 area was defended for that long time with my stop 2 pips below it. One thing that I'm learning is to stay with a stop as stupid as it looks. My old me would move that stop, maybe average or something. Now when the price rebounded as I write I'm in "I told you so" thoughts. But I really do want to learn trading with discipline. I got to learn that I will be stopped out endlessly and that no averaging will save me. Than I will maybe more proactively manage trades and not just get in and hope for the best.
-20 pips



6 comments:

StockHunter said...

Good job with sticking with your stops. Your 1st trade looks good as far as what you did, but on that 2nd trade I noticed that you enetered a long at the top of the bollinger band. I don't use bollinger bands so maybe I'm off base?

FX said...

It's the same trade just 1min and 5min t/f.
I don't trade based on b.bands just like to have them on to give me some kind of structure for movements.

Anonymous said...

yeah its funny, I have a 14 period WMA and I dont ever use it really, I have just grown accustom to how it looks on the chart. I don't really like blank charts, but I don't follow any indicators either ;P

StockHunter said...

oh ok :D

Anonymous said...

you said "Having just the widest stop isn't that good as a strategy."

As I hear this again i realized "He can't honestly make an educated opinion because of this one instance!" it takes hundreds of trades to be able to make an educated determination as to whether or not something is valid as a strategy.

catastrophic stops work for many people, you just have to employ them correctly. Just remember that if your take profit and stop are an equal distance apart, you only have a 50-50 chance in the long run.

you should have a valid method by now, its been years already hasn't it? stick to one thing and get results, then determine if its a good idea or not.

things already crossed off the "good idea" list are:

moving stops.
trading without stops.
averaging.
chasing price by moving your entry when you have a directional bias.

FX said...

Well I used "strategy" as figure of speech meaning it's not good solution to just enter without idea where to exit and than exit at the max stop level.

"moving stops.
trading without stops.
averaging.
chasing price by moving your entry when you have a directional bias."
You sum it up really well. Today I had little chase in second trade but got out of it early. I have you as conscious, you can see where I slip and I get reminded instantly. I respect that, it's not always pleasant because I would like to stay sometimes in a dreamland, but it's necessarily. :D