Better

Today my trading showed some signs of life with 2 of 4 trades being good. Actually, one of the good trades was a loser. How could that be? I've been spending quite a bit of time this week listening to podcasts about trading psychology. They make it very clear that if you only define your success as the dollars made that day you are setting yourself up for a self-worth roller coaster. Initially counterintuitive, it actually makes sense. My focus all week has been on making one good trade. This doesn't mean the trade resulted in profit. Rather it means that I followed my trading plan to the letter and set myself up for financial reward. Beyond that there is nothing else we can do as traders. We can't control where the market goes once we've opened the trade. We can manage it to the best of our abilities but the end result is quite out of our control. The trade in question was a short usd/jpy which, if you watched the market today, would almost half to be a loser since it went up all day along with the broader market. The reason I consider it a good trade is that the 1 hour chart was showing the pair in a downtrend with price staying between the inner and outer bolinger bands (i use 2 with different settings) for a few hours. There was a reversal candle, which I should have taken, on the 10 minute and the pair consolidated for a little while. Then there was a bearish reversal candle at the 50ma on the 10 minute chart. This was a signal that he current longer (1 hour) term down trend should resume so I entered a short position. The price only went down a few pips from there and a while later I was stopped out for a loss. I'll take that loss because more often than not the current trend will continue in that situation and the exact same trade would result in profit. Follow the trading plan? Check. Good trade. Not a great trade because there was an opportunity to cut my losses once a certain price had been achieved and I didn't manage accordingly, but a good trade nonetheless.

Tomorrow's plan, one good trade.