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I opened charts little bit late. Couldn't seat on my hands and by the time I got valid setup I was already 2.3 points down. Long trend was short but not as strong as I would like it to be. Smaller trend was clear sideways during my first 3 entries. So bigger direction was pretty clear but smaller time frame little bit confusing for me. MFE on last 2 trades was pretty good, but it didn't get to my fib target as fast as wanted to. I closed my last trade to get to BE and call it a day. Tomorrow another day. Don't have to be on the market if it's not so clear for me!!!
Here are my trades and summary:
I think I had just get in on my third trade and come back around 15:30 to close it.
It just got to my first target hour and a half after entry. When I look at the PA a lot of times I think that indicators are wrong. Maybe that's because I use small TF (a lot of noise)or I don't know a lot about PA. I think it's gonna go down till closing today.
It seems to me trade management is a fine art. Your third trade went over 3 points before it retraced. Should we be taking a nice profit at 2.5 or 3 points? So often the indicators show more trend and then the retrace stops us out.
If retrace takes you out maybe your stop is in the wrong place. Don't you think.
I think it's better to hold to the target if you have one. As you see it took me out because I moved my stop. And I moved my stop because of the PA. It did go the target but a lot of pull backs on the way.
You have to find one way that works the best for you and use it all the time. If you want 2.5-3 points find conditions on the market when it's gonna go at least for that amount and set your target at 2.5 or 3 points. If you like trailing stop then trail your stop but you need strategy also (after certain bars or H/L ...).
There is no perfect exit for every trade. I remember one of the big traders said that he made millions dollars by trading futures but he still didn't find the perfect exit strategy that would give him max profit from every trade. Don't remember his name.
If you are gonna jump around you'll get lost. I think it's more important to get straight rules about management that would fit your personality. That way you'll know what exactly you have to do without second guessing. I didn't follow my rules and that's the reason for fail. Not because I didn't take 2.5-3 points profits. I know that I move SL to BE+1 after 62% reached +- a couple ticks and my first target is 100%. If movement is strong I can move my target to the next level and start trailing stop after 100% locking some profit.
Just think about it. Look at the charts, trade some replay and see what do you like the best. But remember that market is not perfect and you cannot find perfect strategy!!!
I believe for myself it all comes down to weight on the technical analysis. Like today, there was a 50% FIB retrace on long term that wanted to be touched. That tells me that most likely any retraces NORTH would be a dip to the 50%.
I believe that the longer you evaluate the longer term trend the better you will do. One 5 point run will sure cover a lot of losses...
Trade management is the key for sure as you need to know how much you are risking and how much you can make, the software I use does all that. I usually like to trade 2 or 3 lots for TF. I will take profits on 1 lot at 1.3 points and I have a second target at 3 points then I will evaluate if I raise this target or lower it.
If we take today as example I had more buy signals then sells so knowing market is trending down I would not expect market to give me easily 3 points on my last lot so I was quick to lower my target and take profit as soon as I could see a small abc up.
I couldn't trade the open. I opened up my charts around 9:50, waited for news at 10am then started to watch for setups.
Got in one trade. It went down very nice for 5.5 points, I moved my SL for 4 points after we broke below 62%. Then I changed my mind and moved it back to BE+1. We got ABC correction that was good indication that I'm in the impulsive direction. I got scared when price didn't break through BL and got out. That would be possible long entry for me. I'm not sure how far it's gonna go long though. Seems like a lot of selling on the market. Anyways I didn't want to wait for another pull back.
The only thing I think I did wrong was moving my stop back to BE+1. I think it's better to trail SL when we get close to the target.