My losing trades from today consist of a few losers. I did actually hit my maximum loss for the day. Blogging losing trades is painful but a necessary exercise in improving. Do you set a maximum loss where you will stop trading if you realise a certain monetary amount? My losing trades for the day are shown below.
Trade 1 - FTSE 100
On the higher daily time frame the FTSE had been showing a lot of overall weakness with a series of lower highs.
I took the bearish engulfing candle on the 15 minute chart. The preceding wide range bullish bar had been taken out completely by the bearish bar close to the 20 period moving average. This is a standard entry under my trading strategies for trading the bearish engulfing candle.
As evidenced on the chart I was unfortunate that the market decided to reverse immediately after I entered my trade.
Trade 2 - Paypal
On the higher daily time frame Paypal had been showing a lot of weakness with a series of lower highs and lower lows.
This was a 3 bar play trade, although the entry bar was about the fifth candle of the day. The first bar of the day was a huge bearish wide range bar with no buying pressure as the bar closed. The next few up and down bars open and close within the bottom half of this opening candle. This is a signal that the bears were in control at this point and on the low of the first 4 bars being broken I entered a short trade.
Just like with the FTSE trade I was on the unfortunate side that the market had decided to immediately reverse and I was stopped out. This is trading.
Trade 3 - NASDAQ
NASDAQ has generally been in a strong uptrend for a considerable amount of time. The last few days there had been a pull back but because the overall trend was up I was looking for long entries.
I took a bullish engulfing trade in a rising 20 period moving average. The price shortly reversed and I was stopped out. It wasn't an A+ set up but it did meet my trade criteria for entering. As shown it quickly reversed and the trade was stopped out.
Trade 4 - USD/CAD
On the daily time frame USD/CAD was in a consolidation range that it had been in for the last one year and is currently trying to break out from.
The trade I took was not in my strategy play book. If I am honest I am seeing what I want to see which is a bull bar off the 200 period moving average. However, the entry bar didn't close when I originally entered and even if it had I shouldn't have taken it because it was not a wide range bar and it showed too much selling pressure at the top of the candle.
It was a wrong trade and I did deserve to lose on this. In fact I am always happy when a trade I shouldn't take loses as I don't want to be rewarded for bad trading behaviour.
Trade Clearly!
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