David's journal

[azadar]

No discipline today and bad exits. As rents and bad trades keep stacking up over the last 2 weeks I feel the pressure of those losses on my account balance and its playing tricks with my mind. I know I should just forget about all of this and just trade my plan and have fun but its easier said than done.

I will take a break tomorrow and try to get my mind in a better place over the weekend.

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[immy]

Very good idea David. Breaks are good. Plus when you come back on Monday, may I suggest reducing your risk to the minimum possible. But do it with a plan. E.g. if you do that set a goal. If you manage to trade correct the whole day then you can go back to normal lots the next day. etc.

[azadar]

good idea Immy, thanks. I will trade 1 lot per trade (minimum my broker allows on indices) until I follow my plan perfectly for a whole day and get my confidence back.

I also reduced my daily SL to 3% (down from 5%) and added a weekly SL of -6%. If I hit -6% in a week its no use to keep trading. I might as well take a break and come back refreshed next week. It will preserve me account and stop me from getting deeper into bad mindset. It will also give me free time to work on my mind by reading books.

With such a tight daily and weekly SL it means I must trade only the best of the best signals.

On the mental side of things, I realized how I have been carried away with trading. It took too much importance in my life and forgot that trading is just a way to make a living. This weekend I reordered my priorities the way they should always have been:
1- my family
2- trading

[immy]

~What a great post David! Thank You

[azadar]

Today I reduced lot size to a minimum and was successful at following my trading plan. Although I did put 2 POs that were not monarch but cancelled them before they were triggered. Its ridiculous how hard I struggle just to stick to my trading plan and not break any rules.

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[azadar]

I found that I was having difficulty with my exits as AA are not managed the same way as seeds and cherries. I decided to remove them from my trading plan completely in order to keep things as simple as possible.

I now look for monarch pattern and trade seed and cherry signals. Thats it.

I followed my plan for a second day in a row. Feel pretty good about that

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[Nikita]

If you following Grants flow chart - they should be skipped, cause there were no new peak of AO. But YD Grant said, that he will look at this part more narrowly to check if it is needed to be.
NIce catch, btw!

[immy]

Thats what Grant calls Trader's Discretion required. Now you being in the crib for a while you have to get discretion out of the equation as much as possible! IMHO

[azadar]

Thanks Nikita and Immy. I will skip them for now and concentrate on trading the no discretion required signals.

Only 1 trade today but turned out to be a rent. Didnt have much time but the setup was just too good to pass up. I got angry when it failed partly because my trading plan says not to trade unless I have at least 1 hour of trading time. Even though the setup was great, I felt angry because I knew I bent the rules a little bit and paid a rent for it. It was a good setup and could have gone either way and probably would have felt good had it worked. After the rent, I had to leave and thought about all this while taking care of other stuff.

When I dont have much time to trade I think its ok to take a good setup if I see one. On the other hand, if I had more time this morning I would have taken the second setup a few bars later and paid back for the rent and be left with some nice profits for the day. By not having much time when trading it means I dont have time to do my preparation routine but on the other hand I look at the chart with fresh eyes and can easily spot a pattern in a matter of a few seconds.

Not sure what to do with this, either apply the rule and never trade unless I got at least 1 hour or remove the rule and take a setup when theres one as long as I know I have enough time to at least manage it correctly. Since seeds and cherry are scalping, it doesnt take much time to grab profits and be done with it. And with candle trail EA, its usually managed automatically after a few candles in my favor.

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[immy]

don't trade if you don't have at least 1 hr. good rule! IMHO